133: Chapter 133 The Storm Before the Nightfire Altar

Dragonstone.

Two hours after nightfall.

The storm was coming.

The red glow of the volcanic crater gleamed with an ominous dark red under the rain clouds, and steam was torn into shreds by the gale like a ripped shroud.

On the Nightfire Altar, the bonfire struggled in the wind, its blue-green tongues of flame pressed almost flat to the ground, pushed back down by the wind every time they tried to leap up again.

Melisandre stood alone before the fire.

Her red robes fluttered in the gale, the edges of her hem licked by the flames, burning a few small scorch marks—the edges of the scorch marks still glowing with dark red embers.

Her red eyes stared deep into the flames as she withdrew her fingers, a wisp of unextinguished blue-green fire still wrapped around her fingertips.

“Twenty-three ships. Three are equipped with wildfire catapults. The rest are ramming ships for boarding actions.”

“The flagship is right in the center of the formation—flying the debt flag of the Iron Bank of Braavos, not Cersei's lion flag.

Cersei used a loan from the Iron Bank to hire this fleet.”

Daenerys stood at the edge of the nightfire's glow, clad in black dragon-scale armor.

The plates fitted perfectly; each scale was forged from a blend of Drogon's shed scales and valyrian steel—the edges of the scales inlaid with extremely fine threads of dark gold.

Her silver-gold hair was tied into a high ponytail, and a valyrian steel shortsword hung at her waist. Her purple eyes flashed with a cold light in the firelight.

“Rhaegal and Viserion are above the clouds. White Mane's cavalry is on the beach. The Unsullied ballistas are behind the eastern reefs.”

“Once they are in range—first, have the Dragon Flame ignite the wildfire jars. Without wildfire, a mercenary fleet is no match for the Dothraki in a beachhead battle.”

She raised her left hand, the purple flame stone ring on her thumb casting a deep purple aura under the reflection of the nightfire, and pressed her finger to the spouse mark on her chest.

“Once they are in range—first, have the Dragon Flame ignite the wildfire jars. Without wildfire, a mercenary fleet is no match for the Dothraki in a beachhead battle.”

The mark transmitted Drogon's heartbeat signal—steady, slightly faster than his resting rate, but without any panic. He was in King's Landing. He was also waiting.

“...He is waiting. Above King's Landing—the Enforcement Squad should have already arrived.”

Above the mouth of the Blackwater River.

Late night.

Low-hanging rain clouds were pushed by the sea breeze, rolling toward the land, the bottom of the cloud layer illuminated into a dark purple by the red glow of the volcanic crater.

Rhaegal and Viserion circled side by side above the rain clouds, their wingspans already close to twenty meters.

Rhaegal's scales gleamed with a bronze-like dark green luster in the moonlight, with a circle of extremely fine copper-colored patterns on the edge of each scale.

Viserion, on the other hand, was as white as bone fragments soaked in moonlight, a pale gold shimmer peeking through the edges of his wing membranes.

They did not have Drogon's Ice Fire, but their Dragon Breath contained pure Old Valyrian fire elements—enough to burn holes in ship hulls and melt iron decks into liquid iron.

Viserion let out an extremely low growl from his throat.

That was the signal of the Dragon Clan confirming their target before hunting. The sound was torn apart by the wind above the clouds, but Rhaegal heard it.

Rhaegal responded with a sharper screech. It was not fear, but the excitement before preying.

His bronze dragon wings suddenly folded—the wingtips almost pressing against the sides of his body, turning his entire dragon form into a streamlined diving body.

The two dragons dove vertically down from the clouds at the same time, like two meteors falling from the sky. Their dragon wings rubbed against the air during the dive, making a sharp screeching sound, and their wingtips pulled two white-hot shockwaves in the high-speed airflow—a precursor to a sonic boom that only occurs when the air is cut to the limit by dragon wings.

In the next second, the Dragon Breath ignited the night sky.

Rhaegal was the first to open fire.

His Dragon Breath was not a precise beam of Ice Fire like Drogon's, but a broad, fan-shaped orange-red flame—Ancient Valyrian Dragon Magic: Sky-Burning Breath, the second type of Dragon Flame breath that a young dragon could master, characterized by a wide spread but insufficient penetration.

The Dragon Breath swept across the decks of three warships from the fleet's left flank, vaporizing a sheet of white mist the moment it contacted the sea surface—the seawater was directly vaporized, making a piercing hissing sound. The sails curled and burned like paper in the raging flames.

On the foredeck of one of the warships, six jars of wildfire happened to be piled up.

These were stocks Cersei had dug up from under the ruins of the Great Sept of Baelor, their mouths sealed with the sealing wax of the Pyromancers. The temperature of the Dragon Flame was far higher than the melting point of the sealing wax—it did not just melt it, but vaporized it directly.

The six jars of wildfire exploded simultaneously at the exact same instant.

The green flames rose from the deck like living things, engulfing the entire warship along with the two escort ships beside it.

The sweet, sickly burnt smell unique to wildfire spread across the sea—like burnt, rotting honey.

The green firelight illuminated half the sea, casting a mushroom-shaped green cloud in the night sky, like a green sun rising from the seabed under the night sky of the Blackwater River mouth.

The shockwave of the explosion snapped the mast of a nearby escort ship in half; the mast fell with its burning canvas, crashing into the crowd of mercenaries on the deck.

The broken mast crashed through the deck, wood splinters and sparks flying everywhere, and several mercenaries who could not dodge in time were pinned under the burning canvas, their screams drowned out by the shockwave.

A System prompt popped up in Drogon's consciousness space—though he was far away in King's Landing, the System could still receive the battle situation on Dragonstone through their Bloodline link.

“Rhaegal has destroyed three enemy ships. Viserion is diving to attack the escort ship on the right side of the flagship.

The green flames from the exploding wildfire jars have covered the left flank of the Braavosi fleet. The enemy formation has been disrupted.

The mature form of Ancient Valyrian Dragon Magic: Sky-Burning Breath has been detected in Rhaegal's Dragon Breath for the first time—the spread of the Dragon Breath has expanded by thirty-seven percent compared to the last actual combat.

The prototype of Ancient Valyrian Dragon Magic: Glow Breath has been detected in Viserion's Dragon Breath—it is not yet fully formed, but its penetration has significantly improved.”

Drogon was far away on a rooftop in King's Landing; his vertical pupils could not manifest in his fully human form, but his fingers tapped gently three times on the leather pouch at his waist.

“Good. Let them continue. Don't get too close to the flagship—the Braavosi are skilled at using whaling ballistas. Those things can pierce dragon scales. Is White Mane's beachhead defense line ready?”

“Illyse White-Mane has already lined up eight hundred Dothraki Cavalry on the western beach. The Unsullied ballistas have opened fire from the eastern reefs, covering both flanks of the beach. Daenerys is synchronously receiving the host's King's Landing battle situation from the top floor of the Great Pyramid through the blood bond.”

Viserion's dive angle was even steeper than Rhaegal's.

He fell almost vertically from the clouds, his bone-white dragon wings completely folded during the dive, their tips pressed tight against his body, his entire dragon form soaked in moonlight like a bone spear cast from the heavens.

His golden eyes locked onto the escort ship to the right of the formation's flagship—that ship's deck had no wildfire jars, but it was equipped with a heavy whaling ballista.

Viserion suddenly spread his wings at an altitude of less than a hundred meters from the sea surface.

The wing membranes rubbed violently against the air the moment they spread, letting out a sharp explosive sound—a sonic boom. A white shockwave ring exploded from the wingtips, pressing a depression dozens of meters in diameter into the sea.

The mercenaries on the deck of the escort ship had their eardrums bleed from the shock of the sonic boom, and some rolled on the ground clutching their ears.

The Dragon Breath descended after the sonic boom.

The prototype of Ancient Valyrian Dragon Magic: Glow Breath—it was not a deep blue Ice Fire like Drogon's, nor an orange-red fan-shaped flame like Rhaegal's, but a beam of milky-white, scorching light.

The beam of light was less than two meters in diameter, but its penetration was extremely strong, vertically piercing the entire ship right from the middle of the escort ship's deck—burning all the way from the deck to the bottom of the hull.

The keel at the bottom of the ship melted in the Dragon Breath, iron nails turned into liquid iron, and a large hole about three meters in diameter was burned into the hull plating below the waterline. Seawater poured into the cabin, making a dull roar.

The whaling ballista was burned into a pile of twisted iron dross in the Dragon Breath. The mercenaries responsible for operating the ballista were engulfed by the glow before they could even let out a scream.

Viserion swept over the escort ship, his wingtips carving a white water trail on the sea. His golden eyes glanced back at the sinking escort ship—its stern was tilting up, its bow was completely submerged, and the Braavosi Iron Bank debt flag on the hull was being swallowed by the sea.

The western black sand beach. Late night.

The green light of the wildfire explosions flickered on the sea, dyeing the beach a bizarre dark green—not a uniform color, but a patchwork of light and dark, as if someone had poured a bucket of glowing green paint on the sand.

The waves beat against the wreckage of the warships charred by the Dragon Flame, and shattered planks and broken ropes drifted onto the beach with the waves.

Hulls burned halfway floated on the sea, a few still making sizzling burning sounds.

White Mane rode on her Dothraki warhorse, her dragon-kiss sword already unsheathed.

The blade reflected a cold silver light under the green glow of the wildfire, the dark ripples of the valyrian steel flowing in layers across the blade—each ripple a mark of a thousand folds and forgings.

The old scabbard hung on the other side of her waist, the old scabbard she had hand-stitched herself, its seventeen stitches gleaming in a lighter color than the old leather under the green light, the crooked stitch particularly conspicuous.

Behind her were eight hundred Dothraki Cavalry.

The warhorses trod on the black sand, making dull hoofbeats.

The hoofbeats of the eight hundred warhorses joined into a low rumble on the black sand, like the earth itself beating drums.

Her silver-white braid fluttered in the night wind, and the temperature of the Brand on the back of her neck was steadier than ever—a steady warmth that only appeared before battle, when a hunter locked onto its prey.

Three unsunk mercenary ships were sailing toward the beach.

The Braavosi mercenaries on the deck lowered landing boats, their oars churning in the dark waves.

The first wave of landing mercenaries rushed onto the black sand beach, holding Braavosi rapiers and bucklers, trying to assemble into a formation on the beachhead.

Their commander was shouting loudly in the Braavosi language, trying to gather the scattered landing soldiers into a phalanx—but his voice was mostly drowned out by the sound of the waves and the distant echo of the wildfire explosions.

White Mane held the dragon-kiss sword high, the tip of the blade tracing a fleeting silver line. She gave orders in the dothraki language, her voice piercing through the rumble of hooves and waves.

“Charge head-on! Take no prisoners! Return to the beach after we finish them! No camping tonight! There is still a battle to fight in King's Landing tomorrow!”

The eight hundred Dothraki Cavalry let out a battle cry in unison.

The hooves crushed the shells and volcanic stones on the beach, and the black sand splashed under the hooves as they charged like a tide toward the landing mercenaries.

The black sand kicked up by the hooves formed a low sand screen in the air, looking from afar like a black wave engulfing the beach.

White Mane led the charge.

The dragon-kiss sword sheared through the rapiers of two mercenaries in the very first charge—the sheer dominance of valyrian steel's hardness over ordinary steel made her cut through the melee like a hot knife through butter.

Her first strike sliced through the rapier of the mercenary on the left, the blade cutting into his shoulder blade along the way, the sound of valyrian steel slicing through chainmail like tearing paper.

Her second strike backhanded away the buckler of the mercenary on the right, the tip of her blade piercing through the shield face and stabbing into his arm, making an extremely dull cracking sound as it pierced the shield.

Her left wrist was tied with Daenerys's black silk scarf, which fluttered up and down in the wind with every swing of her sword, like a signal flag repeatedly appearing in the darkness of the beach.

The Braavosi mercenaries were dispersed by the cavalry charge before they could even halfway assemble on the beachhead.

What they excelled at was close-quarters combat on decks—rapier thrusts in narrow spaces, not dealing with cavalry on an open beach.

Someone tried to stab the horses' legs with a rapier, only to have his wrist sliced off first by a Dothraki arakh. Someone else held up a buckler trying to withstand the hooves, only to be sent flying by a warhorse, his shield flipping several times in the air before embedding itself in the sand.

The green light on the beachhead reflected the silhouettes of the melee—hooves, arakhs, broken rapiers, and bucklers scattered all over the ground. The black sand drank its fill of blood, turning even blacker.

In the midst of the melee, White Mane suddenly felt the Brand on the back of her neck grow intensely hot—not pain, but a sudden rise in temperature.

That was the Brand's instinctive reaction when sensing the Dragon Clan Bloodline releasing high-energy magic nearby.

She instinctively looked up at the sky over the sea, just in time to see Viserion's Glow Breath pierce through the escort ship—the milky-white light column piercing from the deck to the bottom of the hull, pinning the entire ship to the sea like a bone spear falling from heaven.

Her lips curled into a grin.

“That white one—has a bit of Drogon's style now.”