The Lord of the Rings: Lords of Middle-earth.

Chapter 198 The Blood of Nobles!

"Oh! By the Goddess of Nature! I've never seen anything so crazy in my life! Are these refugees? Roland, are you kidding me?" Valve, who had led the grassland elf rangers to the city wall, had originally intended to help Roland, but this scene instantly robbed him of the courage to continue…

"God! What's wrong with your Kingdom of Lagrange lately? There's this chaotic dragon dance and this army of refugees that looks like orcs..." Verway stared helplessly at the spreading black tide.

"Stop joking, how many people are there?" Roland said anxiously, knowing that the elf's keen eyesight was still the most useful thing at this crucial moment.

"Six thousand as a minimum... seven thousand as a maximum!" Verway said, rubbing his forehead.

"My God..." Roland had already cursed that damned, morally bankrupt system a thousand times in his heart. If he weren't connected to the system, he would have sent it to meet his mistress.

“Your Highness…” Nyx appeared on the city wall, holding the elven dragon in her arms. The worry in her eyes was impossible to hide. Strangely enough, the proud elven dragon, the Smurf, actually allowed Nyx to hold her… Could it be that Nyx has the talent of a dragon mage? If so, that would be a huge windfall! Just how powerful is a mage who can cast dragon language spells anytime, anywhere? Only those who face her will know.

"Don't worry, just go back and stay in the castle..." Roland pointed to the castle, which was barely built to three stories. Although it wasn't a particularly grand or imposing building, its reassuring defensive capabilities were unparalleled.

"This is insane!" Verway was still stunned by the sight of the huge crowd.

"Hey! Elf King! The refugees are coming to kick your ass!" Roland waved his hand, waking the dazed Verway.

"I'm just here to help! I don't want to get involved in a war..." The more Verway looked at the situation, the more unreliable it seemed. It might just turn into a Lagrange derby soon! Not only the soldiers, but even Verway recognized the distinctive swift infantry of the Lagrange Empire.

"It's just a bankrupt version..." Verway muttered to himself after making a comparison.

"I didn't tell you to attack them!" Roland covered his face, unable to bear looking at himself, making himself look like a tyrant.

“What they need is help, and what they desperately need is clothing and food! I don’t think they want to eat spears and arrows.” Roland shrugged.

……

"Thump!" An arrow, its fletching still trembling, flew out and embedded itself straight into the ground in front of the refugees. The battle aura infused within it exploded with a deafening roar as it was released, the scattered dust and flying dirt clearly startling the refugees. "Halt! This is Swiftstream City, belonging to the Kingdom of Lagrang! The King is here! Attacking the city walls is treason! Do you want to rebel?!" Omske shouted powerfully, his foot slamming into the battlements. Coupled with the scattered light and shadow of his battle aura and the terrifying sixth-tier pressure, everyone was frozen in place in fear.

"You... are subjects of the Empire?" Wise Man Yunfeng asked, his voice trembling as he looked at the dusty, ragged, and emaciated refugees.

"The Empire? The Empire is long gone! We are just children without a home! We just want to live, loyalty to the king is none of our business!" A man with a weathered face, a messy beard and long hair, wearing worn-out plate armor, stepped out of the ranks. Judging from his voice, he seemed to be quite young.

"I am Roland, the current King of Lagrange! I have inherited the mantle of the Empire, and I vow to lead my people back to glory and rebuild the Empire! I understand... you have suffered greatly these past years, and your years of wandering have been incredibly difficult... Now that you have returned to your homeland, I hope you can give me a chance to make amends, and please give yourselves a chance too! Come back! Lagrange needs you! Homecoming wanderers!" Roland spoke passionately to the dense crowd below the city.

“Liar! That’s what the nobles said back then! They hoped we could stay and fight to the end! But so many of us died… and we still couldn’t protect anything! We don’t need your compensation, we just want you to give us some supplies… We want to go to Gondor!” It was the young man with long, bright golden hair who stepped forward again. He was silent for a moment, then shouted excitedly towards the city wall.

"Then! What about those so-called nobles who deceived you? They all died on the battlefield, didn't they? Not a single great lord retreated! They and the warriors of the Empire irrigated the entire Northland with their blood! You are a nobleman too, aren't you! Raise your head! Do you dare look at this fluttering dragon banner? Do you remember what a noble's coat of arms looks like? Do you remember the glory of being a nobleman? Look down at your armor! If it wasn't taken from a dead man, you should understand the meaning of the coat of arms on your chest! It is the glory of a nobleman!" Roland angrily rebuked, noticing that the young man's plate armor actually bore a noble's coat of arms! If it wasn't taken from a dead man, then his ancestor was at least a duke!
Although the plate armor was somewhat old, it showed no signs of wear and tear despite the erosion of time. The noble emblem on the chest had long lost its vibrant colors, but wasn't that faded emblem also a testament to the accumulation of cultural heritage?
"A loitering lion?" Caslo's pupils contracted instantly, and then he turned sharply to look at Omsk, only to find that Omsk was also looking up at him in shock.

"It's that family! You recognized them?" Caslo's voice trembled with excitement.

“How could this family possibly have descendants… They should have perished with the city of Lagrange!” Omsk gasped in horror.

“Alas… You have trampled the glory of the Lion King’s House under your feet and utterly destroyed it…” Roland said in a deep voice, looking at the lonely figure.

Roland immediately recognized the emblem. Back in the game, who didn't know him? The Lion King... the Lion Duke of the Lagrange Empire, the peerless figure who led the 1000-strong Golden Lion Knights in the defense of Lagrange City against a million-strong orc army... That emblem, along with the Lagrange Dragon Banner, suppressed an era... Although he didn't know what kind of memories the system was instilling in them in this world, the meaning represented by this roaming lion would never change.

"You understand nothing! You have no right to demand that we sacrifice for this country again! The Lion Kings have already bled dry for this country! This land! My ancestor is the only one left alive in the entire duchy! Everyone else in the family is dead!" The young man roared angrily, like an enraged lion.

"The Emperor is dead! I am the only one left with the bloodline of all the great lords of Lagrange! The imperial bloodline has been severed! Who knew! Who knew that not a single member of the royal family survived? Who knew that the last Royal Knights, protecting the last royal bloodline, died in battle? Lagrange no longer has a royal family! If even the royal family has perished in battle! Then what do you have to complain about... What about those fallen dukes and kings? Now, only two people in the world still have royal blood flowing through their veins!" Roland roared maniacally, his eyes bloodshot with rage!

This is why Roland flew the banner of the Kingdom of Lagrange instead of the imperial banner, because there are no more royal families in the world with imperial blood flowing through their veins. The system just told Roland that his bloodline comes from the royal family of the Kingdom of Lovanian, and there are no royal families in the entire Middle-earth!