From the Chosen Ones' perspective, the Doom Volcano of this world is way more majestic and massive than what you see in the movies.
Just talking about height—looking up from the base, a regular person would think it’d take three days and nights to reach the top. The pitch-black mountain pierces the sky, the highest peak of the Doom Range. Otherwise, Gondor wouldn’t be able to see its eruptions so clearly. And if it wasn’t so huge, Jill Young, Shao Jingzhe, and the Great Winged Demon wouldn’t still be brawling halfway up after all this time.
Now, about the size—the crater of the Doom Volcano blows away anyone’s imagination. If a normal volcano’s crater is like a pond, Doom’s is like Lake Tai or Poyang Lake. Stand at the edge and you might feel it’s endless. When the lava erupts, the shockwaves make all the nearby mountains shake.
The volcano’s roots run deep in Middle-earth—no exaggeration. If Yellowstone is Earth’s only supervolcano, then Doom Volcano is Middle-earth’s answer. That oppressive, evil, gigantic vibe is fused with Sauron’s own aura, making everyone feel suffocated.
The first wave of eruption hit like a zillion bombs going off at once—no living thing could survive that. Now the eruption phase is over, and it’s just bubbling away, but the hellish energy and heat still keep normal life far, far away.
The Balrog is a born flame creature—magma doesn’t hurt it, it just gets more lively. So when it plunged into the lava lake, it was basically over the moon.
Let’s rewind a bit and break it down. Just moments ago, Jill Young landed a punch right in the Balrog’s chest. The force was super focused, didn’t spread out, so it didn’t cancel out the Balrog’s forward momentum at all.
After that punch, the Balrog felt all its strength drain away, and just shot out of the cave on pure inertia, arcing straight toward the massive lava lake below. Dizzy and dazed, the Balrog was totally out of it—but seeing the lava, it still thought, ‘No matter what, as long as I land in magma, I’m saved!’
Splash! The Balrog crashed hard into the boiling lava. Like a dragon returning to the sea, a tiger heading for the forest—the Balrog back in its volcano, same idea.
But of course, nothing’s ever that simple.
Splash! The Balrog immediately popped out of the crimson lava. Yep, all its wounds were totally healed, not a mark left on its chest. Yep, its body was brimming with power again—it could easily crush a man’s skull with a fist. Yep, hellish energy from the void was pouring in at breakneck speed, flooding every limb and bone.
But, but—
“Wh-what the heck is going on?! What happened?!” Even the Balrog’s voice sounded freaked out. It raised its huge claw, frantically feeling its chest—it knew something was off in there. Panicking, it craned its neck to look down and see what was up.
And it saw.
Beneath the skin, under thick muscle and sturdy bone, right where its heart should be, a super ominous red light was glowing. The light was so bright you could see it through flesh and bone—a basketball-sized orb. And now, that orb was like a black hole, sucking in endless hellish energy.
Hell energy from all directions was raging in, flooding its body and then pouring into that glowing sphere. The orb was like a glutton starved for centuries, finally getting a feast—crazy excited. Or like a newborn black hole, the more energy it got, the stronger its pull, sucking up hell energy in visible waves.
Rumble, rumble—thunder rolled. Looking up, way up at the volcano’s mouth, the black volcanic clouds were getting chaotic. The hell clouds that should’ve been spreading everywhere were now being yanked downward by a massive force, curling back on themselves.
“Whoa, it’s working even better than I thought!” That familiar, annoying voice came from nearby. The stunned Balrog jerked its head up—Jill Young was already about twenty meters away. She’d kicked off her shoes and was standing barefoot on the lava lake, totally unfazed by the raging magma.
“No way!” The Balrog’s eyes nearly popped out: “You—you—you’re just a human, how can you survive here?!”
“Why not?” Jill Young cheerfully kicked at the lava, like some girl splashing in the waves. “Back when I hadn’t mastered my body-protecting technique, I forged my golden body in an eight-hundred-degree furnace. Then I invented the eggshell, leveled it up to stage nine, and my fire resistance shot through the roof. After all that deep-sea training, I had to get somewhere, right? With the help of undersea volcanoes, I’ve pushed my eggshell to stage ten. This heat might roast someone else, but for me—” Jill clicked her tongue and shook her head. “It’s really nothing special.”
“Impossible, no way! Weren’t you just panicking and dodging my fire whip—” Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in the Balrog’s head. It stared, dumbfounded: “You were... acting? Faking it? The whole thing was a setup! You—you lured me here on purpose?!”
“Yep, I totally tricked you here.” Now that Jill Young had the upper hand, she didn’t mind chatting to kill time—and to needle this raging bull a bit, venting about all the chaos from earlier. “You’re strong, sure, but not as strong as that winged dude. But you’re no pushover, either—dragging you here by force would be a pain. And if that winged guy saw trouble and rushed over, things would get messy. So, I had to quietly lure you here, then knock you out with one punch. Now, you’re just my incubator.”
This chapter isn’t done yet~.~ Click next to keep reading the good stuff!
“Inc-incubator? What incubator!”
“You don’t know what an incubator is? It’s just a box for hatching eggs.” Jill Young went all in, hands measuring dimensions: “I saw a simple one at a farm once, about this high, this wide, this long—could hatch three hundred eggs at a time! Three hundred! Way better than you! But I hear there are bigger ones, just more expensive, so regular farmers usually...”
“I don’t give a damn about your stupid incubator!” The Balrog was losing it, eyes blazing red, stomping the lava and charging: “I just want to know what you did to me—!”
The Balrog’s attack was wild and desperate, but all over the place. Jill Young just tapped her foot and dodged easily: “I didn’t do much. First: smashed your heart to bits. Then: stuffed my little fire tide in there.”
She didn’t dodge far, deliberately staying just within reach as the Balrog’s platinum claws kept missing her by a hair. She even had time to explain: “Normally, fire tide can’t fuse with living beings, but you’re just a zombie with a borrowed body! Now, you absorb energy, refine it, send it to your chest to upgrade my little buddy—voila, the perfect incubator!”
Jill raised a hand and grabbed the Balrog’s wrist. With a twist and a yank, she spun the Balrog around and slammed it into the lava. Boom! The Balrog sank deep into the molten lake. As Mordor’s acting commander and an ancient Balrog, its connection to the Doom Volcano was second only to Sauron—it was the best at drawing hell energy in the whole army.
Lava energy surged into its body, while Jill Young’s gaze seemed to pierce the flames, seeing everything: “Work hard, comrade! As an ancient Balrog, your qualifications are top-notch—I’m rooting for you!”
“Aaaah—!” Splash, the Balrog shot out of the lava like a torpedo, raging and wild, arms slamming down. Thud! Its brute force sent lava blasting skyward: “No matter what you say, I’m still immortal here! I can still kill you!”
Jill Young danced away on the ripples, like a lotus leaf drifting on water. Scalding lava rained down, splashing into the lake. Jill basked in the molten rain, watching the tired Balrog and snarked: “Immortal? I met another guy who thought being local and soaking up energy made him unbeatable. Wanna guess what happened? The grass on his grave is taller than you.”
“You—you’re lying!” The Balrog panted, terror rising in its heart.
Sure, it was flooded with energy from all directions, feeling stuffed to the point of bursting, but also weirdly weak. Normally, even without hell energy, a hit like that wouldn’t be much. But now, after one blow, it felt hollow, needing a breather to recover.
Switching between bursting and drained, it was sweating bullets—if it could even sweat.
“Yeah, I was lying—because he didn’t even get a grave, so no grass, right? But you’re really something, thinking your leaky body counts as immortal. And now, is immortality even a good thing for you?” Jill Young sneered. “Only your so-called immortality can handle sucking up all these annoying clouds!”
“No...no!” The Balrog finally got it. Gritting its teeth, it drove its claws into its own chest, trying to dig out whatever was inside. But its body was so tough, the claws couldn’t pierce it. It kept clawing, flesh flying, but hell energy kept healing it instantly.
Rumble, rumble—the energy friction made thunder roll overhead. Hell energy was being dragged up from the lava’s depths, making the boiling magma slowly solidify. The Doom Volcano, Sauron’s symbol of power, was cooling with every energy draw.
“Nooooo—!!” The Balrog lost it, charging Jill Young: “Whatever happens, I’ll kill you first—!!”
“Hmph! You were a king, but got greedy for the Ring’s power and ended up Sauron’s puppet—pathetic. As a puppet, you couldn’t even do your master’s job—pathetic. Came back from the dead, but couldn’t handle the power—pathetic. You thought you were immortal, but now you can’t live or die—pathetic! You’re pathetic all the way down! And you think you can kill me? Dream on!”
Now Jill Young just needed to dodge. Once the fire tide leveled up again, she could crush the Doom Volcano’s power without the Balrog’s help. But she spun, power surging, golden light flashing in her eyes: “But since you were a mighty warrior, I’ll let you die with dignity!”