The Lord of the Rings: Lords of Middle-earth.

However, Roland and his group's joyful whack-a-mole game didn't last long, and soon Roland's smile faded.

"Holy crap! Stop it! Stop it for me! Shoot! Shoot!" Roland's heart-wrenching roar startled even Yunfeng and Valway, who were confronting the Ringwraiths.

Everyone looked in the direction Roland was pointing and exclaimed, "Hmm, very good!"

"Stop that beast!"

"Kill it!"

"Don't let that bastard get over here!"

The crowd was instantly agitated. Was it a moral decay? Or the extinction of humanity? How could it cause everyone to enter a state of spiritual awakening? No, no, no! Neither. It was just a giant ogre with a battering ram on its head charging towards the crowd with its head down and back bent... well, to be precise, the city wall beneath their feet.

"Oh! Damn it!" Yun Feng and Verway, who didn't have time to make a move, were instantly petrified.

"Bitch!" Radil angrily brandished his staff, trying to intervene even while fighting the necromancer.

"Oh!" Roland exclaimed, stunned.

"Boom!" With a loud bang, a feeling of the earth shaking came from beneath our feet, and the entire city of Jiliu trembled.

"Grandpa, thank you! I hope your magic-patterned stone bricks aren't a shoddy job!" Roland suddenly turned to Radil, who was still casting a spell, and gave him a smile that looked more like a grimace.

"By the Dragon God!"

"I actually survived!"

"Thank you, city wall!"

"Did this bastard kill himself?"

The tremors subsided quickly, and the ogre lay motionless on the ground, its brains seemingly shattered. However, the walls of Jiliu City were also badly damaged, with cracks spreading across the five-meter-thick wall and shattered bricks flying far away! The impact left a terrifying crater that was extremely conspicuous, and the cracks spreading around it all told the story of how the city walls had just faced a life-or-death crisis!
"Earth Rejuvenates!" Radil slammed his staff down, and a yellowish-brown magical energy spread outwards. The cracks became noticeably shallower, but that was the limit. Radil was powerless to do anything more and could only continue to struggle with the spellcaster opposite him.

“The city walls have been repaired somewhat! They should still hold up!” Marcus said after looking around.

"I hope so! Kill all these bastards!" Roland vented his anger on the orcs behind him.

……

"Is this the capital of the Kingdom of Lagrange?" A faint exclamation echoed from the deserted open space.

"I don't know, sir," the orc leader replied respectfully.

"That's it! This flag with gold trim and gold tassels is their royal banner!" Uvasa said, looking at the flag fluttering above the Swiftstream Fortress.

Uvasa was also quite surprised. How could a detachment that had infiltrated the northern border to harass and sabotage have stumbled upon the very heart of their nemesis, the capital of Lagrange? The unfortunate thing was that it seemed their forces were insufficient.
Uvasa glanced helplessly at his army and couldn't help but exclaim, "Damn it!" His original target wasn't this city! His target was Lonely Mountain! He was supposed to harass Lonely Mountain to help the northern undead army break the deadlock, but now, having failed to backstab the northern defenses, he'd gotten himself caught in the middle and was being held back by Rapid City.

If Roland knew, he'd thank that idiot Uvasa. Couldn't you at least look where you're going before you betrayed a dwarf? What? Are all the people of Middle-earth hopelessly directionally challenged? Have they all maxed out their ability to get lost? What decent person could lead thousands of people so astray to the feet of a king?

At this moment, although there was no communication between the two sides, they were both extremely awkward. Neither offense nor defense was efficient, like squeezing toothpaste. Both different races were simultaneously and in the same place facing an embarrassing situation of insufficient manpower...

(Roland: The enemy is at the city gates, and I lack soldiers to defend myself!)
(Uvasa: The enemy chief is right in front of us, and I lack cannon fodder for the siege!)

The two sides were locked in a stalemate, unable to gain the upper hand. The attacks of the cannon fodder orcs were ignored by the professionals and soldiers. Even the militia could not break through their defenses, as the orcs' crude arrows were surprisingly ineffective, and the militia were heavily armed.
Meanwhile, the situation in Swiftstream City wasn't much better. Although their defenses were maxed out, their combat effectiveness was abysmal. At this moment, Roland no longer believed the claim that archers were melee cannon fodder. Those Crusader archers were burly and robust, looking even more solid and imposing than their spearmen and shieldmen. First of all, those who could fire so wildly were no ordinary people... The militia's hunting bows whistled, and Roland's eyes twitched wildly. The rain of arrows flying down from the sky grazed the orcs' bodies like outlines of human figures, making a certain irritable king want to strangle his militia.

"Radil! Can't you spare some time to give that bastard down there a good beating?" Roland turned his gaze to Radil.

"Dream on, Your Highness! My enemy is a lich!" Radil roared, continuing to cast spells and grapple with the spellcaster opposite him without turning back.

Roland chose to mute and shut down the machine. Necromancers and liches are two different species, and the liches already require Radil's full strength to deal with.

Roland then looked at Cloudmaple and Verway, only to find that the two "stuck kings" were still calmly standing on the city wall, confronting the Ringwraiths.

……

"Your Highness, why don't you take a break?" Marcus, leaning against the city wall, idly weighed the fist-sized pebble in his hand, peered out of the city a few times, then got up and threw it down with all his might.

"Thump!" A half-orc who slept very well fell off the ladder.

"Pfft!" Roland, who was sitting behind the wall, heard a rustling sound behind him and raised the Dragon Slayer Sword to stab behind his head.

"Heh..." A half-orc who had just poked his head out was stabbed in the chest with a sword, and blood splattered everywhere, staining the bricks and stones of the city wall with purplish-black blood.

"Whoosh! Die!" Lance, who had rushed over, raised his spear and slashed at a siege ladder, instantly stabbing several orcs down.

……

"Swoosh!" Roland mechanically swung his arm, and the Dragon Slayer Sword easily sliced ​​through the stone bricks on the wall.

"Huff!" Roland gasped for breath and swung the Dragon Slayer Sword haphazardly a few more times, scaring the orcs away before sitting down unceremoniously in the pile of corpses.

"Damn it...damn it! I can't chop anymore!" After waving his arm around for ages, Roland felt he needed to have it amputated; he couldn't feel his right hand anymore...

"Take a break! Take a break!" Roland stood up weakly, trying to convey the message to everyone.

"Thump!" Roland stumbled and tripped over the corpse on the ground. He looked closely...

"Damn it! What bad luck!" Roland shook off the almost congealed orc blood in his hand, and a strange sense of nausea overwhelmed him!

"Give us the results!" Roland waved his hand, his voice hoarse. This stalemate had everyone exhausted, and both Roland and Uvasa were waiting for a way to break the deadlock!
……

"Now Swiftstream City has become a blood city!" Marcus complained to Roland as he distributed food and water.

"?" Roland asked, puzzled.

"Today's battle was brilliant! But our casualties are not optimistic!" Marcus pouted.

"It's ironic that they can't penetrate our armor! What can penetrate our armor are our own arrows!" Marcus gave an awkward laugh, and Roland immediately felt a chill. It seemed that they had lent the enemy several volleys of arrows today?

“Today, over a thousand soldiers have been wounded in their limbs, and the actual number killed is less than a handful! I have already replaced them,” Marcus told Roland.

(End of this chapter)