From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 253 Thunder War (500010000)

Going up and up along the rugged mountain road. As a huge mountain range that divides the east and west of Middle-earth, the Misty Mountains are not only surrounded by thick fog all year round as its name suggests, but also have many paths leading to different directions.

Some are trails created by wild beasts living in the Misty Mountains, while others are shortcuts used by orcs hiding under the mountains to go down and plunder.

The expedition team must carefully distinguish every possible path and find the correct and safe one.

Fortunately, Gandalf was an old wizard who had been traveling all year round and had no fixed place to live. He had crossed the Misty Mountains many times, and his rich experience could help the expedition team avoid risks and move forward quickly and reasonably during the journey.

But the old wizard's experience and wisdom do not always work, especially in the extreme weather unique to the Misty Mountains.

At some point in the afternoon (about the time the hobbits were having their afternoon tea, as Bilbo said) a dark cloud had settled over the whole sky above the Fellowship.

Even if you use your toes to think, you know that it will rain soon. At this time, finding a place that can shelter from the wind and rain is the top priority.

But there were no trees with branches and leaves except for the rocks standing out. The clouds blocked the light, which greatly affected Gandalf's vision and caused him to make many mistakes in judgment.

Fortunately, the ponies' horseshoes were magic props made by Ivy, so even though they had to take several detours in the road, these short beasts of burden still had plenty of stamina.

"We need shelter from the coming storm!" Thorin shouted to Gandalf.

"What do you think I am doing?" Gandalf craned his neck and scanned the dim light, hoping to figure out where the expedition was going.

"I mean magic!" Thorin further explained. "Is there no magic that can help?"

"Magic is not omnipotent. Besides, relying too much on magic will not do you any good." Gandalf stared at a valley and fell into deep thought.

"What about you? Wizard?" Thorin looked at Ivy again.

Ivy's spell list does include magic that can provide protection from wind and rain. The fourth-ring Stoneshaping can create a rock roof, while the second-ring Magic Rope can create a temporary different-dimensional plane for people to rest.

But Ivy didn't plan to use any spells related to plane knowledge, just to be able to use a teleportation spell at a critical moment. If Ilúvatar noticed Ivy's space movement magic, whether it was directly locking the entire space or adjusting the structure of the real space, Ivy could not accept it.

Therefore, he would not joke about his own life-saving methods, so the second ring's magic rope technique was ruled out first.

Stoneshaping also has various problems. Although it is powerful and can shape and control rocks at will, its range of action is too small. The roof created is definitely not enough to cover sixteen people and sixteen horses.

So Ivy just shook his head silently.

Before the dwarves could even begin to complain, Gandalf spoke up first: "We need to go to that valley! Perhaps we can find a crevice or cave in the rock that can shelter us from the rain."

"The valley?" said Fili. "If we fall into it, we shall die. I'd rather get wet."

"Is that thing on the neck just for show?" Gandalf asked. "This is not 'a little rain', this is a storm! If we stand in the rain, we will soon lose all our strength and be killed by the low temperature of the mountain, because the storm will mercilessly take away all the heat from our bodies!"

Perhaps Gandalf's description was too scary, and the dwarves quickly agreed to take shelter from the rain in the valley.

"Thanks to Ivy's magic, our ponies have become experts at rock climbing, otherwise we wouldn't have seen the valley yet!" Gandalf's wrinkles also showed a smile, "We don't need to go too deep, we just need to find a place to shelter from the rain. If the place is big enough, maybe we can even make a fire and get some hot food to eat."

However, just as Gandalf finished his words, there was a loud thunder in the sky, and then raindrops as big as beans fell down on his head.

The members of the expedition team put on their hoods and walked along the path on the edge of the valley in silence. The sun's rays had completely disappeared, and no one could tell what time it was. There was no other light source except for the occasional flash of lightning.

Ivy drew the Beast Bite Sword from his waist and activated the ability of the Light Messenger. A cold blue light spread from the sword, and soon a bright ball of light floated out from the tip of the sword. Ivy created a total of four such balls of light, which were distributed to the members at the front and back of the team, and the front and back thirds.

"Watch your step!" Thorin had to shout loudly, because the thunder echoing in the valley almost drowned out all the noise. "What is that?" Bilbo suddenly pointed to a protruding rock, and then Ivy's light ball, he noticed that the stone was moving, and it was moving at a very fast speed, but the stone was too big, so the visual effect seemed very slow.

"Rock Giants!" exclaimed Gandalf. "I never heard of them in the Misty Mountains!"

After hearing what Gandalf said, everyone in the expedition realized that the moving stone was actually an arm. It hit the rock walls on both sides of the valley like a battering ram, knocked off a large piece of stone from it, and then threw it with all its might, smashing it onto the opposite rock wall.

The eyes of the expedition members involuntarily followed the trajectory of the flying stone, and they discovered that there was another rock giant above their heads, which was the target of the attack of the big stone.

The black rock hit the chest of the rock giant and turned into many smaller rocks, which rolled down the mountain wall with a rumble.

"Ah--" the expedition team under the rock giant screamed in horror.

Fortunately, they all clung to the rock wall, and apart from some gravel and dust falling on their heads, no one was injured.

"Speed up! It's going to collapse!" Gandalf was the first to run, and he jumped over a gradually widening crack with agility that was inconsistent with his appearance.

The giant pulled out his legs, and immediately a huge rock disappeared in front of Bilbo. The narrow path turned into a bottomless abyss. He pulled the reins with all his strength to prevent the pony under him from falling into the abyss along with the rock.

"Jump! Bilbo! Jump!" Thorin whipped the pony under Bilbo's crotch with the whip in his hand. With the help of the horseshoe, the pony carried Bilbo and jumped a distance twice its body length.

"The wizard's magic can get us all through!" Seeing Gandalf taking over the reins from Bilbo, Thorin turned around and shouted in surprise, "Hurry! Follow me!"

The dwarves crossed the newly appeared deep pit one after another, but when it was Pangbo's turn, the situation changed.

The rock giant that had thrown stones earlier was no longer satisfied with attacking its own kind with stones. It crossed the entire canyon in one step and swung its rock arms at the giant above the expedition team's heads.

Amid a roar louder than thunder, the rock giant stumbled after being hit hard, and its two thick legs were completely separated from the mountain wall. As a result, the entire expedition team was divided into three parts: the vanguard led by Gandalf, who had temporarily entered a safe area; the middle part led by Balin, who was now sitting on the giant's legs and swaying back and forth with the mountain wall; and Ivy herself, who was at the end and riding the golden horn alone.

The most dangerous ones among them were obviously Thorin and his companions who were moving along with the stone leg of the rock giant, because the owner of that leg was caught in a dangerous battle and had no idea where he would fall in the next second.

The rock giant took another step forward, and Pombo's fat body trembled along with it. Even though he had gotten off the pony and pressed against the rock wall to tighten his abdomen, his protruding belly was still hit hard by the rocks several times.

"Help!" Balin's white beard trembled as he stood beside Pangbo, holding the pony's reins tightly in his hand. Thanks to Ivy's horseshoes, otherwise these poor little ones would have fallen into the valley and been trampled into a pulp by the rock giant.

Ivy shook the reins, and Golden Horn immediately ran wildly along the mountain road. The West Wind Horseshoes allowed it to run as if it were on flat ground in such a dangerous environment, and even run on the mountain wall with almost no slope. After jumping over a few boulders, Golden Horn used the force between the rock walls to leap over and suddenly came to the top of Balin and others. Ivy stretched out the ebony staff that he had made not long ago, and lightly tapped the stone leg of the rock giant, and the leg suddenly broke without any warning.

That was the fourth-ring spell Stone Shaping. Ivy had long discovered that these rock giants had no resistance to spells at all, and even ordinary physical damage could peel off a large amount of rock fragments from them. Therefore, he used Stone Shaping to create a huge crack in the rock giant's leg, and the rest was left to gravity.

Sure enough, the leg that supported the rock giant's advance in the valley could not last even for a second. It was completely cut off from its main body and fell back into the mountain wall.

The dwarves were lucky. The stone giant's legs were exactly where they had left them, and even closer to Gandalf and the others. The dwarves could jump over it even without the help of the pony.

Ivy advanced along the mountain wall, passing the entire team and suddenly coming to the front: "There's a hole here! It's big enough for us to put down all our stuff!"

"The wisest decision we made was to invite the wizard to join us!" The dwarves who were drying their clothes around the fire nodded frequently, "Otherwise, if we didn't die from climbing the mountain, we would have been trampled into meat patties by the rock giants."

"What are you doing, wizard?" Thorin asked. "Come and warm yourself by the fire!"

Ivy put the raised beast bite sword back into its sheath. "Very good, there seems to be no trace of orcs here. The people on night watch only need to stare at our swords. If it emits light, it means there are orcs nearby."

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(End of this chapter)