Chapter 277: Angband

"Galdor, what was that thing?" Looking at the slightly calmed sea surface, Allen asked the Lindon Elf who had recognized the monster with lingering fear.

"That terrifying thing is called a sea serpent in ancient records. It is said to be a monster evolved over time from the dragons that survived from the First Age. There aren't many such terrifying creatures in the entire Belegaer. Lord Allen, I have to say, this journey of yours is very challenging."

Galdor's handsome face was full of the look of having survived a disaster. He had only encountered such a monster once a long time ago, and he still remembered it vividly.

Many, many years ago, he was still very young and often adventured on the sea with Lord Cirdan. After encountering the sea serpent, he had several narrow escapes, leaving his life on the sea.

Finally, relying on his super-high navigation skills and a very long tailwind, he barely escaped from the other's hideous and terrifying snake mouth.

Those bows and heavy crossbows were actually very difficult to cause damage to such a huge creature. The order he gave to attack at the time was just a final struggle before life faded away.

"Lord Allen, the sea serpent has a very strong sense of territory and will never allow us to stay here. I think leaving here as soon as possible is the best choice."

Galdor didn't mention one thing, and that was that the sea serpent was also extremely vengeful and would launch extremely crazy and persistent revenge on other creatures that invaded its territory. Last time, they were chased wildly for a day and two nights.

This time, having suffered such a big loss, God knows what would happen to this sailing ship next. The other party's intelligence far exceeded that of ordinary beasts.

"You drive the ship and leave this area first. After I find what I want, I naturally have a way to find you."

Allen looked at Thangorodrim not far away, leaped, and jumped directly into the sea under everyone's unbelievable gazes.

"Allen!!" "Your Majesty!!"

It wasn't until Allen's figure disappeared on the water surface that Bilbo and Holimion and the others reacted, but they no longer had time to stop him.

"Quick, go after your King!!"

Bilbo was a standard landlubber. Knowing himself very well, he didn't jump into the water with his friend, because that would just be adding to the trouble.

At this moment, the extremely anxious Hobbit urged the Elves beside him to chase after Allen, but the people around didn't take any action.

"Lord Galdor, please leave according to His Majesty's orders. I think you, who are very familiar with this kind of monster, should know where is safe."

Holimion's expression was very serious. Since the King he served had made a decision, what he had to do was complete the order.

"Mr. Baggins, please leave the edge of the ship. Before His Majesty returns, I will ensure your safety." Holimion gently pulled the Hobbit back.

"Everyone! Hard to port, hoist the sails full, let's seize the time to leave here."

Since Allen's subordinates had no objections, Galdor didn't want to stay here for even a moment. Such a monster made his soul tremble even just looking at it. It was better to leave as fast as possible.

Just like that, the pure white sailing ship turned a big circle in the storm and left in the direction they came from, leaving behind the pitch-black dark clouds and the sea surface that was gradually rolling up waves.

At this very moment, Allen was running in the cold sea. That's right, running, not swimming.

At the moment before falling into the water, Allen cast an ability he didn't often use: Water Protection from the Water Stone.

A layer of transparent film isolated all the seawater around him, while allowing Allen to breathe and move freely in the sea. The situation was almost no different from when he was on land.

It was just that although this film could isolate seawater, it couldn't isolate the biting cold carried in the seawater.

To avoid being frozen into an icicle in the sea, Allen had to circulate the Qi in his body to maintain his body temperature.

However, this problem didn't count for anything in his eyes; the recovery speed of Qi was enough to keep up with the consumption.

And relying on this layer of film, Allen ran in the water and soon arrived at Thangorodrim.

Looking at the cliff that looked almost vertical in front of him, as well as the traces left by time, Allen nodded.

"This is a good landmark and passage."

Without advanced technology, searching in the sea alone definitely required a conspicuous and sturdy landmark to guide the direction.

Having something as a reference could allow one to quickly figure out their own situation after losing their orientation; otherwise, it would be too much of a waste of time.

Walking rapidly along the rock wall to explore downward, after about a hundred meters, Allen discovered a cave entrance that had collapsed halfway and was piled with falling rocks everywhere.

This wasn't the proper main gate of the Iron Hell, but a back door chiseled halfway up the mountain.

Allen guessed this might be a small path used for convenience when Goblins patrolled, after all, the south side of this mountain peak was once the Angband defense line.

There was a small period of time when Morgoth was beaten by the sons of Feanor to the point where he didn't even dare to show his face, and could only squat in the deepest darkness, brewing vicious schemes against the Elves.

Having such a small door could also facilitate observing the movements of the Noldor Elves.

At this moment, Allen was a bit hesitant, because the mountain peak in front of him had suffered extremely severe impacts during the war, and those narrow small paths were very likely to have been submerged and disappeared.

Was it to save time and take a little risk, or to seek stability and go find the gate of Angband?

"Clatter, clatter, clatter, clatter."

A violent fluctuation suddenly came from behind. Allen, who had already been somewhat prepared for this in his heart, didn't have the slightest hesitation, quickly flashed and drilled into the cave along the gaps in the rubble.

If this sea serpent was really evolved from an evil dragon, then the trait of being vengeful must have been passed down in the same line. Allen had already thought of this result as early as when he entered the sea.

At this moment, this monster really abandoned the ship on the sea and chased over from the sea. Allen felt this was also a good thing.

His subordinates should be safe. After all, the ship was full of ordinary people, and even if their combat skills were proficient, they couldn't deal with this kind of large monster.

And this sea serpent seemed to be very clear about who posed the greatest threat to it. After discovering Allen, it launched a sneak attack directly.

Allen wasn't particularly worried about this point. He originally had a way to move rapidly in the sea.

Wind could carry him to fly in the air, and it could also speed up his movement in seawater, it was just that the consumption of Qi would be much more.

Although the time he could persist wasn't long, it was definitely enough to shake off the sea serpent's pursuit and fly out of the sea.

Looking at the dense, intertwined teeth in front of him, "bang" hitting the edge of the cave in front of him, Allen didn't look back and walked toward the darkness behind him.

He didn't have the means to harm this monster yet, so he'd better go explore the cave first.

He didn't believe this silly snake could guard here forever; didn't it need to eat?

This cave opened halfway up the mountain became narrower the further he went in, and the darkness here reached its peak, swallowing all light completely.

Allen's pair of eyes that could see through the Unseen World could still barely see the environment within one or two meters around him in such darkness.

At this time, Allen was instead a bit glad that he had come to such a narrow tunnel, rather than an extremely empty cave.

If there were no rock walls around as a reference, then he would probably be no different from a blind man at this moment.

Because what his eyes saw at that time would probably only be pitch-black seawater, and nothing else.

Suddenly, Allen's heart moved, and a bright lamp shining with layers of clear radiance suddenly appeared in his right hand. Even though it was placed in seawater, it was not affected in the slightest, and the released radiance drove away the darkness that shrouded everything.

This kind of crystal lamp that didn't need fuel and was fearless of wind and water came from the Pendor continent and was one of the commodities sold by the Noldor Elves to the human world. It was expensive, very expensive, and its price could almost be equal to diamonds by weight, and it was very hard to sell.

In the Pendor continent, a small bag of diamonds was ten thousand gold coins.

Allen had never paid attention to such luxurious things. With that money, he could hire a small team of cavalry to work for him for a long time.

It was just that the situation now was different. No matter how expensive it was, he had to grit his teeth and buy it; otherwise, after walking out of this narrow passage, he could only grope in the dark and wander around in Angband.

Then when would he want to find the sword Ringil?

Money was meant to be spent on such critical moments. After using it, he could also use it as a gift to coax his angry daughter. Killing two birds with one stone.

After having the help of this piece of clear radiance, Allen avoided the occasional broken weapons, walked along the passage full of rubble, and after about two hundred steps, arrived in front of a downward staircase.

After a slight hesitation, Allen walked down along the staircase. He hoped to resolve the matter here as soon as possible, not only because the Cold Dragon, under Sauron's instigation, might attack the Grey Mountains at any time.

But also because this submarine fortress full of darkness had an indescribable sense of weirdness.

It was too quiet, really too quiet. Except for the sound of his own breathing and heartbeat, he couldn't hear anything. Any other sound didn't exist.

And in the place where the light reached, don't talk about fish; things like seaweed and shellfish hadn't appeared either, as if thousands of years had passed, but no living creature dared to break in here, break into the torture hell once dominated by Morgoth!!

Exploring in such an environment, Allen's nerves were always tense and he couldn't relax at all.

He knew nothing about everything here and couldn't figure out why this situation appeared.

Was it Morgoth's lingering power still intimidating this place?

Or after the War of Wrath, had some terrifyingly abnormal creature reoccupied this place?

Allen knew very little about records in this regard.

The unknown was the most terrifying thing. All feelings eventually converged into two words: very dangerous.

In such a dark and weird environment, Allen suppressed his tense nerves and explored downward along the staircase for a very, very long distance.

Even Allen himself couldn't determine how much time he had spent on this journey.

The staircase wound around several turns in the mountain, and then a huge stone hall appeared in front of him. The light emitted by the crystal lamp could barely reach the top of the cave.

The road in the hall was very flat, clearly having been carefully repaired. On both sides of the road were huge black stone pillars, carved with images and characters that made people look on with awe, telling those who saw them about the cruelty and ambition of the master here.

Allen kept moving forward along the road in the stone hall. When looking around, he discovered numerous archways on the pitch-black walls, not knowing where they led.

Clearly, his luck was very good. The staircase leading all the way down hadn't collapsed, successfully allowing him to arrive at the transportation hub of this fortress.

Similarly, his luck was also very bad, because there were countless archways waiting for him to explore. If he explored them all, he was afraid it would take a lot of time. This place was once a garrison fortress with a very wide area and extremely deep excavation.

And a relatively effective method, besides exploring bit by bit, was only the Eye of the Sky that could only be used once a day.

It was just that the roads inside this fortress were accessible in all directions. Although the ability to use the Eye of the Sky could lock the general range, the road leading to the target still had to exclude wrong choices, and then in this dark and weird environment, confirm the correct road one by one.

It was just that it was too quiet here, and it seemed there were some forces existing, interfering with Allen's mind.

Normal people often couldn't stay in an extremely quiet environment for a long time before feeling uncomfortable. If this environment was also very narrow and the scenery in front of them almost didn't change, then the damage to the spirit would be even greater.

In prison, this kind of torture was often used to deal with those heinous criminals. To put it popularly, it was solitary confinement.

No matter how powerful Allen's flesh was and how many magical powers he had mastered, from the perspective of spiritual power, he was just an ordinary person who was slightly stronger.

Soon Allen felt something was wrong. He clearly had irritable emotions, wanting to shout and scream, wanting to use violence, use fire, use thunder to destroy everything around him.

Just like humans extremely wanting to obtain clear water when thirsty, Allen himself couldn't control this desire to destroy everything.

But he was clear-headed. Whenever he reached the moment he couldn't suppress it, Allen would enter the simulator and run to the Noldor Elves' Elaklai to stay for a day or two.

Go find Sophia to chat, talk about his heart, look at the beautiful scenery around, go find Lord Yishilandi to talk about the situation of the countries on the continent, talk about the Elves' next step plan.

If he really couldn't suppress the desire to kill, Allen would go find Lord Aldaria to hunt in the northwest of the forest. Of course, their prey wasn't animals, but those Gatu teams that were left alone on the grassland.

For the Elves, their greatest enemy was always these barbarians who rushed into the forest. Slaughtering them was reducing their own casualties.

Just like that, Allen relied on various methods to relieve his spirit and searched in Angband for a long, long time.

If he was hungry, he would take out sausages and eat a few bites. If he was thirsty, he would exchange for a few bottles of wine. If he was sleepy, he would simply find a narrow corner and squint for a while.

He had no desire to walk out of Angband at all, because Allen himself didn't know if he had the courage to come in again.

Time passed silently like this. If he used the number of times the Eye of the Sky was used to determine time, Allen had been alone in this dark seabed for about seven days. ===== CHAPTER 278 =====