Aegon rose slowly from the deep crater, yanking the silver bolts from his flesh with brute force, each one tearing free in a spray of blood.
He threw back his head and roared, the sound unleashing a storm of demonic energy that ripped across the battlefield like a hurricane.
Muscles rippled violently beneath his skin, swelling as his frame grew massive and bestial. His limbs thickened, corded with sinews like steel cables, and a heavy layer of black bone armor began to spread across his body.
His head warped into a harsh, draconic shape, all rugged angles, while his mane of wild gray hair lashed madly behind him. His face was masked with tight rows of jagged horn ridges, and his blood-red eyes burned cold and deep.
Fangs jutted from the corners of his mouth, glinting with a predatory chill. From the crown of his skull, a pair of massive, spiraling horns pushed upward, layered and twisting toward the sky.
Slowly, his clawed hands reached back to the nape of his neck and gripped his own spine. The sound that followed—wet, grinding bone against flesh—was enough to turn the stomach.
With deliberate, inexorable force, Aegon drew it out: a blood-red bone sword shaped like a spine, its length studded with rows of forked ribs. The ribs twitched as if alive, flinging off droplets of blood before curling and wrapping themselves around the spine-blade.
He raised the sword high and roared again, the sound like a deafening dragon's cry. His bloodshot gaze locked on Aenys' awakened form atop the Dragonlord Tower.
Aenys' eyes widened slightly. The power radiating from his father's form was no weaker than his own—perhaps even stronger.
Without hesitation, he swung his left arm behind him, silver wings on his back slotting five bolts into his crossbow mechanism before he fired them at Aegon. Then, with a sharp motion, his left arm flowed like liquid mercury, reshaping into a broad silver shield.
With a lance in one hand and a shield in the other, Aenys vaulted from the Dragonlord Tower.
His centaur-like body stretched in the air with equine grace, the three-meter silver lance raised high before he dove straight toward the beast below.
Far beyond Harrenhal's walls, the gathered townsfolk and Maesters gasped and cried out in awe as they saw the silver giant leap into the sunlit sky. In that moment, Aenys looked like a god from ancient Valyrian legend, descending from the heavens to smite his foe.
The silver rider plummeted, aiming the full might of his charge at his demonic father.
When he reached striking range, the lance came down like a falling mountain, aimed square at Aegon's chest.
Aegon's response was instant—he sprang upward, both hands gripping the spine-sword as long as his own body. His massive frame spun in the air, and the blade whipped upward with a howl of steel, meeting the silver lance head-on.
BOOM!
The impact exploded outward in a shockwave, rippling the air from the point of collision.
From the Dragonlord Tower, the royal family watched in stunned silence as the two monstrous figures clashed with feral intensity.
Aegon was knocked back by the sheer force of the blow.
Aenys landed hard, his four hooves gouging furrows in the ground as he skidded to a halt. His eyes darted to his weapon—and narrowed. The tip of his silver lance had been sheared clean off by the spine-sword.
Aegon was already charging again, the two-meter blade dragging through the dirt and carving a deep trench as he closed the distance.
With a snap of his arm, Aenys let the lance melt and reform, the mercury-like metal flowing into a giant silver greatsword nearly three meters in length.
His hooves churned the earth, and then he was charging, galloping full tilt through the dust toward Aegon.
CRASH!
They slammed together again, the silver greatsword locked against the spine-sword. Both strained, pouring every ounce of strength into the contest.
"Repent, abomination!" Aegon's voice was a guttural snarl, muffled by fangs.
Aenys' moon-silver eyes flicked to his weapon—it was being sliced away, the blade severed bit by bit by the spine-sword's relentless edge.
Through gritted teeth, he spat, "You're the one who should repent! You are the vilest sin this world has ever known. I will set right its mistakes… and end your tyranny!
Did you think this was the full extent of my silver power? Let me show you its true form!"
Before Aegon's blood-red eyes, the silver greatsword softened like molten metal, flowing around the spine-sword in a liquid stream—then surged toward his head in a lightning-fast strike.
"Clang!"
Aenys' silver shield caught the spine sword in his left hand, while his silver greatsword came down hard, slicing across Aegon's forehead.
Aegon tried to spring back, but too late—one of his horns was lopped clean off.
With a roar of pain, he yanked the spine sword free and swept it sideways, forcing Aenys back before leaping away himself.
Aenys began to circle him at an unhurried, almost graceful pace, eyes locked on his prey as he tried to get behind him. A smirk tugged at his lips.
"Father, is that all you've got? Looks like today's the perfect day for you to meet the Stranger."
Before the words had even faded, he lunged again—an arrow loosed from the bow—straight for the already wounded Aegon. In a blink, the silver greatsword melted into mercury, then reshaped into a jousting lance.
Aegon slammed the spine sword into the ground and launched himself upward, his massive frame twisting midair. His spine coiled and spun like a great drill, building a crushing momentum into his strike.
Boom!
The two titans crashed together once more.
This time, Aegon failed to block the accelerating thrust. The silver lance punched straight through his body, and Aenys drove him across the battlefield for over a hundred meters before flinging him aside with a violent upward sweep.
A gaping wound yawned open in Aegon's abdomen—courtesy of that last savage hit. He could already see the pattern: Aenys' most devastating weapon was the lance charge, and to use it he needed distance to build speed. That was why he kept hurling Aegon away—denying him the chance to close in.
From the Dragonlord Tower, Visenya's gut twisted as she saw Aegon faltering. She turned to summon Vhagar—only to hear Meraxes roar from the direction of the stables. Rhaenys was already mounted, blocking Vhagar's advance.
The tide was turning sharply against the prince's side.
In the midst of that crisis, Visenya's gaze fell on the few remaining jars of life seeds in the medical chamber. Her eyes hardened. She seized one and ordered the new Archmaester and the Witch Doctor to transplant it into her.
...
On the battlefield below, Aegon hacked up another mouthful of purple blood.
The massive hole in his abdomen was knitting together, tendrils of new flesh intertwining—but the speed of that regeneration was draining him at an alarming rate. Hunger gnawed at him, a deep, gnawing ache that seemed to rise from his very soul. The beast within thrashed in his mind, a tidal force of instinct urging him to tear into human entrails.
"So this is the price of awakening..." he muttered to himself. "After the life seed, dragon demons found human food tasteless, surviving only on blood and flesh. But once awakened, reason falls to the beast's desire—and the craving for human organs can no longer be contained.
Am I still the man I was?"
The thought barely had time to settle when a familiar thunder of hooves broke through his haze. Aenys was charging again, silver lance leveled like the finger of an unbreakable god, aimed squarely at his head.
In that heartbeat between life and death, Aegon vaulted up, spine sword raised high.
Midair, the silver lance punched into his chest. But his counterstroke—a mountain's weight behind it—came down at Aenys' head like the wrath of the sea.
Aenys had no choice but to throw up his shield with all his strength. The impact shattered it to fragments.
His four hooves stumbled back in panic, but as the spine sword descended, the forked ribs bound along its length suddenly flared open. Sweeping like a giant broom, the blade raked across him, stripping the flesh clean from the entire left side of his body, leaving only bone.
Gritting his teeth through the agony, Aenys still managed to heave his lance and hurl Aegon away.
He stared at his half-bare skeleton, purple blood spilling in rivulets, and snarled through clenched teeth, "Why... don't I have your recovery speed?"
The exposed bone was crusting over, but no new flesh was forming. Aegon, after all, had been run clean through—organs surely torn apart—and yet he'd healed in barely a dozen breaths.
Like a kite cut from its string, Aegon slammed into the shore of Gods Eye. His body was wrecked, but his claws never loosened their grip on the spine sword.
Several dozen pounds of Aenys' flesh hung from its rib-like barbs. In moments, the blade had devoured it all.
From the gaping wound in Aegon's chest, writhing flesh tendrils tangled together at a furious pace, sealing the cavity. From above, one could watch his heart knitting itself back together.
But such rapid healing came at a price. Moments ago, muscle had wasted away from the wound in his gut—yet after the sword consumed Aenys' flesh, his physique swelled back to its monstrous fullness.
Propping himself on the spine sword, Aegon rose slowly, sighed, and said, "It's over, child. Let's end all these mistakes. I'll put a stop to your madness."
Aenys lowered his gaze, scoffing. "You think I'm finished? All I need is a few human entrails, and I'll be back to full strength."
Aegon shook his head as he approached, dragging the spine sword behind him. "You still haven't noticed, have you?"
Aenys froze, suspicion flashing in his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Drawing closer with deliberate steps, Aegon's deep voice rumbled, "The spine sword carries a venomous magic. Anything it cuts will slip, bit by bit, into paralysis—until the body locks up entirely.
By now… your nerves should already be slowing."
Terror flickered in Aenys' eyes. His body was sluggish, his mind thickening like syrup.
Aegon's blackened, beast-like form loomed over him, the slow advance of death itself.
"No! I refuse to lose like this!" Aenys' silver pupils widened in panic, his right-hand jousting lance shifting shape in a frantic blur—knife, spear, sword, halberd, hook…
But his body was frozen, locked in place as if turned to stone.
"It's useless," Aegon's hoarse voice cut through the air like ice. "Even if you can still wield your awakened power, your body is nothing more than a lamb on the butcher's block."
At those words, a sudden spark lit in Aenys' mind—and then he burst into crazed laughter. "Hahaha! Thank you for the reminder… hahahaha!"
He slammed the lance into the ground, forcing it to extend at a wild rate. The silver wings on his back flared and stretched, stabbing downward like giant spears into the earth. With a shuddering impact, his massive frame vaulted up and back, hurtling toward Harrenhal.
"Trying to run?!" Aegon roared, lunging forward. His claws swung the spine sword in a sweeping arc, aiming to cut Aenys in half.
Aenys' right arm morphed into a massive silver shield.
Bang! The spine sword smashed against it but failed to break through. Using the force of the blow, Aenys swung himself backward, crashing down near the inner gates of Harrenhal.
What happened next stunned every onlooker.
His right arm and silver wings suddenly unraveled into a storm of thin, gleaming tentacles that shot out in every direction, striking the surrounding castle guards and Maesters.
Each tentacle pierced straight into a stomach like a silver spear—then began sucking, hollowing its victims from the inside as organs were torn away.
Aenys' eyes half-lidded in bliss, a grotesque smile curling his lips. "What a delightful dessert… hahahaha!"
Rage erupted in Aegon's chest. With a roar, he threw everything into a headlong charge, leaping high into the air. Both claws gripped the giant spine sword overhead before he brought it crashing down toward Aenys.
"Wait—! Just a moment longer! I'm almost—" Aenys' words broke into a desperate cry as he saw the killing stroke descending.
Midair, the spine sword began to change. Its length spread wide, ribs branching and rebranching into thinner and thinner splinters until the weapon had become an intricate, nightmarish lattice of bone.
With a sharp hiss, the crimson web of the blade swept over Aenys as gently as a passing breeze.
In that instant, all flesh was stripped from his form, leaving only the blood-soaked skeleton of a centaur. Scarlet sprayed in every direction, pooling across the stones beneath.
Aegon landed with a heavy thud, the tremor reaching the skeletal remains still standing in place.
The frame collapsed at once, bones scattering like a toppled tower, fragments flying across the ground in a ghastly rain.
He frowned at the spine sword twisting in his grasp, alive with a hungry writhe. Power pulsed from it into his arm—but it did nothing to temper the beast inside him.
Acid burned in his gut, his body screaming for entrails. The shift was deeper than hunger—it was a change in his very nature, crawling up from the subconscious.
How long could he hold on? Another moment, and he might lose himself entirely, become a monster loosed upon Harrenhal.
...
A clear, measured set of footsteps echoed from within the castle.
Visenya emerged from Harrenhal in full armor, each step deliberate and steady.
A helm hid the upper half of her face, but her golden eyes blazed with light. She was taller now—over two meters—and her frame was draped in a blood-red robe that rippled without wind, like the mantle of a war god fresh from battle.
In her hands, she held a long, slender blade nearly three meters in length, its steel glinting coldly in the daylight.
She stopped before Aegon, her voice calm but edged with weight.
"Are you still you?"
...
[Upto 20 chapters ahead for now]
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