Chapitre 42: 23
Chapter 23 Dance of Dragons
I realized that I had more time than I first suspected. There were several independent cities between New Valyria and me. They'd have to deal with them first.
So I can concentrate on Viserys if I move quickly. And I'm already upset with him because of my airship. The problem is I'm not ready. The samurai are away at the Thousand Islands. The Sarnori are preoccupied with my tourney. Even the giants aren't ready.
They don't need to do much, but there hasn't been enough time to build up their numbers. Harvesting them now for enough skulls will set back my project by decades. Really wishing I hadn't removed them from the End now.
So since conventional warfare is out that leaves me with guerrilla warfare. So I need ambushes and traps. Slowly a smile creeps over my face. I have the perfect idea.
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The Wither is probably the most feared boss in Minecraft. For good reason too. It's tough, flies and has powerful attacks. It's regeneration, high health pool and immunity to arrows just makes it worse. For me it's perfect.
I actually feel about about what I'm about to do. Withers are almost unstoppable in this world. I doubt anyone not from my empire can even fight one. Still desperate times call for desperate measures.
For this I feel the need to go myself. There is no way I'm taking any more chances then necessary. And of course I need to be there to deal with it if they try to take control of it. I didn't want to believe they could do so, but I didn't think anyone could control a blaze either.
The best part of using the Wither is that it takes time for it spawn and that it doesn't move much until it sees a target. It's easy to dig a small pit in the middle of the road and then spawn a Wither inside it.
I take care to snipe the forward scouts. I don't want them to ruin the surprise or worse lead it in the wrong direction. I shouldn't have bothered.
When the army arrives it smoothly parts to avoid the pit and marches on. The Wither glances at them and then ignores them. I completely forgot it doesn't attack undead.
One of the kids looks over the edge and it finally reacts. It flies up, shooting the kid as it rises. Once in the air it can see the mercenaries and attacks. Finally!
The fight was over horribly quickly. It was powerful, but they swarmed it with undead. It didn't even try to avoid them!
Seeing it go down I moved. It wasn't the worst case but it was bad enough. I'm not sure just what they can do with a nether crystal, but I'm not about to find out. I take an invisibility potion and rocket towards them.
As I flew over them I started dropping my bombs. They were my newest recipe. A block of TNT surrounded by a foot of oil coated obsidian gravel on it's sides. An iron plate on the top and bottom directs the blast outwwards. A fire charge and pressure trigger on the bottom and a short chain on the top to make sure it lands correctly.
Each bomb sends out a cloud of flaming shrapnel around it up to sixty feet away. I fly over the marching column of troops dropping bombs as fast as I can. I make sure to hit the nether crystal with one as I fly by.
My attack is devastating, if limited. The column disintegrates as people panic. The undead don't run, but that just means my bombs kill more of them. I wish I could do this all day, but I'm already running out of bombs.
Once again I regret the lack of gunpowder in this world. Of course I'm also really happy I never invented it. No doubt it would have been stolen already.
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A prime example of theft was my discovery that they had copied my printing press. It explains how quickly they had drummed up support for Viserys if they could print so much propaganda. I was very upset to find I didn't kill her with my bombing run. Viserys either.
Entire crates of small books were being spread throughout cities in the region explaining why they should support Viserys. It was working too. Despite having never even visited them, many of the cities supported him already if the banners were any indication.
My attacks probably didn't help there. Unleashing Withers in those cities to cripple them didn't work at all. It might have if they had panicked. No, they had to all go berserk and attack it instead. Seeing the Wither swarmed by a horde of screaming half-naked women really makes something clear. Minecraft bosses were most definitely not designed for fighting groups. It was almost pathetic how quickly they destroyed it.
At least this time I kept close enough to snipe the nether crystal when it dropped. I really needed a new method of waging war. If only wildfire wasn't almost as difficult to make as redstone, it would have been perfect.
Thoughts of fire reminded me of an idea I had previously. Steam. Between my ability to generate water and magma I could easily create steam engines. Steam could let me build larger ships, tanks, maybe even better zepplins if I used fans.
Reality crushed my dreams of a steampunk army. With how easy everything I invent was being copied there was no way I was going to introduce something so powerful. In fact the only things they hadn't copied were based off my original powers.
Hmm. I actually have an idea now. I need to get back so I can test it out.
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My newest project rolls out to thunderous applause. As much as I wanted to claim sole credit I can't. It took dozens of craftsmen to help me build the first prototype. I managed to section it off and I now have blueprints from most of it. Still this really is a collaborative effort. They have a right to be proud.
What I'm deploying is the results of the Land Cruiser project. I'm skipping the whole mislabeled as water tank episode. I told everyone about the land cruisers when I started recruiting. And when the prototype was finished I paid every craftman an enormous amount of gold so they could go drink and brag to everything.
Since I obviously couldn't match my enemies in quantity, I went with pure quality. My samurai taken to extreme. The vehicles was made almost entirely from enchanted Valyrian steel. It was worth more then entire nations.
Anyone from my past life would have recognized it as a tank from the treads alone. Then they would have called me crazy. The land cruiser looked more like a mobile building than a vehicle. Like my floating fortresses it was a mobile ziggurat. In this case it was also stretched out to be twice as long as it was wide. In all it stood twenty feet wide, forty feet long and thirty feet high.
There were no balconies. Instead there were a series of recessed cubbies in which mini arrow storm turrets were placed. Each turret had an enormous curved gun shield, essentially turning it into a ball turret. There were three rows of four turrets per side. Additionally there were a single small turret on both the front and rear sides.
The corners of the land cruiser also held an obelisk which rose to a height of forty feet. The metal pillars were each capped by another mini arrow storm turret. This time the gun shield had been extended until it fully enclosed the gunner. The final effect was a bit like a fantasy tank from Warhammer 40k.
With a similar design, but much larger, three windlances were mounted on the top of the ziggurat. There was also a single windlance mounted on both the front and back in protective enclosures.
Even with now much lighter Valyrian steel is the land cruiser was heavy. To move it I used a combination of powers. The tracks weren't normal treads. They were lined in the inside with rail tracks. In fact every single link was a power rail. Not only that. I used piston blocks to imitate a combustion engine for additional power.
The land cruiser still doesn't move as quickly as I'd like. It moves at barely three-fourths the speed a normal propelled minecart travels. It's enough for now.
It took weeks to put together. I had very few smiths who knew how to work Valyrian steel. Every piece had to be made, then converts and tested. Often they had to be adjusted over and over. I didn't have time to keep trying to perfect it.
It's still not enough. I had to wait until now, when I had three of them finished, before I was willing to risk them. The loss of my zepplin made me paranoid. I wanted as little chance for something to go wrong as possible.
Due to how precise everything had to be along with the materials I was the only one who could create this vehicle. However everywhere craftsmen were hard at work creating the mass produced vehicle whose designs I gave them.
They were inspired by the elaborate mantlets I had gifted the Sarnori. A bastard offspring of a pillbox and palanquin. They were essentially mobile wooden towers. Everyone called them crawlers from how they moved.
They had three sections. The bottom was filled with mummies who carried and transported the tower on command. The very bottom of their legs could be seen while it was being moved. The upper part was filled with arrow slits and shutters along with skeleton archers. The middle was for a single human driver. He gave to direction to the mummies and told the archers what to attack.
Besides the undead there wasn't any part of the structure that needed my help. The undead were easy enough to produce since I could just make them in batches. It was nice how accepting people were of things when they were in danger.
Sadly it means that I had to move my base of operations over to Sarnor. There was no way I was going to force the land cruisers and crawlers to be shipped back and forth. I send all three of my land cruisers against Viserys along with a few samurai. Hopefully they fair better then my late airship.
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A quarter of a million men. The number is mind boggling. Seeing, even with a scrying spell, that many soldiers is intimidating. Meanwhile I have less than half. Hell my armies combined are only fraction of that size.
Still, the majority of my military are samurai and I'd say they're easily worth a dozen men. It still wouldn't be enough. The campaign in the Thousand Islands, short as it was, was incredibly violent. Despite numbers, turrets and warnings a third of them had still died.
Of course they were all now veterans and enhanced multiple times. I just wish I had more than eight thousand of them. Thirty to one odds was not a good situation. Not to mention I still had to other empires to deal with afterwards.
Still the newest class of samurai were nearly complete with their training. The End has never been fuller. Volunteers had flooded in from across my empire, each eager to defend their homes and earn glory for themselves.
I wish I could afford to wait, but Daenerys's army proved faster than anticipated. Qohor had thrown open their gates and joined her. Sneaky the way they waited. I might have attacked if I realized they would side with her. I wonder if they knew that?
Pentos declared itself neutral and willing to join the winning side if need be. Since they didn't really have an army it didn't matter much. Norvos, left by itself, still tried to resist. It was completely destroyed.
I was grateful for their sacrifice. It was the only thing that had bought me enough time to get to this point. Without having to go out of their way to deal with Norvos, this battle would have happened weeks ago.
It's clear Daenerys is no strategist. Personally I'd have ignored Norvos. Maybe sent a small detachment to keep them penned. Then rushed in and attacked before I had time to prepare.
Still, even with the time it might not be enough. Everyone worked at a frantic pace, but I still have less than a thousand crawlers on the battlefield. The projects had kept me from making golems too, so I was reduced to only a few thousand of those as well.
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I lead the charge. One on one I'm undefeatable. Every gesture causes bones to sprout from the earth. Spikes, jaws, and wallls disrupt formations and kill soldiers. Every attack kills. My sword, a Valyrian steel nodachi covered in enchantment, sheers through soldiers and armor without effort.
I'm only one person though. The battle lines literally stretch as far as the eye can see. Behind me the crawlers lumber forward in short jerks to protect the mummies on the bottom. Arrows rain continuously from the slits on top. A few golems protect each crawler as they make their way forward.
Even as the enemy attempts to flank us with cavalry my chariots ride forth. The victors of my tourney are particularly devastating, sending a steady stream of arrows out. They take losses, but manage to break the charge and force them to retreat.
The imperial chariots as they had taken to calling the purple chariots I had used as prizes were also the first to include gun shields. A few others had added them, but not enough. When the porcupinemen moved forward only they survived. Everyone else was quickly riddled with arrows.
I directed several crawlers to stop the porcupinemen. It slowed them but not enough. Elephantmen charged the towers. Their armor protected them long enough to reach them and in some cases knock them over.
It was then my samurai marched out. In small squads they smashed into the enemy. Every one of them had at least a half dozen powers tattooed onto them. Like me, each was almost unstoppable. Almost, but not quite. Slowly they were being worn down, a hundred paper cuts bleeding them out
It wasn't enough. The beastmen in particular didn't seem to care about pain, about injuries or even about losses. They pressed forward and slowly, step by step we were forced back.
It was too soon! There wasn't a reserve. With how badly outnumbered I couldn't afford to hold much back. So I called my dragon.
Smaug appears as a mere shimmer in the air, hidden to all but me. Invisibility, regeneration, strength, and every other potion I could make was placed in a jar. I had just enough time to train him to eat a basket of potions on command. It paid off now.
The enemy didn't see him coming. They didn't even realize he had joined the fight until he breathed fire. A large portion of the cavalry reserve died and others panicked and stampeded through the enemies.
I hadn't been able to train him out of roaring triumph though. I felt dread when more roars answered him. From far behind the enemy lines I could see several forms rapidly climbing into the air.
Dragons.
Daenerys had dragons of her own.
They were small, obviously not as old as Smaug. There was also three of them. They also all had riders.
I quickly climbed a crawler and pulled out a windlance. It was pretty far and they moved all over the place as they fought. I kept trying.
I eventually hit one, but it was too late. The other two slammed into Smaug's back. He plummeted out of the air. It didn't matter if he survived. With only one wing he was trapped.
Damn. I hadn't really gotten close to him. Too busy with everything else to really bond. Still. He was mine!
The armies had paused when the dragons dueled and I had used the time well. We couldn't help but be pushed back, but I could slow it down. I had pulled back all the crawlers I could into a ring. The rest of my troops withdrew inside.
Almost all of the chariots opted to retreat and continue skirmishing with the edges of the enemy. I wish them well. Not that they'll need it. Between the imperial chariots and the dragon golems pulling them they'll be safe.
The lull seems to finally cause the enemy to realize their losses. They pull back and maneuver to encircle us. They put up crude walls and station plenty of sentries. It doesn't matter. Night has finally fallen.
I waste no time digging up the section of stone I was standing on and pressing the button underneath. Deep below us a series of iron doors all opened at once as my final surprise activated.
As soon as I heard to screams I flew up to survey the situation. The enemy had clearly surrounded us completely. Just as I planned. In half a dozen locations hordes of spiders were simply appearing in midair before darting forth to attack everything round them. It was beautiful.
I had arrived at the battlefield earlier and dug straight down. I had created a large set of room all behind iron doors. Then I had placed every spider spawner I brought with me there. I didn't use anything else since I didn't want to take any chances with them being controlled.
All day as we battled back and forth the spiders numbers had been growing. And now they're all being loosed at once. They brought a quarter million men. Thirty spawners, each spitting out a spider every thirty seconds. I believe I matched their number, for each man a spider.
Sadly I didn't quite have room to actually endlessly store every spider, but it seemed to be enough for my ambush. The enemy was in complete chaos. Even as I watch an explosion of fire catches my attention.
I laugh as I see the swirling lights of a cluster of blazes wreaking havoc throughout the camp. Looks like they lost control of them. What's better is they're next to the supplies. Doesn't seem like much of that will survive the night.
I look around, but don't see the spawner. Likely it's been moved or isn't even here. I hate smart enemies.
My chariots all came back when I blew my horn. I felt a pang of regret since Smaug was supposed to attack along with them. The chariots furiously assaulted the northern portion of the army, the only part that didn't have any spiders. Distracted by the chariots they almost didn't notice we were breaking camp.
The crawlers all marched north, still maintaining formation, as they slowly broke through the enemy lines. My samurai, all refreshed again after drinking more potions, all charged in. I meanwhile was busy grabbing as many bodies as possible and throwing out packs of undead to add to the chaos.
Just before they left the area I dropped down and grabbed the spider spawners. No way was I leaving them behind and chancing them being captured.
Periodically drinking potions my army quickly leaves the enemy behind. It only took a few hours of hard marching to make it back to the last camp. Although camp might be misleading. Even the romans would have been impressed by how fortified the camp was. Castle might be a better term.
Looks like we're safe.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone