“Alright, but we still need to deal with Stannis. He’s gone mad. Last night, he actually led an army to try and kill me. My dragons were suppressed by the Green Prophet. More than half of the Night’s Watch and wildlings in the castle were slaughtered. Now there are less than a hundred Night’s Watchmen left in the entire Castle Black. Stannis has almost violated all the ancient laws of the Seven Kingdoms.”
"Then let's have a public trial and execute him in public. Let the Night's Watch elect a new Commander-in-Chief, and then inform the entire Seven Kingdoms through proper channels. Say that Stannis tried to get the Night's Watch to interfere in the internal affairs of the Seven Kingdoms. Then execute him publicly. Anyway, the Seven Kingdoms are used to killing dukes now, so one more death won't make a difference."
It took almost a whole day just to deal with the bodies. They also cleaned up some conspicuous bloodstains. Then, the first thing to be done was the election of the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
After Jon Snow's departure, there weren't many competitive members of the Night's Watch left. The commander of Eastwatch and the commander of Shadow Tower originally had a chance. However, Ser Allissa's past as a former Targaryen vassal was revealed.
Lu Xuan didn't even need to think; he knew that Allisa herself had leaked this information. Everyone now knew that the large amount of supplies the Dragon Queen had donated to the Night's Watch were already on their way. And Allisa was a former retainer of House Targaryen. Although the Night's Watch didn't participate in internal affairs, becoming a member meant erasing all past transgressions.
But this is just talk. As a violent organization, how could it be without political connections? Ser Allissa's relationship with Daenerys, the Night's Watch's primary patron, is perfect proof. Even for the sake of future sponsorship, Allissa must remain Lord Commander. In fact, other members of the Night's Watch have already directly expressed their support for Ser Allissa. There's no way around it; the Night's Watch is poor.
And Allissa's first act upon assuming office was, without a doubt, to try Stannis. Yes, this was Lu Xuan's order. Although Daenerys could easily kill Stannis, this was Castle Black, the Night's Watch. The trial could only be conducted by the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Daenerys might disregard the rules of the Seven Kingdoms, but she had to respect the rules of the Night's Watch. This might be the only military institution that remained after her return.
When Stannis was hanged, Melisandre, who was standing next to him, broke down instantly. She rushed forward, crying uncontrollably.
"This is impossible! He is the Son of Prophecy, the savior of the world! How could he die here? Impossible! Almighty Lord of Light, tell me where I went wrong!!!"
Melisandre wept uncontrollably, but received no response. The Lord of Light had severed all connection with this land after last night's battle. Melisandre could no longer sense her 'Supreme Lord of Light'.
Finally, she stopped crying in despair and silently stared at Stannis's body. After a long while, she stood up and walked towards the sun.
Step by step, after walking a hundred meters, her steps began to falter. After another fifty meters, she finally could go no further. She simply stood there quietly, gazing at the sun in the sky. Then, before everyone's eyes, she slowly turned to ashes, drifting away in the wind.
Lu Xuan had no way of judging her beliefs. But from the moment she instigated Stannis to burn the heretics, her sins were already unforgivable.
Daenerys watched silently as her opponent vanished into dust, then looked around. She noticed everyone was watching her. She turned and walked onto the platform, addressing everyone.
"I will keep my promise, and all reinforcements will arrive as quickly as possible."
As soon as he finished speaking, a deafening roar of shouts erupted from below.
"At the same time, in gratitude for the Night's Watch soldiers and the brave men of the Free Citizens who stepped forward last night to express their thanks for my service in World War II, the supplies sent to reinforce the Wall this time have been doubled."
"Long live the Dragon Queen..."
The cheers quickly turned into "Long live the Dragon Queen!" Some excited Night's Watch members even put their arms around the wildlings beside them and shouted the same slogan.
At that moment, Mansred came out.
"Your Majesty, I have selected warriors who are willing to follow you to the Battle of Slaver's Bay. Twenty thousand of the best free men will follow you to the death. However, they refuse to bring their families, who are not capable of fighting. They believe that would be taking advantage of Your Majesty. If Your Majesty can provide them with more food, they are willing to leave all their families at the Wall."
It must be said, these savages are actually quite endearing at times. They're a very stubborn people. Once they've made up their minds, they'll stick to it no matter what. They felt that Daenerys was obligated to hire them to fight and feed them. But bringing their families along for food was taking advantage of her. So they refused...
And so, Daenerys obtained the greatest reward of this adventure: twenty thousand free warriors!
7017k
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Sorry, there will be no update tonight.
To be honest, I'm experiencing writer's block. Next up is the siege by the nine federations. But I know such a large-scale scene is difficult to write, so I won't go into detail. People don't really enjoy reading that anyway; I'll just have Lu Xuan show off a few times and then skip it.
After the siege ends, the story begins its final stages. It will be time for Lu Xuan to consolidate his resources and reap the rewards. Specifically...
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Chapter 303 Lu Xuan's Gains
Slaver's Bay was now on high alert. As time passed, the pressure from the nine city-states began to manifest itself. Spies within the cities and various forms of harassment along the coast began to appear more frequently.
After all, they were nine city-states that had dominated this continent for hundreds of years. Once they got serious, the resources they could mobilize were terrifying. However, what Lu Xuan could never stop complaining about was how incredibly inefficient they were.
It's important to know that Lu Xuan and Daenerys had already begun preparations before they even went to Westeros. Their journey across the sea and back took nearly three months. And what happened? When they returned, the nine city-states were still preparing...
Although Lu Xuan knew they were inefficient, which was why he dared to go out at this time, he still felt somewhat speechless when he actually encountered them. The nine city-states, though nominally one entity, had, over hundreds of years, developed deep-seated divisions and rifts.
The mutual distrust, the grudges between the various families, and the infighting among the ruling parties were all consuming a great deal of time. Several city-states, in order to launch this war, had already waged several small-scale civil wars and staged more than one coup, bringing in a more powerful party to rule, thus finally forcing the alliance of the nine city-states. To this, Lu Xuan could only say, "You've really worked hard."
In three months, according to various intelligence reports, the nine city-states had amassed an army of over 200,000, most of whom were mercenaries. Meanwhile, Valantis had also assembled an unprecedentedly massive fleet. It was said that the number of warships exceeded one thousand, enough to completely seal off Slaver's Bay.
"Anything else? That's all. What I really want to know is what preparations they've made against the dragon? What tactical arrangements do they have?" Lu Xuan said to Jorah with dissatisfaction.
"It is said that they are still debating who should lead the army. Therefore, the tactical arrangements are uncertain. As for the arrangements against the dragon, they have prepared a batch of heavy ballistae known as dragon-hunting crossbows. According to our information, given the power of those ballistae, hitting a dragon within 100 meters could pose a fatal threat."
This is true; although Daenerys's dragons were already quite large, their scales were not enough to withstand close-range fire from heavy ballistae.
Lu Xuan thought for a moment and felt he needed to pay attention to this issue. He had actually had a similar idea a long time ago, but because the dragon was too small and its carrying capacity was insufficient, he hadn't put it into action. Now, the three-headed dragon's carrying capacity was terrifying. Carrying more than a ton of supplies while flying was basically no problem.
"Forge armor for dragons?"
“That’s right. We need to forge some sturdy armor for the dragons’ bellies and necks. The enemy has prepared a large number of ballistae, which is very dangerous for the dragons. We need to protect their vital parts.”
"But that would increase the dragon's load."
“That’s right, but we don’t need the dragon to make long-distance raids. We just need to be able to launch short-range surprise attacks. The alchemical bombs have now been developed to the third generation, and both their power and safety have been greatly improved. We don’t need the dragon to tear the enemy apart; it just needs to learn how to drop bombs.”
Having briefly finalized the various plans to deal with the siege, Lu Xuan left the meeting room. In truth, he had many simpler ways to win this war. For one thing, given five thousand Unsullied, he could lead his troops in a preemptive strike and achieve significant results before the battle even began.
However, Lu Xuan ultimately rejected that tactic. He wanted to concentrate the enemy forces and then wipe them out in one fell swoop. This battle was about establishing Essos's true dominance. Therefore, Lu Xuan needed to demonstrate overwhelming military superiority, such as encircling the enemy and then annihilating them in one fell swoop.
Back in his lab, Lu Xuan calmed down and began to explore the lessons he had learned from his trip to Westeros.
That battle between the two gods was actually far more dangerous than imagined. After all, it was on the Green Prophet's home turf, and his opponent was a well-established Old God Walker. Lu Xuan almost suffered a crushing defeat. In the end, he was able to turn the tide of battle largely because of the Green Prophet's overconfidence.
He had sensed the old dragon soul hiding in Lu Xuan's spiritual world beforehand. Therefore, he possessed the dragon soul, wanting to closely monitor Lu Xuan's every move. Don't doubt it, possessing a spiritual entity is one of the Green Prophet's main skills. The damaged dragon soul was powerless to resist and was easily controlled by the opponent.
Then, using the voice of the old dragon soul, it continuously misled Lu Xuan. This was actually unavoidable. It couldn't truly trap Lu Xuan in its mental world from thousands of miles away. To ensure Lu Xuan's confinement, it had to dedicate a significant portion of its power to his side. In a sense, it couldn't hide very far. If it couldn't divert Lu Xuan's attention, it couldn't hide for long. Thus, the plan to possess the dragon soul and attack from the depths of Lu Xuan's mind came about.