The sound didn't come from one direction—it was as if the whole sky itself was wailing in agony.
Everyone instinctively clutched their ears, bodies curling in pain.
The noise cut deeper than fear, striking at the rawest core of instinct.
Then came a colossal shadow, plunging from the heavens with a shriek that tore the very air apart.
Lo Quen snapped his head up, pupils contracting to pinpricks.
A bird...
No—a beast!
A monstrous bird, vast enough to suffocate the sky, ripped through the leaden clouds and dove straight at them.
Its wings stretched a hundred feet, blotting out what little light remained and throwing the blood-soaked earth into a deeper darkness.
But its body wasn't feathered. Instead, it was cloaked in long, dense plumage that shimmered with a purplish-red metallic sheen, whipping like blades in the gale its dive conjured.
Most terrifying of all—it had three heads.
Each the size of a horse's body, covered in the same purplish-red, horned scales.
Three pairs of eyes glowed with a murderous hunger.
Then, three jagged beaks, each lined with saw-toothed fangs, gaped wide at once. The air split with a deafening shriek, and a storm of foul, sulfur-laden wind slammed down, as if to swallow every living thing whole.
Run!
Survival crushed every other thought.
How could Lo Quen waste another heartbeat on Gerion?
Dragonblood-honed reflexes carried him—legs coiling, then exploding with force—as he sprang off the ground like an arrow loosed from its string. Before the shadow could engulf him, he tore across the field, sprinting headlong toward the nearest wall of twisted, gnarled deadwood.
Gravel, slick with blood, made every step treacherous.
His ears rang with the screams of men-at-arms, the bird's shrill dive, the thunder of wings tearing the sky, and the sickening rip of flesh behind him.
He didn't dare look back. He could picture it too clearly—Lannister half-plate armor, so proudly worn, shredding under claws as if it were parchment.
Gerion Lannister... how long could that cold, selfish mask endure before such absolute power?
For an instant, bitter satisfaction flickered in Lo Quen's chest—only to drown beneath the flood of raw survival instinct.
He ran, weaving frantically through the thickets of dead trees.
The sulfurous fog was so dense it pressed against his skin, visibility no more than five paces. Each stride plunged him deeper into unknown terrors.
He didn't know how long he fled, only that, at last, the shrieks and dying screams faded into the distance, smothered by mist and silence.
He stopped, chest heaving, and scanned the dead stillness around him.
Safe—at least for now.
Exhaling hard, Lo Quen's mind sharpened with a new thought.
The way those scaled beasts had retreated earlier—so sudden, so orderly—had they sensed the purple-winged horror's approach?
Were they fleeing a greater predator?
The realization chilled him. The monsters of Valyria had a cunning that went far beyond what he'd imagined.
He forced the thought aside, only for rage to surge back, burning hot.
"Damn Gerion. Damn that Lannister."
His teeth ground as he cursed in silence.
He had only taken a dead man's sword, fighting to survive. Yet to that golden-haired noble, the fact he was a slave meant he wasn't even allowed that small defiance?
Was he supposed to bare his neck like a lamb at slaughter?
Worse still—Gerion had cut down his own guards who had shown the faintest spark of mercy, discarding them as if they were no more than broken tools.
Even those sworn to his family's service were pawns, nothing more.
That kind of cruelty was colder than any monster's claws.
Lo Quen branded that icy face into memory.
Then, regret struck.
He had stalled Gerion only to buy time, to regain strength. The bird's arrival had ruined his chance to silence every witness.
And though it seemed the beast might have claimed Gerion's head for him, there was no guarantee. Gerion could still survive.
Lo Quen's gaze hardened. If Gerion lived through this, then next time—he would repay him in blood.
He shoved all stray thoughts aside. Survival came first. How to endure this cursed land, how to gather more Dragon's Soul—those were the only questions that mattered.
Splash... splish, splash...
The sound of running water drifted suddenly from the fog less than ten paces to his left.
Lo Quen tightened his grip on the stolen steel sword, raising the tip slightly across his chest, every muscle primed to strike.
There was no one else here. If danger appeared, he would call upon the system's power without hesitation.
Step by step, he moved, his figure melding with the mist like a ghost as he crept toward the source of the sound.
The fog parted ever so slightly, and what he saw made his breath hitch.
A small pool, no more than ten paces across, lay hidden in the deadwood's embrace.
The water wasn't clear but milky-white, faintly boiling, with streams of tiny bubbles rising steadily from below.
And at its edge sat a maiden, no older than twelve.
Her back was to him. Long silver-gold hair spilled down like flowing moonlight, gleaming softly even beneath the ashen sky.
Her skin was pale to the point of translucence, like the finest white jade, glowing faintly in the rising steam.
Her slender waist, rounded shoulders, and long, graceful legs were bare to the air, as if some water spirit from ancient myth had stepped into the mortal world.
With delicate jade-white hands, she trailed her fingers through the steaming pool, stirring gentle ripples across its surface, her face calm and serene.
Even through the fog, her beauty was enough to make any man's heart pound.
She radiated a vitality like a dew-kissed bud at dawn, pure and mesmerizing, drawing Lo Quen's gaze until he nearly forgot the peril of this cursed land.
But when the maiden seemed to sense something and turned her head, Lo Quen felt a chill rush from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. His breath caught sharply.
Her face was half angel, half demon.
The left side was flawless, as though carved by the gods themselves—smooth, unblemished skin, a delicate nose, full lips. Most striking was the eye: a deep violet gem, glimmering with a light like the stars, breathtaking in its beauty, so perfect it seemed unreal.
The right side, however, was born of hell.
Dense, hardened scales spread across her cheek like twisted vines. The eye there burned the same violet hue, but its pupil was a cold, reptilian slit.
Scales. A vertical pupil.
That side of her face was identical to the monstrosities that had nearly wiped them out not long ago.
But those creatures had clouded, frenzied eyes, their minds consumed by bloodlust and madness, reduced to beasts that knew only how to kill and devour.
This maiden was different. Her left face was serene and beautiful, her actions deliberate, human—bathing in the eerie, steaming spring with quiet grace.
The life-force flowing from her was vivid, unmistakably alive—something those shambling abominations could never possess.
Could she be… one of the survivors of Valyria's Doom?
Lo Quen's mind leapt to memories of others who bore such half-twisted visages: Shireen Baratheon, cursed with greyscale, and the stone men of the Sorrows.
Though he had never seen a victim with his own eyes, he recalled the accounts: skin hardening, keratin growths, the slow march into petrified death. The maiden's affliction resembled it, but was not the same.
Greyscale ended in lifeless stone.
But the monsters he had fought—those gaping maws filled with jagged fangs, those long, slithering tongues that feasted on brain-matter—were not petrified at all. They had transformed into something far worse.
He was still reeling from the comparison when a wave of putrid stench suddenly invaded his nose.
Something was here. Close.
Lo Quen's hair bristled. Instinct took over—he snapped his head upward.
A thick, foul drop of saliva splattered onto the ash at his feet.
His stomach dropped. Following the line of its fall, his eyes shot upward—
And there it was.
A creature covered in earth-brown scales clung to a massive branch directly above him, its body sprawled like some monstrous lizard.
Its grotesque head hung low, pitted scales stretching over its face. Crimson vertical pupils fixed unblinkingly on him below, while its thin, sinuous tongue flickered, dripping strands of reeking saliva.
Its limbs were taut, claws buried deep in deadwood, body coiled like a bowstring drawn to its limit.
It was ready to strike.
And its target was the top of Lo Quen's head.