Reinforcements Arrive

The last line of defense at the main port of the Iron Islands had already become a true hell on earth.

This was Baron Werner's tactic: place everyone in a dead end with their backs to the sea, and wring the last remnants of fighting spirit from the defenders to the greatest possible extent. But that kind of rousing came in the cruelest, bloodiest form.

The defensive line had long since lost its original shape. The fortifications built from sandbags and cargo crates had been smashed into disarray, gaps everywhere.

The battle no longer had any clear front line. It had devolved into a bloody melee around every remaining piece of cover, every pile of obstacles.

Sauron soldiers surged up wave after wave like the tide, while the defenders fought to the death with their bodies, with wooden planks, with anything they could find.

The elite Sauron soldiers were indeed formidable in combat. They moved in groups of three, covering one another, their blade work vicious and their efficiency terrifyingly high. But the Iron Islands' defenders, along with those refugees driven into a dead end, erupted with an even more terrifying madness born of despair!

When men fell, women picked up blades and kept hacking! Old people threw their bodies around Sauron soldiers' legs, creating chances for the young men behind them to stab! There were even half-grown children who rushed out of the ruins clutching lit oil jars, perishing together with the enemy!

This was not a battle. This was suicidal attrition, using lives to plug the flow of time! The struggle for every inch of ground came with casualties several times greater than the enemy's.

Blood dyed every plank of the dock district red, gathering into streams that gurgled into the pitch-black sea. Corpses piled layer upon layer,