The defenders around all four chain towers were soon surrounded.
Yet with their excellent equipment and the fortifications prepared in advance, they stood like reefs in a raging sea.
The waves crashed against them from every direction, but they remained unmoved.
Viserys watched everything from the sky.
He could choose to transfer his accumulated essence into the dragons now, greatly increasing their size.
With the dragons joining the battle, he was confident that none of the four chain towers would fall.
But the moment the enlarged dragons entered the battle, Robert's forces would know immediately.
His decapitation plan could be ruined.
Arthur, these towers are in your hands now.
Viserys made his decision and flew north.
He withdrew from the Dragon Spirit state and awakened inside his tent.
Compared with the warships on the river, coordinating the Westerosi-Braavosi land army was far more troublesome.
The sheer number of soldiers was one problem.
The language barrier was another.
Those difficulties meant they were incapable of employing overly complicated tactics.
They could only use the simplest method.
Advance with the entire army and overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers.
The Westerosi and Braavosi forces could not even properly support each other.
They could only occupy their respective halves of the battlefield and fight their own battles.
The tactic was simple, but it came with one major problem.
They could not bring their numerical superiority to bear.
The Targaryen army had its back against the mountains while wave after wave of enemy soldiers surged toward them.
The assault looked overwhelming.
But it created another problem.
The soldiers had to "queue up to fight."
"What's happening up ahead? Why aren't they advancing?"
Renly asked impatiently.
"My lord, the shield wagons are blocking the way.
The Westerlands army is in front of us, while the Northmen and Vale forces are ahead of them.
King Robert's Crownlands army is behind us."
Loras explained the situation to his liege lord.
An army more than two hundred thousand strong was terrifyingly deep.
But from another perspective, it also made the battlefield extraordinarily crowded.
In some places, a stampede could break out at any moment.
The Targaryens were also using wildfire to deal with the Volantene shield wagons.
The longbowmen ignited their arrows with wildfire, sending a rain of green flames crashing down upon the enormous wagons.
Before long, a wall of green fire appeared between the two armies.
"Get some earth! Smother it!"
The flames painted the soldiers' faces an eerie emerald green.
Eddard faced the blazing wall without changing expression.
Soon, one group of Northmen after another began digging into the ground and throwing earth onto the flames.
It would take considerable time before they could organize another assault.
Viserys studied the three ranks of heavily armored infantry drawn up before his position, as well as the dragonriders waiting on both flanks.
He did not attack recklessly.
It was still daytime.
He had already witnessed the power of the dragon crossbows.
The best course of action was to identify the command centers of Robert's army and the Braavosi forces.
Ideally, he would launch the decapitation strike at night.
Once the commanders were killed, the two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers would collapse on their own.
Viserys decided to wait.
He ordered his army to continue using the terrain as a defensive position.
At this moment, the three dragons had already left the battlefield around Gohor.
Viserys decided it was time to begin transferring his accumulated essence into them.
I still have more than forty thousand essence remaining.
Should I divide it evenly among the three dragons, or put everything into one?
....
Gohor.
The Chain Towers.
The coalition fleet from Volantis had finally realized that they had fallen into a gigantic trap.
Near the mouths of the two rivers, countless ships had become jammed together, almost forming a gigantic floating island.
And the stability of this floating island depended almost entirely on a few iron chains.
The chains had been pulled taut, producing a horrible creaking sound that set people's teeth on edge.
Under the immense strain, the chain towers, buried more than ten meters into the ground, began to shake.
And the soldiers defending them were facing an army that seemed incapable of even feeling death.
The Unsullied.
Grazdan had originally intended to save the Unsullied for the siege.
But the existence of the chain towers had changed his mind.
If they did not remove the chains blocking the river as quickly as possible, the entire fleet would be doomed.
There were only a little more than six hundred defenders.
After several hours of fighting, more than a quarter of them had already been killed or wounded.
Those still standing were almost completely exhausted.
Now they had to face the Unsullied, men who had become numb to death itself.
Every soldier's face carried the expression of someone prepared to die.
"Your masters don't care whether you live or die!"
Clement tried to persuade the Unsullied to surrender.
"Our king has dragons and an army of more than a hundred thousand men. If you surrender now, you can regain your freedom!"
But his words had little effect.
In the original course of history, Daenerys had needed to survive a series of terrifying confrontations and intricate gambits before finally taking control of the Unsullied.
The Harpy's staff in Grazdan's hand had been burned deeply into their souls.
Daenerys had been able to incite the Unsullied to revolt in large part because she had already obtained the master's staff.
"Unsullied! Stop fighting for the slave masters!"
On the other side, Gerold, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, was also attempting to persuade them.
He pointed toward the fleet, which was rapidly transforming from a floating island into something resembling a floating bridge.
"Once the slave masters' fleet is completely consumed by wildfire, you will be free as well!"
Gerold's Valyrian was excellent.
Some of the Unsullied hesitated.
There were many "unfinished" Unsullied among them.
These were the men whom the Wise Masters and Great Masters considered incompletely trained.
They still possessed a desire for freedom.
The part of them that belonged to themselves had not yet been completely erased.
Some were obviously only thirteen or fourteen years old.
Their faces still carried traces of youth.
They glanced from the corners of their eyes toward the burning fleet.
If someone among them had only stepped forward and taken the lead at that moment, perhaps they would have thrown down their spears.
But then several thunderous cracks erupted from behind them.
Crossbow bolts, gray as flashes of lightning, flew toward Gerold.
One punched straight through his abdomen.
The commander's voice abruptly stopped.
The morale of the Targaryen soldiers around him began to waver.
Gerold's squire was a young man from Crackclaw Point.
While the other soldiers were still staring toward Gerold, the young man quickly wrapped the Lord Commander's white cloak around himself.
He put on Gerold's helmet.
Then he picked up the Valyrian steel sword belonging to the Kingsguard commander known as the White Bull.
When the soldiers saw the white cloak rise again, noticeably shorter than before, they somehow found their composure returning.
Most of them knew that this "new White Cloak" was not Gerold.
When the new White Cloak began shouting orders, there was no longer any doubt.
Yet every soldier chose to obey.
"Form ranks!"
"Attack!"
___________
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