The screen flared with Middle-earth's final stand—elves and humans locked in a desperate clash against Sauron's orc horde, a slope beneath Mount Doom awash in the chaos of war for a world's fate.
Hundreds of thousands collided—blades clashed with ringing steel, arrows punched through armor, blood sprayed, limbs fell—a visceral storm that painted the battlefield crimson and raw.
This was war, unfiltered and vast, a scale Teyvat's soil had never borne, its centuries of peace since the Demon God strife a stark contrast to this river of death and shattered hope.
Liyue's folk, cradled by stability since those ancient feuds, could scarcely fathom such carnage—tens of thousands slain, hundreds of thousands warring, a toll that dwarfed their quiet history.
The alliance pressed hard, their courage pinning the orcs back, victory glinting on the horizon—until Sauron strode forth, a towering shadow cloaked in dread, his Supreme Ring a force no army could defy.
Each swing of his war hammer hurled dozens skyward, broken or lifeless, a one-man tempest that carved a void through the ranks, his power an anvil against their fleeting valor.
No blade reached him, no charge held—Sauron alone was a legion, his path a wasteland of crumpled bodies, the Demon King's might a tide that drowned their fleeting triumph.
King Isildur fell beneath his wrath, the alliance's dawn snuffed out in a heartbeat, the tide flipping to Sauron's favor as despair clawed at the free peoples' resolve.
Yet hubris shadowed his strength—Isildur's son seized a shattered sword, slicing Sauron's finger in a desperate arc, the Supreme Ring tumbling free, its master's form bursting into ash with his horde.
A heavy helm crashed down, dust billowing, and Sauron—bane of Middle-earth's liberty—vanished, the Ring landing in the young prince's grasp, a chance to end its evil teetering in his hands.
He could've cast it into Mount Doom's lava, purging its malice forever, but human greed bent him—the Ring's lure sank deep, and he claimed it, a choice that sealed a darker path.
Ambushed by orc stragglers, he donned it to flee, its invisibility a shield as he leapt into a river—yet the Ring, willful and sly, slipped free, leaving him to die pierced by arrows.
It sank to the riverbed, lost to time—history faded to legend, legend to myth—two thousand five hundred years passing in silence, its whereabouts a whisper on the wind.
Fate stirred at last, the Ring snaring a new host—Gollum, a wretched soul who clutched it as "my darling," retreating to the Misty Mountains' depths, its power gnawing his mind.
In a cave's gloom, a shaft of light pierced from above, illuminating his skeletal frame as he gazed at the Ring, love and madness warring in his hollow eyes, a bond spanning five centuries.
The Ring, sensing fresh tides, abandoned him too, its gold glinting as it rolled into the grasp of Bilbo Baggins—a hobbit of the Shire, an unwitting heir to its ancient curse.
The screen panned over Middle-earth's map, settling on a book-strewn room, the title fading in—The Fellowship of the Ring—as music swelled, easing the cafe's watchers from the prologue's grip.
Breaths loosened, the opening's grandeur sinking in—not just wondrous, but transcendent, a narrative heft Teyvat's tales couldn't touch, its form leagues beyond their operas or tomes.
Plays and classics paled beside this—no Liyue chronicle matched its sweep, no bard's song its vividness, the movie a medium that felt alien yet impossibly alive in their stunned minds.
Then a thought struck, sharp and seismic—films might mimic theater, but this bore no seams, no stilted artifice; every frame pulsed real, as if captured live by some arcane craft.
Liam, the outsider who'd roamed worlds, was the key—his wares screamed truth, and Zhongli, eldest of the Seven, felt it deepest, his vast lore confirming the shiver down his spine.
He knew Teyvat's secrets—Sky Island, the Descenders, other realms—and this? This was no fiction but a window, a record of Middle-earth's past snatched from its own gods' sight.
Liam's power to pluck such history, unseen by its makers, chilled Zhongli—six millennia honed his measure of men, yet this cafe-keeper loomed unfathomable, a riddle wrapped in calm.
The shock settled, curiosity reignited—they leaned back in, eager for Middle-earth's next chapter, the Ring's journey a thread Zhongli hadn't craved to chase in ages untold.
Ningguang's fingers tapped, her Tianquan mind spinning—power's cost, betrayal's sting, a ring's will—echoes of her own chessboard, magnified to a scale that stirred her strategist's soul.
Hu Tao peeked from her Mario run, the plumber's cheer dim beside this epic—she'd rib Zhongli later, but now she watched, caught by a tale too real to dismiss as mere play.
Tartaglia and Keqing, mid-Digging, faltered—their hammers slowed, Middle-earth's weight tugging their focus, though the Honor List's pull snapped them back, grit overriding wonder.
Liam grinned from the counter, his system feasting—shock, awe, Zhongli's rare hunger spun a torrent richer than any game's grind, a vein of emotion he'd mine till it ran dry.
This wasn't a film—it was proof, a shard of another world's truth, and The Fellowship of the Ring had hooked Teyvat's boldest, its unanswered end a lure to drag them deeper still.
***
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