Outside the furnace cave, the purple sky seemed less suffocating for the first time.
Victor sat atop the new dragon saddle, his body perfectly attuned to every breath and muscle twitch of Comet.
Hand resting on the Valyrian steel sword he had named Truth, he felt a wondrous sensation from the hilt, as though the weapon were linked to his very bloodstream.
An unprecedented sense of powerful confidence welled up within him.
He was no longer the helpless, empty-handed castaway who had first arrived in this place.
He was a knight—a dragon rider equipped with the finest mount and weapon in this world.
Yet a burning pang of hunger from his stomach dragged him back to reality.
He hadn’t eaten a real meal in over two days, relying entirely on willpower, a few scraps of chocolate he had brought with him, and contaminated rainwater he had found.
Filtering the water was only a makeshift solution, not a long-term fix.
He was pushing his limits, and his body was issuing warnings.
As for Comet, though he had grown significantly, the recent forging work had drained a massive amount of his energy.
If they were to undertake a long, treacherous transoceanic flight, the dragon needed a thorough feast.
“Looks like we need to pull off one last big score before we leave,” Victor said, patting Comet’s neck as he turned his gaze toward the heart of the ruins.
There stood the grandest, tallest black spire in the city.
Though half-collapsed, it still resembled a defiant, giant claw reaching for the heavens.
It was the fortress of the region’s former ruler—a dragonlord of Valyria.
Victor had previously bypassed it because it was too dangerous.
But circumstances were different now.
He needed high-grade supplies—both food reserves for himself, if any remained, and higher-grade metals or dragon remains for Comet.
“Let’s go, Comet.
Time to pay a visit to the master of this house.” Comet let out an eager growl and flapped his wings, carrying Victor toward the fortress that once symbolized the pinnacle of Valyrian power.
With air superiority, their speed was more than ten times faster than on foot.
Looking down from above, Victor surveyed the entire layout of the fortress.
Utilizing his engineering expertise once more, he navigated around sections that appeared intact but were prone to catastrophic collapse.
He guided Comet to land directly on a massive breach in the main tower—a grand hall that seemed to have once served as a dragonlord’s audience chamber.
Upon landing, man and dragon ventured inside with caution.
The interior of the hall was as vast as a natural cavern.
Giant stone pillars lay strewn about in ruin, and a thick layer of dust covered the floor.
At the deepest end of the hall, a majestic, terrifying throne carved from obsidian still stood intact.
Seated upon the throne was a tall skeleton.
Even death had failed to strip away his royal majesty.
The bones were nearly fused with the throne itself, and he wore a suit of exquisite full-plate armor, covered in cracks yet largely intact.
Even in the dim light, the armor reflected a shimmering, rippling luster like liquid water.
Valyrian steel…
a complete suit of Valyrian steel plate armor!
Victor’s breath hitched.
This was no mere treasure; it was living history, an artifact capable of driving all of Westeros into madness!
He stepped forward quickly, intending to strip the armor from the bones.
But he soon discovered that under the terrifying heat of the Doom, portions of the armor had melted and fused with both the skeleton and the obsidian throne, locking them together tightly.
“Troublesome,” Victor muttered, brow furrowing.
Using brute force risked damaging this priceless treasure.
He pondered for a moment before an audacious plan took shape in his mind.
He turned once more to a method that had proven effective time and again: engineering demolition.
Only this time, he needed nanometer-level precision.
“Comet, give me a tiny fragment of your dragon gas crystal.
A quarter the size of a fingernail will do.” Comet obediently opened his jaws and exhaled a tiny, highly concentrated red crystal shard.
Using the tip of his sword, Victor delicately wedged the shard into the deepest crack where the armor had fused to the throne.
“Stand back,” he told Comet.
Victor retreated to the far side of the hall, taking cover behind a massive stone pillar.
Through their mental link, he issued a precise command: *Use the faintest spark of energy to detonate it.
Remember, we aren’t blowing it apart—we just need the shockwave to disrupt the molecular structure of the fusion point.* *Hum…* A barely audible pop sounded.
The tiny shard instantly released its energy.
However, an unexpected anomaly occurred at that very moment!
Within the grand structure that had remained silent for centuries, that faint sound acted like a triggered switch.
A skin-crawling rustling sound echoed from the shadows around the hall, the cracks in the vaulted ceiling, and beneath the rubble on the floor!
*Not good!* Alarm bells blared in Victor’s mind.
His worst fear had come to pass.
The architecture of the hall had created a peculiar resonance, carrying the faint noise throughout the entire spire!
In the next second, dozens of dark, ghastly shapes surged out from all directions!
They were four-legged beasts resembling panthers, pitch-black from head to tail.
Lacking eyes, they possessed only gaping maws packed with razor-sharp teeth.
They moved like the wind, their sharp claws allowing them to scale vertical stone walls at high speeds.
Shadow-crawlers—mutated beasts far deadlier than the stone men in the ruins of Valyria!
“Comet, take flight!” Victor issued the order instantly.
Comet spread his wings and launched into the air, banking smoothly beneath the vaulted ceiling of the hall.
A shadow-crawler leaped from a side wall like black lightning, pouncing toward Comet in midair.
“Roll left and prepare to counter!” Victor screamed with icy composure.
Locked securely into the saddle by his five-point harness, he remained unmoved by the immense centrifugal force.
As Comet executed an improbable aerial roll, Victor swung Truth in a flawless arc.
*Splat!* Blood sprayed.
The jumping crawler was severed at the waist, its two halves falling lifelessly to the floor.
It was their first true coordinated combat action since equipping the saddle!
“Nice work!” Victor praised, his battle spirit soaring.
“Three o’clock, on the wall, five targets!
Scatter shot!” Understanding the command, Comet’s wingtips flashed red.
Five tiny dragon gas crystals shot forth like shotgun pellets, blowing the crawlers on the wall into shreds of flesh and bone.
The battle erupted in three-dimensional space.
Comet operated like an agile fighter jet, weaving, diving, hovering, and climbing through the hall, while Victor acted as his ultimate fire-control officer.
One crawler lunged stealthily from the shadows below, biting down hard on Comet’s leg armor.
Victor leaned his upper body down sharply.
Hanging at an almost ninety-degree angle relative to the ground, his sword thrust forward like a viper’s fang, driving straight through the top of the crawler’s skull and pinning it to the floor!
After clearing out most of the pack, a shadow-crawler alpha—noticeably larger than the rest—let out a piercing screech.
It charged from behind the shadow of the throne, moving so fast it left blur trails behind it.
“Comet, charge straight at it!
Dive!” A streak of wild intensity flashed in Victor’s eyes.
Man and dragon transformed into a silver meteor, colliding head-on with the black shadow!
*Clang!* A deafening impact reverberated through the hall.
The alpha’s razor claws were locked hard against Victor’s Valyrian steel blade.
Meanwhile, Comet’s massive body struck with immense force, smashing the beast against the opposite wall and shaking the entire tower!
The battle was over.
Comet panted heavily, clearly exhausted, but his eyes shone with the thrill of victory.
Releasing the dead alpha, he rushed toward the throne without hesitation.
This time, he showed no restraint.
Opening his jaws wide, he bit down on the skeleton and the armor together, crunching through them like brittle crackers with a bone-chilling rasp.
That suit of Valyrian steel armor—a treasure that could drive the world mad—along with the dragonlord’s remains and several fossilized dragon egg fragments scattered nearby, became the dragon’s grandest feast.
As these supreme materials were devoured, a brilliant red light, far more intense than any before, erupted from within Comet’s body!
*Roar—!* Comet let out a long howl, a mixture of pain and exhilaration.
His body expanded rapidly beneath the red glow at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Bones cracked and popped, scales reshaped, and his wingspan snapped open, instantly exceeding five meters!
A few seconds later, the light faded.
Standing before Victor was no longer a young dragon the size of a panther.
He had ballooned to the size of a mature bison, his shoulder height now exceeding Victor’s head.
The silver shell covering his body grew thicker and more jagged, his streamlined frame packed with explosive power, and his obsidian eyes held the undeniable majesty of an apex predator.
He had finally undergone another stage of growth—an evolution.
Victor watched in awe, letting out a long breath after a stunned silence.
Stepping forward, he retrieved a surviving metal chest near the shattered throne.
Opening it, he found it packed with gold coins and various jewels.
He hastily stuffed the riches into his pack.
His food was gone, and though his greyscale was contained, he would starve to death before the disease could claim him if he lingered.
Now, Comet was strong enough to face any long-distance flight.
They had also secured their final, crucial piece of starting capital.
Victor swung himself up into the noticeably roomier saddle, casting one last look at this dragonlord’s tomb that buried the final glory of Valyria.
“It’s time,” he said softly, his eyes brimming with anticipation for the future.
“Comet, take me home.” Though this world held no home for him, his destination was clear—the East, a continent brimming with life and the unknown.
Receiving the order, Comet let out a earth-shattering roar.
Red dragon flame blasted from behind his massive wings, kicking up clouds of dust as he swept forward like a crimson torrent, charging relentlessly out of the spire and soaring straight into the dark purple sky.