He suddenly sensed that something was wrong. The crimson dragon was far too fast, its presence far too savage. It was nothing like the docile creature one would expect from a forced summoning.
In the blink of an eye, Blooddancer had already closed the distance. Without slowing in the slightest, it opened its massive jaws and unleashed a deluge of crimson Dragonfire that poured down on Euron and his silver dragon.
"What?!"
Euron's face went pale. He desperately urged Orys to evade, but the distance was too short and the flames spread too wide. Dragon and rider were swallowed instantly by a raging sea of fire.
"Ahhh!"
Euron screamed. His Valyrian steel armor blocked most of the direct damage at the critical moment, but the exposed parts of his skin were still scorched by the heat. His hair and eyebrows burned away in an instant.
The silver dragon Orys let out a tortured howl. One wing and its flank were badly burned by the Dragonfire.
Euron fought to control the wounded dragon and forced it out of the inferno. He was shaken to the core, his face twisted with disbelief and fury.
Lo Quen watched the stunned expression on Euron's handsome face and snorted coldly.
"So you're Euron?"
Euron locked his gaze on the rider astride the red dragon, recognizing those unmistakable Eastern features.
"So it's you, that greedy, wicked Eastern conqueror!"
Grinding his teeth, Euron snarled, "Impossible! All dragons should obey the horn's command. Why isn't your dragon under control?!"
Lo Quen urged Blooddancer after the fleeing silver dragon, his eyes icy as he looked down on the disheveled Euron. "Who told you that all dragons obey the horn? What could a frog at the bottom of a well from Westeros possibly know? Your worthless horn means nothing to my dragon."
He had already learned from Meizo's intelligence that Stannis had once hatched a silver dragon, only to lose it. Now everything made sense.
This silver dragon had been hatched through a legitimate Valyrian bloodline contract. He could not control it. It had to be destroyed here and now to eliminate any future threat.
This world could only allow dragons bound to his own bloodline.
Euron's expression stiffened. He was just about to fire back when Lo Quen's cold voice cut through the air.
"Blooddancer, kill them."
Blooddancer let out an earth-shaking roar and spewed Dragonfire once more.
Orys dodged in panic, but its tail was swept by the flames. Silver scales instantly charred black and flaked away as the dragon let out a shrill, agonized scream.
Euron was both shocked and enraged. He jerked his head up, his blood-red raven eye staring straight into Lo Quen's eyes. "Damn you, Eastern bastard! If you've got the nerve, look at me!"
He tried to activate his Skinchanger ability, forcing his way into Lo Quen's consciousness.
At once, Lo Quen felt a cold, sinister, overwhelming mental force stab toward his mind like a poisoned needle.
He merely snorted inwardly. The true dragon blood within him reacted at once, violently rebounding that mental assault.
Deep within his consciousness, the phantom of an incomparably vast golden dragon abruptly appeared.
It looked down upon the invading evil force as a true god might look upon an insect.
"Gah!"
Euron screamed. His blood-red left eye felt as if it were about to explode, a streak of blood instantly running from the corner of it.
It was as though his mind had been smashed by a red-hot giant hammer, shattering in an instant.
The backlash nearly knocked him unconscious.
He stared at Lo Quen in pure terror, as if he were looking at some inhuman apparition.
"You… what are you, exactly?! What the hell is hiding in your mind? You're even more of a monster than I am!"
He had always believed that his own strange encounters and the awakening of his Blood Eye made him extraordinarily unique. He never imagined that within the depths of this Easterner's consciousness lurked something so utterly terrifying.
In the fleeting moment when Euron was dazed by the mental backlash, Lo Quen seized the opportunity.
"Blooddancer, bite through its neck!"
Blooddancer lunged like a streak of crimson lightning. Its enormous head shot forward with lethal precision, jaws clamping down savagely on the comparatively slender neck of the silver dragon, Orys.
Orys struggled instinctively, but it was far smaller than Blooddancer and already grievously wounded. It had no strength left to resist.
Crack!!!
The sound of shattering bone rang out.
Blooddancer's fangs crushed straight through Orys's neck. The dragon's head tore free from its body, blood spraying violently into the air.
The light in the silver dragon's eyes faded in an instant. Its massive body twitched spasmodically as it plunged toward the sea below, already stained red with blood.
"No! My dragon!"
Euron let out a despairing howl. He fell alongside the silver dragon's corpse, the wind screaming past his ears.
Lo Quen would not let such a chance slip away. He drove Blooddancer after him, descending in pursuit.
"Trying to run? Go down and keep your dragon company!"
Amid the violent rush of the falling wind, Euron flailed his arms uselessly, grasping at empty air.
He looked up at the crimson giant closing in and at the cold, expressionless Eastern man astride it. For the first time, genuine fear surged through his heart.
Yet he still roared, trying to smother that fear with madness.
"No! You can't kill me! I am a god! I am the true god about to ascend the divine throne! I have summoned the true source of power! I—"
Lo Quen looked down at him from above, his eyes colder than eternal ice, cutting off the ravings without mercy.
"A god? If you can be called a god, then I'll be the one to slay you. Blooddancer, burn him."
Blooddancer opened its jaws once more. This time, a torrent of golden-red Dragonfire, even fiercer than before, erupted forth and struck the falling Euron squarely.
"Ahhh—!!!!"
Euron's scream was shrill and agonizing.
Dragonfire swallowed him whole.
His Valyrian steel armor did offer extraordinary protection, holding out briefly against the flames.
But Blooddancer's Dragonfire far surpassed any ordinary fire. The relentless, extreme heat poured into the armor without pause, scorching it again and again.
Suspended in midair, Euron became a blazing fireball. He could feel the Valyrian steel growing searing hot, softening under the heat as it bled through the armor and burned his flesh.
"No… I am…"
His cries weakened rapidly within the flames.
At last, still dozens of feet above the sea, the precious Valyrian steel armor reached its limit. With a sharp, brittle crack, it shattered like porcelain, breaking apart piece by piece.
Stripped of his final protection, Euron's body was fully exposed to the Dragonfire.
In a single instant, before another scream could even escape him, his flesh carbonized and disintegrated under the unbearable heat. His body crumbled into drifting ash, scattered by the blood-soaked sea wind.
That mad roar, that ambition to become a god, that blasphemous cunning, along with the man himself, vanished completely from this world.
Splash!
The headless corpse of the silver dragon Orys slammed into the dark crimson sea under Lo Quen's gaze, sending up towering waves.
Lo Quen guided Blooddancer to hover low above the water, staring at the place where Euron had disappeared. A trace of doubt flickered in his eyes.
Euron… was he really dead just like that?
Had he overestimated him? Was that all a so-called god amounted to?
Or was it…
Lo Quen pondered briefly, finding no answer. He then shifted his gaze toward the base of the towering structure below.
A large crowd of Ironborn had gathered there. They had witnessed everything, from Euron's death to the fall of the silver dragon.
Now, every one of them stood pale-faced and panicked, utterly shaken.