"Should we go to Highgarden?" Aegon asked.
Tyrion frowned in thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "Your Grace, you must not go."
"Why?" Aegon asked in confusion.
"There are no allies of ours in Highgarden right now. It would be very dangerous for you."
"Lady Olenna was clear in her letter. As long as I come to Highgarden's aid, she will lead House Tyrell in pledging allegiance to me," Aegon said.
Tyrion let out a bitter smile. "You are forgetting that Margaery and Mace Tyrell are both in my sister's hands.
"The power struggles of Westeros are not like the slave wars in Slaver's Bay.
"The slave wars had no shifting allegiances. Everyone stayed true to their ideals, whether it was maintaining slavery or opposing it. Otherwise, they would never have joined that war.
"But the game of thrones is different. There are no absolute allies or enemies here.
"If Euron is willing to trade Margaery, Mace, Loras, and the future of Highgarden for both our lives, I doubt the Queen of Thorns would hesitate for even a moment."
"That shouldn't be possible, right? Euron killed two of her grandchildren!" Aegon said in disbelief.
"I taught you that aside from yourself, you should trust no one." Tyrion looked deeply at the young man across from him and said in a low voice, "If Willas and Garlan were still alive, the Queen of Thorns would be far more reliable, because that would mean Highgarden still had heirs other than Margaery and Loras.
"But if Cersei killed Margaery, Mace, and Loras, Lady Olenna would have no direct family left. What meaning would there be in cooperating with us then?"
If your entire family is gone, what are you even fighting for?
Aegon paused for a moment, then suddenly asked, "If you put it that way, does that mean you would make the same choice if you were in her position?"
"This…" Tyrion froze.
After a long silence, he lowered his eyes and said softly, "I will never let myself fall into that situation. That is why I followed you and left Slaver's Bay."
Aegon's eyes flickered. He finally understood Tyrion's choice.
The dwarf told Aegon not to go to Highgarden, but he had not given up on rescuing Highgarden.
He went himself.
"My dear sister would gladly trade ten Margaerys for my life, if she had ten Margaerys.
"But I know that. The Queen of Thorns does not. So even if my sister suggested a trade, Olenna would never believe her." He grinned at Aegon before leaving.
Unfortunately, three hours later, when Tyrion once again flew over Highgarden, the battle had already spilled from outside the walls into the city.
The gates had fallen. Twenty thousand Ironborn surged in like mold from the depths of hell, flooding into the sunlit Garden City filled with roses and grapevines.
Black smoke billowed over the elegant houses. Screams of killing and wailing echoed through every street and alley. Inside the palace city, slaughter and acts of brutal violence played out repeatedly.
Under the warm golden sun, everything was stained with cold death and heavy sin.
"How did it happen this fast?" Tyrion's face tightened with shock.
Suddenly, the pupils of the dwarf on dragonback shrank sharply. A chill shot down his spine. Euron had always been capable of taking Highgarden in one strike. He had been waiting for them—waiting for the wyverns!
Five days had passed since the Shield Islands incident.
Euron had twenty thousand troops and a sea monster with tentacles long enough to wrap around city walls. Yet he had not taken the poorly defended Highgarden in four days.
Was that normal?
Before seeing the sea monster sprawled on the ground, taller than the city walls, Tyrion had believed Highgarden's fortifications were strong. But now…
Euron, holding the Dragonbinder horn, had been waiting for them to come to him.
Cold sweat broke out all over Tyrion's body. He no longer dared dream of risking himself to rescue the Queen of Thorns. He turned the dragon around and fled toward Storm's End.
He had not guessed wrong. Euron truly had been waiting for their wyverns.
The Dragon Queen had sworn not to interfere in the Seven Kingdoms before the Long Night ended. If she kept her oath, she would not go to Highgarden. The only hope of rescuing Highgarden was the wyverns.
Was controlling wyverns with the horn not supposed to be easy?
Well, plans never keep up with reality. The wyverns came, the horn was blown, but the horn had broken.
After discovering the horn could no longer control dragons, Euron was enraged. Not only had his plan failed, his sea monster had been severely injured.
The horn sounded again beneath the city walls. The soldiers atop the walls lost their senses, collapsing to the ground in confusion. At Euron's command, the wounded sea monster emerged from the waters once more.
This was no longer a child kicking down a door. The monster climbed directly onto the walls. Seven tentacles lashed out wildly, like an adult stomping a caterpillar under oversized boots, crushing every soldier atop the wall into bloody pulp.
As the horn sounded, five hundred warriors with ears sealed by molten silver charged forward, set up scaling ladders, climbed the walls, and opened the gates.
It was a completely one-sided war.
A sea monster and a magical horn—how were Highgarden's "summer knights" supposed to fight against that?
"Ah, this damned world grows more unfriendly to ordinary people every day!" back at Storm's End, the dwarf said bitterly to Aegon.
"Fortunately, we are not ordinary. We have dragons!"
Aegon could only find comfort in that small thought.
He actually missed Aunt Dany a bit now.
Back in Tholos, Benny's dragonslayer horn had been even more terrifying. Every living thing within three kilometers had fallen into a trance, but with a single sharp cry from Aunt Dany, they immediately recovered.
"Tell Illyrio to recruit another group of fire mages. If two hundred pounds of wildfire cannot kill that monster, then use two thousand, four thousand!" Tyrion said fiercely.
"Varys keeps sending us letters, but we cannot reach him.
"Otherwise, we could ask him to move some strings and see if he could smuggle a batch of wildfire out of the Alchemists' Guild in King's Landing.
"You once said there were dozens of tons buried under the city, didn't you?" Aegon asked.
"Not just a few dozen tons. I suspect it's several hundred, maybe even over a thousand. Mad King… hm, your grandfather was preparing to burn King's Landing back then!
"How big is King's Landing?
"Five hundred thousand people!
"A few dozen tons wouldn't be enough," Tyrion said thoughtfully.
Aegon frowned. "Who told you that? Burning King's Landing? That's insane."
Wasn't your grandfather practically the god of madness? Tyrion griped inwardly, then casually said, "My older brother told me. He shouldn't be wrong."
"The Kingslayer. He should've just said my grandfather wanted to destroy the world and that he killed him to save it," Aegon said with contempt.
"Think whatever you want," Tyrion said with a careless shrug. "Hurry and tell your aunt about Highgarden's fall, and ask if she has any good way to deal with the Dragonhorn."
Understood.
The Dragon Queen answered with just a short sentence.
As for how to deal with the enemy's Dragonhorn—Just take it head-on.
She had been even busier these past two days.
Because her Turtle Chancellor had arrived.
The old turtle had been swimming for more than a month and finally delivered Daenerys's fifteen tons of Valyrian steel ingots to Astapor late last night.
Daenerys had been in Meereen at the time, and since the old turtle did not want to reveal his identity, he could only dive underwater, then let out a low bellow to Little Green, who was sleeping on top of the Great Pyramid—a cry from the soul.
Little Green had seen the old turtle once before in Qarth. Though he didn't understand what the old turtle wanted, he still connected with Daenerys's dragon-spirit immediately.
Daenerys then rode her dragon back to Astapor in the middle of the night.
Without alerting anyone, she led the old turtle to a rubble-covered shoal ten kilometers west of Astapor.
In front of Daenerys, the old turtle opened his mouth and spat out all the Valyrian steel ingots without hesitation.
"Sixty pieces in total, no more and no less. I'm leaving." After tossing the Crab King shell on his back to the ground, the old turtle said this.
"Leaving? You traveled all this way. Don't you want to witness my life-and-death duel with Balerion? Let me tell you, she's in Volantis right now."
"Balerion's true body is sealed at the bottom of the Smoking Sea. That one should be just a fragment soul, right?" the old turtle said, shaking his head.
"That fragment is extremely important to Her and will cause Her huge losses. Hearing Her howl in pain—doesn't that give you at least a little sense of revenge?" Daenerys said with a smile.
"You're the one destroying that fragment. How would I feel any sense of revenge just watching from the side?"
"Exactly. It's not revenge if you don't personally take part." Daenerys nodded with a narrowed-eye smile, then naturally suggested, "Why don't you stay? We can work together and form an 'Anti-Balerion Alliance'?"
"I have to return to the Rhoyne," the old turtle hesitated.
"Going back to hide in your shell?"
And if I stay, does that mean I'm not hiding in my shell?
The old turtle fell silent.
"What are you afraid of? I'll take the lead for everything. You can hide in the water and roar encouragement. You'll be perfectly safe."
"I'm not afraid, it's just—" The old turtle's bread-van-sized head stretched in and out awkwardly. He muttered, "What do you want me to do?"
Success.
Daenerys inwardly let out a triumphant "Oh yeah!"
"I've always had a grand plan. The workload was simply too huge, and I couldn't accomplish it with manpower alone. But now that you're here, it's perfect!"
"What plan?" the old turtle asked curiously.
"I plan to use the upper course of the Meereenese HLJ—" Daenerys spoke only the first half before suddenly remembering something.
Tham had told her: when plotting against a god, it's best not to speak the plan aloud, nor even think the details.
The Black Goat of Qohor was a lesson learned.
Both Brynden and Bran, two generations of Three-Eyed Ravens, had taken her to "the edge of the world" when plotting against R'hllor.
Thinking of this, she immediately drew Big Black's soul into herself and entered the Mother's Mode. Divine power rippled out, forming a "Seven Gods Domain" between her and the old turtle.
"Mother… you—"
The River Lord beside her was shocked beyond words. Daenerys's motions were smooth and skilled.
"So vast a divine power… where did you get it?"
The old turtle did not recognize the Seven's disguise.
During the battle with the Crab King in Qarth, he had been too far away to sense anything as clearly as he did now.
"I picked it up," Daenerys said cheerfully.
"Picked…" The old turtle's deep-green face twisted. "No wonder the Crab King fell to you."
"I have a plan that was practically prepared for you alone." Daenerys dropped her playful tone and swiftly explained her method of flooding an army.
Anyone who has read Romance of the Three Kingdoms would feel tempted after seeing that massive thousand-mile river next to Meereen.
Daenerys had long been tempted as well, but she lacked the power to execute it: there were no real seasons here, so the river had no rainy season or dry season; its flow was steady—neither too much nor too little—frustratingly so.
Unless a huge dam was built to store water.But Slaver's Bay had barely over a million people in total. Gathering millions of laborers like Emperor Yang Guang to build massive infrastructure was impossible.
In this world, manpower alone could not create a mega-project.
Fortunately, this world was also full of magic.
The Dragon Queen described only a basic tactic from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one even a third-rate general would know.
But the old turtle was terrified.
"That's too cruel—hundreds of thousands of people!" His basin-sized green eyes widened with horror.
Daenerys grew displeased.
"You people once used forbidden magic to drown an entire city in Valyria, killing more than a million—including the elderly, women, and children. I only kill enemies on the battlefield. How is that cruel?"
(End of chapter)
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