Aegon did not advance with the fleet.
On the leeward side of a deserted island a few miles from The Abyss of Torture, he ordered the fleet to anchor temporarily. He then brought Ghidorah onto the beach, which was covered in black jagged rocks.
There was not enough space on the ships, nor could they withstand the weight generated when Ghidorah spread its wings to take flight.
The sea breeze carried the scent of salt and the heavy stillness before rain, making his blood-red cloak snap behind him. Aegon turned around and looked at the pale golden figure beside him, now so massive it was suffocating.
Ghidorah stood there quietly, its three heads lowered slightly, its six molten-gold vertical pupils reflecting Aegon's figure.
Its growth rate was faster than imagined. Now, just standing, its height exceeded two men. Its slender necks and tails stretched out, casting large, hideous shadows under the dim sky.
The scales covering its entire body were dense and cold, with a restrained golden luster flowing along the edges.
Aegon reached out and stroked the cold scales under the jaw of the middle head.
"This time, we're doing it for real," he whispered.
A vague yet clear response came through the mental link.
Understanding, seriousness, and a long-suppressed desire to release its power.
This time, Ghidorah showed no signs of fooling around. It quietly lowered its body, the middle head turning to make room for Aegon to mount its back.
Aegon took a deep breath, pushed off with his feet, and flipped himself up.
The Valyrian Steel armor rubbed against the dragon scales, making a faint metallic scraping sound.
The depression where the dragon's neck met its body was just right for him to sit astride, with the hard, protruding spinal plates on either side available for gripping.
There was no saddle, only the direct contact of cold scales.
Almost the moment he sat firmly, the combat instincts gifted by Maegor Targaryen surged spontaneously.
How to maintain balance, how to move with the undulations of the dragon's muscles, how to stay steady during high speeds and changes in direction... it was as if he had ridden like this a thousand times before.
At the same time, a deeper mental communion originating from their soul bond quietly unfolded.
He could vaguely sense the tension in the muscles of Ghidorah's wing membranes, perceive the locking of its three consciousnesses onto the same target, and even share a glimpse of that vast, superhuman vision overlooking the earth.
"Go," Aegon willed.
"Roar—!"
Ghidorah's middle head tilted toward the sky and let out a low, majestic roar. It wasn't deafening, yet it seemed to shake the very air around them.
The next moment, those pale golden wing membranes, large enough to blot out the sun, suddenly unfurled and flapped downward with force!
"Boom—!!!"
Violent currents of air exploded outward with Ghidorah at the center. The debris and sand on the beach were swept dozens of feet into the air.
The massive lift tossed Aegon's body upward slightly, but he was locked firmly to the dragon's back by an instinctive strength in his core.
His vision rose rapidly. The deserted island, the rocks, the sea, the fleet... everything was shrinking.
The wind howled in his ears, yet it was weakened by some invisible force field. Aegon's silver hair danced wildly behind his head. He squinted slightly as the clouds drew closer.
Climbing, constantly climbing.
He passed through thin, scattered clouds and broke into the thick, leaden cumulonimbus layers.
The surroundings instantly fell into a grey gloom, with only occasional flashes of lightning briefly illuminating the distorted outlines of the clouds. Water vapor condensed on the surface of his armor, bringing a cold sensation.
But there was no fear in Aegon's heart, only an unprecedented sense of freedom, as if he had broken the shackles of the earth, and a burning pleasure in controlling such power.
This was dragon riding.
This was the instinct sleeping within the Targaryen bloodline.
Maegor's gift made his body move naturally, and the mental communion allowed their wills to be as one.
He needed no reins, no verbal commands.
With just a thought, Ghidorah understood perfectly, adjusting its direction within the sea of clouds and flapping its wings with even more ferocious speed.
Toward The Abyss of Torture, breaking through the cloud barrier, it streaked away... Deep within the rift of The Abyss of Torture.
Several large tyroshi galley-style warships were half-dragged onto the crude beach. More sailors and soldiers were gathered on the relatively flat rock platforms on both sides of the rift, having set up temporary camps with canvas and timber.
They were no ordinary pirates.
Over a month ago, a coup conspiracy against the current Archon in Tyrosh had been exposed.
These officers, mercenaries, and outlaws who had participated in it had seized several warships and fled in panic under their leader's command.
The Disputed Lands were too chaotic, and returning to Tyrosh was walking into a trap, so they eventually chose the Stepstones, a lawless zone, as a temporary refuge.
Bloodstone was too large and easily attracted attention.
Although the rift island known as "The Abyss of Torture" had a harsh environment, it was secluded and easy to defend but hard to attack.
As for the scattered pirates entrenched here?
Ha, just a rabble. In the past few weeks, they had easily dealt with several groups of fools who had come to "pay respects" or try to rob them, which conveniently replenished their dwindling supplies and... entertainment.
"Ships! To the west! An entire fleet!" At a lookout point on the edge of the rift, a sentry suddenly pulled his head back and shouted toward the camp below.
A commotion immediately broke out in the camp, but it wasn't panic.
Many people put down their dried meat or dice, their faces showing a mixture of cruelty and boredom.
"Which group of blind small fry is it this time?" An officer wearing a half-plate cuirass with burn scars on his face stood up, grinning to reveal yellow teeth. "Leader, shall we go out and stretch our legs?"
The man called Leader was tall, wearing a gold-embroidered cloak brought from Tyrosh over mail armor. He was using a dagger to peel a piece of fruit and didn't even look up at the words: "What's the rush? The hidden reefs in this hellhole are enough to give them a hard time. Wait until they struggle to get close and disembark... that's when we kill them."
He paused, the tip of his dagger stabbing into the fruit. "Tell the boys to get ready to welcome them. One head for one cup of good wine."
A round of coarse laughter and whistling echoed through the camp.
No one was worried. It had been the same the last few times—using the terrain and equipment advantages to wait at their leisure. No matter how many of those stupid pirates came, they all died.
This would be their temporary paradise until the heat died down, or... they found a better way out.
They watched at their ease as the fleet struggled to maneuver and probe through the reef-filled waters, slowly approaching the rift's only entrance.
Some had already picked up their bows and crossbows, checking their blades, their eyes looking like they were watching a pack of prey walking into a trap.
Just then—
"Woo—vroom—"
A low, strange hum, like countless metals vibrating in resonance at an extremely high frequency, came without warning from deep within the thick dark clouds overhead.
"What's that sound?" someone asked, looking up in confusion.
"Thunder? Is it going to pour?" another muttered, looking at the lead-grey clouds that hung so low they seemed ready to collapse at any moment.
The humming grew louder and closer, carrying a piercing quality that made one's teeth ache and heart flutter.
"Look up!" The lookout's voice suddenly changed pitch, turning into a sharp, breaking shriek.
Everyone instinctively looked up.
They saw the center of those thick, impenetrable dark clouds suddenly cave inward and rotate, as if being churned by an invisible giant hand!
Immediately after—
A flash of blinding gold fiercely tore through the dense clouds and plummeted down!
What was that?!
The speed was faster than the limit of visual capture. One moment it was at the break in the clouds, the next it had descended over the rift with a scream that tore the atmosphere!
The massive pale golden body unfurled, blotting out the already dim light and casting a desperate shadow over the rift.
What froze their souls most was that the creature actually had three equally hideous heads covered in bone armor!
Six eyes burning with golden lightning, like eyes of judgment from ancient times, instantly locked onto the tiny, ant-like crowd below.
"A dragon...?!" A soldier with some experience had his pupils shrink to pinpoints, squeezing out half a broken syllable from his throat.
Doubt, shock, bewilderment, and the subsequent explosion of ultimate terror that swept through every cell of their bodies—there wasn't even time for it to be converted into a scream through their vocal cords.
Ghidorah's middle head was the first to open its massive maw. Deep within its throat, a point of golden light rapidly expanded and erupted!
The left and right heads synchronized immediately.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Three bucket-thick bolts of brilliant golden lightning, composed of pure destructive energy—not fire, yet more violent than fire—swept across the rift platform from three angles like the lashes of a god!
In the eyes of these people, those golden rays were lightning.
There was no explosion, only annihilation.
Wherever the lightning passed, rocks vaporized instantly, leaving behind burn marks several feet deep with edges shimmering with a glassy luster.
Human bodies were like snowmen under a scorching sun; before they could even scream, they were directly decomposed, carbonized, and turned to ash in the brilliant golden light!
That "Leader" who had been peeling fruit just moments ago, his figure draped in the gold-embroidered cloak, was lightly brushed by a stray bolt of lightning.
In an instant, the cloak, the mail armor, the flesh, the bones... every trace of his existence vanished without a trace, leaving only a human-shaped, charred, smoking void on the spot, along with a few wisps of smoke that hadn't had time to settle.
With the first round of breath, the platform on the left side of the rift was cleared.
Ghidorah flapped its wings, its massive body tracing a half-arc in the air with incredible agility. The other two heads adjusted their direction, and two more bolts of golden lightning were spat out!
"No—!!!"
"Run!!"
"Demon! This is a demon!!!"
Wailing, screaming, and roars of collapse finally erupted, but they were instantly swallowed by the even more deafening roar of the lightning.
The rift turned into a golden purgatory.
The lightning was like the Reaper's plow, washing over this land again and again.
Those who tried to hide in rock crevices were melted along with the rocks. Those who ran toward the ships became running charcoal on the beach. Those who knelt and begged for mercy lost their form in the next moment.
This was not a battle; it was a one-sided erasure from a higher dimension.
When the Skull Squad vanguard, commanded by Henry and Karl, took small boats and carefully navigated through the reef area to land amidst the lingering smell of charred smoke, the battle was already over.
No, the battle they had imagined hadn't happened at all.
Before them was only a mess of scorched earth. Most of the original camp tents, supplies, and bodies had disappeared. The few remains were just twisted, charred wreckage emitting a pungent odor.
Rocks had been melted and then solidified, forming hideous and strange shapes. A hot wind and the scent of death drifted through the rift.
Not one in ten tyroshi remained alive, and all of them were soul-shattered, their eyes vacant.
Their bodies shook like sieves as they curled up in corners, showing no reaction to the approaching Skull Squad soldiers, as if their spirits had been completely destroyed.
"This... this is..." A small leader of the Skull Squad looked at the hellish scene before him, his Adam's apple bobbing, unable to speak a full sentence.
All the soldiers who landed, whether the outlaws of the Skull Squad or the veterans of the Bloodsworn, instinctively stopped in their tracks, looking in shock at this land that had been "plowed" several times.
Then, their gazes involuntarily turned toward the highest rocky hill on one side of the rift.
There, the massive three-headed golden dragon stood quietly, with faint, lingering sparks of electricity still flowing over its pale golden scales.
It slightly folded its wings, its three heads lowered, and its six golden eyes looked down indifferently at the people below.
And on that mountain-like dragon's back, a figure stood tall as a pine.
Black armor, a red cloak, and silver hair fluttering in the sea breeze.
One hand rested casually on his knee, while the other held the cold scales of the dragon's neck. The lines of his profile, illuminated by the smoke and the sky, were like a cold sculpture.
He sat calmly on the dragon's back as if he had only done something trivial.
Time seemed to freeze.
The sea breeze whistled through the rift, mixing with the lingering echoes of lightning and the smell of burning.
All the Skull Squad soldiers, all the Bloodsworn warriors, and even those surviving but broken tyroshi, looked up at the scene atop the rocky hill.
The black-armored knight, the pale golden dragon, the destructive lightning, the absolute control.
This was their Highness.
This was Targaryen.
This was... the might of the Dragon King.
An unprecedented emotion, a mixture of ultimate awe, soul-shaking trembling, and fanatical worship, ignited like wildfire in the heart of every onlooker.
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