Chapter 1 The, !

At this moment, whoever it was, whether it was Fang Senyan or Hachimga, a thought obviously surfaced in their minds:

"That guy should have been washed away by the rapids, right?"

But at that instant, the ground suddenly exploded!

A volcanic-like, frenzied explosion!!

Although it was only confined to a few dozen square meters of rocky ground, it truly felt as if flames and lava were erupting together, wanting to break through the sky!

Then, a gray-black figure shot out from within.

This figure looked to be only about one-tenth the size of Hachimga, with huge goat horns, a pointed mouth, triangular eyes, and its entire body seemed to be covered in a layer of charred black rock shell. The surface of the shell had dense cracks, deep cracks, and from the gaps in the middle, crimson and deep flames would occasionally spurt out.

This was the true form of the Fugitive—the Balrog Black Ash!

After being covered by the water, it had directly dissolved the rock under its feet and drilled down. What was even more powerful was that this guy could actually disguise the traces of his burrowing flawlessly! It had been patient until now, and obviously, it wasn't going to jump out at this time to say goodbye to Hachimga!

Although the whole thing looked like Hachimga the mother octopus had been in a passive victim state, when we put ourselves in the shoes of our Fugitive—the Balrog Black Ash—we would find that it was actually equally helpless, at a loss, and even innocent.

In fact, for this Balrog, who bore the label of "cowardice" and shamefully escaped before the great war of the entire Balrog clan, it actually just wanted to stay quietly in the depths of the abyss, enjoying the darkness and tranquility, the heat and lava. Hunting some small bugs that broke into the abyss cracks was a seasoning for its boring life.

But Hachimga's eggs needed enough temperature to hatch—this was the Misty Mountains, where the average altitude reached 3,417 meters—not the southern seas full of sunshine, coconut trees, beaches, and bikinis (stop, getting off topic).

So, naturally, Hachimga wanted to breed the next generation and had to find a place with geothermal heat to hatch them. Unfortunately, the place it found happened to be the Balrog's lair, and the geothermal heat it painstakingly sought was actually the Balrog's body temperature—imagine how it would feel if you were at home, comfortable and not too hot or cold, and suddenly someone fanned cold wind and splashed ice water into your house. Even if this Balrog had a good temper, it definitely couldn't tolerate this kind of behavior!

What was even more infuriating was that Hachimga's spawning cycle was very erratic, possibly once every few years, possibly once every few weeks... Therefore, while Hachimga hated the Balrog, how could the Balrog not hate this idiot who disturbed its peaceful life for no reason? After all, it was an ancient demon. After careful consideration, this time it didn't hesitate to extinguish the flames on the surface of its body, in an attempt to solve this problem once and for all!

A flash of fire streaked past, and Fang Senyan felt as if his eyes had been stabbed, burning with pain! After the Balrog erupted from the ground like a demon god, it soared into the air, curled up its tail, aimed it at the front, and shot out its tail vertebra at an indescribable speed, targeting the bulge between Hachimga's eyes, which was the octopus's vitals.

But Hachimga, this legendary creature, was after all an existence of the same level as it. While being severely injured, two main tentacles simultaneously lashed out with water and ice chips, blasting the Balrog more than twenty meters away. A long charred mark was scraped on the ground, and obvious peeling appeared on the black shell of its abdomen, revealing a huge crack. The blood-red flames that spewed out roared, reaching tens of feet high!!

A Pyrrhic victory!!

The words surged in Fang Senyan's mind amidst the miserable screams of both sides, but instead of having the protagonist's awareness and rushing forward with a bang, he quietly crawled backwards for a few meters, and then shamefully tiptoed and strode away towards the passage above.

——What a joke, ordinary octopuses have three hearts, and each tentacle has developed nerve ganglia that can be called a second brain, and the Balrog is known as a lava monster whose soul can move. Trying to pick up the cheap of these two legendary creatures is really asking to die too quickly.

"How is it?" Fang Senyan crawled to the middle of the cave passage and said softly to Muggle and Reef, who were watching above.

Reef shrugged his shoulders:

"I remembered the Great Flood in the Bible. Those poor guys are like garbage that has been soaked in the Thames for four or five days."

Then he gave up the best observation position. Fang Senyan poked his head out and saw that the narrow valley below was indeed a vast ocean. The brownish-yellow flood that had been stirred up by Hachimga still had lingering power. The roaring and turbulent current was like an unwilling yellow angry dragon, unwillingly impacting the boulders on both sides.

Some orc and uruk-hai corpses with broken intestines and stomachs could be seen floating up and down in the flood, rushing downstream at high speed. However, contrary to this, those tentacle monsters that seemed extremely clumsy on land were incredibly agile in the water, quickly moving upstream, performing amazing stunts.

"What do we do now?" Reef flicked an inquiring look at Fang Senyan. Fang Senyan shook his head and said, "We can only wait and see."

Muggle suddenly interjected:

"If the flood below subsides a little, we can try to take advantage of the muddy water to escape along the original route. I can now cast the Underwater Breathing Divine Art."

Fang Senyan's eyes lit up, but he immediately shook his head slightly and said:

"Such a large-scale action,

It's impossible for Saruman's clone to be absent to preside over it. The fact that almost all the orcs entering the valley to search is proof. They are just being used as cannon fodder in the vanguard. This flood was created by Hachimga, it comes and goes quickly. If we go back, then we will inevitably run into the orc main battle force led by Saruman's clone..."

"However, the Underwater Breathing Divine Art..."

Fang Senyan muttered these words, his eyes already revealing a thoughtful look, but his mouth said:

"Opportunities always come to those who are prepared. Let's continue to wait here. I hope the effect of the blessing of the Dawn Elves integrating into nature is good enough."

"Oh, right." Fang Senyan was silent for a moment, then stood up, walked to Muggle, and said very seriously: "I think, if it weren't for me and him, you should already have a way to escape danger, right?"

Muggle bit her lower lip, but did not speak, unwilling to look into Fang Senyan's eyes. Finally, she nodded slightly.

Fang Senyan let out a long sigh of relief and said:

"Very good. I can finally put down what I've been worried about."

Then, Fang Senyan reached out and raised Muggle's chin, looked into her eyes, and said seriously:

"Listen to me, beautiful and noble Dawn Elf, neither he nor I are people from Middle-earth. In fact, when we encounter death, our gods will protect us, completely drive away the god of death, and save us back to their plane. So, if there is any danger, you must live on, don't worry about us...don't let me watch you die in vain!"

Muggle said in astonishment:

"Are there other continents outside of Middle-earth?"

Fang Senyan smiled slightly:

"Think about your Elven sanctuary, the Blessed Kingdom of Aman, is it in Middle-earth? Since there is Aman outside of Middle-earth, why can't there be our continent?"

Muggle finally believed Fang Senyan's words with some skepticism. Just as they were talking, the flood below also came and went quickly, and the water势 had become very calm. And those seemingly clumsy tentacle monsters had quickly moved upstream, following the source of the water all the way to the belly of the mountain. The Balrog had already dissolved into the rock, escaped and fled into the depths of the earth, using the scorching lava to heal its wounds. Only the giant octopus Hachimga was still half-lying in the underground lake, panting.

Although the previous torrent was turbulent, most of its force was released towards the front, and most of the eggs were laid in the mountain belly space near the rock wall, so there were still many surviving eggs. As a female beast, a mother who has just laid eggs will, in any case, have a glimmer of hope in her heart, hoping that there will be surviving children among the remaining eggs, so she will continue to stay here for a while until she is completely disillusioned.

At this time, the vanguard force sent by Saruman, a huge tentacle monster, had moved upstream along the flood to this huge mountain belly. When it saw Hachimga, it immediately froze, and the circle of eyeballs on its head kept flashing, as if the hard drive light on a computer was running at high speed. Obviously, it should directly contact Saruman and report the strange situation here to him.

Then, three more giant tentacle monsters rushed into the mountain belly. The four of them supported their bodies with tentacles, stood in a row, and then the eyes on their heads began to slowly turn red, as if they were charging.

At this time, in the canyon outside, a group of extremely brave and sturdy uruk-hai were carrying a huge bone palanquin and running at an indescribable speed, and sitting above the bone palanquin was Saruman's clone! And around the bone palanquin, there was a large number of uruk-hai and fully armed orcs who had come out in full force!

Obviously, after hearing about Hachimga's weak state at this time, Saruman's clone finally couldn't restrain his ambition and excitement, and directly mobilized all his power to capture and kill this giant octopus, and the minimum goal was to severely damage this legendary creature and sweep away all the Hachimga eggs in this valley!