At noon, with the blazing sun high in the sky, an army predominantly clad in blue marched in neat formation, preparing to leave their camp beneath the walls of Casterly Rock.
The sky was cloudless and the air was still; the banners of a golden rose on a green field hung limply from their poles, as if accepting their fate of returning empty-handed once again.
They resembled a diverted river, heading south in full view of the defenders of Casterly Rock; this was the great Tyrell army.
Loras was the one responsible for leading the army away. His handsome face was pulled long at the moment; in his view, Jon's so-called strategy was nothing short of a joke.
"Heh~ Lord Jon, are you certain this will truly make Daven move the army away from Casterly Rock? What if we make this trip for nothing?" Loras's tone was filled with impatience.
In his own plan, he should have been the first person to scale the walls of Casterly Rock after a bloody battle. Then, he could thoroughly humiliate Jon to prove that Jon's past military achievements were nothing more than the result of opportunistic tricks.
Instead, Jon had assigned him an errand boy's task, requiring him to lead five thousand Tyrell soldiers to feign a march south, only to return to Riverrun a few days later.
Jon told him that he intended to use this feigned southern march to trick Daven into deploying the defenders of Casterly Rock elsewhere.
But no matter how he thought about it, this plan seemed unreliable. After all, to know if the army had truly gone south, wouldn't they just need to send a raven to ask the southern castles?
In Loras's eyes, Jon's plan was simply the height of stupidity.
"Rest assured, Ser Loras. If my plan fails, the army will be under your command and disposal. I can step down from the position of Commander-in-Chief," Jon said with a smile.
"I don't care for any Commander-in-Chief position," Loras said, his brown eyes shifting. "If your plan fails, then stay away from my sister!"
"Lor!" Garlan reminded from the side; this demand was clearly a bit excessive.
The marriage alliance between House Tyrell and Jon Stark was already a settled matter; there was absolutely no possibility of changing it.
"How about this: if my plan fails, then the Tyrells will have priority in selecting and mining the gold mines we capture in the future," Jon offered his stake.
Loras had never lacked money since childhood—or rather, with his status, he had no need for it at all—but then he remembered that the Lannisters always liked to bind themselves to gold, so gold mines must be very valuable. After a brief thought, he said, "Fine. Since it's a bet, what do you want?"
"If my plan works, then after I marry Margaery, you will come to Casterly Rock and serve as my Commander of the City Watch."
Jon knew perfectly well that after conquering the Westerlands, the Tyrells would certainly want a piece of the pie and would use various excuses to plant their people by his side.
Most importantly, he had no grounds to refuse. After all, he was but one man and could not be in two places at once; he truly had to rely on Tyrell manpower and resources.
Since that was the case, it was better to choose someone not so clever to have nearby.
"No problem, as long as you can actually take Casterly Rock." Having said that, Loras bid Garlan farewell, mounted his horse, and led the troops away.
After seeing Loras off, Jon handed the army's affairs over to Garlan and Martin. He then left the army alone, heading toward a temporarily vacant small village nearby.
Soon, Jon arrived at this village, which was nearly deserted due to the war, and entered a large house that had been temporarily converted into a rookery.
This large house had originally been a knight's manor. The knight had likely died in battle, leaving the house vacant.
Upon entering, he saw twenty or thirty raven nests fixed to wooden racks inside the house, each containing an adult raven.
When these ravens saw Jon enter, they clearly became restless. They flapped their wings one after another, letting out harsh, discordant croaks.
The crows were all staring at the food box in his hand.
Jon had not been idle while waiting for the army to arrive. He had been preparing these ravens for a month, personally feeding them fresh meat and dried fruits.
Jon intended to use these ravens to intercept and forge Casterly Rock's communications with the outside world.
Speaking of which, his inspiration had come from Tywin using ravens to verify whether the Red Keep had fallen.
Jon needed enough ravens to monitor and intercept the raven traffic of Casterly Rock. To control enough ravens at once, he needed to upgrade the [Shapeshifter] trait.
With a thought, the trait status appeared before his eyes:
[Shapeshifter: Blue]
[Remaining Upgrade Points: 3]
Currently, Jon only had one red, max-level trait—Sword Saint.
Based on previous experience, he could completely upgrade the Shapeshifter trait to the maximum in one go.
However, Casterly Rock was only the first hurdle in invading the Westerlands, and he didn't know what challenges he might face in the future. So, Jon still chose to add one upgrade point to the trait first, as long as it reached a sufficient level for now.
With a flash of purple light, the blue trait turned purple.
Jon looked at his original raven. He saw its pupils suddenly enlarge and then become sharp, identical to Jon's own grey eyes, while Jon's own body remained under his control.
Previously, when controlling a raven, his own body would be in an "AFK" state, as if asleep. Now, it was as if there was a "split screen" before Jon's eyes—one side was his own perspective, and the other was the raven's perspective.
Then he tried to skinchange into another raven. Sure enough, the two "split screens" became three.
He could now see himself, the raven, and other places, as if he had grown three eyes that could turn independently.
It was just that the original two were somewhat blurry, and the perceived images were also a bit sluggish.
When Jon tried to operate a fifth raven simultaneously, he felt as if his head were about to split open.
"It seems I need to go up another level."
So he added another upgrade point, and this time the trait turned gold!
Under the effect of the gold trait, Jon felt the splitting headache rapidly recede, so he continued to control more ravens!
Five, six... eleven, thirteen...
The eyes of the ravens that had been eagerly watching the food box in Jon's hand changed one by one.
For every one Jon took control of, he made it stand on the table. When he reached about twenty, that painful sensation returned.
Finally, Jon discovered that if he gave up control of his own body, he could control twenty-four ravens at once!
"I am the Swarm!" Jon suddenly thought of this phrase, thinking that perhaps the White Walkers who could control Wights were each masters of skinchanging.
Twenty-some ravens were enough for Jon to intercept the ravens entering and leaving Casterly Rock, so he saved the last upgrade point.
Soon, a flock of ravens left the room of the large house, their wings drinking in the wind as they flew toward Casterly Rock.
Jon, still in the house, felt as if he were watching a dozen surveillance screens at once, though the images on the "screens" were all much the same for now.
Forests, fields, mountains, and rivers swept past beneath them. What came next was waiting—waiting for a raven from Casterly Rock, then intercepting it and replacing it!
The ravens flew swiftly, soon passing over the military camp and arriving above Casterly Rock.
Casterly Rock was flanked by mountains on both sides; there was no possibility of flanking it other than a frontal assault. This was the terrifying aspect of the Casterly Rock fortress.
After selecting a spot, Jon had the ravens disperse and lie low inside and outside Casterly Rock, especially near the rookery, to intercept messages.
As Jon had expected, although Kevan had not moved the army away from Casterly Rock because of his performance, he still sent out a raven to ask for Tywin's opinion.
Jon, who had already returned to the camp, had a dozen ravens wait in the woods southwest of Casterly Rock for two days. Sure enough, he soon spotted a raven coming from the direction of Casterly Rock.
The Lannisters' wealth was reflected in every aspect. While the messenger tubes used by the ravens of other castles were made of bronze, the ravens sent from Casterly Rock carried tubes forged of gold.
Gold was more ductile, allowing for thinner and lighter tubes, and the letters inside could carry more content.
But the golden tube also made it easier for Jon to spot.
Just as this raven sighted Casterly Rock and was about to accelerate, six or seven ravens, like startled bats, swarmed out from the woods to surround it.
Ravens are very intelligent birds; in such a situation, its fear was very obvious, and it turned around to flee back toward Casterly Rock.
But it didn't expect an ambush behind it. Three or four ravens coordinated perfectly, their long beaks pecking at its body and wings. Dazed by the ambush, the Casterly Rock raven made an emergency landing, only to fall into an even larger encirclement.
A few more ravens came, controlling it completely like a net. They then removed the golden tube from its leg and brought it to Jon's hand.
Jon poured the letter out of the tube and found its content very brief, containing only a short command. Tywin had not believed Jon's "feint" either, but instead told Daven to hold Casterly Rock firmly and not waver.
Additionally, there was one point that surprised Jon: Tywin actually explicitly mentioned that Daven should not get too close to Lady Lydden of Casterly Rock.
Although he didn't know the reason, Jon believed that as long as he did the opposite, there would be no problem.
So, he imitated the handwriting in the letter and rewrote it, ordering Daven to deploy three thousand troops south toward Cornfield and simultaneously telling him to get closer to Lady Lydden.
Since the enemy relied on ravens to confirm Jon's troop movements, Jon could rely on ravens to give them false information.
In this way, he achieved the goal of "commanding the enemy."
Next, he only needed to continue the act. When the commander of Casterly Rock saw with his own eyes the besieging army decrease, while receiving orders from afar to deploy his troops, he would inevitably move the defenders out.
Once the defenders inside Casterly Rock were reduced to a certain level, Jon could launch a forceful assault and take Casterly Rock in one fell swoop.
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