He rushed to a spot not far from the Death Dragon and stopped, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath.
He looked at Aegon, then at the Death Dragon crouched low to the ground, radiating boundless deathly silence and hatred. Suddenly, he seemed to "understand" something, and his face twisted with realization, mockery, and madness.
"Ah... I understand! I understand!" He pointed at Aegon, his voice shrill and distorted with wild excitement. "You think you've won? You think wearing that stolen tin shell and carrying some lousy sword that catches fire makes you a Dragonlord?!"
"Laughable! Pathetic! Pitiful!!!"
He violently tore open his already ragged sleeve, exposing a pale, gaunt arm covered in old scars and fresh abrasions.
Then, sword in hand, he slashed viciously across his left arm without the slightest hesitation!
Riiip-!
Flesh peeled back, exposing bone.
Crimson blood instantly welled up and dripped down his trembling arm, splashing into little blossoms of blood on the scorched ground.
But Corlyon seemed to feel no pain. His face held only the feverish devotion of a man offering a sacrifice.
He raised his bleeding arm high, aimed his palm at the Death Dragon before him, and screamed with every ounce of strength he possessed-in ancient, twisted, blasphemous High Valyrian:
"Look! Look upon this noble, pure blood of Torregar!!"
"I! Corlyon! The last True Blood descendant of Torregar! Here I make a pact upon my bloodline and swear an oath upon my soul!"
"Awaken! Submit! Obey my will! I am your true master! I am your eternal rider!!!"
"Crush that vile thief! Wash away this sacred place's disgrace with his blood and soul!!!"
His voice echoed across the empty Blood Abyss, filled with desperate madness and an unquestionable command.
He believed-no, he was certain!
As long as he stood here with "True Blood" flowing through his veins, as long as he called through his bloodline, this Progenitor Dragon, awakened by the Torregar family's countless sacrifices of blood and life, would answer!
It would unleash its destructive breath upon that damned silver-haired bastard!
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The Death Dragon did not react.
The dragon remained crouched there, its rotting body rising and falling slightly, sickly green soul flames burning quietly in its hollow sockets.
To Corlyon's raised, blood-dripping palm, to his cries filled with fervor and command, to the call of its "true master"...
The dragon paid no heed.
No, it was not merely paying no heed.
The ecstasy and anticipation on Corlyon's face slowly began to stiffen and crack.
He saw it-
Though the Death Dragon's two enormous hollows, burning with soul flames, faced him and Aegon, some faint resonance lingering in Corlyon's bloodline allowed him to dimly sense...
The focus of that "gaze" had been fixed firmly on Aegon all along.
On that silent figure with silver hair and violet eyes, holding a burning sword.
For him, this "True Blood descendant," and that so-called "blood of Torregar"...
There was only an indescribable, cold...
Indifference.
No, more than indifference.
In the flickering soul flames and the faint trembling of that rotting body, Corlyon sensed something deeply hidden, yet unmistakably clear...
Fear.
The dragon feared that silver-haired bastard.
For this terrifying being wrought from death and hatred, which had been unleashing destruction without restraint just moments before, it could hardly even be called "fear."
It was more like a lesser creature instinctively, uncontrollably...
Trembling.
"No... impossible..." Every trace of color drained from Corlyon's face. His lips quivered as he muttered, "How could... I am Torregar... my blood... my ritual..."
He shook his head violently, as though trying to fling that terrible realization from his mind. An even fiercer, crazier fire flared anew in his eyes.
"It was you! You must have used some vile trick to bewitch the Progenitor!" He jabbed a finger at Aegon, his voice piercing. "Your Dragonlord Bloodline is false! It's filthy! It's..."
His words cut off again.
Because the Death Dragon, silent all this time, finally moved again.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the dragon raised its enormous, rotten head, black slime streaming from it.
For the first time, the sickly green soul flames truly, unmistakably "looked" at Corlyon.
That "gaze" no longer held the complex mixture of trembling and wariness it had shown toward Aegon.
Only one thing remained-
Pure, seething hatred, accumulated and settled over hundreds of years, then forcibly dragged from eternal deathly silence back into the living world...
Overwhelming hatred!
"ROAR-!!!!!!!!!"
The soundless, soul-rending roar erupted again!
But this time, it had a clear target!
The crazed expression on Corlyon's face froze completely.
He saw the dark vortex formed from countless agonized faces spinning madly inside the Death Dragon's abyssal maw, faster than ever before!
A point of intensely sickly green light was gathering and swelling at the vortex's center!
Its target-was him!
"No-! I am..." Corlyon finally let out a scream of utter terror and turned to flee.
Too late.
Breath laden with endless death and hatred engulfed him in an instant, like a river of the underworld bursting its banks.
There was no explosion, no blaze.
Only an absolute, sickly green expanse that annihilated everything.
Corlyon's figure, along with his terrified scream, his unfinished boasts, his lifelong obsession, and that so-called "True Blood of Torregar"...
Silently dissolved within that sickly green light, like ice and snow beneath the sun.
Not even a trace of ash remained.
The breath slowly dissipated.
The Death Dragon's blasphemous head slowly turned.
This time, with nothing left to distract them, those two enormous hollows burning with sickly green soul flames locked completely onto the only individual still standing there, radiating a rich aura of life-
Aegon.
And, far behind him, the terrified survivors sprawled on the ground.
"Grrr..."
A low moan, filled with hunger and the desire to destroy, rose from deep within the Death Dragon's throat.
The dragon spread its rotting wing membranes slightly and lowered its body, preparing to pounce.
"The... the monster's looking this way!"
"We're dead... we're all dead!"
Desperate cries and broken wails erupted among the mercenaries.
Some tried to crawl backward, but their limbs were too weak to move.
Others simply closed their eyes and awaited their final destruction.
Henry clenched his teeth until they ground together, gripping Carl's arm so tightly that his nails nearly dug into her flesh.
He wanted to stand, to shield the others, even if it was as futile as a mantis trying to stop a chariot!
But fear and his earlier grievous injuries had left his muscles unresponsive. He could only watch helplessly as the terrifying Death Dragon turned its deadly "gaze" toward them.
Carl's face was ashen, but she still stared fixedly at Aegon's back.
She still held one last, faint glimmer of hope.
Just then.
Aegon moved.
Beneath the Death Dragon's oppressive "gaze," amid the despairing wails behind him, he slowly raised the crimson-burning sword in his hand.
His movement was steady and unhurried, without the slightest tremor.
It was as though he were not raising a weapon against a world-destroying beast, but merely lifting a hand to point at the drifting clouds.
The sword's tip aimed at the Death Dragon before him.
Then.
His wrist pressed gently downward.
An utterly simple movement.
He did not even make a sound.
And yet-
BOOM!!!!!!!
In an instant, a terrifying pressure-indescribable, incomprehensible, irresistible-descended like the crushing weight of countless billions of tons of deep ocean! It engulfed the entire Blood Abyss! It engulfed every living being!
This was no physical impact.
It acted directly upon the soul, upon the very source of life, upon existence itself-
Crushing superiority of existential rank!
"Aaargh-!"
Henry let out a muffled groan of pain. It felt as though an invisible sledgehammer had smashed into his skull! His vision instantly went black, countless sparks bursting before his eyes! His ears rang until he could hear nothing! More terrifying still, he felt some supreme being "watching" his soul! That "gaze" was cold, indifferent, and filled with an absolute majesty that towered above all living beings and all creation!
He could not think, could not move, could not even breathe!
With the last shreds of his awareness, he could only "feel"-
The air around him had frozen.
Light had warped.
Sound had vanished.
Time and space seemed to fall into utter chaos and collapse at that very moment!
And deep within his soul, in the deepest recesses of every survivor's fear-filled mind, they simultaneously "heard" something that thundered through their souls, pierced past and future, and forced all things to prostrate themselves-
A dragon's roar!
No, they had not even "heard" it.
It was a mark branded directly upon their souls! An echo of terror engraved deep within their bloodlines!
Before you continue