Crow's Eye, dead

The flames burned, yet radiated a bitter cold that froze the soul.

Black and red Bloodflame spread silently, licking everything in the ruins-rocks, corpses, armor, and the living.

This was no earthly fire. It offered no warmth, no hope born of light, only darkness and cold that devoured everything.

Aegon knelt on one knee at the center of the flames, his body trembling violently.

Every breath carried shards of ice. His lungs felt as though they would freeze and tear apart.

But more terrifying still was the flood of information exploding inside his mind.

Countless images, sounds, and sensations surged in like a black tide-

A mother's final gaze as she held her child before a waiting blade;

The warmth of blood spraying from a soldier's slit throat;

An old man curled in the corner of a cage, weeping silently;

Thousands upon thousands of faces contorting in their final moments amid flames and blades...

Fear, pain, hatred, defiance.

The dying emotions of hundreds of thousands of lives, mixed with centuries of accumulated dust, became the most vicious poison imaginable, battering and tearing at Aegon's soul.

His skull felt ready to burst, his consciousness tossed between millstones and ground over and over.

This was what it had felt like to have one's soul devoured in the death replay of the Torregar survivor.

No, this was worse-he had willingly unleashed it all and now stood at the volcano's mouth, taking the eruption head-on.

"Aaargh-!" Aegon let out an inhuman moan, clutching his helmet with both hands, his nails scraping shrill against the Valyrian steel.

The world before him spun and shattered amid countless visions of death and black-red flames.

Why am I not dead yet?

According to the "memory," that descendant of Torregar had had his soul torn apart the instant his blood awakened the dead.

But now... although every second felt like death by a thousand cuts, although his consciousness was a small boat in a storm, liable to capsize at any moment, he still existed. He could still feel pain. He could still think.

An "anomaly" in a transmigrator's soul? Or the system... no, this isn't the time to think.

Aegon bit hard into the tip of his tongue. The sharp pain and metallic taste forced a narrow opening through his muddled consciousness.

He raised his head and looked ahead through a vision blurred by blood and phantoms of the dead.

A hellish sight met his eyes.

The black-red Bloodflame wound around every Ironborn like living vines.

They screamed in terror, slapped at themselves, and rolled about, trying to extinguish the uncanny flames. But the cold fire only burned fiercer, burrowing into their bodies through their noses, eyes, and wounds.

"Help... help me..."

"Crow's Eye! Crow's Eye, save me!"

"Drowned God-!!!"

Screams rose one after another, soon weakening and twisting.

The figures completely engulfed in flames gradually stiffened, the life in their eyes guttering out like candles in the wind.

Their bodies did not char, but something more fundamental had been "ignited"-

Their souls.

Aegon could even "see" hazy human silhouettes, struggling in agony, being forcibly drawn out of fallen bodies. In an instant, the surrounding flames of malicious dead souls assimilated and devoured them, turning them into fresh fuel for this inferno.

The five or six Ironborn still alive broke down completely.

They threw away their weapons, ignored Crow's Eye, and dashed about like headless flies within the cramped ruins, trying futilely to escape this invisible burning.

Some slammed their heads against the walls. Others frantically dug at the blocked exit. Most curled up and gave meaningless howls, waiting for the end.

And Euron Greyjoy...

He stood there, but his air of absolute control had vanished.

Black-red Bloodflame wound around him too. Aegon's deliberate guidance and Euron's own powerful vitality made the flames burn especially "fiercely" upon him.

Uncanny black-red frost formed on his expensive leather armor, while blue-black patterns resembling frostbite appeared on his exposed skin.

At first, his one good eye held the shock of events spiraling utterly beyond his control-like a diver encountering a deep-sea monster for the first time, his pupil contracting sharply at a supernatural sight he could not comprehend.

Then that shock swiftly gave way to a more primal fear.

Faced with an uncanny power that burned the soul directly, something no blade could fight, this tyrant who delighted in tormenting others could not suppress the instinctive terror deep in his eye.

His dagger hand trembled slightly. His blue-purple lips opened and closed soundlessly, unable to form a single meaningful command.

Yet deep within that fear, a spark of greed suddenly flared like a ghost light in the abyss.

Greed mingled with desperate longing and a fanatical desire to understand.

He stared hard at the flames burning on his body, then abruptly raised his head toward Aegon, struggling nearby. His gaze seemed intent on piercing that Valyrian steel armor and reaching the very core of the power.

This power... if I could control it... The mad, blasphemous thought took root within him.

"Interesting... so fucking... interesting!" A strange rasp came from Crow's Eye's throat. He actually bared his teeth in a twisted grin of pain and wild excitement.

He coughed up a mouthful of black blood flecked with ice, yet his lone eye shone brighter.

He fixed his gaze on the patch of flesh on his left forearm where the black-red Bloodflame burned strongest, already turning it into an uncanny crystalline substance.

What he felt there was not searing pain, but something far worse: a cold emptiness, as though something deep within his soul were slowly being drawn out and frozen.

"Cut it off..." he rasped, madness and a sickly "reason" entwining in his lone eye. "Cut off... the flesh this damned thing has infected!"

Before the words had faded, driven by that trace of greed and his horror of this unknown power, he did something bloody and utterly insane!

Clenching the dagger in his right hand, he aimed its point at the flesh on his left arm where the Bloodflame burned thickest, then drove it down with all his strength and gouged!

Squelch!

The sharp dagger sliced through flesh and severed tendons in an instant, making a dull, teeth-grating sound.

Dark red blood gushed out, splashing his own face and chest.

He forcibly carved out a palm-sized piece of flesh burning with black-red Bloodflame. It dropped onto the obsidian floor with a soft plop, the flames upon it still burning cold.

Agony instantly twisted Euron's face. Veins bulged on his forehead, and cold sweat mingled with blood.

He drew several ragged breaths, his lone eye bloodshot as he stared at the wound in his left arm, where blood poured over exposed white bone and dark red muscle.

"Ha... hahaha..." He gave a strange laugh of pain and anticipated relief, panting. "Useless little trick... burn, then. Go burn that rotten meat!"

But a second later, the twisted smile froze on his face like an ice sculpture.

It had not worked.

The bloody wound on his arm had not healed. The agony remained.

But that was not the most terrifying part.

The most terrifying part was that, from inside the wound he had hoped would be his "solution," from deeper muscle and bone and even marrow, fresh wisps of black-red Bloodflame, denser than before, were slowly and inexorably seeping out without the slightest hindrance.

They covered and licked the fresh wound again, then began spreading toward the intact skin around it!

Cut away the burning flesh, and the flames rose from deeper within!

This fire had never been burning the flesh itself!

It burned something more fundamental, something bound to this body and intimately linked to its blood and soul!

Cutting away flesh merely created new wounds in vain, providing more "fuel" and "passages"!

"No... impossible!!" Crow's Eye finally cried out, his voice filled with incredulity at this absurdity and a deeper fear.

He looked down at the piece of flesh he had cut off, still burning on the ground, then back at the Bloodflame rekindled on his arm, as though mocking his stupidity.

Physical harm had no effect on these flames.

No, it might even make them worse.

The despair of that realization, together with the agony of his soul slowly burning, finally ignited all his suppressed fear and shock, transforming them into reckless, absolute madness!

"Not enough! This isn't enough!"

"Power! I need power!"

He snarled hoarsely, his lone eye bloodshot. His gaze suddenly swept downward and settled on Dragonbinder, which he had picked up at some point and held tightly in his left hand.

"The power to control Dragons!"

In the light of the dead souls' Bloodflame, the horn's twisted runes seemed to come alive.

Just then, Aegon moved.

"Aah-!!" He roared, not out of courage, but to drown out the shrieks of countless dead souls in his mind and the agony of his soul burning.

He gripped the cracked longsword, burning with black-red Bloodflame, in both hands and pulled it from the ground. Then, one step at a time, dragging his almost numb left leg, he advanced toward Crow's Eye.

Every step weighed a mountain.

Phantoms of the dead battered his consciousness. Cold flames burned his soul. Blood loss and wounds devoured his strength.

Yet through his visor, his violet eyes remained fixed on Crow's Eye, holding only one thing-

You must die.

Watching Aegon approach like a vengeful fiend crawling out of hell, the last thread of reason in Crow's Eye snapped.

It was ultimate madness, born of terror at approaching death, rage at a power he could not control, and all-consuming greed!

"Come on!!"

"You Targaryen wretch, crawled out of a rotting coffin-!!!"

Crow's Eye roared. He stopped trying to understand or resist the flames on his body and poured all his madness into Dragonbinder.

He thrust the horn's mouthpiece between his blue-purple lips and, with every ounce of strength, forced out the last air remaining in his chest!

"Bwoooooooom-!!!!!!"

An ancient, desolate horn call suddenly rang out, as though from the dawn of the world!

It was not loud, yet carried an uncanny magic that pierced the soul, instantly overwhelming the moans of the dead and the "silence" of the burning flames!

The bands of red gold and dark steel on the horn blazed with dazzling light. Its twisted runes seemed to come alive, racing wildly across its surface!

Yet Crow's Eye, who had sounded the horn, began convulsing violently!

"Urgh... gkh..." His lone eye bulged. All color instantly drained from his face, leaving it a lifeless gray.

He felt none of the "power" the horn should have brought, only an indescribable heat-not from the cold Bloodflame outside his body, but from within!

From his throat to his chest to his abdomen... it felt as though someone had poured molten iron into his organs!

"Legend says... Dragons will obey the horn's master... but whoever blows it will die with their organs burning..." Aegon stopped, watching coldly as his hoarse voice sounded. "It seems... the legend was true."

"Not everyone can touch a Dragonlord's possessions."

"Im... poss... ible..." Crow's Eye forced out the words in a rasp. Blood poured simultaneously from the corners of his mouth, his nostrils, his eyes, and his ears. It was an uncanny dark red, like burning magma!

Something seemed to writhe and burn beneath the skin all over his body, giving off a faint red glow.

Thud!

He could no longer hold himself up. His knees buckled, and he dropped heavily to the ground.

Dragonbinder rolled from his slack left hand. Its glow swiftly dimmed, and the wandering runes fell still, as though they had never lived.

Euron Greyjoy, Crow's Eye, knelt there like a heap of sludge.

His head hung low, dark red blood like magma dripping steadily down, mingled with shards of ice.

He tried futilely to raise his right hand, still holding the dagger, but his arm merely twitched a few times before falling limp.

Aegon came to stand before him.

Looking down.

He could see Crow's Eye's back heaving violently, as though burning, and hear the rasp in his throat like a broken bellows.

That sound held utter agony, disbelief at this absurdity, and bone-deep greed and resentment toward a power so close at hand, yet forever beyond his control.

"Hh... pow... er..." Crow's Eye struggled, using the last of his strength to lift his head.

His lone eye had lost focus, yet still "stared" fixedly toward Aegon-or rather, toward the seething, cold black-red Bloodflame behind him.

His blue-purple lips moved, spilling broken syllables. "...Should have... been mine..."

Aegon watched him in silence. There was no joy in victory, no satisfaction in revenge, only cold exhaustion and the emptiness before his soul burned away entirely.

He slowly raised the longsword in his hands, burning with the dead souls' Bloodflame and on the verge of shattering.

Flames flowed silently along the blade, reflecting Euron Greyjoy's dying face.

"Your game is over."

The blade traced a cold arc.

Shhk-

Its edge swept precisely across his throat.

There was little resistance, as though it had sliced through frozen leather.

Dark red blood sprayed out, instantly freezing into uncanny black-red ice crystals amid the cold black-red flames.

Euron Greyjoy's body stiffened for an instant. Then he pitched forward onto the ground as though every bone had been pulled from him.

The final glimmer faded entirely from his lone eye, once filled with madness, greed, and cruelty, leaving only hollow, lifeless gray.

It was over.

Aegon stood where he was, looking at Crow's Eye's corpse, at the black-red Bloodflame still burning around him, at the countless malicious faces of the dead flickering within it.

The agony of his burning soul and the haze clouding his consciousness surged over him again like a tide, fiercer than before.

He swayed, nearly falling.

Crow's Eye had met his end.

Then... it would be my turn next.

This awakened, all-devouring cursed fire, this towering hatred of hundreds of thousands of dead souls, would have to be appeased eventually.

And the best sacrifice seemed to be him, the "culprit" behind it all.

Aegon slowly removed his bloodstained helmet and threw it to the ground.

His silver-white hair whipped wildly in the cold flames.

He closed his eyes, ready to face that final, complete devouring.

With defiance still in his heart...

His consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, about to go out...

Yet in the instant before his consciousness sank into darkness-

Ding!

A clear, crisp notification tone, utterly out of place amid the surrounding inferno, rang in the deepest reaches of his mind.

Then a line of cold text, glowing faintly gold, forced its way through the shrieks of the dead and the burning agony, branding itself into his fading consciousness:

[Deep within the Valyrian Ruins-check-in successful!]