141: Chapter 141 The Dark Gold Patterns on the Reverse Scale

Dragonstone. The crater. Afternoon.

Drogon crouched on the edge of the crater. The ointment on the counter-scale on his left breast had dried completely.

He gave it a light scratch with his claw tip, and the entire shell of ointment peeled off, falling onto the obsidian rock platform where it shattered into a few pieces of grayish-white powder, only to be swept into the lava lake by the hot wind.

The newly grown counter-scale was revealed.

It was not pure black. The base of the scale was dark gold, and its edges were lined with an extremely fine pattern—dark gold veins woven during the healing of his Bloodline, radiating from the center outwards, slightly bifurcating at the ends like fossilized capillaries.

This scale had been shattered from the inside out by a Space Rift; the one that had regrown was slightly thicker than the surrounding old scales, with the semi-translucent texture characteristic of new scales along its edges.

System pop-up.

"Counter-scale recovery complete. Current Bloodline: 2400. Passive effects 'Ancestral Dragon Domain' and 'Bloodline Suppression' restored to full potency. Pseudo-Ice Dragon Form cooldown reset. Recommendation: Complete independent activation of the Fire Element before the siege. The geothermal Fire Element concentration at the Dragonstone crater reaches its peak at noon."

His vertical pupils half-closed.

His wing membranes unfurled in the high heat—the hot air currents of the crater passed through the gaps in his wing bones, steaming out the fatigue accumulated over the past few days from the crevices of his bones. The smell of sulfur flooded his nasal cavity.

His tail slowly drew circles behind him, the tip brushing off a piece of weathered gravel. The gravel rolled into the lava lake, splashing up a dark red lava flower.

"How much will it reach after the Fire Element is activated?"

"It is estimated that the Fire Element will leap from its current inactive state to 150 to 200 points. Activation requires a medium containing the Dragon Flame of the Targaryen ancestors. Recommendation—the rubies on the Crown of Aegon I. The embers of Dragon Flame sealed within the gems can serve as an ignition source."

"The crown needs to be resized. I'll remove a gem before resizing it. If Daenerys finds out, she will probably lock me up. However—activating the Fire Element is for the purpose of resizing her crown. I can explain before she locks me up."

He coiled his tail in front of him. His vertical pupils flashed in the red light of the crater—that was his habitual expression as he calculated how to make "removing the crown gem" sound more like a technical necessity rather than him eyeing her gems.

Dragonstone. Nightfire Altar.

Melisandre had lit a Nightfire that was stronger than usual.

Under the influence of the geothermal Fire Element from the crater, the blue-green holy fire surged two feet higher, its tongues licking the obsidian pillars at the edge of the altar, emitting a very faint hissing sound—it was sea salt evaporating in the crevices of the stone due to the high temperature.

Daenerys stood at the edge of the altar, holding the Crown of Aegon I.

She had already learned from Drogon that activating the Fire Element required borrowing a ruby, and she had not objected—she simply held the crown out to him, her fingertips lightly touching the smallest of the seven gems.

That one was slightly deeper in color than the others; it was not bright red, but a dark red that had been soaked in seawater, like blood congealed in iron Ore.

"The one from the Iron Islands. Barristan said that when Aegon I accepted the surrender at the Iron Islands back then, the Ironborn offered this gem as a token of submission. It is the only one of the seven not obtained through conquest."

She pushed the crown half an inch toward him.

"Remove this one first. When the crown is resized, set it back—if it cannot be set back, replace it with obsidian from Dragonstone. The Iron Islands have no lord now; they don't need gems after the war. They need ships."

Drogon took the crown in his dragon-man form.

His vertical pupils, illuminated by the Nightfire, clearly saw the embers of Old Valyria Dragon Flame sealed within the ruby—deep inside the gem was a thread of extremely fine dark gold fire, flowing slowly through the crystal structure like a living spark sealed in amber.

It had been eight thousand years and it was still flowing.

He covered the ruby with his fingertips and gently twisted it off.

The gem was wedged extremely tightly into the crown ring—the craftsmen of Aegon I had used valyrian steel claws to secure the base of the gem, and as it twisted off, it made a very faint metallic scraping sound.

He looked at the gem in his palm for a moment, then put it into his mouth.

He did not chew. He just held it in his mouth.

The moment the gem touched his Dragon Clan Bloodline, it melted on its own—not melted by heat, but triggered to unlock by the resonance of the Dragon Clan spark within his Bloodline.

The Old Valyria craftsmen had set a Bloodline lock when sealing the Dragon Flame embers; only a Targaryen Bloodline could unlock it.

The Dragon Flame embers, sealed for eight thousand years, flowed down his throat into his chest cavity, colliding with the Fire Element Foundation within him that had never been activated.

The Nightfire suddenly surged higher around him.

The blue-green holy fire and the dark gold Dragon Flame bursting from within him intertwined on the ground into a ring of fire several meters in diameter—the edges were cold, the blue-green of the Nightfire; the center was hot, the dark gold of the Dragon Flame.

After spinning a few times on the ground, the two-colored flames suddenly converged, pouring entirely into the location of the counter-scale on his chest.

His vertical pupils shimmered in the firelight with both the cold blue Ice Fire and the dark gold Dragon Flame.

Extremely fine sparks escaped from the gaps between his scales, and each one that landed on the ground burned a small scorch mark.

Ice and fire clashed violently in his chest for a few moments—his chest felt as if it were being torn by two opposing forces simultaneously.

Then both forces quieted down simultaneously, like mutually repellent ocean currents finding their own water layers on the seabed; the ice was below, the fire was above, and they did not infringe upon each other.

System pop-up. Golden text.

"Fire Element activation complete. Current Fire Element: 180 points. Current Ice Element: 480 points. Total dual-element value: 660 points. The host can freely switch between Ice Fire and pure Dragon Breath of fire. Fusion Dragon Breath is not recommended for frequent use for now. New passive unlocked—'Fire Element Affinity': The host's perception of geothermal fire sources is enhanced, and the host can gain a small amount of continuous Fire Element recovery in volcanic regions."

Daenerys watched the sparks on his chest slowly extinguish. Her purple eyes swept over the two trails of Ice Fire and Dragon Flame in his vertical pupils that had not yet completely separated.

"The way you held the ruby in your mouth just now—it was a bit like when you hold pieces of dragon glass. But quieter. You would chew on dragon glass pieces. You didn't chew the gem. Were you reluctant to?"

Drogon swallowed the last lingering taste of the melted gem in his mouth.

The taste was not mineral—it was a very faint smoky flavor, like a warm brick taken from a furnace that had been burning for thousands of years.

"Rubies are more expensive than dragon glass. It's a waste to chew them. Just holding them is enough.

This one from the Iron Islands contains the Dragon Flame record of Aegon I accepting the surrender—the Ironborn offered the gem to him, and he used Dragon Flame to engrave a Bloodline lock inside the gem. I just unlocked it.

That memory fragment was very short, only a few seconds long.

He stood on the black rock beach of the Iron Islands, and the Ironborn were kneeling all over the ground. He accepted the gem and returned the sword to the Ironborn leader. He said—the Iron Islands can fish when not at war. Later, the Iron Islands never fished again. They have been at war ever since."

He weighed the crown in his palm—now missing a gem, with the dark base of valyrian steel exposed in the empty spot on the crown ring.

"After the crown is resized, I will go polish that obsidian for the Iron Islands. There is plenty of obsidian on Dragonstone. But the Dragon Flame embers in the gem have been used up—from today on, your crown will only have six rubies that can glow. The seventh one will be obsidian, which does not glow."

Daenerys reached out and touched the empty spot on the crown ring with her fingertip.

"Obsidian doesn't glow red. But obsidian can store the observation records of The Old Gods—that's what Melisandre said. Dragon Flame will extinguish, but observation records will not. The Iron Islands don't need rubies. They need ships. My crown doesn't need all seven to glow. Having one that remembers the past is enough."

White Mane walked up from below the altar. In her hand, she held a piece of raw obsidian she had just picked up from the beach—the size of a fist, with a smooth, mirror-like cross-section, reflecting a very deep dark purple in the light of the Nightfire. She was not carrying her dragon-kiss sword today, only wearing that old scabbard at her waist. The red patch was still on the hilt.

"Obsidian. There are plenty on the beach. Pick a good one. I will help you polish it."

She placed the raw stone on the altar stone platform in front of Drogon.

Turning around, at an angle where Daenerys could not see, the Brand sent a very brief warmth to Drogon—not a message, but an extremely short urging. Translated into human language, it was probably: Let her wear the properly fitted crown. Siege tomorrow. Don't dawdle.