Dany became a mass of fire, merging into the natural winds between heaven and earth. The four great dragons in the sky delivered sight and sound from every direction, and she moved like a nimble little loach through the air, slipping past to take the lives of dragonriders and wyverns.
At the beginning, she was still using swordsmanship, still flying, every strike and every movement precise and intentional, aiming to cut down dragonriders and pierce wyvern weak points.
But as she continued killing, she gradually entered a state of mystical clarity.
It was like Wang Xizhi writing The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion in Kuaiji's Shanyin. Like Li Bai drunkenly tapping his chopsticks as he sang Bring in the Wine. Like Bodhidharma facing the wall on the last night of his nine-year meditation.
Dany's fire divinity, wind divinity, and sword divinity rose together. Slashing with her sword and flickering through the air were no longer conscious skills in her mind, but had become a Way—completely infused into her instincts.
Others only thought her movements were becoming simpler and her sword strikes sharper, but swordmasters like Barristan clearly sensed the Dragon Queen's transformation.
Because their own realms were insufficient, they could only feel that she had changed, becoming far more formidable, without understanding the reason or precisely what had transformed.
Suddenly, Dany stopped and summoned Big Black, because the eight wyverns remaining in the sky had been scared witless and began to flee in all directions.
Her fire-ladder sorcery allowed her to hover, and her wind-song carried her through the air, but she could only travel at the speed of a street car, thirty to forty kilometers per hour, far slower than wyverns.
When she dropped onto Big Black's back, exhaustion surged over her like a tide. Dany groaned involuntarily. Her bones ached, her limbs felt weak, her organs throbbed with a thousand tiny needles, and her head felt like a wooden chopping block, almost unable to think.
For the first time, she had fallen into magical depletion.
"Flying is glorious for a moment, but—"
"Boom!"
Just as Dany was lamenting and pushing Big Black to scorch another wyvern, a thunderous crack like the earth breaking apart erupted from beneath her.
"Arrnn—!" A soul-rending beast's howl resounded through the land, and scalding air roared skyward. Big Black's massive form wobbled mid-wingbeat.
"Boom!" A pillar of fire surged upward along with the shockwave.
The scene looked as if Big Black had flown low over the ground when a subterranean volcano suddenly erupted, shooting a molten column from the planet's heart.
Flames surged skyward. Black smoke rolled.
The sulfurous stench and blazing heat swept toward Big Black.
Awkwardly, only heat and burnt stench reached him.
Even though he was only flying two hundred meters high, it was still far beyond the attack's reach.
Dany did not need to look down. The three other giant dragons acting as her radar transmitted ground information from multiple angles.
It was a massive worm-like creature covered in fine red-black scales, fifty meters long and as thick as a city bus. It had no wings or legs (in fact it had legs, but they had degraded until almost invisible). It had no nose, eyes, or ears—only a snarling maw full of fangs.
The mouth opened, revealing an oral cavity packed with teeth like a forest of swords—dense, overlapping, countless rows.
The dragon-worm had finally revealed itself to the world.
Well, Dany had already encountered dragon-worms before. When she explored Oros with Old Barristan, they had crossed paths with Jeiny, who vomited out countless larval dragon-worms.
This was not her first sighting.
But today's dragon-worms were exceptionally gigantic.
Its shape resembled that of an earthworm, yet its size rivaled a true dragon, and its hide was not slick but remarkably dry, radiating heat strong enough to scorch the soil, and covered in scales similar to those of wyverns and dragons.
Compared to dragons, though, the dragon-worm's scales were finer and thinner.
"Hsssss—grr—!" Like a razor clam splashed with saltwater at the seashore, half its body thrust straight from the ground. It bared its maw of savage teeth and unleashed a furious roar toward the dragons.
Even with Dany's sorcery reinforcing him, Big Black's dragonfire only possessed a killing radius of thirty to forty meters. Standing on tip-toe and spitting "spit," the dragon-worm could only attack airborne creatures forty to fifty meters high.
It could not reach Big Black at all.
Dany smiled coldly and immediately sent orders over the Faith-Link to Barristan and Galazza Galare. The next moment, "Hoo—hoo—!"
Outside the camp, a bright and piercing horn sounded among the horse-folk. Under Barristan's command, tens of thousands of horsemen began an orderly and rapid retreat.
"Boom—arrn—!"
"Boom—arrn—!"
In addition to the dragon-worm at the coalition's entry point, four more forty-meter-long dragon-worms burst from the middle of the horse-folk formation in mere seconds.
Black smoke. Red flames. Smoke wrapped in fire. Horsemen melted like wax candles, screaming as they dissolved.
While spewing flames, the dragon-worms also rolled their bodies like grinding stones, crushing horses and riders into smears of bloody paste.
Blue intestines, red blood, and white splintered bones mixed with black earth.
Some dragon-worms went mad with bloodlust, plowing into the dense cavalry like bulldozers. They opened their mouths, teeth acting like steel sieves, gouging deep trenches through the soil, dragging dirt, galloping steeds, and mounted riders into their gullets.
It was like the gods had drawn a painting of ten thousand galloping steeds across the prairie, only for a dragon-worm to act like an eraser, wiping blank streaks across the canvas of grassland and glory.
The grinding-maw chewed greedily, horsemen and horses screaming inside for only an instant before vanishing, leaving behind only dark red sludge mixed with blood, oozing from between its teeth.
The scene looked like Godzilla battling cavemen.
The horsemen might be primitive, but the Horse Emperor certainly was not.
"Skraaa—!"
"Skragh—!"
"Skraghhhhh—!"
The dragon-worms had barely rampaged for long when a thick cloud of wyverns rose from Meereen like a dark storm.
"Ah, we have completely lost air superiority. Slaver's Bay just activated full bombardment mode!" the dwarf cried.
Jeiny's face turned slate-blue.
Indeed, without their own wyverns providing harassment, the enemy could calmly conduct their "bombing drill."
More than forty wyverns inside Meereen all took to the air, with the rookie dragon riders appearing together.
The wyverns formed ranks in the sky like a dark cloud, sweeping toward the dragon worms.
When they reached the airspace above the dragon worms, the wyverns slowed down and switched their flight pattern to circling.
"Buzz." No one knew what the riders on the dragon saddles did, but suddenly the sky echoed with the sound of a rubber band snapping.
Immediately after, the bottom boards of the wooden crates hanging from the wyverns' claws fell away. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
It began to rain from the sky.
One after another, long spears flashing with cold light slid out of the crates. Packed as densely as rainfall, they fell faster and faster under the pull of gravity.
"Oh no!" The dwarf tightened his grip on the spyglass, forcing himself not to cry out.
The scorpion ballista, forged entirely of steel, fired bolts that weighed only five jin each, with an effective attack height of 300 meters and a maximum of no more than 400 meters.
Wyverns flew at an altitude of 500 meters, and the spears in the crates weighed ten jin each.
Between dragon-shooting ballistae and wyvern javelins, which had greater killing power?
A scorpion ballista required at least two minutes to reload once. A typical ballista formation had about fifty machines. In other words, within two minutes, only fifty bolts could be fired.
A wyvern's minimum carrying capacity started at three hundred jin, while marsh dragons exceeded a ton. The Black Dread that Dany gifted to King Aegon had an extreme carrying capacity close to three tons.One ton of payload was equivalent to two hundred wyvern javelins.
With more than forty wyverns and a total drop of over ten tons, nearly three thousand refined steel spears were released. Was that not a rainstorm?
"No!" Jenny's eyes split with fury as she opened her mouth. A soul-shaking sonic wave surged outward like a tsunami. The wyverns in the sky wobbled and stiffened all over.
"Hahaha!" The Dragon Queen's laughter shook the heavens. The souls of the wyverns and their riders were cleansed, and they immediately regained their mobility.
Well, soul attacks like true dragon roars had no effect on Dany's side or on the allied forces. Dany and Jenny came from the same lineage of techniques. If you could attack, I could defend.
"Hey, are you crazy? You've exposed your position!" the dwarf shouted anxiously, stamping his feet.
In just an instant, Little White and Little Green turned around and flew straight toward the seaside cliff where Jenny and the other two were standing.
"Run!" War God Kaiyuan grabbed Jenny and dragged her down toward the dangerous crevices in the rocks below.
The dwarf hurriedly followed. At the very last moment before leaving the cliff top, he turned his head to look westward.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Thud, thud, thud.
"Hiss." The dwarf sucked in a sharp breath. The dragon worm's scales looked like gorgeous silk, pretty but useless. Every spear that landed on them sank all the way in.
Two-meter-long steel spears were completely driven into the dragon worm's body?
"Aooooo—!"
The dragon worm's round body was like a tire filled with tomato juice, then stabbed several times with an ice pick. Smoking red liquid sprayed more than ten meters into the air.
The blood was like magma. When it fell onto the grass, it ignited the withered stalks. When it splashed onto the faces of the horsemen, it burned straight through their bones.
"King of the Khals! King of the Khals! Daenerys, King of the Khals!"
Suddenly, the cheers of the horsemen resounded across heaven and earth.
Tens of thousands of horsemen shouted together, shaking the skies and the land. The sound waves scattered the clouds above and washed away the fear the dragon worms had pressed into their hearts.
The horsemen had suffered heavy losses, being eaten by dragon worms, burned alive, and crushed into something like iron-plate barbecue.
They were also accidentally struck by steel spears falling from the sky, like Xiao Qiang in Old Corpse in the Deserted Village.
Actually, it was even worse than Xiao Qiang. The kinetic energy of the spears was too great. If one pierced the back, it left either a basin-sized hole or simply split the body in two. If it struck the top of the head, it produced a booming explosion, even worse than having a grenade in one's mouth.
But all five flame demons that had burst out of the ground were completely dead.
Wyvern javelins were just that powerful. One wave wiped out five dragon worms.
Scorpion ballistae shot at dragons from below, with kinetic energy decreasing as the bolt rose. Wyvern javelins fell from above, accelerating faster and faster under gravity.
Combined with the fact that the spears were far heavier than ballista bolts, the kinetic energy of the wyvern javelins increased by dozens of times.
Not to mention "soft-bodied" dragon worms, even thin-skinned armored vehicles would not withstand it.
"All allied soldiers, listen up. All dragon worms have been killed. You have no hope of turning the tide. Drop your weapons and surrender immediately."
The big black high-powered loudspeaker came online again. The Dragon Queen rode her dragon in circles above the allied camp, flaunting her might and basking in triumph.
"The allied army is defeated! The allied army is defeated! Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen!" Tens of thousands of horsemen at the northern end of the camp and the Mother of Dragons' guard in Meereen, ten kilometers to the south, erupted together in thunderous cheers, beating drums, blowing horns, and shouting at the top of their lungs.
Across the entire battlefield, stretching for dozens of kilometers, it seemed that only the cries of "The allied army is defeated, long live the Queen" echoed endlessly.
Boom, boom, boom, boom. Suddenly, there were four more consecutive earth-shaking crashes.
Roar.
Four tremors, four bottomless pits, and four dragon worms raised their heads and roared toward the sky.
Jenny refused to accept defeat and pressed on relentlessly.
(End of chapter)
Want to read the chapters in Advance? Join my Patreon
https://patreon.com/Glimmer09