Chapter 231: Once Again
The city was dominated by towering spired structures.
Though much of it had collapsed into ruins over countless ages, the vast complex still radiated an overwhelming sense of grandeur.
As Drogon drew closer, he gradually descended, circling above the city while carefully observing every corner.
After flying over it for some time, he was almost certain of its identity.
Only the Great Empire of the Dawn, an empire said to have surpassed even the Valyrian Freehold at its peak, could have built a city on such an unimaginable scale.
Yet despite its magnificence...
Not a single soul remained.
It was nothing more than a city of the dead.
"Drogon... where is this?"
Daenerys stared down in astonishment.
She had never imagined that such a glorious metropolis could exist in the remote eastern reaches of Essos.
Judging from its sheer size alone, King's Landing couldn't even begin to compare.
What was even more unbelievable was that this city had clearly been abandoned for at least a thousand years.
Yet she had never even heard of its existence.
Drogon replied.
[A magnificent city destroyed by the Long Night more than ten thousand years ago—the capital of the Great Empire of the Dawn.]
Even as he answered, he couldn't help admiring the astonishing power that empire had once possessed.
"The Long Night?"
Out of everything he had said, that single phrase caught Daenerys's attention the most.
An even older Long Night than the first one in Westeros. But here, it wasn't endless winter. Instead, daylight vanished, leaving only unending darkness.
Daenerys knew that during Westeros's first Long Night, an entire generation had been born into bitter cold and died without ever knowing true warmth.
The Long Night that destroyed the Great Empire of the Dawn had lasted for an unknown length of time.
Yet it had brought down an empire of unimaginable strength.
Though the two Long Nights differed in nature, they had produced remarkably similar results—
Human civilization brought to the brink of extinction.
After Westeros's first Long Night, mankind had nearly vanished altogether.
Looking at the ruined city of Yi Ti, Daenerys saw no signs that war had destroyed it.
Could it be...
That this city, too, had become a graveyard simply because the Long Night had claimed its people?
While she pondered the question, Drogon suddenly spoke again.
[Dany, move over to Rhaegal's back for a moment.]
The affectionate nickname caught Daenerys completely off guard.
How long had it been since anyone had called her that?
The last people she could remember were her brother Viserys...
Looking back at Drogon, she couldn't help freezing for a moment.
Long ago, she had stopped thinking of him as her child.
He had become her closest companion—her most trusted partner.
Even so...
Hearing him suddenly call her Dany left her strangely flustered.
Only after Drogon repeated himself did she quietly answer,
"...Alright."
She climbed down using Drogon's wing as a staircase before stepping onto Rhaegal's outstretched wing and settling onto the green dragon's back.
Drogon, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea that a simple nickname had left Daenerys stunned for so long.
To him, it was nothing more than convenience.
Calling her "Dany" was simply shorter—and easier to say than "Daenerys."
The nickname "Dragon Mom" that Drogon had once used in his thoughts had gradually faded away as he spent more and more years in this world. Calling her that no longer felt natural.
Watching Rhaegal carry Daenerys farther away, Drogon shrank into his hatchling form with a soft pop before darting into the largest and most magnificent structure in the ruined city.
Passing through crumbling walls and shattered corridors, he entered a vast hall and flew toward the throne atop the raised dais.
So the legends were true...
His eyes locked onto the enormous black pedestal beneath the throne.
He recalled the ancient tale of the Bloodstone Emperor of the Great Empire of the Dawn.
According to legend, the emperor had become obsessively infatuated with a strange, slimy black stone that had fallen from the heavens.
His reign descended into madness and unspeakable cruelty, ultimately bringing divine punishment in the form of the Long Night and leading to the destruction of the empire itself.
While circling above the city earlier, Drogon had already sensed a sinister aura emanating from this place.
That was why he had sent Rhaegal away with Daenerys before investigating alone.
Now...
He had found the source of that evil.
Standing only a short distance away, he stared at the glossy black stone, its surface coated in a layer of glistening slime.
At close range, the oppressive aura it emitted became even more overwhelming.
For a moment, Drogon felt the urge to destroy it with dragonfire.
But memories of the strange foreboding he had experienced while burning the Night King's flesh resurfaced, forcing him to suppress the impulse.
Unless it attacked him first...
It seemed wiser not to provoke something this unnatural.
Just as he turned to leave the hall, however, the corner of his eye caught something.
The black stone...
Had moved.
He stopped flapping his wings and looked back.
It was perfectly still.
Only the slimy surface seemed to ripple almost imperceptibly.
Thump.
Just as he began turning away again, the black stone suddenly pulsed.
Drogon froze.
Had he imagined it?
Thump.
Three seconds later...
It pulsed again.
This time, there was no mistaking it.
Thump.
Another pulse.
Barely two seconds after the last.
The sinister aura growing from it felt disturbingly similar to the Night King's flesh—yet even darker, more twisted, enough to make even Drogon's scales crawl.
Thump.
This time...
The stone didn't merely pulse.
It writhed.
BOOM!
Without another moment's hesitation, Drogon instantly expanded into his full-grown form and unleashed a torrent of black dragonfire.
Fortunately, the ancient hall was enormous, barely large enough to contain his colossal body.
The instant the flames engulfed the stone, it began writhing violently.
At the same time, countless voices exploded inside Drogon's mind.
Terrified screams.
Agonized wails.
Men.
Women.
Children.
The elderly.
They weren't sounds entering through his ears.
They echoed directly within his consciousness.
The mental assault was more than ten times stronger than anything the Night King's flesh had ever inflicted.
For a terrifying instant, Drogon nearly lost control of his breath and fled.
As the black stone writhed, it overturned the throne above it.
From its surface emerged a grotesque human face, constantly shifting, twisting, and changing expressions as it crawled toward him.
Enduring the relentless psychic assault, Drogon slowly backed away while continuing to pour black flames over it.
He refused to let something this horrifying touch him.
Just imagining the consequences made every scale on his body stand on end.
But the creature had no intention of allowing him to escape.
As it continued burning away beneath the dragonfire, it sensed the danger and accelerated, slithering ever faster.
Soon Drogon found himself backed into the far corner of the hall.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
Realizing he couldn't destroy it quickly enough, he prepared to shrink down and fly through the doorway.
But just as he activated his transformation—
The creature, now almost completely human in shape, suddenly kicked off the ground and launched itself at him.
There was no time to dodge.
Instinctively, Drogon caught it in his foreclaws.
The creature struggled violently for several moments before abandoning the attempt to break free.
Instead...
It began crawling up his arms.
A chill of disgust shot through Drogon.
He frantically shook his claws, trying to fling it away.
It wouldn't budge.
Its slimy body clung with terrifying strength.
Grinding his teeth, he grabbed it with both foreclaws and tried tearing it apart.
But despite its soft, gelatinous appearance...
It was unbelievably resilient.
No matter how hard he pulled, it simply refused to tear.
Seeing it continue inching toward his body, Drogon made a ruthless decision.
He turned his dragonfire upon his own claws.
Black flames engulfed both forelimbs.
The creature writhed violently in agony, yet still refused to release its grip.
Instead, it stretched its body thinner and longer, desperately continuing its climb.
Ignoring the pain of burning his own flesh, Drogon kept pulling and resisting.
The stalemate continued.
Little by little, the black mass shrank beneath the relentless flames.
Meanwhile, the scales on Drogon's foreclaws curled, blackened, and began charring under the unbearable heat.
He endured it all without hesitation.
As long as the creature remained attached, he couldn't afford to stop.
After several tense moments, Drogon noticed something encouraging.
As the creature's size diminished...
Its strength weakened as well.
His confidence immediately surged.
Ignoring the searing pain in his burned claws, he unleashed even more dragonfire.
Gradually, the once enormous black stone—originally as large as a millstone beneath the throne—shrank until it was no bigger than a washbasin.
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