Capítulo 44: 25
Chapter 25 Aerial Superiority
My land cruisers perform perfectly. I take great delight in watching them devastate entire armies. It's annoying most of the soldiers they face are slaves, but can't be helped. Seeing them just confirms to me that I really need to create more of them.
Two cities have already fallen. Their lack of walls meaning the land cruisers and go straight from killing their soldiers to killing their citizens. In keeping with their orders they do at least try to avoid killing groups that are obviously composed of only slaves.
Of course they can't do anything about the remaining cities. The main three cities of Slaver's Bay are each protected by massive walls. The land cruisers can do many things. Climb is not one of them.
Then again they don't really need to do they? The walls protect them but they also trap them. Cut off from any support they can't possibly feed themselves. Confined inside with dwindling supplies it's only a matter of time before they turn on each other.
Showers of arrows and fire bombs just make the situation worse. The samurai I sent take great delight in waiting until a caravan makes it within sight of the city before destroying it and burning the supplies they carry.
The Razorwind is finally making up for it's miserable initial showing. The Dothraki, with their lack of siege engines and buildings, are incredibly vulnerable. Already Vaes Dothrak has been abandoned, choked with tens of thousands of bodies.
Myr as likewise fallen. Two days of constantly falling ice had managed to flatten a large portion of the city. A large slab of ice, falling from hundreds of feet, easily punches through roofs and often collapses any building it strikes. It's impressive seeing how quickly a city can be destroyed.
The cities New Valyria recently conquered have already left their control. Qohor had already sent an emissary to explain how they were scared and only joined under threat. He was very convincing. Sadly for him I had actually watched as Qohor cheerfully marched to war alongside Daenrys. They would get no sympathy from me. My terms were going to be just short of ruinous.
Pentos as already stated had petitioned to join my empire. Not only had I won an epic victory my fire ships had been witnessed devastating the coast of Westeros. We're currently in negotiations since there are large parts of their culture I'm not really happy with.
New Valyria doesn't seem bothered by the loss of their allies. Instead they seem to be drawing together. The church of R'hllor seems firmly in charge still and my spies report that they are turning out more beastmen every day. At least they'll take time to finish growing.
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Scrying Westeros I'm glad to see they've stopped attacking the Wall. They haven't given up though. I can already see massive projects underway. I have no doubt they're aimed at me somehow. Westeros just seems determined to remain a problem for me.
With the fall of Myr I can now deploy Icestorm. I originally intended it to go to Qarth, but Westeros seems like a much better use. I pull Razorwind to protect it from any griffins before sending them off to join up with Firestorm.
My new orders for the air fleet are simple. Start at the Wall. Sweep south. Kill everyone.
I have no doubt Aegon will try to stop them. I doubt he'll be able too, not against all three zeppelins. I wonder how long it'll take Westeros to beg me to stop?
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After a few preparations I march again. This time I head to the Patrimony of Hyrkoon. They rallied in support of Viserys due to a little mummery. Let's see how they react to the real thing?
My version of Lightbringer is a massive greatsword. The blade is five feet long, six inches wide and layered with powerful enchantments. Since I refuse to use illusions I embedded small pieces of netherbrick into the blade to wreath it fire.
Combined with the strength boost from my armor it can reduce most targets to ash with a single swing. While it looks very similar to my samurai armor there are key differences. The scales etched on the surface are lined with gold or Valyrian steel. Underneath I also now have two additional layers. I doubt there are many things capable of even wounding me now.
For added effect I bring my newest dragon. Named Fafnir, he was my favorite out of the current clutch of newly hatched dragons. I picked him for my personal mount because his scales were the exact same shade of purple as my armor. He had black markings and highlights providing a nice visual contrast. It'll look even better when he's finally large enough to ride.
I had aged him up a bit in the End, but there is limit to how much I can do so since I still can't seem to alter the size of the End portal. Still, he's already much larger than a horse. Within a year I should be able to ride him. It's amazing how fast a dragon grows when it has access to unlimited food.
I leave behind the rest of the clutch of dragons and children. Seeing both my siblings with kids reminded me that we are the very last of the family. Establishing a lineage will help reassure my empire that things are safe and stable. Besides I'm really curious to see if any of them will inherit my powers.
Before I left I organized my empire into kingdoms. Each one I fully intended to eventually be ruled my one of my children. So far I have Lorath, Sarnor, and Ib firmly set up.
Lorath now consists of the coast from what used to Braavos all the way to Bitterweed Bay. Sarnor is much more inland and while small now is rapidly expanding into the Dothraki Sea. Ib contains the islands and the coast from the Bay of Tusks to Leviathan Sound.
I have a few possible other kingdoms in mind for the future. Pentos, if they prove cooperative enough, will end up controlling much of the Narrow Sea. Omber would fit in perfectly, at least geographically. More likely though is that they'll try something stupid without the Dothraki and I'll be forced to conquer them.
Finally the Thousand Islands, at least once I finally get around to securing them. I plan to use them to wipe out the Jogos Nhai, which are basically Dothraki with slight differences. It will also allow me to extend even further east. Far past where anyone has ever ventured, at least on written record.
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My trip was fairly disappointing. I'm not really sure what Melsandre did to convince them before, but it was extremely effective. They acted more like rabid fanatics that people. They absolutely hated me and wasted no time denouncing me as a pretender.
Not even my equipment helped. Which was just insulting since they considered them mummery. Sure they were right, since I only made it to convince them, but at least they were real and not just an illusion.
In the end they stayed loyal to Viserys. They didn't even believe me when he was dead. Really wish I could show his head, but Melisandre's sandstorm had destroyed all the bodies in the area. It's a real shame so many of them insisted on fighting to the last. With their martial culture they would have made an amazing source of future samurai.
At least my samurai were happy. The gigantic battles as they crushed each city in the Patrimony were more then enough to grant them the tattoos and prestige my veterans had. With that my total number of samurai now exceeded twenty thousand. Not a large number in comparison to the armies of several other nations, but more than enough for me.
I took them all with me. I waited and even went back to pick up the rest. I didn't need them, but I wanted to make sure all of my samurai were part of a single army. I was not about to let thoughts of newcomers or anything else divide my forces. A long forced march through a desert sounded perfect for making them get along.
Traveling the Red Wastes wasn't dangerous. I can generate endless amounts of food and water so it wasn't dangerous, just very very irritating. Additionally their training meant they could handle it better than most.
My army made very good time moving towards Qarth. They were too disciplined to complain much, but they definitely didn't enjoyed it. Slowly they all united under their mutual hatred of the desert. Seeing it happen I felt quite proud of myself.
I periodically tried scrying Melisandre and as far as I can tell she is still somewhere in the city. Despite our pace I still worried about her escaping. I still remember her flying away on a sand dragon.
Once we arrive it was easy to see they had been preparing to face me. The gates were closed and the walls were surrounded by an entire army of undead. It looks like they had completely emptied their infamous garden of bones.
Despite having marched for hours to get there my army prepared for battle. The preparations didn't take long. They were well trained and I didn't really use large scale formations. In small groups they all rushed forward.
While my samurai didn't use large formations they were very familiar with small ones. They worked smoothly together, protecting and aiding each other as they destroyed all the skeletons.
Halfway through the battle the gates opened and the rest of the army marched out. It was obvious what was going on. They figured my army was tired and were trying to take advantage of it. It might have worked if they weren't my samurai.
They had been holding back so far. After all they were only facing undead. They all faced worse odds during their training. With the new army they stopped doing so. Walls rose up to block archers and interrupt cavalry charges. Rows of spikes and snapping jaws rose from the ground to tear apart entire squads of infantry.
I have no doubt the Qarthians are familiar with magic. The undead army will support that. I doubt they ever believed they would face an entire army of magic users. It took less then an hour to shatter their army.
The troops panicked and fled in every direction. Many of them even ran into the red wastes.
I didn't even try to negotiate. My army marched into the city and sacked it. They had just began when the army they had just defeated rose up and attacked them from behind. It didn't stop them. What it did was enrage them.
After that they were very thorough, decapitating every body and killing everyone that showed the slightest resistance. I found Melisandre at the entrance to the local church of R'hllor. The church looked new. She was standing over the body of the kid she had fled with.
She said something when I approached. I nodded, but didn't really pay attention. I didn't care. As soon as I was close enough I decapitated her. No loose ends, especially for someone who sacrifices kids. I made sure to destroy the temple before leaving.
The House of the Undying was already burning when I arrived. The warlocks had set it on fire themselves. They were almost rabid in their defiance. In the end any we captured just committed suicide. Spiteful bastards.
On the way out I inspected the walls. I was surprised at just how little magic there was. There was enough to block scrying, but little else. Maybe the warlocks weren't a threat? Eh, better safe then sorry.
When we left we took everyone who wasn't killed. There was barely a thousand, almost all of them former slaves. They didn't really have anything I needed, but killing them just seemed wrong. If nothing else the genetic diversity will be helpful.
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At least the campaign was long enough to give me time to brainstorm some new ideas for war machines. I realized the treads my land cruisers use can actually serve as a power source. Just make it smaller and internal. Instant engine.
Finding a use for it was actually a chore initially. Dispensers and piston blocks were more than powerful enough for now. Any improvements there weren't worth the additional weight and size.
Then I remembered that I wanted to expand my air fleet. Sadly it required all too much Valyrian steel to be mass produced but I now have helicopters. Or rather a quadcopter. It was much harder to fly and required a trained pilot, which meant I couldn't use it as an autonomous drone.
On the other hand it was much faster. It couldn't very agile but in a straight line it could even outpace me when I was using rockets. Fafnir isn't too happy with it, though that just might be jealousy.
The other benefit was that it could carry almost as much as a zeppelin despite being a fraction of the size. Taking advantage of the fact the 'engine' was already there I made it power the same windlance turret the Firestorm uses.
I only have nearly as many launchers, but they each have a much higher rate of fire. Since I don't have a gunner, all of the launchers are fixed in a forward firing position. It made it much easier to squeeze in a fixed arrow storm turret in addition to the two windlances.
In the future might make a few to carry squads of samurai into battle. My samurai are powerful, but they're still infantry. Which means slow.
On that note I quickly build a few more vehicles. Essentially just powered wagons mounted on treads they should lower the travel times of my army considerably. Really kicking myself for not thinking about it before. Maybe I can present it as a reward for surviving the desert?
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New Valyria had fooled me. The new beastmen, the stockpiling of armor, all of it just an elaborate smokescreen. They weren't preparing for a war in a year or two. They were ready now.
Already their new army streams north. Seeing their nightmarish forms it's clear what they had done. They had created a beastman, not with an animal, but an insect. Not just any insect either. A manticore, the most poisonous creature in the known world.
The resulting beastman were a vaguely humanoid figure that was clearly more insect than human. It stood four feet high and was covered in a iridescent shell. They can't fly, but their wings allow them to glide much like my elytra does. And of course they still have the scorpion tail.
I hadn't even known that was possible. I guess I just assumed there was a minimum size. How does its even breath? At least they can't fly. That really would have been cheating.
It's clear whatever they did works and works well. Hordes of the manticoremen are already loose and it looks like they're spreading like a plague. Seeing their behavior it doesn't even look like New Valyria is controlling them. Just creating them and then letting them loose.
Sure they're heading north, but they're wiping out everything along the way. Most of the tributary cities for Volantis are located north. Already one of them has been overrun. Seeing the obviously feral creatures makes me think it might have been a good thing old Valyria had fallen.
It also makes me determined to wipe out the practice of blood magic. I am not willing to deal with something like this every time someone goes crazy.
The one good thing about the progress of the manticemen is that it's slow. Of course that's only because they're killing everything in the area and then laying a clutch of eggs before moving on, but that's a problem for later. Right now I need to survive the first wave.
And do something about Volantis before they do anything even crazier.
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I call back my air fleet. I was surprised to find they were still in the north. Turns out when people scatter and hide it's a lot harder to wipe them out. I send them to Volantis. Hopefully that will at least delay any further insanity from them.
I also recall my land cruisers. Slaver's Bay can wait. Armies of humans are much preferable to swarms of the manticoremen. I sent them to meet the swarm. Really hoping they can at least slow their progress.
I then mobilize the entire empire. With the threat facing everyone I have more volunteers for training than ever before. Fortifications and watch towers are being built everywhere. Crawling towers are once more being assembled. Everyone pitches in. Slowly we work to close off the empire.
Meanwhile I'm hard at work emptying my reserves of dragon parts crafting as many additional zeppelins as possible. I'm also stripping my bases in the Nether to arm all the new Razorwind-class zeppelins. As they're completed I send them out. I don't have time to wait for a massed strike.
It won't be enough. I can visible see my stocks depleting. Even spawning them faster with end crystals won't help. I have a limited supply of them and ghasts are one of the few things I've never found a way of farming. Not that I needed it before now.
It took the help of the children of the forest to come up with a solution. If I can't use dragon skin find an alternative. Make one if need be. But since animals take so long to raise, use a plant.
It wasn't easy, but the newly dubbed Emberwood trees were a great success. Their wood was very light, fairly strong and most of all extremely heat resistant. Combined with the fibrous, layered bark and I now had everything I needed to make an endless supply of zeppelins.
Taking in the children of the forest was easily one of the best decisions I've ever made. Their price of establishing a godswood in every city was a very small price to pay.
Of course that doesn't solve the problem of equipping the quickly growing fleet. Every weapon on the original air ships required extensive enchanting. I don't have time to do that. Not to mention I lack enough dragon skulls.
Actually without dragon skulls I can just scale up the zeppelins as large as I want. With a larger size I have room to install a propulsion system. I had just perfected rotors for my quadcopter so propellers shouldn't be any trouble, even if I don't use Valyrian steel.
The balloon ended up being a full thousand feet long and three hundred feet wide. Since I was still using headed air it still wasn't capable of carrying any significant amount of cargo. Still, it was enough for me.
A small crew of a dozen crewed the vessel and were mainly there to man the newest version of the windlance. Firing a lighter bolt and with it's elevated position it shot in almost straight lines. A rear extension for an extended power stroke, iron sights and a scope were the main modifications. The ship only carried four of them since they were intended for harassment and sniping rather than battlefields.
A single golem was part of the crew and served mainly to utilize the storage chests for ammo and other supplies. A single infinity enchantment was meant more for collecting the bolts during downtime than combat. Along with the ammo racks and chests there shouldn't ever be a shortage.
In a moment of whimsy I blame on the stress of the situation I name the new type of zeppelins Cloud Cars. That gets changed really quickly when I get tired of trying to explain what a car is without sounding crazy.
The best part was that most of the vessel could be built without my powers. Like the fire ships and crawlers soon every village and city was busy constructing them. I did have to make sure to ship the heating systems, but golems were able to gather all the supplies for them and even help put them together.
Entire fleets of the renamed Cloud Ships were soon taking flight. Everyone else cheers madly when they see them. As for me, I can't help feeling I really should have introduced gunpowder.
Status de energia semanal
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