Looking at the damage to the warship and the nature of the broken areas, Lynd's mind quickly conjured an image of an enormous monster suddenly emerging from the sea and biting off half the ship's hull.
Enormous was the only word in Lynd's mind at the moment; one must know that this warship had four decks, making it the largest sailing warship currently in existence.
When docked at the pier, it was almost as tall as the three-story building beside the pier.
More than a year ago, when Lynd designed this warship, he based it on the largest sailing warship he remembered from his previous life.
However, in his previous life, he was not a shipbuilder and knew nothing about the internal structure of ships; he merely drew the sailing ship he had seen and handed it over to professional shipwrights for construction.
As a result, although they couldn't perfectly reproduce the sailing ship he had initially designed, the shipwrights improved upon it based on the existing shipbuilding technology in the Ice and Fire World, ultimately creating this massive four-decked sailing ship.
The deck of this type of sailing ship was equipped with a large number of ballistas, capable of easily piercing the hull of a longship, and the second deck also had openings where archers could freely attack enemies from both sides without hindrance.
The vast space also allowed the ship to accommodate several times more warriors than a typical sailing ship, and once a boarding action began, the side with more people would have a decisive advantage.
It was precisely because this warship was built and equipped in the Miracle Fleet that Lynd was able to fully control the Dorne Sea, and places like Torr City and Soul Hill in Dorne had no room for resistance, only able to accept the conditional peace offered by Lynd.
Currently, there are only six such warships, all equipped in the Miracle Fleet.
According to Lynd's plan, only when the Miracle Fleet is equipped with twenty such large warships will the unification war against the Stepstones officially begin.
However, what he never expected was that in less than three months, one would be lost in such a manner.
Nevertheless, this did not diminish the warship's prestige, as it was, after all, the only ship in so many years to survive a sea dragon attack.
Moreover, only the upper few compartments of this ship were damaged; the bottom hold and keel were still intact, and the fore and aft sprit sails were also undamaged, which is why the ship could still sail.
Although this warship currently looks like it could sink at any moment, in reality, it only needs to have the damaged areas repaired to be fully restored and rejoin the fleet to continue its mission.
It was precisely the warship's immense size that highlighted how enormous the sea dragon that attacked it was.
Lynd compared it to other dragon skeletons he had seen and found that even the largest, Vhagar, was much smaller than this sea dragon.
If a mammoth were a unit of measurement, then Vhagar's limit might be able to swallow one and a half mammoths, while this sea dragon could swallow three or even more.
Although the Dorne Sea Dragon was so enormous, Lynd did not find it troublesome, because in his opinion, such a large size meant slow movement and an easy target for attack.
With his current mastery of Dragon Rune power, as long as this sea dragon had not mastered any magical or other extraordinary mystical powers, he was absolutely confident he could kill the sea dragon without injury.
Now, the only thing he needed to consider was how to prevent the sea dragon from escaping.
He knew that although the Dragon Rune he mastered was powerful, there was no Dragon Rune that could help him fight freely in the sea.
Once the sea dragon sensed a life-threatening danger and dove to the seabed, it would be extremely difficult to lure it out and kill it.
"Is there any way to prevent the sea dragon from diving to the seabed if it tries to escape?" Lynd asked Sir Halls Redwyne, the commander of the Miracle Fleet behind him, as he looked at the damaged warship.
Halls was stunned by the question.
He hadn't expected that while he was following Lynd to inspect the ship's damage, and his mind was still pondering how to answer ship-related questions, Lynd was already considering hunting the sea dragon.
However, he quickly recovered and thought for a moment, then said, "We could use harpoons and buoys."
Lynd pondered, then shook his head and said, "The power of the ship's ballistas is not enough to harm the sea dragon."
Lynd had already met the survivors from this warship earlier, and through talking with them, he had learned about the appearance of the sea dragon that attacked the warship.
This sea dragon was not, as he had thought, an aquatic creature with scales and fish-like features such as tail fins; instead, it resembled a giant dragon swimming in the sea, as more than one person had seen the sea dragon with wings, though the wings were severely damaged, like tattered rags.
Therefore, Lynd believed that this sea dragon was very likely a wild giant dragon with injured wings, so all the combat details he considered were based on the giant dragons of this world.
Nameria has a dragonhide underarmor, an ancestral underarmor of the Fudeli Family, and the dragonhide used to make it should have come from one of the dragons that died in Tengshi Town during the Dance of the Dragons.
He had tested the defensive power of that underarmor; most ordinary bows and crossbows could be defended against, which showed that the defensive power of a giant dragon's hide was not as easily damaged as seen in the previous life's dramas.
Arrows shot from city-defense ballistas certainly couldn't easily pierce a giant dragon's body from several hundred meters away.
Among all recorded giant dragons, very few died directly from arrows; either the giant dragons were still in their infancy, and their dragonhide had not yet accumulated sufficient defensive power, such as the young dragons that died in the Dragonpit during the riot in King's Landing, or they were shot in vital areas such as the eyes, like Mylasia, who died in the Dragonpit.
However, bows and ballistas simply cannot directly cause any damage to the dragonhide of an adult dragon.
If inferred by size, that sea dragon was definitely from the same period as Black Dread Balerion, or even earlier.
Such a giant dragon's hide would have grown to an extremely strong degree, so unless a vital area like the eye was hit, ballistas and harpoons would not be able to penetrate its dragonhide defense.
Although he couldn't find a way to restrict the sea dragon's escape, Lynd had no intention of waiting any longer, as the sea dragon's appearance had too great an impact on the trade of Miracle Port.
By checking the ship registration records at the dock, in less than half a month, the number of ships coming to Miracle Port had decreased by nearly a third.
And as the damaged warship was towed to the military port dock for repairs, those who witnessed the warship's damage might develop even greater doubts about the safety of sailing in the Dorne Sea.
If the sea dragon problem wasn't solved and continued to drag on, in another month, the number of ships in Miracle Port might decrease to half or even less, which would be a heavy blow to the economy of Miracle Port and even the entire Summerhall.
All his plans would be forced to halt, and it might even trigger some unforeseen variables.
Therefore, even if he couldn't kill the sea dragon, he had to defeat it to let people know that Lynd had the ability to protect the safety of their ships, even when facing the legendary sea dragon.
"Immediately prepare the ships; we will set sail at once.
Have several reputable merchant guild supervisors from the city accompany us," Lynd ordered Halls.
Halls immediately replied, "The ships are all ready and can depart at any time.
However, the merchant guild supervisors probably won't risk coming with us."
Lynd said in a deep voice, "It doesn't matter; just notify them.
It's also a good opportunity to see which merchant guilds are worth our attention."
"Yes, I understand," Halls nodded, then asked, "Do you want to see the survivors of those merchant ships that were attacked earlier?"
Lynd shook his head, walking towards Halls' flagship, the Arrow, and said, "Don't see them yet; bring me their interrogation reports."
Upon hearing Lynd's order, Halls immediately retrieved all the interrogation reports, boarded the flagship with Lynd, and sent someone to notify the merchant guild supervisors.
He also instructed the fleet soldiers on the dock to begin boarding, so that once the merchant guild supervisors arrived, they could set sail immediately.
"Is this all the information you've gathered?" In the captain's cabin of the Miracle Fleet's flagship, the Arrow, Lynd quickly skimmed through all the latest information regarding the merchant fleet attacked by the sea dragon, his brows slightly furrowed, then he asked Halls, who stood across the table.
"Yes, my Lord, all the interrogated information is here," Sir Halls stood with his chest out across the desk, replying.
"Didn't you find any problems here?" Lynd pushed the documents in his hand towards Sir Halls, saying.
"Problems?" Sir Halls paused, picked up the documents, looked at them, and asked, confused, "What problems?"
"Everyone described the sea dragon's attack on those two ships using the same kind of description: a giant monster suddenly emerged from the sea, bit the ship in half with one bite, and swallowed everyone.
As for where they were attacked and how they escaped, they couldn't explain it clearly," Lynd said, pointing to a section in the interrogation report.
"If it were only one or two people, it wouldn't be a problem, but over forty people all used the same method to describe the same event, and that's a big problem."
"Do you mean they are deliberately fabricating the incident of being attacked by a sea dragon?" Sir Halls hesitated, guessing.
"Are the owners of those two surviving ships members of our Miracle Merchant Guild?" Lynd asked again.
"Yes, they are," Sir Halls nodded.
Lynd tapped his fingers on the table, saying, "According to the guild's rules, if any goods exported from the guild encounter an accident in the designated sea area, the Miracle Fleet will help recover them.
If they cannot be recovered, compensation will be made at half the total value of the goods."
"You mean they are deliberately creating a shipwreck incident to defraud the guild of compensation?" Sir Halls quickly understood Lynd's implication, but he soon had a new question, asking, "But they did lose two ships' worth of goods, and two ships did sink.
The value of these goods and sunken ships combined is probably far more than the compensation, which seems somewhat counterproductive."
"What if this batch of goods never existed?" Lynd said in a deep voice.
Halls paused and said, "But they have shipping records, don't they?"
"Go and summon the current acting president of the merchant guild," Lynd did not continue, giving the order, and as Halls turned to leave, he added, "Also, summon the captain of the Blood Armor in Miracle Port."
"Yes, my Lord," Halls nodded in response.
Not long after, the current acting president of the Miracle Merchant Guild and the captain of the Blood Armor in Miracle Port, who had been waiting at the military port dock for a long time, arrived at the captain's cabin.
"You two, see if there's anything wrong with these," Lynd said, pointing to the interrogation reports on the table.
The two hesitated, then each took a portion of the documents and began to read them, exchanging them after finishing.
"The attack accounts given by these people are fabricated," the captain of the Blood Armor in Miracle Port finished first, speaking in the common tongue with a Braavosi accent.
This Blood Armor captain, Quizz, was from Braavos and was one of Lynd's longest-serving followers.
He had joined Lynd's command when Lynd was helping Nameria build New Tengshi Town, though at the time he was nominally attached to Nameria's Tengshi Town Guard.
Later, he was transferred to Miracle Port with Jon Bulwer, serving as a captain in the Miracle Port Guard.
Because of his excellent performance, his name was included in the recommendation list Jon left when he departed.
When the special intelligence organization, the Blood Armor, was formed, he also voluntarily joined and was appointed as the captain of the Blood Armor in Miracle Port.
It was precisely because of his long-term involvement with intelligence that he immediately spotted the anomalies in this interrogation report.
Gorman Settigar, the acting president of the merchant guild, was a step slower than Quizz and said, "The shipping records should be forged.
I remember clearly that the weapons listed there were ordered by Meereen, and this fleet is a Volantis merchant guild fleet.
The guild would not possibly trade ordered weapons to them."
Lynd then asked, "Then tell me, what is the reason for such a situation?"
Gorman quickly replied, "Someone is making false accounts, trying to use the guild's internal compensation agreement for members to defraud the guild of money."
"Very good," Lynd nodded and said, "I'll leave this matter to you to investigate.
The Blood Armor will cooperate.
I want to know who is so bold as to try to take money from my pocket.
You must investigate thoroughly; do you understand?"
"Yes, my Lord," Gorman and Quizz quickly nodded in agreement.
Not long after Gorman and Quizz left, the supervisors of the major merchant guilds who had been notified had already begun to arrive at the dock.
Contrary to Halls' expectations, these merchant guild supervisors showed no fear of the sea dragon whatsoever.
Upon receiving Lynd's notification, they unhesitatingly handed over their affairs to their subordinates, then arrived fully armed at the military port dock, expressing their willingness to accompany Lynd to the southern coastline of the Dorne Sea to crusade against the sea dragon.
Not only those who received the notification, but also some who had not, came to join the excitement, such as Bishop Josais of the Miracle Sanctuary.
Facing these people, with the exception of those with certain prestige like Bishop Josais, all others were sent back by Lynd.
He needed people with prestige and influence to help him spread the news that he could defeat the sea dragon and protect the safety of the seas, rather than genuinely wanting people to help him fight the sea dragon.
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