Slave Bay was entering a season of abundance. With a great leap forward in agricultural production, the first crop of wheat had ripened, its golden ears ready for harvest.
From today onward, every day would be a harvest day.
At the same time, Slave Bay officially entered a state of war readiness.
The thousand-man unit under Qhogo had spent more than half a month on the move. They had already passed Meereen and begun to roam the Dothraki Sea between the Great Grass Sea and Polash.
After the outbreak in Astapor stabilized, five thousand Unsullied were fully equipped and transported to Meereen aboard hundreds of sea vessels.
With sorcerous lenses, contaminated public wells in Meereen—those used by the stone men—were identified.
The stone men were dredged up, burned, and the wells buried.
With the sources of infection eliminated, all patients in the city were screened, and Daenerys declared Meereen reopened.
Thus, Jon Bolton was able to lead 15,000 Royal Guards eastward against the current, heading toward the confluence of the White River and HLJ to build a future settlement for the Lamb Men.
He left the task of commanding soldiers to build the town and cultivate land to several deputy commanders. Jon Bolton himself would continue sailing east, toward the stronghold of the Lhazareen, to recruit their dwindling population of fewer than two hundred thousand on behalf of the Dragon Queen.
Kaizuen had not reported a single infection case. The lockdown and subsequent reopening of the southern and northern cities had little effect on it.
Naturally, the discovery of the Mermaid marked the dropping of the second shoe.
The psychological shadow looming over the people was finally gone. Outside Kaizuen's harbor, over a hundred patrol boats no longer needed to endlessly search for "stone men ships."
Next came Astapor, the capital of Slave Bay, which now brimmed with the scent of gunpowder.
The Dragon Queen had not launched a full-scale military mobilization. On the contrary, agriculture remained her central policy. To free up more labor, she made every effort to downsize the standing army.
Even the standing army had to cultivate land. Except for the Unsullied, both the Royal Guard and the Free Wings were tasked with farming duties.
They weren't expected to grow large quantities of food—only enough to feed themselves in daily life.
Still, war would eventually come, and Daenerys could no longer afford to underestimate the allied forces.
Especially now that the Windblown Company had once again "shifted with the wind" and changed direction.
Since she couldn't recruit too many conventional troops, Daenerys had to consider special operations.
She had dragons.
If dragons could ignore crossbow bolts and breathe fire freely, it wouldn't matter how many common soldiers the enemy had—they'd all be reduced to ash.
So, an idea she'd had long ago was finally brought to life.
After becoming the Protector and inheriting the divine role of that title, Drogon's physique didn't change much, but his load-bearing capacity suddenly increased by half—roughly 1,500 jin (~750 kg).
That meant Drogon was now eligible to wear armor.
Of course, not just anyone could be a knight.
If you can't move after putting on armor, you're clearly not fit to be an armored rider.
Daenerys collaborated with Master Smith Tobho to design a set of refined steel, detachable "Fish-Scale Dragon Armor 1.0."
The sheep and cattle had already been relocated to a nearby gladiatorial arena.
Behind the Great Pyramid, on the broad, sandy ground of the arena, a two-story-high wooden oak scaffold had been erected.
Drogon lay on the platform like a car on a repair stand, letting over a dozen Unsullied install gray steel plates on his body piece by piece.
The palm-sized plates were perforated so wire and iron nails could be threaded through, combining multiple plates to form fish-scale armor for the dragon.
Pointing at the gradually forming armor on Drogon, Tobho proudly explained:
"From lower jaw to chest—that's the breastplate. Then there's the helmet to protect the eyes, gauntlets for the claws, wing guards, and a flail at the tail. Five major components in total.
Each major piece can be disassembled into dozens, even hundreds, of smaller parts. The entire set weighs 404 jin (~200 kg). The vital areas of the body can definitely withstand a dragon-slaying crossbow bolt."
Unlike the full-body armor of knights, Drogon, who flew through the sky, didn't need protection for his back. As long as the vital and key movement areas were shielded, that was enough.
Vital areas: eyes, throat, chest—these fragile points could lead to a dragon's death if hit.
Key movement areas: wing roots and wing bones—injuries here could impair flight.
In fact, the two fleshy wings of a dragon were also vulnerable to puncture or tearing, but they were so large that if fully armored, Drogon might not even be able to flap them.
Once the full set was equipped, Daenerys took one look and couldn't help but cover her face with a sigh.
"So ugly. It looks like a giant lizard in a bellyband—and a cheap one at that, covering only a quarter of the belly."
Tobho furrowed his brow and nodded. "It's definitely a bit ugly, but it works. I swear, even a close-range hit to the head from a dragon-slaying crossbow would only daze Drogon momentarily."
"The sides are exposed," Daenerys pointed out.
Tobho shook his head. "Can't be helped. To protect those areas, we'd have to add more thickness, and that would mean more weight. Drogon has a limited carrying capacity—404 jin is already the upper limit. Any more, and it'll affect his agility."
"Looks like I need to figure out a way to melt Valyrian steel soon," Daenerys sighed.
"Skreeee—" Drogon flapped his wings and leapt up. His iron claws scratched a groove into the beam of the wooden platform as he launched into the sky.
"Skreeee—" Suddenly, Drogon forcefully swung the flail on his tail, lost control of his balance, and plummeted from the sky.
Like a plane in a stall.
Boom!
Dust flew everywhere—Drogon crash-landed.
A group of Unsullied rushed over at once to help remove the armor.
Dragon Armor 1.0—failure.
"The flail's chain was too long. Drogon swung his tail too hard, and it disrupted his flight," someone noted.
The scene was so pitiful that Daenerys once again covered her face and sighed.
"That makes no sense. The flail was added for balance. With over a hundred jin of armor on his head and neck, the tail needed a chain to keep the center of gravity stable. I calculated this," Tobho said, clearly puzzled.
Daenerys thought for a moment and said, "Remove the chain. Just wrap the tail in armor directly. Drogon can use his tail movements to adjust his balance naturally."
This bellyband-style dragon armor might look a bit cheap, but it had one advantage over other types—it was made of interlinked metal plates, making it easy to disassemble and adjust in size and form.
To use a somewhat improper comparison, this armor was like a bellyband woven from mahjong tiles.
Even if Drogon kept growing, new "mahjong tiles" could be added to scale up the armor.
Of course, it wasn't literally like a mahjong mat—tile after tile next to each other.
There were gaps in between that could easily be pierced by arrows.
The plates in this armor were more like fish scales, layered tightly with no space for arrows to pass through.
"Skreeee"
As expected, even without the tail chains, Big Black could still adjust his balance by swinging his tail.
Though not as nimble as before, his flight remained smooth.
And once Big Black soared into the sky, the crude-looking belly armor suddenly seemed to transform in style, appearing majestic and imposing.
From below, one could only see the armored parts, making it look as if the dragon were clad in full plate armor.
"Not bad at all," Dany said, eyes lighting up with joy. "Not only is it not ugly, it actually seems to have no glaring flaws."
The iron gauntlets on the dragon's claws were primarily meant to deflect ballista bolts.
With both claws swinging and blocking, they could shield a large portion of his belly, making additional armor unnecessary in those areas.
Next, Dany announced the start of the armor testing phase.
Above the arena, 300 ballistae were arranged in a circle. Their steel-tipped bolts were drawn, with Unsullied acting as operators, adjusting their aim and targeting.
"Screeeeech—" Big Black swooped down, flying as low as fifteen meters above the ground (the optimal range for dragonfire lethality).
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!" A dense volley of bolts launched like a forest of arrows, casting a shadow across the sky.
"Ding ding ding— hiss hiss hiss—"
More than half of the bolts struck Big Black.
Like a paper boat tossed about in a stream, his flight wavered, movements unstable.
After just one round, his body was dotted with patches of blue.
Yes, the bolts had no actual heads—just blue paint on their tips.
Of the bolts that hit him, aside from the ones he dodged, about two-fifths sparked yellow trails as they scraped the iron armor, while the other three-fifths struck the broad membranous wings with a sound like a stick smacking taut leather.
"Again, Big Black, try to keep your wings folded in!" Dany shouted.
Two minutes later, Big Black pulled his wings in as much as possible.
But his movements became even more unstable when hit, and the number of impacts on his wings only dropped slightly.
Dany frowned. "Still not good enough. If his wings get shredded, Big Black won't be able to gain altitude. He might crash straight into enemy lines."
"Your Grace, you can't look at it that way," Jorah said, pointing at the tightly packed ballistae. "Look at that—three hundred ballistae packed this closely together. Who would ever do that on a real battlefield? Can't you just have Little Green drop wildfire bombs on them?"
"Ah!" Dany slapped her forehead and chuckled. "Right, I'd never allow three hundred bolts to strike Big Black at the same time in battle."
To prepare for possible future sea-and-land combat scenarios, Dany had already started drafting multi-unit coordinated tactics.
Big Black, being the strongest, would take on the dangerous task of ground strafing—he was the attack aircraft.
Little White, the second strongest, would dive underwater to strike enemy fleets—well, a... submarine?
As for the relatively safer task of dropping bombs, Little Green could handle it along with his two younger brothers, Little Gold and Little Red. They were the bombers.
Yes, even though Little Red was small, he could still tag along—like soy sauce in the mix.
Soy sauce bottles filled with wildfire.
If the enemy dared to set up dense ballista formations, Dany would send in the bombers to blanket them with wildfire.
If the ballistae were spread out, she'd dispatch the attack aircraft for precision dragonfire strikes.
And perhaps, once she mastered the fifth level of dragon bonding, she could have the not-so-little Little Gold act as the recon plane, providing full battlefield visibility for his brothers.
"Keep this intensity going. The more suffering in training, the less blood shed in war."
Leaving Big Black to dive repeatedly and take arrow fire, Dany descended into the arena to begin fitting armor on Little White.
As a submarine, the greatest threat he currently faced wasn't ballista bolts.
A pistol was useless after passing through just a meter of water; at three meters deep, a bolt couldn't even kill a human.
Let alone a dragon?
Fishing nets!
Fishing nets were the submarine's greatest enemy.
Dany had personally tested this in the sea. Even a dragon as strong as Big Black couldn't break free when entangled in a three-layer rope net as thick as chopsticks.
Yes, dragonfire didn't count.
In deep water, dragonfire lost some of its power, though it still made a tremendous commotion.
If the enemy spotted him and kept casting nets while the dragon thrashed and breathed fire underwater, layering net upon net, then Little White might truly be doomed.
Put simply, Little White needed a quick and discreet method for cutting through nets.
That's when Dany noticed how powerful a dragon's wings were.
Of course they were—without powerful wings, dragons couldn't fly.
Dany recalled a movie from her past life, The Legend of Zu.
In it, Dan Chenzi wielded a weapon called the "Heavenly Dragon Slash," which gave her an idea.
Basically, she would have Little White cosplay Dan Chenzi and craft him a pair of bladed feathered wings.
Of course, the feather dart-launching feature was out—the main purpose was to let Little White slice through nets using the outward-facing blades on his wings.
Little White, with blades fixed to his wing bones, looked incredibly cool—far more stylish than the belly-armored Big Black.
Later, Little White flew off toward the bay, where Garth and the Big Crab's fleets were located.
Dany wanted to test the effectiveness of her knockoff Heavenly Dragon Slash. If it proved practical, she'd have Little White undergo more intensive training.
Just like Big Black, he would need targeted conditioning.
Little Green, Little Gold, and Little Red also had weight training.
Slaver's Bay was now in full wartime readiness.
(End of Chapter)
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