Time slipped by amid the tense search.
Two hours later, the preliminary results were compiled and presented to Lo Quen.
Even he felt a sharp surge of astonishment as he read through the reports.
Across Stygai, soldiers had discovered tens of thousands of black stone coffins.
Most were hidden within underground crypts or abandoned temples.
When the coffins were opened, they revealed all manner of skeletal remains.
What made the scene truly chilling was that many of these skeletons bore clear signs of being stitched together.
A single set of remains might contain bones from humans, beasts, and even creatures that could not be identified.
Some of the bodies, due to special treatments or the influence of magic, had not fully decayed despite the passage of countless years, lingering in a disturbingly preserved state.
Qyburn and Marwyn rushed over as soon as they received the news. The moment they saw these remains, they understood their origin.
"Blood magic experiments!"
Qyburn exclaimed, a sickly gleam flashing in his eyes. "And on a massive, systematic scale at that. Biological fusion and modification. This place… is nothing less than the remains of an ancient mad sorcerer's living laboratory."
Not long after, an even more important discovery was reported.
At the very center of the city, beneath the grandest black stone tower of all, soldiers found a cleverly concealed entrance leading to an underground palace.
Lo Quen immediately led a group there.
After descending a long, sloping flight of stairs, they emerged into a vast subterranean space.
At the center of the palace rested a black stone sarcophagus, far larger and far more exquisitely crafted than any of those outside.
"Open it,"
Lo Quen ordered.
It took the combined effort of more than a dozen strong soldiers to slowly shift the heavy lid aside.
As the opening widened, a cold breath of air poured out, carrying the mingled scents of ancient incense and faint decay.
When the lid was fully removed and its contents revealed, everyone drew in a sharp breath.
Inside the sarcophagus lay the lifelike corpse of a young woman, showing not the slightest sign of decay.
She had long silvery-golden hair that flowed with a moonlit sheen. Her skin was pale as the finest jade, her features exquisitely beautiful, almost inhuman in their perfection.
She wore an ancient-style silver-white gown, astonishingly well preserved.
Most striking of all was the large red gemstone hanging at her slender, fair neck. Beneath where it rested, the skin showed a faint mark, slightly darker in color.
At her chest, beneath the folds of her gown, there was an unnatural hollow, as though something within had been removed.
"This is…"
Lo Quen stared at the young woman's face, which bore a faint resemblance to Daenerys, and his heart gave a sudden jolt.
Daenerys, too, seemed drawn by some invisible force. She stepped forward without realizing it, extending a slightly trembling hand to gently touch the young woman's cold cheek.
The instant her fingertips made contact with the girl's skin…
"Buzz!"
A faint, violet-hued halo rippled outward from the point of contact.
In the next moment, under the horrified stares of everyone present, the girl lying within the stone coffin slowly opened eyes that had been shut for who knew how many ages.
They were eyes as pure as flawless amethyst, carrying the hazy confusion of someone newly awakened. Her gaze soon settled on Daenerys, who stood just before her.
The girl's lips trembled slightly.
"You are… you are my descendant… I can feel it. My blood flows within you…"
She struggled, as if trying to sit up.
Lo Quen immediately pulled Daenerys behind him, his guard fully raised. His sharp gaze swept over the girl, lingering especially on the faint, blood-red mark beneath the ruby at her neck.
In a low voice, part probing and part certain, Lo Quen asked, "Could it be… you are the Amethyst Empress? The wife and sister of the Bloodstone Emperor?"
The girl turned her eyes toward him, surprise flashing through her violet pupils.
"You know who I am… Then it seems you have already met him?"
She appeared to sense the traces left on Lo Quen from his encounter with that mad emperor of the Great Sand Sea.
Lo Quen nodded and briefly recounted what the Bloodstone Emperor had told him there.
After listening, the Amethyst Empress let out a soft sigh, heavy with emotions too complex to name.
"I never imagined… that in the end, he would still choose that path, leaving before me…"
She lifted a nearly translucent hand and gently brushed her empty chest, her tone calm, as if she were speaking of someone else entirely.
"As you can see, this body of mine has endured countless assaults by forbidden magic. I have been subjected to endless dark experiments, and each time an experiment failed, I was revived again and again. What I am now can hardly be called alive. I am nothing more than a shell, driven by obsession and the remnants of magic."
Lo Quen looked at her and smiled faintly.
"The two of you really do speak in exactly the same way. But I didn't come here to listen to memories of the past. I came to find answers and to stop a disaster that could destroy the world."
His gaze swept over her face, so eerily similar to Daenerys's, and he asked the question that had been weighing on him.
"You look so much like my Queen, Daenerys. Does that mean… Dany is the vessel chosen by the Cold God?"
The moment those words were spoken, Daenerys's body shook violently. Her face went pale as she instinctively clutched Lo Quen's arm.
She stared at the Amethyst Empress in fear, terrified that her unusual bloodline might bring calamity, or even become the source of harm to Lo Quen and the world itself.
The Amethyst Empress smiled faintly.
"At first, that was indeed the case. Descendants of the Great Empire of the Dawn, because of their unique origins, possess the potential of both ice and fire. Any one of them could become a target chosen by the Lord of Light or the Cold God. But…"
Her tone shifted. Those deep violet eyes looked to Lo Quen, then to Daenerys nestled against him.
"The choices made by magic are not fixed. Those ancient beings who once wielded true forbidden power, even after slumbering for tens of thousands of years, prepared countless contingencies and alternatives. Your wife was merely one candidate among many."
"When certain key factors are altered by powerful external forces, when the course of fate itself is deflected, the mark that once clung to her can transfer to someone else. Someone more suitable… or someone even less capable of resisting destiny."
She carefully sensed Daenerys's presence, then spoke with certainty.
"Right now, I feel no magic of the Cold God upon her."
At those words, Lo Quen felt his heart finally ease.
This was undeniably good news.
Dany had escaped that terrifying vortex of fate.
Yet a new question immediately followed.
If not her, then who was the one chosen by the Cold God?
The Amethyst Empress seemed to see through his thoughts. A faint, enigmatic smile appeared on her exquisitely pale face.
"The one chosen by the Cold God must possess a vessel capable of bearing her power, that is, one of her bloodline descendants. Aside from the exceptional lineage of the Great Empire of the Dawn, which carries both ice and fire, there exists in this world… another bloodline, one far purer, belonging solely to the Cold God."
Lo Quen's gaze sharpened.
"Another bloodline?"
A vague suspicion had already begun to form in his mind, yet he still did not dare to confirm it.