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

Chapter 35: A Surprising Underwater Surveillance Agent Appears

"Your Highness..." A group of archers ran back, looking disheveled.

Their clamor successfully caught Roland's attention. Curious, Roland peeked out from the blacksmith's shop and was instantly stunned by the Battanian archers before him. Some of the archers, who had originally been wearing fine chainmail, had tattered armor, some had scraped arms, and others were soaking wet, looking like drowned rats.

"What happened?" Roland narrowed his eyes. Could they have been attacked by orcs?

"My lord, a gigantic octopus-like magical beast has appeared in the Swift River! It looks like it's at least a high-level magical beast!" An archer organized his thoughts and told Roland the whole story.

The archers had gone out fishing, and the swift-flowing river, even in winter, was still rich in resources. They had already hauled in over a dozen large baskets of fish. Just as they were working together to haul in the nets again, several thick tentacles suddenly emerged from the water, tearing the nets in no time. Then, a huge mouth with sharp teeth appeared and swallowed the fish in the nets. The archers reacted quickly and shot arrows at the octopus-like creature, but this only provoked its ferocity. The huge tentacles swung wildly, smashing the five galleons surrounding it and causing them to fall over. Fortunately, the Battanian archers were extremely agile, and they dodged the rampaging tentacles, but not all of them escaped falling into the water. With the help of the remaining five galleons, although no one was killed, many were injured. Faced with an octopus-like monster that ordinary arrows could not kill, the Battanian archers could only shoot and retreat. Finally, they had their boats beached and quickly escaped inland, thus stopping the monster's attack.

"What the hell? Are all sorts of animals daring to cause trouble?" Roland was furious. This winter, the city of Swiftflow, which was suffering from food and clothing shortages, was relying on the seafood from the Swiftflow River to survive. Even Roland could only eat black bread with grilled fish or black bread with fish soup. How could Roland and the others survive without these seafood?

"The entire Holy Knights will remain. Renault, you are responsible for protecting Swiftstream City. Lagrange City Guards and Battanian Archers, you come with me. Priestess Ivy and Lord Radil, I'll leave you with these tasks." Roland assigned the tasks. It was a pity that Caslo wasn't there, otherwise his wyverns would definitely be a great weapon.

"Let's go! Let's go and meet it." Roland gritted his teeth.

……

Looking at the now calming swift river, Roland turned to Radil: "Lord Radil, thank you for your help!"

“It is my duty, Your Highness.” Radil bowed deeply, and in the next moment, a vast amount of spiritual energy was released through the staff in his hand. Judging from the amplifying effect of this staff on Radil, it was no ordinary item. Under Radil's control, the spiritual energy continuously explored both sides of the river from Radil's center…

“Found it!” Radil suddenly opened his eyes.

"Mental Burst!" Radil unleashed a high-level mental spell. It wasn't a big problem for an earth-type war mage to use a high-priced mental spell, since spellcasters construct spells with mental power and magic power. The higher the level of the spellcaster, the more likely their mental power would be no less than their magic power.

"Thump!" A muffled sound came from underwater. With the sound, a huge white water ball rose to the surface and exploded. A monster with dozens of tentacles was swept to the surface by the current.

"Holy crap? A water watcher?" Roland stared at the familiar barbed tentacles and ugly appearance. Wasn't this the same kind of water watcher that appeared in Mirror Lake at the west gate of Moria? Roland was somewhat surprised, but then he realized it made sense. Mirror Lake was a closed lake connected to it by only one river. If an ancient creature like the water watcher could enter that confined space, why couldn't it enter this wide, fast-flowing river?

"Fire!" Roland commanded his soldiers to attack. Compared to the crude archery of the Holy Light Knights, the Lagrange City Guards' crossbows were far more accurate. They could not be said to hit every target, but they could definitely hit the target with a high probability. The Battanian archers' skills were even better, not to mention top-notch!

"As expected!" Roland stared intently at the Water Watcher, which was raging in the water due to pain. Although its thick skin was not as tough as dragon hide, Roland's remaining ordinary arrows were still unable to cause fatal damage to these low-level professionals. "Light Bullet!" Ivy condensed a ball of light and fired it at the Water Watcher. Unexpectedly, the Water Watcher reacted extremely violently, the light scorching its skin and making it feel like it was dying.

"It's a creature of the dark faction! It fears light, fire, and holy attacks!" Radil exclaimed at a glance. Because it was fighting in the water, this made the earth-elemental old man Radil very uncomfortable. Apart from using mental power to attack, he could only cast a few ranged spells such as falling rocks, which made the old man very angry. He had the strength of a war mage but couldn't use it at all. He was even less powerful than a third-tier priest! Old man Radil felt humiliated by the water-elemental magical beast.

"Holy Sword Judgment!" Roland raised the Dragon Slayer Sword high and plunged it into the earth. A huge golden six-pointed star appeared with the Dragon Slayer Sword at its center. At the same time, an identical six-pointed star condensed above the head of the underwater observer. The next second, a Dragon Slayer Sword constructed of divine power shot down from the six-pointed star array, pointing directly at the underwater observer below.

"Squeak~" The ear-piercing sound tormented everyone's eardrums. A wound a meter long and half a palm deep was left on the head of the monitor in the water, and dark blood kept flowing out of the wound.

"Thank you, Lord Radil!" Roland couldn't help but give the old man a thumbs up. Although the old man no longer had the powerful earth magic output, he still used his immense mental power to restrict the movement of the underwater watcher, preventing it from hiding underwater. It could only obediently take a hit from Grand Knight Roland's Holy Sword Judgment. Don't be fooled by Roland's incredibly powerful move just now; it actually had significant flaws. First, he couldn't use it while moving like Reno, and there was a few seconds of casting animation, which was extremely fatal on the battlefield. This showed that Roland usually relied too much on his soldiers and hadn't properly developed his own strength. He had the rank of Knight Commander, but in actual combat, he would even struggle to fight a senior knight. No wonder Caslo stopped Roland from rushing up Raven Ridge to fight Azog. In this world, Azog's strength was at least that of a 5th-tier professional, or even a 6th-tier Overlord, Hero, or Warrior. Even Thorin, that berserker, without the Seven Rings of the Dwarves' blessing, would probably only be dealt with by a few normal attacks. As for a comeback like in the movies... don't even dream about it.

"Holy Sword Judgment!" Roland, whose skills had just cooled down, used the Paladin's ultimate move again.

……

"He should be dead by now..." Roland sighed, supporting his waist, after unleashing the 47th Holy Sword Judgment.

"..." Ivy looked at Roland, who had exhausted his battle energy, and then at the underwater observer who was almost pierced by the Holy Sword Judgment... A few black lines appeared on her head.

"Your Highness, that's enough! That's enough! You've already beaten this guy to a pulp..." Seeing the pitiful state of the underwater monitor, Radil quickly stopped Roland, who was still struggling to unleash his skills. At first, Radil could still control the struggling underwater monitor, but now the underwater monitor was floating on the water like a dead fish, letting Roland attack it at will...

"Alright, let's continue fishing... Just scoop that thing up, dig out the magic crystals, and throw it aside." Roland glanced at the monitor's corpse in the water, and thinking of the jet-black blood, immediately stopped his idea of ​​taking it back to eat.

"What a pity about my galleons..." Roland lamented the loss of his five destroyed ships, which meant his daily catch would be much smaller...

“It seems we’ll have to pair the archers with city guards to fish from now on. We didn’t consider the monsters in the river before… This isn’t the Middle-earth Tolkien described!” Roland sighed. He had almost forgotten that there were a lot of monsters in this world.

"I'm going back to work on my blacksmith shop..." Roland was still thinking about the blacksmith shop, since his men's equipment really needed repairs.

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(End of this chapter)