Chapter 129: Wildfire of Fury

Dany's orders were executed immediately. The Unsullied in the front row propped their shields against sandbags, forming a solid shield wall. Behind them, the second line of Unsullied launched large, pineapple-sized jars in a coordinated three-stage volley towards the enemy camp.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The pungent stench of asphalt quickly spread across a hundred-meter radius, reaching even the nearby mercenary groups observing the unfolding battle.

The Braavosi watched in horror as the oil jars shattered against their shields. "You little witch, what are you trying to do?!" one of them screamed.

"We surrender!" Suddenly, a mercenary shouted, grabbing a crossbow at his feet and turning to fire at Mero atop the watchtower.

"Traitor!" bellowed the Bastard of Titan as an arrow pierced his arm. He crouched down, roaring in rage, "Kill him! Kill that traitor!"

Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

Mero's lingering authority over the Second Sons held strong. Nearby mercenaries instinctively raised their bows and crossbows, riddling the rebellious soldier with arrows until he collapsed in a heap.

But as soon as he fell, realization dawned on their faces—What have we done? They thought bitterly. We should've let that fool bear the burden of killing the commander alone. That way, we could've survived without guilt!

Sigh. Now all they could hope for was that the Mother of Dragons, witnessing their bravery and loyalty, might show them some measure of mercy.

"I didn't expect the Second Sons, ranked just below the Stormcrows in infamy, to display such fierce loyalty," Dany observed with a complex expression, turning to Grey Worm. "Send them on their way."

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

With a wave of her hand, the archers behind her unleashed hundreds of flaming arrows.

BOOM! Flames erupted across the makeshift barricades of wagons, mercenary shields, and helmets, blanketing them in an orange inferno. The scorching midday heat grew even more unbearable.

"Aaaah! I surrender! Mother of Dragons, I surrender!" Mercenaries tossed aside their shields and bows, rolling desperately on the ground, screaming in agony.

Some, defiant to the end, snatched up crossbows and fired wildly towards Dany. When their bolts ran out, they grabbed fallen bows, shooting as they cautiously retreated, trying to evade the creeping wave of fire.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Arrows clattered harmlessly against the shields in front of Dany, steel-tipped shafts bouncing off with little effect.

"Charge out! Fight them head-on!" the Braavosi commander bellowed.

A dozen armored cavalry braved the arrowstorm, leaping over burning wagons, charging towards the sandbag fortifications. But before they could get close, a dense wall of spears thrust out from the gaps, impaling horses and riders alike, leaving them to writhe in pools of blood.

"Commander, climb the rocks! Head for the sea!" a mercenary shouted, scrambling up a two-meter-high boulder, stumbling westward through jagged stone formations toward the coast.

Seeing this, others followed. Soon, over a hundred mercenaries, including the bearded Mero and the Great Master of Meereen, fled the camp, disappearing into the rugged mountain pass.

SSSSSSHHH!

"Aaaah! A dragon!" The first mercenary to crest the rocks screamed in despair.

BOOM!

A jet of fiery red, thick with black smoke, engulfed a dozen soldiers. They writhed in agony, their flesh melting under the intense heat, bones warping in the dragonfire like candles tossed into a furnace.

SSSSSSHHH!

SSSSSSHHH!

Two more dragons swooped in from the sea, soaring overhead and leaving blazing trails of fire in their wake.

Mero cowered behind a granite boulder, feeling the scorching heat brush past. In terror, he shouted, "Use your bows! Kill the cursed dragons!"

If your arrows could kill dragons, I wouldn't have unleashed them, Dany thought coldly.

Without powerful crossbows, specialized longbows, or specially forged steel-tipped bolts, it was nearly impossible to inflict fatal damage on a dragon—unless one could land a perfect shot in the eye.

In truth, the terrified mercenaries dared not even aim at the roaring dragons. Most had already discarded their weapons. Were they supposed to slash at dragons with swords?

"Kill the Braavosi who insulted the Mother of Dragons!" the Great Master screamed in fear.

"Kill Mero!"

"Mero insulted the Mother of Dragons! He's no longer the leader of the Second Sons. Kill him!"

"If we kill him, maybe we'll escape this fiery hell!"

The yellow-cloaked warriors of Ghiscari and the mercenaries of the Second Sons turned on each other, eyes bloodshot with fear and rage, hunting down the towering Braavosi amid the chaos.

Meanwhile, mercenary groups and slavers watching the dragon's devastation from afar quickly flung open their gates. They no longer dared to resist, nor did they hope to negotiate surrender terms with the Mother of Dragons.

As long as we're not burned alive, even losing our heads to the Unsullied is fine, they thought, trembling.

Dany left the surrendered to the Unsullied. She herself stood still, seemingly dazed, watching as her three dragons reduced over a hundred screaming men into molten flesh and ash.

In the end, the green and white dragons even landed on the rocks, tearing into the charred corpses still smoldering with embers. The "corpses" continued to emit hoarse, agonized screams—a scene of unparalleled horror.

ROAR! The black dragon flapped its wings, opening its maw wide as if inhaling deeply.

In reality, Dany had entered a trance-like dragon-soul state. Through the black dragon's eyes, she saw countless colorful, flickering spirit essences drifting amidst the flames.

She merged her soul with the black dragon's, activating the "Mother of Dragons' Spirit Blessing"—absorbing the escaping spiritual essence from the burned corpses into the dragon's mindscape.

This wasn't the first time she'd discovered such lingering spiritual remnants from human corpses.

In the last attack on Astapor, more than ten thousand people died. When Daenerys cremated the slaves and the unclaimed bodies of the slave masters separately, she discovered that human corpses released a dense, ethereal substance as they burned.

The fresher the corpse, the higher the concentration of this essence. Even the bodies of the Ghiscari, left for two days and rotting into a foul-smelling sludge, still emitted a batch of this essence.

At the time, Daenerys was astonished.

Throughout life, humans continuously draw nourishment from nature. After death, the elements that make up the body return to the earth, while the essence of the soul dissipates into the sky.

Though this phenomenon was strange, she found it understandable and even quite logical.

But if this essence originated from the soul, why did it still remain in corpses that had been dead for several days?

Later, she secretly burned a batch of "mummies"—specifically, the specially treated corpses stored at the base of the Great Pyramid.

The Ghiscari nobility had a tradition of keeping their ancestors' remains in the lower levels of their family pyramids. In keeping with this custom, Daenerys had even reserved a small pyramid for the surviving noble descendants.

What shocked her even more was that, even in these mummified remains, the essence still leaked out—though in a much lower concentration.

Could it be that flesh and soul were not separate entities, but rather that every cell in the human body contained a fragment of the soul, making them truly one?

If it was possible to extract the remnants of a soul, then could the dead in this world be revived?

No mistake, no exaggeration—this was something to ponder!

Hmm, it actually seemed possible. After all, the White Walkers could raise human corpses into wights.

Daenerys nearly abandoned her role as a queen to become a scientist.

Well, in a way, she was conducting experiments even now.

The density of the ethereal essence released when burning a living person was terrifyingly high!

"You bastards! Who told you to eat people?"

Snapping back to reality, Daenerys saw her two dragons gnawing on human spinal bones, sucking out the marrow with loud, slurping noises. Her fury erupted.

Hadn't she noticed how the prisoners around them were nearly scared to the point of losing control of their bladders?

Even the mercenaries taken captive—let alone Daenerys' own men—were pale-faced, on the verge of vomiting.

Clad in armor, Daenerys struggled up a rocky outcrop, raising her whip and lashing it mercilessly at the two dragons.

Crack! Whip! Roar!

The dragons cowered under her strikes, fleeing with their heads down. Yet, unlike before, they did not breathe fire at her, nor did they even dare to snarl.

During the incident with Euron seizing the dragons, Daenerys hadn't used the Dragon Horn to control the White and Green Dragons. Instead, she had joined forces with the Black Dragon to break the Dragon Horn's enslavement by sheer force.

The power of the horn—the "Dragonbinder's command"—was completely destroyed, leaving it as nothing more than a useless magical instrument.

Well, it could still be used to intimidate "lesser" creatures with the souls of the dragons trapped within it.

Since then, her bond with the White and Green Dragons had deepened—not just emotionally but through a strange, profound connection rooted in their very souls.

To put it simply, if the Black Dragon ever perished, Daenerys could immediately establish a stable soul bond with either the White or Green Dragon.

If she had three "slots" for such connections, she might even be able to link the souls of the White, Green, and Black Dragons across different locations—to play mahjong together, for example.

"Your Majesty, Captain Jon of the Rose Company wishes to see you," Grey Worm reported, looking somewhat apprehensive as he watched Daenerys chase after her dragons, cursing and whipping them.

Below, every soldier who had witnessed the dragons breathing fire, burning people, and devouring human corpses—be they friend or foe—now stared in awe at the sight of the mighty beasts fleeing before Daenerys' whip.

Their respect for her grew to something bordering on worship.

A true dragon indeed—the Dragon Queen who could tame dragons!

"You'll go hungry for two days when you get back!" Daenerys threatened, pointing her whip at the two dragons as they flew toward the sea.

Only after the White and Green Dragons disappeared from sight did she step onto Davos' shoulder to climb down from the rocky shore.

"Has the Rose Company surrendered?" she asked.

"They are willing to surrender, but they wish to discuss the terms of their surrender with you," the Unsullied commander replied.

"Heh, they've got some nerve."

Daenerys mounted her golden horse and gave orders to Qhilo as she rode:

"The battle is over for today. Take off your armor and gather the corpses of some livestock from the battlefield for the Black Dragon. If the White and Green Dragons return, keep an eye on them—don't let them eat people again."

"Enemy corpses are fine, though," the young Dothraki warrior muttered.

Daenerys shot him a glare.

"Today, they eat the dead. Tomorrow, they might eat the living. The day after that, they might even eat you, their so-called guardian. Still think it's fine?"

"Uh…" The Dothraki knight rubbed his nose and rode away silently.

As Daenerys approached the base of the Poplar Slope, she noticed Morono, the commander of the Dragonmother Guard infantry, directing his men to lay out banners on the grass.

Curious, she asked, "Are these the flags of the Ghiscari alliance and the mercenary companies? What do you need them for?"

"Long live the Mother of Dragons!"

Upon seeing Daenerys, Morono straightened his posture, raising his right hand in a sharp salute.

Hmm. If he had said "Heil Hitler" instead, it would have been indistinguishable from a Nazi salute.

The first time she had seen this kind of military gesture, Daenerys had been startled. Later, after asking Whitebeard and Morono, she learned that the gesture had been popular among the Ghiscari legions since ancient times.

In Westeros, there were various salutes—standing straight with a clenched fist thudding against the chest, the formal act of kneeling on one knee, or even the knightly raised-hand gesture.

Among the mercenaries of Essos, the fist-bump greeting from the Summer Isles was particularly popular.

Eventually, Morono had suggested standardizing the raised-hand salute across Daenerys' army, as it carried the same solemn weight in Slaver's Bay as the High Valyrian language itself.

"Your Majesty, these are not for my personal collection. They symbolize your glorious victories and should be displayed in the Great Pyramid's hall for your guests to admire," Morono explained, gesturing at the tattered and dirt-streaked banners.

(End of Chapter)

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