Dawg Lars cleared his throat. Although his vocal cords burned by the smoke made a hoarse sound like sandpaper, everyone listened attentively.
He started when the fleet entered the waterway, talked about the saturation strike of the ballistae, talked about the explosion of Wildfire, talked about the two dragons Daemon and Tormund, talked about King Ghidorah's counterattack, and talked about the scene where Redd was blown away and walked out of the sea of fire naked.
He spoke in great detail, without exaggerating or deliberately concealing anything.
His tone was calm, but his fingers kept tightening, loosening, tightening, and loosening on the crutches, revealing his inner unrest.
After Jason listened, he was silent for a long time. He tapped his hand gently on the table, one after another, as if he was calculating something.
Then he spoke, his voice was not loud, but every word was spoken clearly. "Your Highness, the matter of Lys has passed. The question now is how the remaining city-states will react."
"They have already responded." Redd did not open his eyes, and his voice was as calm as saying that the weather is good today, "Tyrosh and Myr's envoys have arrived and are waiting outside the port."
The four people in the hall were stunned at the same time.
Marcus was the first to react. His eyes lit up and he grinned, showing his white teeth. "Come to surrender?"
"Come to surrender." Redd corrected his wording, "No conditions, surrender voluntarily."
Marcus almost jumped out of his chair.
Once the nine Free Cities, plus the few that have surrendered before, Tyrosh and Myr surrender, it means that the entire Essos The west coast of - from Braavos to Volantis, from the Midsummer Sea to the Shivering Sea - all fell into the hands of Redd.
That is one-third of Essos's land, and it is the most prosperous, richest, and most strategically valuable trade corridor in the world.
This is the most glorious and landmark victory in Redd's journey from being a single person to where he is today.
Siora's reaction was much calmer than Marcus's. She just quickly jotted down a few notes in her notebook, then raised her head and looked at Redd with a calm, somewhat scrutinizing gaze. "Your Highness, what are their conditions?"
"No conditions." Redd said.
Siora frowned slightly. Without conditions, it would be more troublesome than with conditions.
Conditional means that bargaining is possible, which means that both parties can get something from the transaction.
There are no conditions, which means that the opponent's posture is as low as the dust, which means that they have pushed all the chips on the table, which means that they have completely put their destiny in the hands of Redd.
This is not something that two shrewd Free Cities governors would do, unless - they have calculated all the accounts and found that raising any conditions will only anger Redd, so they might as well kneel down and bet that Redd will read the word "active", leaving them a way to survive.
Siora's eyes moved to Redd's face, and when she saw his closed eyes and slightly raised corners of his mouth, her heart sank. She knew that those governors had made a wrong bet.
Redd opened his eyes, there was no warmth in the black pupils, only a calm, blade-like light.
"Let them in," he said to the guard at the door.
The envoys of Tyrosh and Myr were brought in. The envoy of Tyrosh was a middle-aged man wearing a purple satin robe. He was fat and his stomach trembled when he walked. His face Full of flattering smiles, those tiny eyes began to scan the surrounding environment the moment they entered the hall - the location of the guards, the types of weapons, whether King Ghidorah was present, and what Redd's face was like.
The messenger of Myr is a thin old man, wearing a black plain robe, with a pale complexion, and his legs are shaking slightly when walking, but what shines in the deep-set eye sockets is not fear, but some kind of more complicated light, somewhere between awe and calculation.
The two walked to the center of the hall, knelt on their knees, and touched their foreheads to the ground, their postures extremely humble.
"Tyrosh city-state, offers its most sincere surrender to His Highness Dragon King." The Tyrosh messenger's words were obviously carefully prepared. His voice was loud, his words were gorgeous, and his posture was dignified, as if he was reciting a written article. "The gates of Tyrosh will always be open to you, the people of Tyrosh will always be loyal to you, and everything in Tyrosh - wealth, fleet, land, people - will all belong to you from this moment on."
The messenger of Myr followed closely behind, his voice was calmer and more concise. "Myr is the same. Unconditionally. All."
Redd looked at the two people kneeling on the ground and was silent for a long time.
That kind of silence is intentional, purposeful, and a kind of psychological oppression.
He was making the two messengers feel fear, letting them imagine the worst ending over and over again in their minds without knowing how Redd would respond.
Their foreheads were pressed against the cold ground, sweat dripping from their foreheads and forming a small puddle on the floor.
Their breathing became faster and faster, their shoulders became stiffer and stiffer, and their whole bodies were gradually crushed by the silence of Redd.
"Get up." Redd finally spoke.
As if they had received amnesty, the two messengers struggled to get up from the ground. Their knees were a little weak from kneeling for too long, and they needed to hold on to the pillars beside them to stand firm.
Redd looked at them, the corners of his mouth raised slightly, revealing a faint smile without any warmth.
"Active surrender," his voice was not loud, but it was very clear in the quiet hall, "Very good."
The two messengers breathed a sigh of relief at the same time, and the expressions on their faces changed from tense fear to relaxed joy.
"But," Redd said one word, and that one word stretched the two messengers' newly relaxed nerves to the limit, "It's too late."
Tyrosh The messenger's face seemed to have been slapped in the face at that moment, the smile froze on his face, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, and a trace of despair flashed in his small eyes.
Myr's messenger was calmer, his expression didn't change much, except that his sunken eyes closed for a moment and then opened again, as if he had expected this result.
"If you come before Lys is destroyed, before I set off from Dragonstone, or even before Daemon and Tormund ambush me," Redd's tone was calm as if he was talking about something that had nothing to do with him, "I will leave you something.
Power, wealth, status, there is always something that allows you to continue to be decent people."
He stood up from the high-backed chair, walked to the two envoys, and looked at them condescendingly.