Chapter 284: It's Over

The blue dragon Tier, collapsed on the ground, did not hold on for long. It was soon disemboweled by the two Elven swords, Orcrist and Gramdring, along with dozens of axe-hammers, and died in the territory Sauron had promised it: Mount Gundabad.

Three days after the blue dragon died, Allen walked back, looking exhausted, carrying the white dragon's triangular head, which still had eyes wide open in death, on his back.

Man and dragon had chased each other across the vast Northern Wasteland for the better part of a day. During the pursuit, Allen had carefully controlled his posture to avoid the dragon's vertical pupil locking onto him, while the dragon had used the little time the human spent dodging to flee madly into the depths of the ice sheet.

Allen and the white dragon Serar had tested each other for dozens of rounds. In the end, Allen, who could constantly recover his strength by "bugging," was the more skilled.

With the help of a gale, he removed the white dragon's other legs. After that, there was no suspense in the battle.

The only problem was that this wave of pursuit had taken too long, and Allen could almost be said to have exhausted his physical strength. To avoid freezing to death in the bitterly cold Northern Wasteland, he finally had to choose to walk back step by step.

The two days of trekking had been saved by the wilderness survival skills he had learned in his previous life, and Miruvor and Lembas had also been a great help.

This godforsaken place was even more uncomfortable than the bottom of the sea.

By the time Allen returned, the tragic battlefield, littered with corpses, had been mostly cleaned up. The halls of Mount Gundabad were filled with the wounded, while the open ground outside was covered in frozen corpses.

As the main force fighting the dragons, the Dwarves' losses could be said to be extremely heavy. Even though their bodies were the toughest and their armor was of the finest quality, the number of those who could survive the dragons' trampling and battering was very limited.

It could be said that Thorin's losses in conquering the entire Grey Mountains were not as great as the damage this blue dragon had caused them. The number of Dwarves sleeping here forever was even double that.

Regarding this, Allen could only do his best to use his abilities to save those Dwarves who were barely hanging on. As for his own subordinates, their losses were not great.

Humans, when facing dragons, were unlikely to be able to muster the courage to fight. At most, they would shoot arrows from afar, or, when the situation became unmanageable, carry the wounded and flee the battlefield.

People, after all, have their limits. Therefore, Allen had proposed this point very early on: his subordinates could not directly face the dragons, as that would cause a large number of uncertain factors.

The King under the Mountain also expressed his understanding. He was also worried that if the humans' morale collapsed, it might affect his own clansmen, which could very likely cause this battle to fall short of success.

Facts proved that neither side's approach was wrong. In this encounter with the dragons, Allen's contribution on the battlefield alone was enough to equal that of most people.

Thorin didn't quibble too much about this. In fact, if he had the leisure to quibble about these things, it would be more practical to let Allen engrave a few more runic crossbow bolts. This thing was simply too important for the Dwarves guarding the Grey Mountains.

Allen, however, felt there was no need to rush. He had let that black cold dragon, which looked like a crocodile, go at the time, intending for it to spread the news of the battle here to the Northern Wasteland.

The continuous death of their own kind should be able to deter those greedy monsters and buy more time for the Dwarves preparing to rebuild their homes in the Grey Mountains.

A few decades of time should always be available.

Otherwise, why would he be so foolish as to chase and kill that white dragon? After all, if one really talked about it, that black dragon didn't have magic and should have been easier to kill.

With this, the northern campaign finally came to an end.

Allen stayed in Mount Gundabad for another period of time. On one hand, it was to save those warriors he had managed to rescue with such difficulty.

On the other hand, this mountain range had been ravaged by violent wind and snow in a short period of time, making it completely unsuitable for most long-distance travel.

It just so happened that Allen could also talk to Thorin about the next arrangements.

The Dwarves would spend some time in the future rebuilding the fortresses and outposts of Mount Gundabad, in order to monitor the Orcs who had fled to Angmar, ensuring they would not harass the Dwarves living in the Grey Mountains, as well as the human herdsmen who had already settled in the Greyflood.

Allen, on the other hand, would arrange for the residents of Fort Greystone to assist the Dwarves in building roads after the wind and snow stopped. As the saying goes, if you want to be rich, you must first build roads; otherwise, the difficulty of transporting large amounts of supplies to a place like Mount Gundabad would still be a bit high.

Gandalf did not participate in the discussion of these plans, but instead asked Thorin a question: whether the design of the heavy crossbow could be traded to the Kingdom of Gondor, which was fighting against Mordor.

Overall, the North was now tending toward stability. Although the dark forces entrenched in this region had not been wiped out, at the very least, they had lost the ability to threaten the Dwarves and humans again.

The few Orcs who had fled to the Angmar Mountains and the Ettenmoors were also being monitored by the forces guarding Eriador, and they were basically unable to do evil, only able to hide in dark, deep lairs to lick their wounds.

Even if small groups came out to do evil, that could be left to the slowly reviving Kingdom of Arnor. Aragorn and his subordinates always had to grow in battle; relying solely on training would never produce true elites.

At least that was what Allen thought. Of course, after he returned to Fislate, he would also spend more energy paying attention to the movements of Dol Guldur and Moria, trying to avoid the resurgence of evil forces in the North.

Compared to the gradually stabilizing Eriador, the situation in the South remained very grim. Although Mordor's power had suffered certain losses a few years ago, the Allied forces had not broken through the Black Gate, so its foundation had not been damaged.

Mount Doom, shrouded in thick smoke, continued to spew flames day and night, and countless Orcs were hammering weapons and smelting equipment there, adding fuel to the next war provoked by the Dark Lord.

Those Nazgul riding on Fell Beasts were also soaring wantonly in the sky with the orders of the Lord of Barad-dur. No one knew what evil schemes that Great Eye, which monitored everything, was weaving.

If one looked at it from a long-term perspective, then Gondor's strength definitely needed to be strengthened as much as possible.

However, Thorin did not adopt Gandalf's suggestion of trading the blueprints directly. He felt that even if the blueprints were handed over to Gondor, humans did not have enough highly skilled craftsmen to forge them, and even if the forging skills were up to standard, Gondor did not have that much Mithril.

Therefore, he prepared to sell this war machine to his allies at cost. Of course, that was another version of the heavy crossbow, which was a ballista with wheels, also equipped with two types of arrows.

It just so happened that Allen had formulated a series of trade treaties with the Prince of Rohan, Sengel, and the current Steward of Gondor, Ecthelion, and merchant ships had already begun sailing on the Anduin River several years ago, making transportation very convenient.

Regarding this, Gandalf could only express that he would take Thorin's suggestion to the South, believing that Ecthelion, who was known for his wisdom, would not refuse the Dwarves' kindness.

In the busy days, the blizzard that blotted out the sky and sun slowly dissipated, and the sun finally sprinkled its brilliant light over Mount Gundabad once again. The Dwarves couldn't wait to walk out of the halls covered in white snow and began to get busy in the holy land.

They had a lot of work that needed to be completed.

After Allen said goodbye to his good friends Thorin and Gandalf, he ordered Alayen to take his main force of soldiers back to Fislate and report the situation of this battle to Yamila. The Cabinet would reward them according to the system that had been revised many times.

Even though they had spent a lot, a lot of wealth over these years, the treasury of the Kingdom of Rhovanion was still very full.

As for himself, he took the soldiers he had conscripted earlier and met up with the three Skin-changers, including Beorn, and then headed south along the Misty Mountains, eradicating the Orc lairs that were still hiding in the depths of the tunnels one by one.

This one-sided battle lasted for a full half a year, and the sounds of slaughter and wailing spread throughout the northern part of the Misty Mountains.

Until Allen's ability to search for anything could no longer find any Orc strongholds in the area north of Stier Mining Town.

By this time, for the Kingdom of Rhovanion, the North could be considered truly stabilized.

Soon, Allen returned to Fislate smoothly with the news of victory, and a banquet of unprecedented scale and solemn ceremony was held as scheduled two weeks later.

All the soldiers who had fought in this campaign were invited, and the invitation specifically mentioned that they could bring their families, which made the banquet locations spread throughout the city very lively.

Even Baal, a man from Rhun, attended the banquet.

In the second letter sent by Fatis, the situation of the battle with the people of Rhun was described in detail. The upright Border Count did not hide anything and emphasized the contribution made by Baal.

In the most critical battle, it was Baal who led his subordinates to feign defeat, successfully leading the enemy's pursuing troops into Fatis's ambush.

The enemies who entered the ambush were first subjected to a rain of arrows from the warships, and when they prepared to retreat, they were harassed and contained by a large number of light cavalry and Baal's infantry.

Finally, Fatis personally commanded nearly a thousand heavy cavalry to launch a cluster charge against the enemy. Compared to the first battle with Ashur, this one ended very quickly and very easily.

Only a few short years had passed in between.

It was precisely because he saw Baal's contribution that Allen had great interest in this Easterling. Perhaps in the days to come, he could consider supporting a commander who would obey his orders to remotely rule the Rhun region.

He didn't really want to rule the Rhun region. According to the current transportation and communication methods, wanting to centralize power in such a distant place was basically an impossible thing. Even if Allen himself could fly, it would still be very, very troublesome.

If he could cultivate a proxy, using commercial behavior as a restraint, plus the deterrence of powerful cavalry, then he could have a force in the Rhun region that was inclined toward the Kingdom of Rhovanion.

This could not only effectively reduce Sauron's influence in Rhun, but also reduce the number of reinforcements Mordor could obtain in the upcoming war, which could be considered killing several birds with one stone.

He might even be able to establish contact with that Blue Wizard who had been active in the Rhun region, which was a good thing that could kill several birds with one stone.

However, Allen didn't say much to Baal, but instead gave him a warning in his words, telling him to pay more attention to his subordinates and not let them have any strange movements toward the merchant ships sailing on the Running River.

They were a group protected by the Kingdom of Rhovanion.

Of course, as a reward, Allen still bestowed a lot of gold and silver upon Baal and tacitly accepted the idea that this fellow wanted to pledge allegiance to him.

At the same time, more goods were opened for trade with the people of Rhun. In addition to various extremely convenient daily necessities, it even included elite armor from the Dwarves of Durin, as well as Lembas and Miruvor that Rhovanion could barely produce itself.

Allen also had a little bit of his own thoughts about opening up the latter two commodities.

According to his understanding, evil creatures were extremely disgusted by Lembas, which showed that food from Valinor was in conflict with dark forces.

Then, after eating a lot of it, perhaps it could have some purification effect on humans who had fallen into darkness. Of course, whether it was useful or not still depended on the results of long-term experiments.

If Baal's appearance could become better and better, it would mean it really had an effect.

Baal, of course, didn't know that his new master had used him as a test subject. He was extremely grateful for such generous treatment, and after offering a white lion skin, he left Fislate.

This banquet, which was enough to be recorded in the history of the Kingdom of Rhovanion, lasted for a full week. The members attending the banquet almost drank up all the stored wine in the town, and meat products and expensive fruits were consumed by seven or eight out of ten.

It did give those sensitive merchants some more goods worth transporting.

After the banquet ended, Allen fell into busyness again. He made some arrangements for Sauron's small movements in Eriador, but he did not directly send troops to protect Aragorn.

Just as he thought before, strong flowers cannot be grown in a greenhouse. If Arnor wanted to rise again, it had to bear its own share of suffering. One could not be a nanny.

However, providing some material assistance was still no problem.

Under the management of Tiehaer, the Dwarves who settled in Rhovanion, with the assistance of human craftsmen, were fully capable of mass-producing better Green Leaf Armor, and had already stockpiled a certain amount.

This resulted in too many discarded armor and weapons being stored in the warehouse in Fislate. Allen sent people to count them, and there were thousands of them.

Although they didn't look particularly refined and the standards were not uniform, taking them out to arm three or five thousand people was absolutely no problem.

These things were a waste in the warehouse, and they also needed to be maintained by personnel regularly. For Allen, they were no different from chicken ribs.

So he waved his hand and sent these pieces of equipment to Arnor as national aid, which could be considered his investment in his student.

Allen had already chosen the person to escort this batch of equipment, and that was Gandalf, who had returned from the North. Facing the intrusion of several Nazgul, Aragorn would very likely need the help of the Grey Wizard.

When all the weapons and equipment were loaded onto the cargo trucks, Allen handed the Ring of Power that had once belonged to the Dwarves to Gandalf.

Then he watched the long convoy leave Fislate.

Looking at his departing friend, Allen had a little bit of enlightenment in his heart. He felt that he might have to bury himself in government affairs for a long time, and the North might not have any war to fight for a long time.

"End of Volume" ===== CHAPTER 285 =====