"That's wildfire. Is the Dragon Queen using wildfire to burn down the ballista formations?" Lord Barlow's face twisted with disbelief.
In an instant, another thought struck him: if the Dragon Queen could locate every raven's nest in the city—even the ones he, the city lord, didn't know about—then it was no surprise she had found every scorpion ballista emplacement as well.
"Yes, it's wildfire. A greeting from Her Majesty," answered a young girl's voice.
The next moment—
Shhk!
A blade pierced flesh.
A chilling cold spread from his back, draining all strength from Lord Barlow's body.
He struggled to turn his head. Through his blurry vision, he could just make out a masked figure, no taller than his waist.
Where did the Dragon Queen find such a dwarf? Such terrifying assassination skills... Infiltrating the city lord's own castle without alerting a single guard. Could this be the legendary Wildfire General?
That was Lord Barlow's final thought.
…Or perhaps not. The poison on the dagger had scrambled his mind. That was clearly a girl's voice—how could it be the Wildfire General?
Or maybe... the Wildfire General had become such a notorious figure that the mere sight of a dwarf triggered the association?
The pale blue dagger slid back into its sheath. The little assassin knocked over a candelabrum. Once the flames spread and the guards outside started shouting in alarm, she vanished into the shadows with a flicker of movement.
Not only did the southern, northern, and western city garrison commanders fail to return safely to their camps—
Danerys wasn't the only assassin who had infiltrated the city.
In the days of Slaver's Bay, every Good Master, Great Master, and Wise Master had a penchant for keeping gladiators.
While these warriors were useless in traditional battlefield tactics, each was an unmatched one-on-one fighter. With a bit of training, they could easily become top-tier spies or assassins.
After the liberation, they were indeed recruited into the Dragon Queen's assassin corps.
The city lord and garrison commanders were not the only targets. The shapeshifter's cat knew the location of every military officer.
Guided by the cat, the assassins might as well have had access to a full tactical map. Each one of them operated like Agent 007.
Fifty anti-dragon ballistae formed a single unit, with thirty such emplacements spread throughout the corners of Tolos.
It wasn't feasible to cover the entire two-kilometer city radius. But with 2,000 standard crossbows in support, key locations such as the barracks, granaries, armories, city hall, city walls, and docks were all within defensive range.
Unfortunately, Little Bird already knew everything.
Though dragons couldn't dive directly into the ballista formations like they did with the raven nests, they could still rely on wildfire. Danerys knew every emplacement's location.
Tonight, the Dragon Queen had complete air superiority—and total information dominance.
After the airstrikes, flames engulfed Tolos. Citizens caught in the blaze screamed and fled in terror. The city guards, now leaderless, ran around in chaos.
Under the heavy, leaden sky, crimson dragonflame and eerie green wildfire cast a hellish glow over the city.
"Hssss-KRAAWW—Surrender and you'll be spared!" roared Balerion after another round of bombing.
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
Countless bolts were fired blindly toward the sound, without any regard for distance.
In the darkness, the soldiers' fear spread like wildfire, yet their resolve to resist hadn't entirely vanished.
"You mortals court death," Danerys muttered coldly.
Tonight, she had resolved to kill—on a grand scale.
And she had the power to do it.
Over the past few days, three shapeshifters and their animal companions had moved about Tolos as if no one existed, helping Danerys map out the city's entire military layout.
She herself had been monitoring the city for over half a month. Even at night, she knew every corner of Tolos.
With the military maps in hand, she could strike with precision—while her enemies remained blind to the dragons in the dark skies.
For instance, at this moment, a dragon was gliding slowly 300 meters above the city, like a soul-harvesting phantom.
A melon-sized, dark green glass bottle slipped from the Queen's hand. Having accounted for wind and speed, the ten-jin bottle of wildfire dropped directly into a ballista emplacement.
BOOM!
Green flames shot up seven or eight meters high, covering a radius of twenty to thirty meters.
Wherever the wildfire landed, nothing could escape its burn. Wooden ballistae were instantly engulfed. Bowstrings snapped. Dozens of ballista operators were swallowed by the green flames, their screams bloodcurdling. Writhing and rolling, they melted into pulp, then bone—no, not even bones remained.
Tonight, the Dragon Queen had taken on the persona of a mad bomber, reminiscent of Deidara's clay-duck assault on the Hidden Sand Village.
She had strapped a giant wicker basket to Balerion's back. It was padded with straw, then layered with crushed ice, and neatly stacked with wildfire bombs.
Whenever she neared a ballista or scorpion emplacement, she would silently slow her dragon's flight and drop a bottle with stealth and precision.
Aerial bombing was a highly technical skill. To ensure the wildfire bombs landed accurately during flight, Danerys had trained for over half a month—scouting by night and practicing bomb drops by day.
Even if one or two attempts missed, it didn't matter. She could always circle back and drop another.
If one bomb didn't work, two would.
And if that failed, there were cluster bombs—each carrying ten one-jin wildfire bottles strung together. Something would hit.
These days, wildfire bombs could withstand up to 50 degrees Celsius without exploding from jostling.
Still, they couldn't be left under direct sunlight for too long.
On the Dragon Queen's suggestion, the clear glass bottles were replaced with darker ones—deep brown and dark green—resembling pesticide bottles from her previous life, offering some protection against sunlight.
And the Wildfire General wasn't just drawing a salary for nothing. Though he didn't understand the science behind combustion and oxygen, he had observed firsthand that wildfire was more stable when deprived of air.
However, preparing wildfire bombs without air was an arduous and dangerous task.
The bomb had to be filled to the brim, then slowly sealed with a cork.
The poor soul doing this job would likely be drenched in sweat, breathing heavily. If their exhaled breath touched the overflowing wildfire—
BOOOM!
To address this problem, Tyrion had devised a new method for filling the bombs: a mixture of wildfire and olive oil.
Wildfire, being denser than olive oil and immiscible with it, would settle at the bottom, while the oil floated on top.
There was no worry about olive oil spilling over the table, nor about the stopper and bottle mouth grinding violently—no problem even if tightly sealed.
Based on this principle, Tyrion, drawing inspiration from the fire mage's "fire-repellent ointment," designed a special insulation layer that was heat-resistant, heat-absorbing, and oxygen-blocking.
To commend the wildfire general, the Dragon Queen even named it "Tyrion Oil."
Yes, you guessed it—it was invented by Tyrion himself.
That guy had a strong will to survive. To stay alive, he pushed himself to his limits and had been frantically studying potionology. Fire-repellent ointments, scar-removal creams, wildfire, white phosphorus—he had mastered them all.
First, add four-fifths wildfire, then one-twentieth Tyrion Oil, and finally three-twentieths olive oil. Seal tightly with a willow stopper and wax-seal it well.
After being stored in a cellar for some time, even with rice-grain-sized bubbles in the bottle, the wildfire remained frighteningly stable.
The oxygen in the bubbles was chemically transformed by the Tyrion Oil—according to the Dragon Queen.
Thus, wildfire bombs now had the potential for large-scale use on the battlefield.
"Boom—boom!"
"Hahaha! Explosions are art!"
The Dragon Queen began to understand Deidara's joy. Standing on Big Black's back, she held a wildfire bomb in her left hand and a cluster of grape bombs in her right.
Watching clusters of wicked green fire mushrooms below, her cheeks flushed green with excitement.
The city gate tower, the ballista formations, the main camp outside the west gate, and the sentry post guarding the grain depot north of the gate—all were bombed.
One after another, green mushroom flames rose on the dark ground as mercenaries and guards screamed and turned to ash in the blaze.
"Torlos is finished. Wildfire plus dragons—almost unstoppable."
Out on the sea beyond the port, the Wildfire General stood on the bridge, observing the battle through a telescope.
This was a fast ship used to transport wildfire. The hold was filled waist-deep with seawater, in which green and brown wildfire bottles were neatly stacked.
Even with such strict safety measures, the ship still floated alone on the surface, a full kilometer away from the nearest vessel.
"So far, the Queen has returned to resupply wildfire bombs six times—more than a thousand pounds. General, we have very little wildfire left in the hold. The consumption rate is far too high," fire mage Pogba said with a frown.
"No problem. Our men have already landed at the docks," Tyrion replied casually.
"Kill, kill, kill!"
"Long live the Dragon Queen! Glory to Her Majesty Daenerys!"
"Dragons are invincible!"
Cries from the Unsullied echoed from the docks.
Excluding the 5,000 Unsullied brought to Meereen by Grey Worm, the remaining 3,000 had all arrived.
They were joined by 10,000 members of the "Wings of Freedom" and 5,000 sailors.
Clearing the Raven's Nest was step one. Eliminating the twelve ballista formations from the docks to the south gate was step two.
Then, the three dragons split up. Dany rode Big Black, cosplaying Deidara, setting the city ablaze with wildfire. Little White and Little Green took on the role of attack aircraft, freely spewing dragonfire across the dock area.
With no more dragon ballistae or giant crossbows on the enemy's side, Little White and Little Green were now clad in chest armor—hardened, carburized fine steel scales covering their necks to their chests. Ordinary arrows couldn't even scratch their vital areas.
Outside the docks, over a thousand warships were packed together like a dense forest. Little White and Little Green carved a blazing path through that forest, creating a fiery highway for the Dragon Queen's transport ships.
Over a hundred large ships and three hundred fast boats followed.
The fleets led by Big Crab and Gars sealed off the outer perimeter of the port, while the transport ships were escorted by Little White and Little Green.
Any enemy warship that attempted to attack the transports was instantly reduced to a blazing torch on the water by the descending dragons.
"Long live the Dragon Queen! Long live the Dragon Queen!"
As 18,000 soldiers successfully landed and the dock fell under control, the tens of thousands of "House Targaryen's Army" participating in the battle cheered in unison.
"Surrender and you'll be spared!"
Once the southern city gate was reduced to rubble by wildfire, the Unsullied began to enter the city. Big Black called for surrender again.
This time, it worked much better. The leaderless soldiers of Torlos offered only minor resistance—no match for the disciplined Unsullied—and soon laid down their weapons.
The western camp's 20,000 coalition troops were composed of various mercenary groups. They refused to surrender but also didn't resist to the end. True to their mercenary nature, they began to scatter and flee.
Meanwhile, the Pike Regiment to the north of the city had just arrived today on orders from the coalition's command in Torlos.
Exhausted and lacking strength or supplies to escape, they didn't flee. Instead, they held the grain depot and arsenal, requesting to negotiate with the Dragon Queen.
Their commander, "Cobbler" Gillo Reha, happened to be visiting the city lord's mansion tonight. After the banquet, he was too hungover to return to the Pike Regiment camp in the north.
"Dragon Queen, I know everyone praises the Targaryens as being true to their word. If you release my father and several vice-commanders, and swear not to pursue us, the Pike Regiment will leave Torlos tonight."
Just as Dany was preparing to lead Little White, Big Black, and 500 light cavalry from the Wings of Freedom to chase down the fleeing mercenaries in the western part of the city, Pike Regiment's vice-captain, Jack Reha, rode alone into the city to negotiate.
(End of Chapter)
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