Even with Robert's stern orders, Stannis still did not choose to cross the strait overnight.
Late at night, atop the newly built harbor tower of Harvest Hall, Stannis sat with Barristan and Seaworth around a fireplace burning red-hot.
Seaworth looked at the duke opposite him, who could barely conceal his exhaustion, and couldn't help suggesting, "My lord, you should go back and rest first."
Stannis was different from the two of them. This entire month, he had been stubbornly resisting the immense pressure from the king, repeatedly delaying the time to set out to battle.
Seaworth knew clearly that the duke's heart must be filled with struggle and entanglement. Perhaps his intense inner conflict had never ceased for a single moment.
"No. I must stay here."
"We haven't concealed our movements. The Tass family likes to seize the initiative. It's very possible they'll launch an attack on the first day we arrive at Harvest Hall, when our vigilance is at its lowest."
Stannis took a sip of the hot soup to refresh himself and explained,
"This is also our only chance to preserve our strength to the greatest extent while at the same time probing the enemy's hidden cards."
Barristan, who sat between the three, already understood Stannis's deployment from their earlier conversation. He immediately gained a new appreciation for the Dragonstone duke, who was said in legends to be harsh and unfeeling. The man's military talent was no less than his own.
Ten nautical miles from the port of Harvest Hall, a bright full moon hung in the black velvet night sky. The sea was calm, all was silent, reflecting a scene of tranquil beauty, as though time itself were at peace.
Along with an ethereal roar that seemed to pierce through from ancient wilderness into the present, a vortex nearly a thousand meters in diameter formed on the sea's surface.
At the center of the whirlpool, a gray giant whale over a hundred meters long emerged. Several times larger than a warship, it opened its upper and lower jaws, vast amounts of seawater pouring backward into a throat like a black hole.
"..."
As if Pandora's box had been opened, one gray giant whale after another surfaced. Their hollow, melodious roars echoed across the entire sea.
At the center of the whale pod, a small steel yacht resembled a bizarre creature spreading countless "tentacles," wrapping them around the dorsal fins of each giant whale.
Jialedun stood on the deck of the yacht. His gaze passed through the continuous curtain of rain, crossed over the three little ones causing a ruckus on the outer edge of the pod, and lifted to meet Canglong's deep blue eyes, which seemed to contain an endless galaxy.
Even from a hundred meters away, even with Jialedun's eyesight far superior to that of ordinary people, he still could not see Canglong's entire head.
It was as if he were facing a cliff whose ends could not be seen on either side, or standing at the bottom of a massive waterfall, his ears filled with the deafening roar of crashing water.
Canglong was the largest gray giant whale in the pod—the leader of the whales, Jialedun's first shapeshifter companion, an ancient creature that had lived for a thousand years and possessed intelligence surpassing that of an adult human.
Jialedun's True Nether Meditation had not yet fully reached the fifth layer, meaning he could shapeshift with four companions. In the second year after he began roaming back and forth across the Narrow Sea and the Shivering Sea, he found Canglong.
Canglong seemed to sense him. Its deep blue pupils contracted as its gaze focused on the yacht. Two pairs of eyes that seemed to transcend time and space met, and a strong sense of security welled up in Jialedun's heart.
Canglong was a sea beast active in the Shivering Sea. After being scoured by the long river of time, every gray-black scale on its body was smooth like a gemstone, tightly interlocked into the hardest and most magnificent armor in the world.
Its massive body, over a hundred meters long, could churn rivers and overturn seas with a single movement. When enraged, it could raise towering waves and stir the ocean itself.
What followed in Jialedun's heart, however, was endless regret—Canglong's species was special.
Even though Jialedun, after shapeshifting with it, had also constructed a profound inner world within Canglong's soul, Canglong still could not, like the three little ones, absorb magical energy and transform into a magical creature.
Canglong's clan numbered nearly fifty giant whales. Even a juvenile sea beast could drag a small warship.
Jialedun had once ordered the Tass fleet and the sea beast pod to conduct drills together. Only then did he have the confidence to use the whale pod to steal Stannis's warships.
After the sea beasts completed their final rest, they let the ocean currents carry them toward the nearshore waters of Harvest Hall.
He had coveted the Dragonstone fleet for a long time. This fat piece of meat was like something fresh out of the oven, constantly exuding an alluring aroma to the predators of the Narrow Sea.
One hour later, they reached the battlefield.
Under the bright moonlight, Colin and Kaide removed their armor and leapt from the yacht into the water. The two were like fish returning to water, dragging the long iron chains that had been hanging from the yacht as they swam swiftly beneath the sea's surface.
Jialedun coordinated from the deck, ready at any moment to command the three little ones and Canglong lurking beneath the sea to engage the fleet.
In half an hour, after more than twenty back-and-forth trips, the two had wrapped the iron chains around the anchors of over forty of the largest warships. Then Kaide was exposed!
A dissolute sailor who had gone to relieve himself into the sea late at night, under the flickering light of sparse torches, spotted Kaide with sharp eyes—like a swordfish darting across the surface of the water.
"Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!"
"There's an enemy!"
The sailor screamed as he struck the alarm bell at the bow. Very quickly, more than half the ship lit up as if it were on fire, glowing red with torchlight.
This abnormality triggered a chain reaction. The other warships in the fleet also lit all their torches, illuminating the sea.
Yet even the interwoven torchlight and moonlight could only light up a small patch of water around each ship.
"Woo—!"
Seeing this, Jialedun blew a horn. This was the signal he had agreed upon with his two knight-guards—upon hearing it, retreat immediately.
"..."
Canglong and the three little ones surfaced in response, their long, distant roars echoing across the entire sea.
The whale pod obeyed the command and immediately swam backward. Beneath the surface, the iron chains went taut. More than forty massive warships tilted under the force, their hulls slanting as their bows slowly turned.
Seeing this, Colin and Kaide leapt up directly, vaulting along the iron chains and rushing back toward the yacht.
The strange movement of the warships finally snapped the fleet's stunned sailors back to their senses. Commanders roared orders to activate the ship-mounted heavy crossbows, but their shouts were completely drowned out by the roars of the sea beasts.
With iron chains over thirty meters long dragging them, the warships being pulled could not even see the sea beasts hidden beneath the surface, leaving them utterly powerless to counterattack.
"The cries of sea beasts!" On the dockside tower, Seaworth—the captain who often sailed across many lands—cried out in alarm. He recognized Canglong's voice.
"No! It doesn't sound like just sea beasts!"
"Damn it!" Stannis was sweating all over. He tore open the thick woolen cloak wrapped around his body, his face dark under the torchlight as he roared wildly, "The Tass family really does have a way to control sea monsters!"
To him, massive sea beasts and sea monsters were not much different.
As early as when the fleet sailed south, Maester Collison, who served Dragonstone, had suggested that the Tass family might possess the ability to control sea beasts.
They had already made a series of arrangements in response to that possibility.
"By the Seven…" Barristan's face was also dark and grim. No wonder the Tass family did not fear the Iron Throne. With the ability to control sea beasts, they could run rampant across the Narrow Sea.
"..."
What terrified the three of them even more was yet to come. More and more piercing sea-beast roars continued to arrive—no fewer than a hundred in total.
Stannis's face instantly turned from flushed red to deathly pale. Barristan's whole body trembled, while Seaworth collapsed straight into his chair.
The difference between controlling a single sea beast and controlling an entire group of them was something all three understood all too clearly!
After a quarter of an hour, Stannis threw himself at the window of the tower. The sea wind rushing toward him cleared his head.
"Where is the wildfire? The wildfire we brought!" He roared madly at the now largely empty nearshore waters. "Damn it! Didn't I order the fleet to ignite the wildfire the moment they saw sea monsters?!"
...
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Here are a few fan-fic titles that I've recently uploaded on my Patreon:
"Game of Thrones: Dragon Prince"
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"The Game of Thrones Upgrade System"
"Game of Thrones: Lannister Kingdom"
"Game of Thrones: Godzilla vs. Dragons"
"Game of Thrones: Ruler of the Deep Seas "
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"Game of Thrones: The Most Powerful Dragon Queen"
" Game of Thrones: From the Elden Lord to the Young Wolf"
"Game of Thrones: Rise of a Lord with the Army-Building System"
(End Chapter)