He sprinted to a spot just short of the Dead Dragon and stopped, chest heaving, gasping for breath.
He looked at Aegon, then at the dragon crouched low, exhaling boundless death and resentment, and seemed to suddenly 'understand.' A twisted expression of dawning realization, mockery, and madness spread across his face.
'Ah… I get it! I get it!' He stabbed a finger at Aegon, voice shrill with manic excitement. 'You think you've won? You think that stolen tin suit and a flaming toy sword make you a dragon lord?'
'Ridiculous! Pathetic! Pitiful!'
He tore the already tattered sleeve from his arm, baring pale, gaunt flesh latticed with old scars and fresh grazes.
Then, gripping his longsword, he slashed his left arm without hesitation.
Shhrrrik!
Flesh peeled back, bone visible.
Crimson blood gushed, dripping along his trembling arm to spatter in tiny blossoms on the scorched ground.
Yet Corleone felt no pain; only a fanatic, sacrificial rapture lit his face.
He raised the bleeding arm high, palm toward the Dead Dragon, and screamed with all his strength—in ancient, warped, blasphemous High Valyrian: 'Behold! Behold this noble, pure blood of House Torregar!' 'I, Corleone, last True Blood scion of Torregar, bind here by blood and soul!' 'Awake! Kneel! Obey my will! I am your true master—your eternal rider!' 'Crush that vile thief; wash this sacred place clean with his blood and soul!'
His voice rang across the empty Blood Abyss, desperate and commanding.
He believed—no, he knew—that as long as True Blood stood here and called, the primordial dragon awakened by Torregar's countless sacrifices must answer.
It would surely turn its breath of ruin upon that cursed silver-haired bastard.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The Dead Dragon did nothing.
It remained crouched, rotting sides rising and falling slowly, ghastly green soul-flame flickering in hollow sockets.
Corleone's up-stretched, bleeding hand, his frenzied commands, his cry of 'true master'—all were ignored.
No, worse than ignored.
The exultation on Corleone's face began to stiffen and crack.
He saw—
The dragon's burning hollows, though turned toward them, were fixed—by some faint blood resonance—entirely upon Aegon.
Upon the silver-haired, violet-eyed figure standing silent with flaming sword.
Toward the so-called True Blood heir and his Torregar blood it showed only… an indescribable, icy disdain.
No, more than disdain.
In the wavering soul-flame, in the trembling of the rotting bulk, Corleone sensed something faint yet unmistakable: fear.
Fear of that silver bastard.
For a creature woven of death and spite that had just vented ruin at will, it wasn't even fear—it was the instinctive shudder of a lesser being.
'No… impossible…' Color drained from Corleone's face; lips quivering, he whispered, 'How… I am Torregar… my blood… my rite…'
He shook his head violently, as if to fling the truth away, eyes reigniting with fiercer madness.
'It's you! Some vile trick! You bewitched the ancestor!' He pointed at Aegon, voice cracking. 'Your dragon-lord blood is false, filthy—'
His words cut off once more.
The silent Dead Dragon finally moved.
Slowly, with dripping black slime, it lifted its rotting colossal head.
The pale-green soul-flame looked—truly looked—at Corleone for the first time.
Within that gaze, the mingled dread and caution it had shown Aegon was gone.
There remained only one thing—
Pure, seething, centuries-condensed hatred—dragged by force from eternal silence back into the living world!
"ROAR——————!!!!!!!!"
A soundless, soul-rending roar detonated again!
But this time, the target was clear.
The madness on Corleone's face froze solid.
He saw it: in Dead Dragon's abyssal maw, a dark vortex woven from countless anguished faces spinning wildly, faster than ever before!
A death-green light, ghastly to the extreme, was condensing and swelling at the vortex's core!
The target—was him!
"No—! I am…" Corleone finally screamed in utmost terror and spun to flee.
Too late.
A breath of endless death and hatred, like the bursting banks of the underworld's river, swallowed him whole in an instant.
No explosion, no fire.
Only an absolute, annihilating green.
Corleone's figure, together with his terrified scream, unspoken boasts, lifelong obsession, and the so-called True Blood of House Torregar… in that ghastly green melted like snow under the sun—silently, completely gone.
Not even a speck of ash remained.
The breath slowly dispersed.
Dead Dragon's blasphemous head turned.
Now, the two huge sockets blazing with wan soul-fire locked, without distraction, on the only upright figure still pulsing with rich life—
Aegon.
And, farther behind him, the survivors sprawled on the ground in paralyzed terror.
"Grrr…"
A low, hungry growl of ruin rumbled from Dead Dragon's throat.
Its rotting wing-membranes spread, body crouching for the pounce.
"I-it looked this way!"
"We're dead… we're all dead!"
Among the Mercenaries rose desperate wails and collapsing sobs.
Some tried to crawl back, but their limbs failed them.
Others simply shut their eyes and waited for the end.
Henry's teeth chattered as he clutched Carl's arm, nails nearly gouging flesh.
He wanted to stand, to shield them—even if it meant a moth flying into flame!
But terror and his grievous wounds left his muscles unresponsive; he could only watch the monstrous Dead Dragon cast its gaze of death.
Carl's face was ashen, yet his eyes stayed fixed on Aegon's back.
A last, faint hope remained.
Right then—
Aegon moved.
Under the dragon's crushing stare, amid the survivors' despairing cries, he slowly raised the red-burning longsword in his hand.
The motion was calm, unhurried, without a tremor.
As though he lifted the weapon not against an apocalyptic beast, but merely pointed at drifting clouds.
The tip leveled at Dead Dragon ahead.
Then—
his wrist pressed gently downward.
A movement utterly simple.
It made no sound at all.
Yet—
BOOM!!!!!!!!
In an instant, an indescribable, incomprehensible, irresistible pressure—like the weight of a billion-ton abyss—descended! It blanketed the entire Blood Abyss, every living thing!
It was no physical impact.
It was a direct assault on the soul, on the very source of life, on existence itself—
A suppression of rank!
"Ugh—!"
Henry groaned in agony, feeling an unseen hammer smash his skull! Blackness burst with stars; his ears rang mute. Worse, he sensed some supreme presence "watching" his soul—cold, indifferent, wielding absolute authority above all life.
He could not think, move, even breathe!
Only a shred of perception told him—
The air had solidified.
Light twisted.
Sound vanished.
Time and space themselves warped and collapsed!
And deep within his soul, in every survivor's terror-filled mind, all simultaneously "heard" a roar that shook past and future, forcing all things to kneel—
A dragon's roar!
No—he did not "hear" it.
It was a brand seared onto the soul, an echo of dread inscribed in the bloodline!
Ãdvåñçé çhàptêr àvàilàble óñ pàtreøn luffy1898