Chapter 123: Floating Shadows, Post-War

Darkness, endless darkness.

At this moment, Allen felt he was awake; he could clearly see his own upper body wearing a somewhat familiar gray pajama top, featuring a black-haired youth wearing a straw hat and laughing extremely heartily.

His lower body was in black and gray checkered shorts, and his feet were shuffling in a pair of black leather sandals.

From the tactile sensation coming from the sandals, Allen knew that beneath his feet was a solid road.

Yet, apart from this, everything around him was darkness—a darkness that stirred fear within his heart; even the road had merged into the surrounding darkness.

Looking at the situation around him, the recovered Allen dared not act rashly; he habitually used his index finger to adjust the glasses on the bridge of his nose, standing motionless in place.

Because he did not know what state he was in at this very moment; his memories were still stuck at that camp engulfed by flames, stuck at the moment he picked up the Ring, and at those repeated calls.

The silent Allen stood in the darkness for a long time and thought for a long time, yet the things he had thought about in the previous moment were quickly forgotten entirely in the next, which made him unable to feel the passage of time.

Allen knew there was a road beneath his feet, and he wanted to start moving, but the warning issued by his subconscious made him afraid to lift his feet to explore in this pitch-black environment.

Just as he hesitated, a gate woven from wisps of gray light appeared before his eyes, and from the direction of the gate came whispers, as if telling him.

"Come, this is your true home."

Allen discovered with horror that he had begun to move, but he clearly knew that he had not given his body any commands; this feeling was somewhat different from being unable to control one's body when drunk—the current situation was as if he had completely lost the right to control himself.

And as his body moved, images began to appear on both sides of him; placed at the very front was the fight between him and Khamul, the two of them locked in a stalemate in the center of a flaming camp, appearing to be evenly matched.

Standing before the image, Allen felt he had regained control of his body; he stopped to watch for a while, but the image ended quickly, and he was once again forced to walk forward against his will.

At this time, Allen seemed to have forgotten fear and the passage of time, instead developing a keen interest in the scenes presented by the next images.

"Oh, so it was the siege of Iron Wall Town."

However, this image ended even faster than the previous one, but that did not matter; Allen's memory was very good, and no matter how quickly the scenes flashed, he could find the corresponding memories in his mind.

Following that, Allen began to stop before one image after another, from the battle at Orc Town to the New Year celebration in Wilderness Town, from the death of Azog to teaching Bill of Bree a lesson, from the establishment of Horse Pasture Village to the prosperous development of Wilderness Town.

Until Allen saw a meteor flying across the sky in the scene before him, and then he suddenly realized.

"So that's how I came here; then the next scene should be me playing games at home, right?"

However, it was not; the following image was clearly a medieval street, and a young man extremely familiar to Allen walked onto the sparsely populated street from the back door of a tavern with a blank expression; judging by the somewhat dim sky, this time point should be either dusk or dawn of some day.

Allen looked at the handsome and thin young man in the scene, trying hard to scrape corresponding memories from his mind, but he found nothing.

And the young man in the scene, his confused face gradually turning into excitement, his pace becoming faster and faster, muttered to himself: "Where is the merchant? Where is that bandit?"

Allen did not see the merchant or the bandit the young man spoke of in the scene; instead, a blonde girl in a gorgeous dress jumped from behind a high wall onto this quiet street, then limped away toward the distance.

The cliché event followed immediately; the curious young man who chased after them turned a corner and saw two thugs holding short blades, seemingly forcing the girl before them to take off her gorgeous dress.

It was also at this moment that the gate woven from gray light approached Allen silently, and from the gate approaching Allen, a hideous and terrifying black claw stretched out, reaching toward Allen's figure.

At this time, Allen was completely unaware of this; all his attention was on the scene, where the young man used the light crossbow in his hand to ambush and kill one of them, then drew the longsword at his waist, killing the other in a tense state, and then, taking advantage of the fact that there was no one around, carried the blonde girl on his back and ran toward the tavern he had come from.

The pitch-black claw was now close to Allen's side, as if it would grab his neck in the next second, but an invisible barrier seemed to be protecting Allen, preventing it from moving forward; immediately after, a bolt of white lightning struck the pitch-black claw, causing it to shrink back into the gray gate instantly.

The gate formed by gray light shook at this moment, as if it were about to dissipate, and that pitch-black claw appeared from the gate again, extremely unwilling.

At the same time, a beam of white light broke through the surrounding darkness and enveloped Allen; Allen felt his body rising involuntarily under the guidance of the white light, and he did not feel fear, as if this were the right thing to do.

And those scenes were still flashing before his eyes, until the white light seemed to pierce his eyes, causing him to close them subconsciously.

When Allen opened his eyes again, he saw the extremely familiar ceiling; in the past few years, every time he opened his eyes in the morning, he could see the same scene.

Subsequently, a sense of weakness in his body flooded into his brain all at once, evoking the memory of being pierced through the chest by a sword near Zendar.

"Ha, this feeling is quite authentic."

The coldness left by the Morgul Blade next to Allen's heart had been mostly consumed by the energy in his body by now, leaving only a little bit of lingering pain.

At this moment, Allen was extremely fortunate that he had managed to shift his body slightly at the critical moment; otherwise, if the longsword had been thrust into his heart, whether he could have woken up would have been an unknown; at the same time, Allen also silently said in his heart: "Thank you for your favor, noble Star Queen."

Following Allen's words, a figure somewhat blurred in the white light appeared before Allen's eyes and nodded at him.

Allen was terrified by this sight, his arms pushing hard against his body to lean against the headboard; for someone who had just woken up from the darkness, being suddenly frightened like this was truly difficult to accept calmly.

At this time, the image before Allen's eyes had disappeared, as if everything just now had been an illusion; Allen tried calling the name of the great one a few times, but nothing happened.

Allen shook his head, steadied himself, and let out a light breath, then he was stunned—that blonde girl, ah no, lady, was currently sleeping on his bedside.

And the movement Allen had just made did not wake Yamila from her sleep, which showed how exhausted she had been before sleeping.

Recalling something, Allen's expression was somewhat complex; he placed his right hand on Yamila's head with some difficulty, stroking it gently, and a hoarse voice came from his mouth.

"Wake up, the sun is going to shine on your butt."

Such movement finally woke the sleeping Yamila; a somewhat haggard, fair face lifted up, and upon seeing Allen looking at her with a smile, she was stunned for a moment, then thick mist began to appear in her azure eyes, and she threw herself into Allen's arms, sobbing in a low voice.

Allen, who had been suddenly attacked by Yamila, was at a loss, but soon he felt relieved; a smile appeared on his face, and he gently patted Yamila's back with his right hand, saying softly: "It's okay, it's okay."

What Allen did not know was that he had been watching "little movies" in the darkness for over a month; when he was just sent back to Wilderness Town by Holimion on a fast horse, his whole body was covered in an abnormal blue-black color, and the massive amount of sweat and unconscious trembling, combined with the terrifying wound on his chest, had left Yamila stunned on the spot.

It was only after James repeatedly assured Yamila that he would absolutely not let his good friend die here at this moment that Yamila's expression recovered.

It was just that James knew nothing about this kind of illness; he could only rely on the knowledge related to medicine in his brain to feed Allen some medicinal herbs that were extremely beneficial to the body, hoping that Allen could rely on his strong physical constitution and the supplementation of the medicine to recover on his own, but whether it would be effective, James himself dared not guarantee.

Thanks to the fact that the Qi Technique Allen practiced had a great effect on physical recovery, his state soon stabilized, which also made James full of confidence in his subsequent treatment.

Then came the long recovery period; during this time, Yamila delegated a large amount of power to the officials under her, freeing up more time to take care of Allen's recovering body; in fact, if she were willing, she could find countless caregivers to look after Allen, regardless of gender, but the problem was that she was unwilling.

Allen, who was drinking medicinal soup, learned from Yamila that he had been in a coma for a month, and hurriedly asked about the current situation of the war.

While feeding Allen the medicinal soup, Yamila informed the newly awakened Allen of what had happened during this period.

Ever since Allen killed Khamul in the camp, the war that night ended immediately; without the suppression of the Ringwraith's aura of fear, the Dwarf and Elf troops quickly reversed the decline and began to crazily hunt down the Wolf Riders who had been fighting them.

Of course, the short legs of the Dwarves forced them to give up this extremely difficult idea and began to help the cavalry under Allen's command clear the two camps left behind by the Easterlings, bringing the captives and various supplies in the camps to the camp on the Long Lake West Bank.

A large number of people and supplies appeared by Long Lake again; Balin, upon learning of the battle process, settled these Northern Men and soon began to preside over the reconstruction work of Long Lake Town.

As for Thranduil, he led the Elf troops to bite onto the Wolf Rider troops and would not let go until they could no longer catch up; the Elven King, who returned to the camp riding a stag, checked Allen's injuries at the first opportunity, but he was powerless against the damage caused by the Morgul-blade and could only do his best to cast some magic related to recovery, so that Allen's injuries would not suddenly erupt and take his life.

After Allen returned to Wilderness Town, the situation in the entire Rhovanion stabilized; after suffering two major losses, the Easterlings no longer approached the edge of Mirkwood, but instead settled in the northeast area of the Running River; during this month, both sides lived in peace.

It is worth mentioning that after Allen set off from Heidelberg, the Easterlings in Red River Town could not suppress their predatory nature and launched an attack along the south of the Running River toward Mirkwood Road, and were then given a head-on blow by Alayen, who had been prepared, leading his soldiers; not only did they run away in a sorry state, but they also left behind less than two hundred captives in the dense forest.

From the mouths of these captives, Allen learned that they were Easterlings belonging to the Akad Tribe; after Akad's death, this tribe had been managed by Ashur's envoy, and at the same time, this envoy was extremely at odds with Baal, and after a conflict in words, he took his troops to attack Mirkwood Road alone.

Now, these people were already digging iron ore in Orc Town; the person presiding over this work was Fulei, who had returned from the Lonely Mountain, and returning with Fulei were Tier and several other Dwarves; at this moment, they were also busy at their respective work posts.

Due to Tier's return, Artimenner went to Long Lake Town together with Fatis; as early as a year ago, Allen and Artimenner had discussed the reconstruction of Long Lake Town, and Artimenner believed he had a comprehensive grasp of Allen's ideas, so he could not let the reconstruction work be entirely the responsibility of the Dwarf Balin, and as for whether his boss could wake up from his coma, Artimenner, who had become decades younger, was full of confidence.

At this time, Fatis was still shouldering the responsibility of managing the residents of Long Lake Town, and after confirming that Allen's body was improving day by day, he also left Wilderness Town together with Artimenner.

Apart from this, there was nothing too special, but after Yamila finished feeding the medicinal soup, she took a wooden Jewelry box from her bosom, handed it to Allen, and said with a slightly flushed face: "This, Holimion told me that you were clutching this Ring tightly before you fell into a coma, and then after returning, he handed this Ring to me."

Allen took the box from Yamila's hands; he knew that inside should be the Ring of Power that belonged to the Ringwraith, and this was not a very good thing.

He looked at Yamila's slightly flushed face, hesitated for a moment, and then said with a smile: "The Ring inside here was forged by the Dark Lord; he used this evil object to control Humans, and it is not a good thing."

Then, he changed the subject and continued:

"If you like it, I will have Fulei help forge a Ring more suitable for a lady to give to you."

This sentence left Yamila stunned.