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

Chapter 562 The Hammer of Grond

"Defend!" Renault fired a rocket, the bright flame instantly guiding all the shooters' attack direction.

"Release the arrows!" The soldiers in the arrow tower immediately followed Renault's firing position and began to unleash a rain of arrows. Some archers activated their skills, and the sharp arrows, driven by battle aura, pierced through several people before stopping. Some arrows even split into a burst of arrows.

In an instant, the orcs' attack formation was shattered. The orc vanguard, though suffering heavy casualties, did not stop for a moment. They lowered their heads and surged forward towards Lulong Fortress.

"Shoot them!" Renault said to the archers waiting behind him. The archers who were freed up on the other three sides of the city wall stood on the walls and poured out their firepower indiscriminately under the cover of the breastworks and battlements.

"Boom!" A huge rock shattered above their heads and quickly slid down the protective shield into the sky above the fortress.

"Fear not! Soldiers, hold your posts! The king is calling!" Renault roused the troops with great enthusiasm, after all, judging from the current situation, the orcs might very well be pushed off the city walls on the very first day.

In fact, it was even more exaggerated than Renault had imagined. In just a few hours, the orcs filled in one side of the moat, and then they built ladders of all sizes up there.

Under the relentless barrage of arrows from Lulong Fortress, only a small number of siege ladders managed to reach the edge of the wall. The majority were blocked halfway. An area of ​​about one kilometer along the south wall of Lulong Fortress had become a bloody mess, the ground turning a deep purple. A large number of orcs had died here; according to Renault's estimate, there were at least eight thousand, if not ten thousand. However, Renault had clearly underestimated the Ringwraiths' determination. This force consisted of at least fifty thousand orcs of various kinds. Those who had been there earlier were merely wandering cannon fodder; the real twenty thousand elite Mordor orcs were still waiting to be deployed. Their mission was to serve as a fresh force to break through the exhausted defenders' lines in one fell swoop!

Meanwhile, Renault and his team were still suffering terribly from being harassed by cannon fodder.

"Go! Boil water! Boil water! Stop those orcs from climbing the city walls!" Renault raised an eyebrow.

"Swish swish swish!" The first ladder that was extended was immediately met with concentrated fire from the furious Battanian archers on the city wall. A group of orc warriors clinging to it were shot into pincushions. Among them were arrows of battle aura, which pierced through the bodies of several orcs before sinking into the ground and slowly dissipating.

"Those bastards are coming up!" a Dovenian heavy swordsman boomed, his eyes beneath his barrel helmet gleaming with determination and hatred.

"Ha!" He drew his sword and slashed down! A sword-like blade of battle energy came crashing down, splitting the ladder in two.

"Crap!" From the split, collapsing ladders, a group of orcs were howling and screaming as they attempted a no-rope bungee jump. (That was a 50-meter-high city wall!)
"Bang!" With a series of pleasant sounds, the wailing screams instantly subsided and gradually disappeared. Those unfortunate souls had merged with the many corpses below, joining the fertilizer family... (Sounds good, right? If it sounds good, it's a good start! One fall and they're all silent.)
"Tsk tsk tsk!" The garrison, feigning compassion like crocodile tears, clicked their tongues twice before continuing to slaughter the next wave of victims.

"Thud!" Several Swift Infantrymen guarded a crenellation, and unlike the 3-meter-long standard rifles of other Lagrange soldiers, these guys were carrying 5-meter-long chevaux-de-frise, which was practically an overkill operation in this kind of place!
A city guard used a battle shield large enough to cover several people to protect the few Swift Infantrymen, while these Swift Infantrymen, holding their chevaux-de-frise upside down, vigorously swept through the siege ladders in front of them. Orcs on the ladders fell down with cries of agony from time to time. This was just a microcosm of the entire defensive line. A large number of orcs began to charge into the fortress's defenses. The lack of manpower made the outer wall's defenses begin to crumble.

"General! We need reinforcements!"

"There are too many orcs! The Swift Footmen are already starting to get wounded!"

"General, we can't hold on much longer!" As the orcs swarmed in, the disadvantage of being outnumbered became glaringly obvious, and the leaky defenses left everyone utterly bewildered...

"General Renault! I think we should consider our escape route!" Lafitte Anthony pulled Renault back from the bloody battle.

“We can hold out for a while longer!” Renault looked at Lafitte Anthony with a determined gaze. The towering city walls did give them the capital to hold out. Although the orcs were numerous, they could not surge onto the city walls in a large-scale manner to cause a qualitative change. They only kept the defenders busy and had no time to rest.

“I suggest you take a look at this! The outer walls are doomed to fall…” Lafitte Anthony gasped for breath and pointed outside to Renault.

"..." Renault glanced over subconsciously, but no one said a word.

A massive war machine was slowly approaching Lulong Fortress in the distance. The moment Renault saw it, his heart sank.

"Grond's Hammer?" Luke Leopold and Merck Leopold exchanged a glance.

"Damn it! Tell the soldiers to be alert! Open the central city passage! Seal off the other passages! I don't want the orcs to get to other places through the south city!" Renault frowned, but now he could only choose to seal off the outer city passages to prevent the orcs from entering the fortress through them. After all, if the orcs really came to the other hidden caves in the outer city besides the four main passages, Renault would laugh himself to death.

Soon, following Renault's order, the drawbridges leading to the inner city from the other three city walls were raised, isolating the entire outer city. Apart from the only giant drawbridge behind them, they could only enter the inner city through the various city gates below. However, the various defensive arrays on the city gates were not something they could break through.

"Order the Meteor Dragon Tower to fire the War Hammer at me!" Renault frowned, still wanting to struggle a bit, to see if he could get the "Hell Wolf Head" to a pulp through the Meteor Dragon Tower.

"Whoosh!" The magic armor-piercing arrow, trailing a streak of light, hurtled straight toward Grund's Hammer, only to be blocked by a black and red lava shield that suddenly appeared on it just before it got close.

"Boom!" With a loud explosion, the Hell Wolf Head continued to advance, but the unprotected orcs around it suffered heavy casualties.

"Whoosh!" The second attack from the Meteor Dragon Tower arrived.

……

As it turns out, the artifacts left by the gods are indeed different. Morgoth's legacy is quite impressive. Even when attacked by the Meteorite Tower, it remained completely unaffected. Seeing that the Meteorite Tower's attack was ineffective, Reno quickly stopped this wasteful behavior.

(End of this chapter)