For decades, Middle-earth has never been at peace.

The claws of the orcs have always plagued the inhabitants of Middle-earth, and the weakness of the human race has made the behavior of the orcs even worse.

The Pale Orc King Azog was ambitious, and once again provoked war with its ferocity and brutality.

After decades, the weapons of the orcs are aimed at Middle-earth.

Now, the orc army is marching north, leveling towns and villages, burning, killing and looting.

They are beasts, and ferocity and brutality are synonymous with them.

The fighting began in Moria, spreading towards the Northlands.

…

…

Dark clouds were overhead, and heavy rain was falling.

In the Irub Palace, the originally dull palace has also become golden and brilliant under the rendering of gold and silver mountains.

"Hmm......

Is it over? ”

The pale golden vertical pupils opened, and the eyeballs moved, and what caught my eye was a silver-gray leather.

The body rolled hard, and the gold coins slid down like quicksand, making a crisp clanging sound between frictions.

As the gold and silver jewels slid down, a hundred-meter-long silver-gray silkworm chrysalis lay across the stone pillars of the palace.

Inside the epithelium, Zhang Chen moved his body forward, and the dark oval head had already rushed out of the epiderma, meandering forward, and the epithelia faded little by little, finally revealing a black, thick and long body.

The body hovered up, Zhang Chen spat out the snake letter, and the smell of Smaug remained in the air.

There was no smell other than the smell of smaug and gold and silver jewelry.

"There was quite a commotion with Smaug, and it seems that no one had come to Irub to find out the news during my molting.

Also, the name of the evil dragon is like thunder, and in addition to the barefoot dwarf, a few people dare to come. ”

After that, Zhang Chen began to check his physical condition.

All the mana consumed during the battle with Smaug has been restored, and the mana is much stronger than before. The diameter of the body that had stopped growing had also thickened, and the length must have increased, but he didn't know exactly how much it had increased.

Needless to say, strength, speed, and scale defense, the thermal sensing coverage has also been expanded.

"Huh......"

When the spiritual power covered his whole body, Zhang Chen's expression was stunned, and he found that something appeared on his back and abdomen that was not there before.

"Quick......

Fast Dragon? ”

The dark oval head came from far and near, looking at a pair of wings about half a meter on his back, if it wasn't for the whole body examination, it would be really difficult to find it with his current size.

The wings are not Smaug's fleshy wings, but are heavily wrapped in black scales, giving the impression of heavy metal wings.

Although he was wrapped in scales, Zhang Chen could wave his arms like an arm, and as soon as his mind moved, the metal wings flapped, and the breeze howled, looking cute.

The wings are only half a meter, which doesn't match his size at all, a bit like the fast dragon in Pokémon.

No, it's weirder than a fast dragon.

"I have wings......"

The pale golden vertical pupils stared at the wings on his back, and Zhang Chen couldn't hold back the joy and excitement in his heart.

However, with wings stretched out for a total of only one meter, no matter how much he flapped, his body showed no signs of flying.

"This ......

It's embarrassing. ”

Staring at his wings, Zhang Chen's eyes were soft, just like looking at his own child: "Well, it is estimated that you need nutrition, and you will be able to fly when you grow up."

Below are the paws? ”

Retracting his gaze from his wings, Zhang Chen turned over on the golden mountain, and there were indeed two pairs of small claws in the abdomen, but the small claws were embedded in the abdomen and did not protrude, and there was no difference at all.

In fact, Zhang Chen was not too shocked by the growth of limbs, but was just surprised, because snakes originally had limbs, but they were just degenerated.

At the beginning, when he was on the island of Nablar, he asked Henry Wu about his limbs.

In this regard, Henry Wu also carefully explained this problem to him.

According to records, the first snake without legs was the Patagonian dinosaur, which appeared about 85 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs dominated the world.

Archaeologists have found fossils of dinosaurs in the red sandstone of the Patagonian plateau, about the height of an adult, with near-intact skeletons showing no legs.

However, other contemporaneous snakes had limbs and lived mostly in the ocean.

Scientists have long found footed snakes among fossils from marine sediments near Jerusalem.

Hastelloy is one of them.

The snake retains almost intact hind limbs, consisting of the femur, tibia, and foot bones, but the function of these hind limbs is unknown.

Overall, these fossils suggest that snake evolution was in full swing during the Late Cretaceous period. The long, curved body and extremely reduced limb morphology were largely established during this period.

Researchers have found that the loss of limbs in snakes is linked to a key gene. The researchers incorporated a piece of snake gene into the genes of a mouse, and the result was a mouse with normal body shape but short limbs.

The snake genes contained in the snake-like mice in the experiment contained a DNA segment called the ZRS regulatory gene.

ZRS is very important for hindlimb formation in mice, and a single mutation in this gene can cause physical abnormalities. This gene is particularly important in reptiles, where it has generally remained unchanged over the course of evolution, but in snakes it has been highly mutated.

In some of the more primitive snakes, such as pythons, they still retain a ZRS gene sequence, so the hind limbs of these snakes still retain traces of hind limbs.

The more evolved snakes had no hind limb bones at all.

Recalling the situation that Henry Wu explained to him at the beginning, Zhang Chen couldn't help but fall into deep thought: "In other words, the ZRS gene in my body has completely recovered?"

Or is it that Zhuyu is learning from each other's strengths?

The former is more likely, after all, Smaug only has two legs, but I have four. ”

After thinking about it for a long time, he felt that there were two possibilities.

After all, snakes don't have wings, at least under normal circumstances, but they do have wings.

This also means that Jewel borrowed Smaug's energy to completely compensate for his own shortcomings.

"Anyway, it's good to have wings and legs, and although they don't come in handy now, there will always be a time to grow."

Not being able to fly has always been his shortcoming, but now that he has wings, the shortcoming problem has been solved.

This trip to Iruber was more rewarding than he had imagined.

Originally, Zhang Chen just came to test Smaug's strength, but suddenly found that Smaug was not as terrifying as he imagined.

No wonder humans can kill Smaug with a single arrow.

As the saying goes, legends can't be trusted.

The humans of Middle-earth did not exaggerate the description of Smaug, but exaggerated its strength.

It's not very weak, it's just that Zhang Chen is a little stronger.

So, it was Smaug who died, not him.

…

…

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