Volume 16 - Chapter 1-2
The scenes in the movie covered most of Middle Earth. The size of this world could accommodate the five-way team battle.
In the original movies, the Dark Lord Sauron forged multiple rings in an attempt to rule over the whole Middle Earth. He gave the Rings of Power to the leaders of the Dwarfs, Elves, and humans and they would in turn rule their race with the power of the rings, while Sauron created the One Ring for himself that ruled the other rings.
A war between good and evil broke out. The good achieved victory after the sacrifices of many. However, a human high king retained the One Ring due to greed. The One Ring which had its own mind abandoned the king. Many years passed. The ring fell into the hands of a Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. The Hobbits were fond of an unadventurous, bucolic and simple life and a race that the One Ring couldn’t seduce effectively. Thus, the One Ring remained in peace and Bilbo Baggins obtained a long life due to its power.
As time passed, Bilbo gradually felt the power of the ring. Before he became inseparable with the ring, he handed the ring to his nephew, Frodo Baggins. At the same time, subordinates of Sauron learned that the Hobbits had the ring and sent the Nazgûl to seize the ring in an attempt to revive the Dark Lord Sauron. Other forces joined in the fight to seize the ring, including humans, Elves, Undead, Trolls and other races.
The trilogy of The Lord of the Rings was such a massive war.
Zheng sensed killing intent from the front and drew out Tiger’s Soul. YinKong, Zero, ChengXiao, Heng and the rest of the veterans were slightly slower than him. However, they all went into defensive positions and brought out their weapons. Lan, Gando and the newbies stood in place until they could see the two people ahead. Two humans among the Hobbits were obviously suspicious.
Both of them were young man. The baby face guy looked calm and peaceful. The chocolate eating one’s eyes felt sharp. Though it was the baby face who was sending off signals of danger and killing intent. Zheng felt that he was a slab of ice. That sensation made him feel in danger. He held Tiger’s Soul in hand and as soon as these two people did anything out of the ordinary, he would use instant Destruction to kill them.
Baby face shrugged and smiled. “Don’t mind us. We are just testing the strength of the third ranked team. I apologize if we offended you. How about you, Neos?”
Neos gave a cold smile in response. He finished the chocolate bar on hand and said to Zheng. “Pardon my embarrassment in the last team fight. I died before seeing my enemies. I am the leader of team Africa, Neos. I come here with the leader of team Northern Ice Land, Gungnir, in hope of forming an alliance with team China to withstand the incoming strikes from team East America and team Celestial.” He turned around and walked toward an area away from the banquet. There were several big tables and over twenty men and women sat around them.
Gungnir smiled at team China then followed after Neos. Neither of them paid attention to team China’s reaction.
“That’s the leader of team China. He has a self-created ability. The strongest person on my team said he has the power to take on a whole team by himself. I don’t specialize in combat so how do you feel about his strength?” Neos said to Gungnir via his mind. He brought out another piece of chocolate and licked it.
As soon as Gungnir turned around, his smile disappeared. There was sweat all over his face. “Incredibly strong. I almost couldn’t hold myself from attacking the moment he brought out his sword. Even though I haven’t fought him, but I felt like there was a blade in front of me when he stared at me. This man his hiding a devil inside him.”
“That makes things difficult. Even though we need to form an alliance in this world, we will eventually fight each other in the future.” Neos snapped the chocolate. “If he’s really so strong, the addition of that person in their team… If you don’t hold back in a fight, who of you would win?”
“My Hie Hie No Mi is only rank A but it’s still much stronger than the Goro Goro No Mi user in your team. I am probably at fifty fifty against the leader of team China. But if his self-created ability is too strong, I won’t try to fight him.” As Gungnir came within ten meters of the other people by the tables, his expression turned back into a smile.
Neither Zheng nor Xuan wanted to fight two teams under this situation. These two teams entered the movie before them. There was no information on the influence they established nor the ambushes they might have set up. So it was better to sit down peacefully and listen to what they had to say.
“We team Africa entered this world ten days ago from the swamp west of Hobbiton. It took us five days to get out of the swamp. We coincidentally met team Northern Ice Land that entered five days ago from the border of the swamp. Fortunately, we both encountered a snake fifty meters long and had a head that was four meters thick. Our firearms were useless against it so we had to join together. Without that snake, we would have probably got into a fight.”
The three teams sat together. There was a total of forty-three people. Both team Africa and team Northern Ice Land lost a person in the swamp. According to them, the first three teams entered this world from a fixed location. They knew team China would enter from Hobbiton. The remaining two teams were going to enter from a random location instead. This fact gave them bad feelings.
Zheng also learned from people he knew in team Africa that they had already experienced four movies after Starship Troopers. One of those movies was The Mummy. This meant that different teams experience movies at a different rate.
Gungnir said with a smile. “We have discovered this situation when we met other teams. We both felt the number of times the other teams experience movies were not right. The stronger teams will get increasingly difficult movies but their rate will decrease. Usually, regular teams would go through two movies when a strong team goes through one. This isn’t important. We can gift you this information after we form an alliance. The question now is do you wish to form this alliance?”
Zheng had entered the third stage and simulated HongLu’s thinking. Several seconds later, he said. “No problem. An alliance is needed if we want to fight team East America and team Celestial. This is why our teams entered in nearby locations. However, I have a requirement that we will retain our teams’ independence. We can exchange information and support each other but only the leaders can command their own team. We won’t have situations where the majority is able to force demands on the other team. If that happens, we will be your enemy.”
Since team Africa and team Northern Ice Land had already formed an alliance, there might be hidden agreements amount them. Having the possibility where the three teams would vote for their actions was not in the interest of team China. The other teams could put them into baits. This was the only thing Zheng worried about. They had Xuan in the team so the only ones that had to worry about being taken advantage of was them.
Neos and Gungnir looked at each other them both held out their hands. Neos swallowed his chocolate and smiled coldly. “We are allies then. This world is going to be the battlefield of us five teams. The victor will bring back unimaginable points and rewards. There’s hope for all of us but I will let you know that team Africa will be the biggest winner among all teams!”
Zheng smiled coldly in return then turned to Xuan who didn’t seem to care much. He thought Neos was being overconfident.
Fireworks exploded in the sky and lighted it with gorgeous colors. This was the work of Gandalf. The plot of the movie began.