Chapter 339 Lonely Mountain
Bard's ancestor failed to protect the property of the people, and eventually the people no longer believed in him and no longer recognized him as the lord. This is also the reason why Bard was just a fisherman after the establishment of Changhu Town.

After Richard finished engraving the runes for Black Arrow, he left Changhu Town and flew directly to Lonely Mountain. Lonely Mountain was only a few dozen miles away from Changhu Town. At the foot of Lonely Mountain was a ruin where the once glorious River Valley Town was located.

The evil dragon Smaug used his dragon breath to spray the town, turning it into ruins. Even now, traces of the dragon's breath remain on the ruins. In the center of the town ruins is a straight black line, which is the dragon's breath that Smaug spewed out.

The scorching dragon's breath burned the earth into magma, which then cooled down to form its current shape.

Richard arrived at the Lonely Mountain, and the main entrance to the mountain was blocked by a huge rock. The dwarves' idea was to enter the mountain through the secret passage behind the mountain, steal the Arkenstone, use the Arkenstone to exchange for troops from other dwarven kingdoms, and then kill Smaug together.

But this idea is naive. Not to mention whether the dwarf army can kill Smaug, they can't take the Arkenstone alone. You know, dragons have an unimaginable talent for calculating and recording wealth, and they will remember every gold coin they have.

What's more, it is a precious gem like the Arkenstone. Thorin and his men's plan will only anger Smaug. This is why the elves are not optimistic about Gandalf and Thorin's plan.

According to the original timeline, after Smaug got angry, they had no way to deal with him. If Bard hadn't been lucky enough to shoot Smaug's chest with a black arrow, he would have killed him instantly. The entire Lake Town, including the dwarves who came to support him, would have been burned to death.

Richard arrived at the gate of Lonely Mountain, which was blocked by huge rocks. Richard stretched out his hand and pressed lightly on the wall. A faint light instantly sank into the rock.

——【Fossils turn into mud! 】

The rock that was originally as hard as steel softened into mud, and Richard easily opened a passage through the rock to enter the interior of the lonely mountain. Then he casually released another spiritual light.

——【Turn mud into stone! 】

The passage turned into solid rock again at this moment.

The space inside the Lonely Mountain is not as cramped as imagined. On the contrary, it is very tall and vast, supported by various huge stone pillars, and full of the tall and rugged aesthetic of the dwarves.

Richard disappeared into the darkness, and then began to enter the hall. Soon he found some gold coins on the ground. One side of the coin was engraved with the head of the dwarf king, and the other side was the shape of the Lonely Mountain. The workmanship was very delicate.

After walking through the front hall and around the tall corridor, the next second, he almost saw countless gold piled up in the entire hall. Even though he was mentally prepared, Richard was still shocked by the gold in front of him.

In the hall that is dozens of meters high, countless amounts of gold are piled up. The originally spacious hall now seems to be crowded with gold.

All the gold excavated by the Dwarf Kingdom over hundreds of years is piled up here. In the center of this hall, stands a huge golden statue of the Dwarf King, dozens of meters high.

Richard estimated that such a giant golden statue weighed at least a thousand tons, and it was very likely even more. The gold in the hall was more than enough to cast a few more golden statues like this.

With so much gold, it's no wonder Smaug set his eyes on this place.

Even Richard, the great arcanist, had a moment when his heart was moved by the gold in front of him.

This amount of gold was enough for him to use the limited wish spell to find the elemental giants and make a wish to increase their attributes by dozens of points.

The wishing technique requires soul crystals, gold, magic gems or other high-value items. Gold is usually the most used. The amount of gold consumed by the arcane masters of the Supreme Arcane Council over the past few thousand years is incalculable.

Otherwise, based on the capabilities and productivity levels of the Supreme Arcane Council, the gold produced in so many dimensions would have caused inflation long ago.

Gold has always been a commonly used item in alchemy. In many cases, some alchemical materials can be replaced by gold or magic gems.

Richard calculated that there were at least 100,000 tons of gold here. These dwarves are really good at digging. How big is a ton of gold? A cube with a side length of 37 centimeters is a ton of gold.

A standard hand-pulled suitcase can hold two tons of gold. How big is the hall in front of you? The length and width are more than 200 meters, and the height is also 100 meters. The gold occupies almost all the ground, and the thickness of the gold is more than 10 meters.

It has to be said that the gold reserves here in Gushan are astonishing.

Sitting on the golden mountain, a giant dragon with a body tens of meters long and covered with hard scales and bone spurs is sleeping on the gold. In addition to gold, there are many colorful gems on this golden mountain.

There was no need to guess, Richard knew it was the evil dragon Smaug. Its body size of nearly 100 meters made it look very huge, and its huge and ferocious claws left no doubt about its destructive power.

In the Golden Mountain, a large number of magic gems were randomly placed, and the most eye-catching one was the Arken Gem. This gem was as big as a fist, and the gem was extremely pure and beautiful, which was no wonder it drove the dwarves crazy.

In addition to this gem, in this mountain of gold and gems, Richard also saw an exquisitely crafted gem necklace with a white gem inlaid on it. It was the gem necklace that Thranduil had commissioned the dwarves to make.

Smaug buried half of his body in the Golden Mountain and was sleeping soundly. Richard's arrival did not alert him at all. At this time, it was easy for him to kill the dragon.

[Species: Dragon; Name: Smaug;
力量：41，敏捷：10；体质：32；智力：18；感知：25；魅力：24；

Abilities: Dragon Wings, Dragon Scale Armor, Fire Breath, Flying, Tearing, Dragon Might, Dragon Tail Sweep, etc.

Weakness: There is a scale missing on the chest.

Challenge level: Level 18

Smaug is very powerful, and his size is comparable to that of an ancient red dragon. In addition to not having magic, his melee ability is very strong. Of course, his combat power is not as good as that of an ancient red dragon, after all, he has no magic ability.

Richard did not take action, bypassing the Golden Hall, and entered the Lonely Mountain. There was not only gold in the Lonely Mountain. Entering the warehouse below, Richard saw a large number of iron ingots, copper ingots, silver ingots and other metals.

These were the metals mined by the dwarves. In addition to these metals, Richard successfully found mithril in the warehouse. Mithril is a metal that is rare in the multiverse.

However, the output in Middle-earth is relatively high, probably because Middle-earth was born not long ago.

Richard saw that there were several tons of mithril ingots here. Without any hesitation, Richard put all the mithril into his private space.

Such a large amount of mithril made him rich overnight. As far as he knew, the amount of mithril in the entire treasury of the Supreme Arcane Council was not even half of that here.

I have to say, Gushan is really rich.

Richard put away the mithril, then collected the white gem necklace and cast the spell again to create a fake white gem necklace. After completing all this, Richard left Lonely Mountain quietly.

Next, he was ready to watch a big show.

Just after Richard left the Woodland Kingdom, the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain team had successfully arrived at the Goblin Town. After a fierce battle, they were dispersed by a large number of goblins. In the crisis, Bilbo fell into the lower level of the Goblin Cave, where he saw Gollum and the One Ring in his hand.

Bilbo took the ring quietly while Gollum was not paying attention, and finally escaped from the goblin's nest successfully, and then the group set out on their journey again. Next, the Lonely Mountain Expedition Team arrived at the Black Forest smoothly.

The forest was shrouded in darkness. Thorin wanted to cross the Black Forest to reach the Lonely Mountain and escape from the pursuit of the orc army behind him.

"It's too dangerous here." said another dwarf.

"We don't have that much time. The orcs won't give us a chance to take a detour!" Thorin said in a deep voice, "Don't waste time. Let's hurry through the forest."

With that, Thorin led the team across the river and headed into the woods.

The dry trees were in strange shapes, and the branches were covered with spider webs. The dark forest was filled with fog, so everyone had to walk through it carefully. Soon, everyone in the expedition team was in a drowsy state.

Hiss!

There was a buzzing sound, and the next second, a huge spider fell from the sky, grabbed a dwarf and tried to drag him away. The remaining dwarves were instantly awakened, and were also frightened by the ferocious spider, and immediately waved their weapons and started to attack.

It was only then that they realized that they were surrounded by a large number of spiders.

Countless and densely packed giant spiders crawled over here, the number was enough to make people with trypophobia feel their scalps tingling.

"Run!" With the order, the dwarves no longer cared about anything else. At Thorin's order, many dwarves immediately attacked the spiders and rushed forward.

Bombur, who was the largest, the most fleshy, and the slowest, became the first target of the spiders. He shouted and madly attacked the spiders' heads with a hammer, smashing the spiders into pieces one by one.

But the spiders were not afraid, they continued to chase me madly, and many of them even used their silk to block me. If I wasn't careful, I would be entangled by the silk.

Fortunately, the others did not give up on him and helped him get rid of the spiders and continue running forward. A large number of spiders were chopped to death by the crowd, but there were still spiders jumping down from the trees to attack.

In panic, even Bilbo stabbed a spider to death with his dagger. Another spider wanted to bite him, but a slight flash of light appeared on his body, and the spider was killed directly by a force.

The group rushed forward frantically, and soon they were about to pass through the forest, and it seemed that the crisis was about to be overcome. Suddenly, the sound of a bowstring was heard in the jungle.

"Bang bang bang!"

Long arrows flew out from the branches, accurately nailing giant spiders to the ground. In just a blink of an eye, hundreds of spiders were shot to death by these arrows.

Following the bows and arrows came a group of elves wearing green robes and armor. These elves moved on the branches very flexibly, and not only that, they could also continuously shoot arrows.

The spiders that were chasing them were quickly killed and fled in a panic, but the elves did not stop. Instead, they pointed their weapons at the dwarves in front of them.

"Don't resist. The moment you start, we will shoot you into targets!"

"I would be happy to do that, dwarf!"

The young elf in the lead aimed his bow and arrow at Thorin. The elves in the Woodland Kingdom were not as good-tempered as the elves in Rivendell, not to mention that the white gem necklace that the dwarves had embezzled when they broke the contract last time belonged to the Woodland Kingdom.

It was very restrained of them not to shoot these dwarves immediately.

Knowing this, Thorin hesitated for a moment and did not act rashly.

"Confiscate their weapons and take them back to jail!" Legolas said directly.

"Don't touch my things!"

"We will go!"

The elves escorted the dwarves back to the woodland kingdom, but Bilbo successfully escaped the elves' capture through the invisibility of the One Ring, and then quietly followed everyone.

The elves took the dwarves to prison, and then Legolas personally escorted Thorin to the palace.

The gates closed, and Thorin was brought before the throne.

"Tell me, what do you dwarves want to do here?" King Thranduil looked at Thorin and said.

"We were just being chased by the Orc army and came here in panic!" Thorin did not want to tell the elves their purpose, let alone the elves of the Woodland Kingdom.

Until now, the dwarves believed that it was the elves of the Woodland Kingdom who did not keep their promise to help them when they saw Smaug attacking the Dwarf Kingdom.
It is believed that the Woodland Elf Kingdom bears an unshirkable responsibility for the fall of Lonely Mountain.

"Do you think I don't know that you want to go to Lonely Mountain?" Thranduil said expressionlessly.

"I won't let you pass!"

"Why! What does it have to do with you if we want to retake the Lonely Mountain?" Thorin said angrily.

"Because of the dragon!" said Thranduil.

"You have no ability to deal with that giant dragon, and you will only anger it!"

The Woodland Kingdom was too close to Lonely Mountain. Once the dragon was enraged, it would most likely be their Woodland Kingdom that would be the first to be attacked.

Since the end of the first and second eras, the number of elves has been decreasing. The current population of the elves is far less than that in ancient times. Any major war will cause a large reduction in the elf population, which will lead to the elves' withering.

As the king of the Elf Kingdom, he cannot let the Elf Kingdom decline.

Even now with Richard's help, Thranduil still did not want to provoke the dragon. You know, the elves' bows and arrows are simply no match for the dragon. If the elves want to kill Smaug, they will have to pay a huge price.

(End of this chapter)