"It is so enjoyable here that one forgets home."
Mike's stay in Rivendell these past few days could be considered a re-experience of the joys of having multiple partners.
The female Elves were cold on the outside, yet unexpectedly 'hot' on the inside.
Moreover, as they pursued Platonic love, they cared more about their own 'feelings' and would not demand fidelity from their partners without reason.
This concept of relationships was similar to: only caring about having had it, not about forever.
Or perhaps to them, giving meant 'receiving'.
In Mike's view, they were definitely the choice for 'perfect lovers'.
However, Mike's 'promiscuous' behavior during this time made Princess Arwen's attitude toward him increasingly poor.
Two days ago, unable to bear it, she followed her grandmother back to the Golden Forest, choosing to be out of sight and out of mind.
...
On this day, at the entrance of Rivendell, Elrond led a group of Elves to see Mike and Gandalf off from the land of the Ñoldor Elves.
After some rest, Gandalf had recovered his state and was ready to catch up with the Dwarves. Mike was heading to the Gondor Line of Defense and happened to be going the same way, so he also chose to leave today.
"By the way, Lord Elrond. I met Aragorn in the Northern Highlands, and he asked me to send you his regards." Before leaving, Mike conveyed greetings to the Elf King on behalf of Strider.
"Aragorn is a good child." Elrond nodded with a smile, acknowledging the greeting, then looked at Mike and Gandalf and said: "Then, I wish you a safe journey—"
Where there is meeting, there is parting; the Ñoldor Elves also had their own mission in Rivendell.
Mike turned back to wave at a few beautiful female Elves in the crowd, and after promising to meet again, he mounted the hybrid horse provided by the Elves and continued south along the Misty Mountains with Gandalf.
As for the young eagle Gwaihir, he had already returned to the Northern Highlands a few days ago.
It was unknown whether he would get a beating after returning.
"At the adventure team's speed, they should be near the Moria Mines by now. I hope they haven't encountered trouble before then..."
Gandalf, concerned for the safety of the Dwarves, rode his horse all day and was now leaning against a small hill, eating dry rations.
Looking at his expression, it seemed he intended to travel through the night.
Rivendell's geographical location served as the dividing line between the east and west of Middle-earth.
Going further east, the probability of encountering danger would rise linearly.
Moreover, deep within the Moria Mines, there existed an Earth Demon with strength comparable to a Maia; one could only hope the Dwarves did not disturb it when passing through.
"Come, have some hot soup." Taking advantage of the break, Mike took out cooking utensils and ingredients from his private space and temporarily boiled a pot of meat soup.
Seeing the wizard eating dry rations, he served a bowl and handed it to him.
"If you ask me, resisting dark forces is the trend. Even without the Dwarves, others would step up to stop the dark creatures of Mordor from invading Middle-earth..." After eating the hot food, Mike couldn't help but advise the wizard.
The other party was just too responsible, which was why he always ended up in such a sorry state.
"Resisting dark forces is everyone's business, and that certainly includes the Dwarf..." Gandalf did not feel he was wrong in helping the Dwarf reclaim the Lonely Mountain pass.
This was probably due to his personality; a very responsible person would not give up his persistence just because of a few words of persuasion from others.
Subsequently, Gandalf, who quickly finished the meat soup, went to the hybrid horse and took out a few handfuls of beans to feed them.
Clearly, he was preparing to set off again.
Watching him like this, Mike shook his head and didn't say anything more.
Time came to the next morning. Gandalf, who had traveled through the night, looked at the gray sky and stopped to say: "Looking at the weather, I'm afraid there will be a heavy rain in a while. Plus, we are not far from Moria, so we should be able to catch up with Thorin and the others soon."
"So, I plan to wait for the rain to pass before continuing."
Mike naturally had no objection.
Thus, the two found a hillside sheltered by rocks and prepared to rest temporarily.
Not long after, when Mike set up a bonfire, the sky outside suddenly darkened, and then strong winds blew with thunder and lightning in the dark clouds.
A torrential downpour arrived as expected...
"I don't know if the adventure team found a place to shelter from the rain in this weather. And Bilbo, without me watching, I don't know if he has taken good care of himself..." Looking at the pouring rain outside, Gandalf worried again.
Thorin might be a qualified leader, but he was definitely not someone who cared about others' feelings.
This could be seen from how the Hobbit had not been able to integrate into the Dwarf team throughout this journey.
"Good people have their own luck; there is no use in worrying." Mike found a comfortable position to sit down and began to prepare breakfast for the two.
Until now, he still couldn't understand why, when the righteous side of Middle-earth had so many strong people, Gandalf alone turned himself into a workaholic.
Of course: I don't understand, but I respect!!!
Just as Mike was about to finish preparing breakfast, the ground beneath his feet suddenly transmitted a huge vibration, comparable to a magnitude 10 earthquake.
"Looks like this breakfast won't be eaten." Seeing the scattered debris, Mike directly took the food back into his space.
"It's Stone Giants, not far from Moria. I hope Thorin and the others were not affected..." Gandalf looked at the two Stone Giants, each over a hundred zhang tall, in the distant valley, with a look of shock on his face.
Stone Giants are natural beings that appear in the wild on cloudy and rainy days, representing the great power of nature.
They have no good or evil and no purpose, but every appearance is accompanied by landslides and ground cracks.
"Those two Stone Giants seem to be fighting over their bodies..." Gandalf seemed to have discovered something else.
Under the lightning, thunder, and pouring rain, the two Stone Giants in the distant valley were fighting based on instinct.
Although their movements were slow, their power was infinite.
Every primitive collision caused boulders to fly and the earth to shake. Subsequently, the falling stones would be absorbed by the Stone Giant with the advantage.
Thus, as the battle progressed, a gap in size slowly appeared between the two hundred-feet-tall Stone Giants.
One's size slowly shrank, while the other began to expand, its height gradually reaching two hundred feet, even exceeding the mountains beside it.
Seeing that the battle was about to end due to the large difference in strength, a third Stone Giant suddenly stood up from the bottom of the valley.
This last Stone Giant, because it had absorbed the stones that fell during the battle of the previous two, appeared with a height exceeding two hundred feet.
Afterward, the one-on-one fight in the valley turned into a three-way melee.
"Their battle has already affected Moria, I must go over and see..." Seeing the Stone Giants' battle escalate and the battlefield expand, Gandalf's expression gradually became grave.
Just as he had guessed before, if the Dwarf adventure team's schedule had not been delayed, they should be right near the Moria Mines now.
The sudden rampage of the Stone Giants was not good news for either the adventure team or Gandalf.
"Let's go, then let's go and see. Besides, this rain will stop soon." Mike agreed with the wizard's proposal, as he also wanted to go closer to see what light orbs the Stone Giants could drop.
Besides, this sudden heavy rain felt more like a thunderstorm, coming and going quickly.
When the two walked out of the shelter, the sky had gradually cleared.
"Go this way—" Mike, who had obtained the ability of the Ring of Water from the Elf Princess, raised a vacuum umbrella in the rain, and after identifying the direction, called the wizard to rush along the gravel path toward the Moria Mines.
[Earth Heart (Trait)] x3... [Earth Energy * + 100,000,000] x3...
[Natural Giant Strength (Trait)] x3...
As Mike and his companion arrived outside the Moria Mines, the sudden storm in the sky also stopped.
And as the storm passed, the three Stone Giants fighting in the valley slowly returned to peace.
If the previous scene were not still fresh in memory, anyone seeing the three intertwined piles of rocks in the valley would only think they were naturally formed rocky mountains.
"The harvest is not bad. The abilities of these three Stone Giants are a bit like the abilities of the Earth Demon..." Mike, who had received another large wave of attribute light orbs, calculated silently in his heart.
Nowadays, the abilities added by trait light orbs did not improve his strength as much. Therefore, Mike now valued the increase in energy points more, so as to achieve a leap in life level.
The total energy income during this period had already allowed Mike, who had reached Mythic Rank Level 9, to fill nearly one-tenth of the energy slot at this level.
It could be said that the future is promising—
"My worries have come true. Thorin and the others must have been just in the battle zone of the Stone Giants..." On the other side, Gandalf, concerned about the safety of the Dwarves, found the weapons left behind by the Dwarves in some gravel, "This is all my fault. If I had left earlier, perhaps the Dwarves would not have faced this tribulation."
Thinking that the Dwarves might have been affected and injured in the recent battle of the Stone Giants, the wizard could not help but blame himself.
"It's too early to say that. If you want to know what happened to Bilbo and the others, you should find them first." Mike reminded the wizard that now was not the time to assign blame.
"You're right. Our most urgent task now should be to find them." Gandalf, having calmed down, returned to his reliable self.
Subsequently, he followed the traces left by the adventure team and found a cave.
"I recognize this blanket; it's what Thorin and the others used when resting... It seems they were lucky and avoided the main battlefield of the Stone Giants and came here. Then, I don't know why, they fell into the deep pit below..." After studying the scene in the cave, Gandalf looked at the large pit artificially excavated in the ground.
It must be said that the wizard's brain was very useful; just based on the traces left on the ground, he guessed the whereabouts of the adventure team roughly.
"Let's go, let's go down and see. I only hope they haven't met that monster deep in the mines." The situation was still not optimistic, Gandalf said, and prepared to climb into the large pit in the ground.
"No need for such trouble." Mike condensed a ball of Power Of Faith and threw it onto the wizard, making him float and follow him down into the large pit.
Here I must mention the wizards of Middle-earth; although they all have demigod bodies and various strange abilities, they do not have the ability to fly.
Every time they go out, they have to travel like 'ascetics'.
Mike had reason to suspect that this was Iluvatar intentionally limiting the abilities of the Maiar for the sake of his own 'Great Music'.
"Great Goblin King...
Invincible Goblin King...
Omnipotent Goblin King...
Cheer for the Goblin King..."
"..."
At this time, in the Moria Mines, the Goblins who had caught the Dwarf group were loudly singing songs of praise for the Goblin King.
The rhythm was very cheerful—
On the high platform, a fat Goblin wearing a crown and nearly three meters tall was also beating the rhythm for his subordinates with funny movements.
Goblins are actually the same species as Orcs, just called Goblins in the forest and Goblins when hiding in underground caves.
And this group of Goblins in the Moria Mines, except for the tall and fat Goblin King, the other minions were generally about one meter tall and each was skinny.
Perhaps because they had been hiding underground for a long time, their skin tended to be pale.
This made them look even more disgusting than the green-skinned Orcs in the forest.
Thorin and the others were now surrounded by such a group of ugly creatures.
"There are too many Goblins here. We must create some noise to attract their attention to help Thorin and the others escape." After analyzing the situation, Gandalf raised his staff and knocked on a boulder beside him.
The boulder exploded into many small rocks, smashing down toward the Goblins below.
At the same time, Gandalf also cast a lighting spell, shining directly onto the bottom of the mine like a flashlight.
Compared to the Goblins in the deep forest who fear sunlight, the Goblins who have been hiding underground for years are more sensitive to light.
The falling boulders caught the Goblins' attention, and when they looked up, they were blinded by the wizard's lighting spell.
"Good opportunity... It's Gandalf... He came to save us..."
Taking advantage of the Goblins being controlled by the strong light, the Dwarves surrounded in the middle exchanged glances, then rushed to the ground to pick up their confiscated weapons, and then helped each other cut the ropes tied to their bodies.
This set of procedures was very smooth and tacit.
When the Goblins reacted, the Dwarves had already started to break out.
"Come over here—!" Above, Gandalf also pointed out the direction for the Dwarves.
The number of Goblins in the mine below was at least ten thousand. Escaping from them would be very difficult, and for the Dwarf team, it was an almost impossible task.
But there is always a way out; because of the mining, many wooden scaffolds were built on the stone walls in the Moria Mines.
This just gave the Dwarves a chance to escape.
The Dwarf team, organized into a battle formation, soon killed their way out and then fled upward along the wooden ladders.
On the other side, Gandalf also went down to meet the Dwarves.
For a while, it was really possible for them to succeed.
"Get them all, cut off their heads. I want to use their heads to exchange for a bounty from the Dark Lord..." The Goblin King on the high platform shouted greedily.
With the resurrection of the Dark Lord Sauron, he also began to link up with dark creatures all over Middle-earth. Although the Goblin race was not strong, they were also targets for the Dark Lord to win over.
"Help quickly, Mike—!"
Ants can kill elephants; as the Goblin King spoke, thousands of Goblins climbed onto the scaffolds.
They were already extremely familiar with the mines and soon used human-sea tactics to block the path of the wizard and the Dwarf team.
So much so that Gandalf had to ask for help from Mike above.
"Leave it to me!!!"
Having watched enough, Mike gave an OK gesture, then leaped down, summoning the Flame Holy Sword mid-air.
Then, a huge flame sword aura flew out, splitting the Goblin King on the high platform and the platform he was standing on into two.
Amidst flying debris and blood, the Goblin King didn't even have time to scream before his body fell evenly to both sides.
Subsequently, the high platform also collapsed with a bang in the flames.