Chapter 3
The steppe wind whipped at my ragged clothes, carrying the stink of ozone and charred meat from the ruin behind me. The screams of the surviving women and children faded into the vast emptiness. My ribs still ached, my lip throbbed, but the cold fury in my gut was a shield now. A purpose. I stopped walking. Ahead lay nothing but rolling grasslands under a bruised twilight sky. Behind me, only death and terrified survivors. That wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. This world was built on pain, on chains, on the strong crushing the weak. I knew it in my bones, both the old ones and the new, abused ones. *They all need to see,* the thought crystallized, cold and hard. *They all need to know what walks among them now.* I focused inward, on the impossible space coiled within the shadow pooling at my feet. I felt the immense, slumbering presence. *King.* The awareness stirred, vast and ancient, humming with destructive potential. Not a request. A command. *Rise.* The earth shuddered. Not like before, a localized tearing. This was a deep, groaning shift, felt for miles. The air screamed as reality tore. My shadow exploded outward, swallowing the fading light, becoming a portal to a darkness deeper than night. He emerged. King Ghidorah unfolded from the abyss. The three serpentine necks, thicker than castle towers, pierced the twilight. Wings, vast enough to eclipse mountains, unfurled with a sound like continents tearing, blotting out the sky. His scales, molten gold and nightmare, drank the dying light. The three heads surveyed the empty steppe, then swiveled downwards. Six eyes, burning with the cold fury of gravitational annihilation, fixed on me. The central head lowered, immense, its horned crest a jagged crown against the darkening sky. It stopped, level with my chest. I didn't hesitate. The rage, the pain, the absolute certainty fueled me. I reached out, my calloused, bruised hands finding purchase on a scale larger than my torso. The metal was impossibly cold, humming with contained power. I hauled myself up, ignoring the protest of my ribs, the sting of my wounds. This was where I belonged. Not in the dirt. Not as prey. I climbed the ridged neck, finding a place just behind the massive skull, where the scales formed a natural seat between the horns. The sheer scale was dizzying. The ground fell away. The wind tore at me, colder now, sharp with the scent of ozone emanating from the beast beneath me. I looked down. My shadow was gone, consumed by the titan I now rode. I *was* the shadow now. *Go.* The thought was a silent lash. Ghidorah understood. The immense wings beat once. The concussion of air flattened the grass for leagues. We surged upwards, the acceleration crushing me against the golden scales. The ruined khalasar became a smudge, then vanished. Below, the Dothraki Sea stretched, endless and wild. I saw the first city on the horizon as dawn bled red: Pentos. Its pale walls, its terracotta roofs huddled behind the coast. A city of fat magisters and slaves. A symbol of the world that needed burning. I didn't need strategy. I had the King. I focused my will, my cold, encompassing hatred for this brutal world, onto the entity beneath me. *Show them.* The central head dipped. The golden maw opened. A beam of pure gravitational ruin, brighter than the rising sun, lanced down. It struck not the walls, but the heart of the city. The Keep of the Magisters. Stone, wood, flesh – it simply ceased to exist in a silent, blinding flash of gold. A crater opened, swallowing palaces and mansions. Shockwaves rippled out, shattering lesser buildings like glass. Panic erupted. Tiny figures scrambled like ants. Ships in the harbour caught fire from the radiant heat alone. Ghidorah didn't pause. The left head swept its beam across the city walls. They vaporized. The right head targeted the docks. Wooden piers and galleys dissolved into superheated steam and splinters. We circled, low and slow. I felt the heat of the destruction wash up, saw the terror on the faces of those who looked up. They saw him. The golden terror blotting out the sky. And they saw *me*. A ragged figure, insignificant against the scale of the beast, yet perched upon its central head like a rider upon a demonic steed. A conqueror clad in rags and shadow, commanding annihilation. *Every eye must see,* I thought, the cold fury settling into grim resolve. *Let them know their master has arrived.* The beams carved Pentos. Districts vanished. Fires roared, fed by the intense heat. Screams rose, faint but piercing even from this height, a futile counterpoint to the shriek of Ghidorah's beams and the thunder of collapsing structures. The city wasn't conquered. It was *erased*. A message written in golden fire and ash. When only smoking ruins and terrified survivors remained huddled by the sea, I nudged the King. *North.* The vast wings beat again. We climbed, leaving the smouldering scar of Pentos below. The Narrow Sea glittered coldly ahead. Beyond it lay Westeros. Beyond it lay King's Landing. Beyond it lay everything. The wind screamed past. My torn rags flapped. The power thrummed beneath me, vast and terrible. It wasn't just Ghidorah's power. It was *mine*. Forged in the dirt of the khalasar, tempered by pain, and now unleashed. This world built on chains and cruelty would learn a new foundation: fear. Absolute, annihilating fear. And they would see its architect, riding the golden storm that devoured their world. *Next,* I thought, my eyes fixed on the distant horizon where the sun glinted off icy peaks. The cold in my gut spread, matching the chill of the scales beneath me. The rage was a constant now, a fuel. The pain was a memory etched in bone. The conquest had only just begun. And every soul below would watch it happen from the shadow of the King.