Chapter 689

Has anyone ever used shadow-binding like this before?

Broad daylight. In full view of thousands.

A shadow surged straight through the heart of the battlefield, slipping past legions of soldiers, heading directly for the enemy's command post.

To accomplish this attack, Aegor had offered the pure magical essence of R'hllor’s Scale as the catalyst. For over thirty straight hours, Melisandre had fed it power without rest, and Kinvara had poured nearly all of her own energy into it right before it was unleashed, ensuring it had enough strength to reach its target.

A Goddess' Hand, aided by two High Priests.

Even with such a powerful casting team and all the magical resources they could gather, the shadow only had enough energy left for a single strike by the time it reached its destination.

It barely managed to cut down a flagpole before vanishing into nothingness.

Not a single additional kill.

A pitiful reality of magic in a world so starved of power.

But the soldiers of the Reach didn't know that.

All they saw was a dark, formless horror gliding over their heads, heading straight for the command post—and then, moments later, the royal banner of King Aegon toppling to the ground in a sharp, final arc.

Panic.

Fear.

In their minds, how could they possibly know that no one had actually been slaughtered?

How could they guess that the only casualty was a wooden pole?
----


With countless eyes watching, the collapse of the command flag sent an immediate ripple of disorder through the western Reach army.

Though the Reach lords at the command post quickly rushed to restore the banner—with Jon Connington bellowing orders and sending riders to declare that the king was unharmed—the front-line troops, locked in brutal combat, were already falling back.

Seeing the shift in momentum, Connington gritted his teeth and issued the order to retreat, pulling back the battered front-line soldiers and sending in the final wave of elite reserves.

But this time—the Western Army did not stand still.

For the first time all day, instead of holding formation and allowing the Reach forces to rotate fresh troops, Aegor’s army surged forward.

With a thunderous war cry, they broke out of formation and swept westward, dragging the fleeing Reach soldiers along as they stormed the last remnants of the scorpion artillery positions and the Highgarden and Golden Company infantry lines.
----


The battlefield descended into chaos.

The retreating Reach troops blocked the path of their own incoming reinforcements.

The desperate and the eager collided—a crushing impact like a hammer slamming down on soft flesh.

The first ranks of the Reach army were obliterated, their bodies ground into pulp between the withdrawing and advancing forces.

Within minutes, the battle had turned.

Not by chance, but by design.

Aegor had waited all day for this moment.

If Jon Connington had another reserve force, he could have retreated in an orderly fashion, redrawn his lines, and re-engaged with a flanking counterattack.

But there were no fresh forces left.

Every organized unit of the Reach army had already fought—had already lost its momentum.

There were no more reserves.

And with nothing left to stop them, the Western Army could finally—finally—go on the offensive.
----


"Hold the line! Hold the line! Any man who flees will be cut down!"

Jon Connington roared himself hoarse, desperately trying to stabilize the collapsing front.

But he had no idea that his enemy’s supernatural precision wasn’t simply uncanny battlefield intuition—it was the falcon circling above his head, watching his every move.

Still, he refused to surrender.

If the Western Army was advancing, then he would counterattack.

He ordered his remaining cavalry to sweep around Aegor’s flank, trying to encircle the surging infantry.

But the crumbling lines, the crushed morale, the overwhelming momentum—it was too late.

He clenched his jaw, his face pale.

"...Escort the king back to camp. We retreat."
----


A dying beast still struggles.

The phrase perfectly described the state of the Reach coalition army.

Aegor had finally broken through the western front, creating a snowball effect of victory.

But the east, south, and north?

The battle there continued, the delays in communication masking the disaster unfolding.

The Reach soldiers fighting on those fronts could not see their banner fall.

They hadn’t yet received the order to retreat.

And so they still fought on, believing their multi-pronged assault might eventually overwhelm Aegor.

Victory was now almost certain—but it wasn’t absolute yet.
----


The southern front—held by the Unsullied—stood firm.

The eastern front—under relentless attack—had only barely managed to hold back the second cavalry charge, fighting without artillery support.

But the northern front—where Aegor himself fought—was the most dangerous.

The enemy fleet from the Shield Islands had spread out, landing forces across a kilometer-long stretch of shoreline, scattering their troops in small detachments to infiltrate deep into the defensive formation.

The Gifted Men, fueled by unshaken morale and sheer ferocity, weren’t struggling with winning—

They were struggling with blocking every single landing point.

If even a single enemy unit slipped through, it could stab directly into the backs of the already stretched-thin eastern and western forces.

The northern front had to hold.

And it did.

Through sheer, brutal coordination, Aegor’s men threw back the first wave of invaders, cutting down or driving off every single landing force.

The Mander ran red with corpses—the floating dead of the failed invasion attempt.

Yet the enemy ships did not stop.

They retreated—only to begin loading up the next wave of troops.

If the other battlefronts remained unresolved for too long, the fleet could simply keep ferrying soldiers across, each time choosing a new landing site, draining the Western Army little by little.

But it no longer mattered.

Because the western front had collapsed.

Aegor could now pull reinforcements from the west.

When the ships returned, they would face not three thousand men, but a reinforced force nearly triple that size.
----


Aegor let out a slow breath.

The battlefield was settling.

But regret flickered in his mind.

Victory by clever trickery was satisfying—but was there truly no other way?

A shadow had stolen the battlefield’s attention, ensuring that his true strategies, his real preparations, the sacrifices of his men—

All of it would be overshadowed by that single forbidden spell.

From this day until the end of time, there would be those who dismissed his victory as nothing more than “dark sorcery.”

But in the end…

So what?

He was alive.

And he had won.

History is written by the victors.

He would have a lifetime to reshape the narrative.
----


A sudden roar interrupted his thoughts.

The soldiers around him shouted in shock and joy.

Aegor looked up—

Two black shapes soared toward the battlefield.

At last—Daenerys and her dragons had arrived.