Outer Gods like Nyarlathotep were less servants of Azathoth than parasites clinging to the very source of chaos to survive.
They instinctively preserved Azathoth's unconscious state, because it formed the foundation of their own existence. At the same time, they ceaselessly spread chaos and madness into the ordered universe, expanding chaos's domain.
With this understanding, Lo Quen gazed at the vast, incomparable mass of primordial chaos before him and made an extraordinarily bold decision.
He would no longer be satisfied with merely purging the Outer Gods and Old Ones that had spawned from it.
He would eliminate the source itself, the root from which this universe's chaotic forces endlessly proliferated.
He would devour Azathoth.
Using the authority of order belonging to the Starforging Dragonlord, he would forcibly integrate the most primordial chaotic laws of this universe.
It was an act of extreme danger, no different from drawing the universe's entire chaotic origin into himself. One misstep, and his will could be assimilated and erased by boundless chaos, reduced to a part of Azathoth, or lead to consequences even more terrifying.
But Lo Quen felt no fear.
The power of the Starforging Dragon granted him absolute control, and the one hundred percent purity of his dragon blood gave him the confidence to devour.
He opened his dragon maw, vast enough to swallow stars.
Endless starlight erupted from within him, transforming into billions of pale golden chains of order that plunged deep into Azathoth's immense, unfixed body of chaos.
Flowing along those chains was the supreme authority that defined stars and built the framework of the universe.
"Hum—!!!"
The entire Chaos Hall, no, the fundamental rules underlying the whole universe, shuddered violently.
Azathoth's chaotic essence, once devoid of conscious fluctuation, encountered an unprecedented invasion and erosion of order.
Chaos and order, two absolutely opposed concepts, began their most fundamental collision and fusion.
Lo Quen's dragon soul consciousness was instantly submerged by an infinite flood of chaotic information.
It was the most primordial vision of the cosmos, the madness of logic utterly collapsed across endless ages.
His magic operated at an unprecedented speed, forcibly integrating these chaotic rules, using his own framework of order to define this chaos.
The process was excruciating and interminable.
His dragon body twisted and warped amid the interweaving of order and chaos, at times becoming pure starlight, at others stained with the gray of chaos, wavering between absolute rationality and ultimate madness, as if it might collapse at any moment.
But he endured.
Relying on the Starforging Dragonlord's authority that transcended this universe's laws, on his own unyielding will, and on the flawless vessel granted by one hundred percent dragon blood purity.
After an unknowable span of time, the violent tremors slowly subsided.
At the center of the Chaos Hall, Azathoth's vast, amorphous body had vanished.
In its place stood Lo Quen, the Starforging Dragon, his form now even more majestic and profound.
The starlight flowing around him was no longer purely pale gold. Within it glimmered faint traces of primordial hues, like those from the very moment the universe was born.
He appeared more ancient, more mysterious, more complete.
He had succeeded.
He had devoured and fused with Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, bringing the universe's primordial chaos under his own framework of order.
At this moment, he was no longer merely a Starforging Dragon.
He was the unifier of chaos and order in this universe, the one and only true Starforging Dragonlord of this realm.
He felt his power undergo a qualitative leap. An authority to govern the birth and death of the cosmos, to define all laws, flowed effortlessly with his thoughts.
At the same time, through his absolute perception of the universe's primordial rules, every Old One and Outer God remnant born of chaos revealed its position and state, like points of light on a star map, clearly reflected in his awareness.
Whether hidden within dimensional fissures, abyssal depths of the sea, or the innermost layers of dreams, none could escape his perception.
His gaze traversed endless spacetime, sweeping across those points of light that represented chaos and blasphemy.
Then his eyes suddenly narrowed, locking onto a world he knew all too well.
The Ice and Fire World.
There, in the far north of Essos, within the cursed land known as the Mossovy Forest, a faint point of light was skulking inside an ancient tree hollow.
Lo Quen saw the scene clearly.
An aged, withered soul was occupying the body of a young figure draped in a tattered cloak.
It was that Old God who had supposedly died long ago.
But now, the body possessed by the Old God was no longer Brynden Rivers.
It was Brandon Stark.
That undying relic.
By some unknown means, he had seized Bran's body and fled all the way from Westeros to the Mossovy Forest, hiding himself here.
A maggot barely clinging to life.
Lo Quen looked coldly at the panic etched across "Bran's" face and let out a low snort.
There was no longer any need for him to rely on [Stellar Flux] for long-distance travel.
With a single thought, he could now twist space itself and define coordinates at will.
In the next instant, space rippled like water before his massive dragon form, opening into a gateway.
On the other side lay the dark, damp Mossovy Forest, right before the ancient tree hollow that concealed the Old God.
In a flash of dragon shadow, Lo Quen crossed endless starlight and descended upon the world of ice and fire.
"Bran," possessed by the Old God's soul, lay slumped deep within the moist, decaying hollow.
Those eyes that once belonged to a boy were now filled with age and terror, staring fixedly at the figure slowly descending outside the hollow.
Starlight wrapped around that figure like tangible armor.
Each step he took across the moss-covered ground and rotting leaves of the Mossovy Forest made no sound at all.
It was as though he were not a physical being, but a phantom walking down directly from the stars.
The forest's oppressive darkness and malice retreated silently under the glow of his pure starlight, as if meeting their natural nemesis.
"It's you!"
The Old God sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively clutching the ragged cloak around his body.
No matter what, he could never have imagined that after paying such a price, even abandoning most of his power and hiding like a stray dog in the deepest reaches of this cursed forest, after taking over this fragile body that carried a trace of the First Men's bloodline, he would still be found by this terrifying man.
Lo Quen stopped outside the tree hollow, starlight casting his cold features in shifting light and shadow.
He had already taken human form.
His dark gaze swept over "Bran's" pale, frightened face, finally settling on the eyes that did not belong to a youth.
"Old man, still alive, I see."
Lo Quen's voice was icy.
"I remember it clearly. Beyond the Wall, among the weirwoods, you swore to me that you were on the brink of death, that you were entrusting every hope of saving the world to me. I never expected that your so-called death would mean stealing a younger body and hiding like a sewer rat here in the Mossovy Forest of Essos."