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The violence, suppressed for thirteen days and nights, finally broke through its last restraint!
In the port district, the Ironborn formation, originally as silent as gray reef rock, instantly turned into a boiling tsunami.
"For Greyjoy—!"
Long-accumulated fighting spirit and bloodlust roared like a tiger released from its cage, shaking the heavens.
Ironborn warriors, their eyes burning with a pure desire for battle and plunder, surged like a dam-breaking flood of destruction through the open gates and streets, straight for the heart of Lotus Port!
Only when heavy footsteps and frenzied roars closed in did many Lotus Port defenders, dozing against battlements or staring blankly, wake as if from a dream.
"En... Enemy attack!!"
"They're in the city—!"
Hasty cries were instantly drowned out. Resistance was scattered and desperate.
Guards just startled from sleep didn't even have time to find their spears before being cut down by oncoming battle-axes. Officers attempting to organize defense lines at intersections were nailed to walls by short spears before their voices could travel far.
Wherever the iron-gray tide passed, blood bloomed and screams rose and fell. Carefully arranged street-fighting obstacles were useless before absolute power and sudden strikes. The defenders' lines collapsed like grease cut by a red-hot blade, leaving behind a mess and rapidly spreading death.
The siege battle, the moment the gates opened, had already evolved into a slaughter within the city.
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As Lotus Port plunged into chaos, the defense commander Bernhardt Sharpe made a seemingly wise decision.
Pointing his sword at Euron, who was strolling in the distance, he roared to his two most trusted heavy-armor captains beside him: "Capture the leader to catch the bandits! Take down their leader, and we can turn the tide of battle!"
The two captains took the order, each leading nine elite heavy-armor warriors. Like two sharp knives, they cut through the chaotic battlefield, straight toward Euron.
Surprisingly, the Ironborn warriors along the way seemed to turn a blind eye to their target, even stepping aside slightly as they charged, allowing these two squads to drive straight in and reach Euron. This abnormal "smoothness" gave the warriors executing the decapitation mission an illusion—thinking this enemy commander was unpopular and abandoned by his subordinates, their faces inevitably revealing the grim satisfaction of imminent success.
They would soon discover how tragically wrong they were.
Just as the lead heavy-armor warrior raised his war hammer, barely ten paces from Euron, the motionless Euron finally moved.
No shout, no warning.
His hands somehow already gripped two strangely shaped long knives. The instant the blades left their sheaths, blazing flames ignited from thin air, entwining upwards, turning the twin blades into flaming swords spitting light of destruction!
The moisture in the air seemed instantly evaporated; heat waves hit their faces.
Before the first warrior's hammer could fall, a crimson blade light swept across his neck like a ghost. Heavy steel armor was sliced open as easily as butter before the flaming edge. As the head rolled away, the cut was charred black, the high temperature cauterizing the wound before blood could even spray.
Euron's figure turned into a burning blur, plunging into the squad.
The flaming twin blades danced into two deadly fans. Wherever they passed, fine steel armor melted and deformed, weapons were severed and fused.
The warriors' screams were short and wretched, often strangled in their throats by the high heat as soon as they began. The fire not only cut but burned and carbonized everything it touched.
Twenty fully armed heavy-armor warriors, the best in the army—their siege didn't even force Euron back half a step. The entire process took only a few breaths.
When Euron stopped moving and revealed his figure again, the flames on the twin blades slowly extinguished. Surrounding him were twenty charred corpses in various postures, their heavy armor twisted and deformed as if thrown into a furnace, wisps of smoke rising from the gaps.
A strong, pungent smell of burning mixed with the eerie scent of roasted meat permeated the air, sickening.
This suddenly quiet zone of death formed a terrifying contrast with the surrounding shouts of killing. In the distance, the triumph on Bernhardt Sharpe's face completely solidified, turning into boundless fear and despair.
Inside the main hall, stained glass windows once symbolizing power and luxury flickered dark and light with the distant firelight, like the swaying fate of this fortress. Shouts of killing, the clash of weapons, and dying wails surged in like a tide from all directions, getting closer and closer.
Commander Bernhardt Sharpe stumbled into the hall. His helmet was lost somewhere; graying hair stuck to his forehead with sweat and blood. His armor was covered in blade marks and splattered blood. He almost threw himself before the throne, his voice hoarse and distorted with urgency and despair:
"My Lord! The gates... the gates are lost! It's the Long Lances, the Stormcrows, and the Company of the Cat! Those three mercenary groups who deserve the seven hells betrayed us and opened the gates from the inside!"
Hearing this, young Skadi Lyman smashed the silver goblet in his hand onto the ground. The exquisite vessel deformed instantly, wine spilling like blood onto the precious Myrish carpet. His handsome face twisted in extreme anger as he cursed:
"Fuck! I knew it! I knew those money-grubbing bastards smelling of sewers were unreliable! They have no honor at all!"
On the throne, Donovan Lyman, Monarch of Walano, maintained the last shred of stiff majesty. His fingers dug into the armrests, voice deliberately steady, as if failure wouldn't arrive as long as he didn't admit it:
"Bernhardt Sharpe," he didn't even use the honorific of General, his tone carrying an unrealistic commanding air, "put away your panic. Gather everyone you can still command and drive those invading Ironborn out of the castle! Right here, stop them!"
Bernhardt Sharpe looked up, his face a mix of disbelief and a sorrow bordering on pity. He took a step forward, almost begging, voice extremely low but every word weeping blood:
"My Lord! Wake up! The castle... can't be held! The Ironborn have flooded in like a tide; our men are dead or scattered! Now only the Unsullied led by Black Worm are fighting to the death in the front streets, buying us the last bit of time!"
He stared dead into Donovan's eyes and spat out the cruelest, and only, choice:
"While we can... let's hurry and run through the secret passage! Any later, and it will really be too late!"
In the hall, only the distant sound of Unsullied shields clashing in silent death and the crackling of burning flames answered his desperate cry.
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