52: Chapter 52 The Taunts at the Vault Door

Drogon did not go straight back to the pyramid.

He took a detour.

The seventh rune was hidden in the basement of a sealed mansion in the Great Masters' district.

The original owner of the mansion had been detained, the house was empty, and the seal of the new Meereen regime was plastered on the door.

The seal was still there.

But the basement ventilation window had been pried open.

The pry marks were very fresh.

Drogon squeezed through the ventilation window—once again using his half-dragon form to crawl through a hole.

He cursed to himself, resolving to have Grey Worm weld iron grates over every ventilation opening in the city once he returned.

The rune was carved onto the wall of a dry well at the deepest part of the basement.

The well mouth was sealed with wooden planks, and a millstone was placed on top of them.

Whoever set up the formation clearly did not want anyone to discover this rune—it was larger and more complex than the others.

It was a scaled-down version of the Main Rune.

It was not a Sub-rune.

It was a backup, a second Main Rune.

Drogon stared at the rune for three seconds.

"If the Main Rune is destroyed, this one will automatically activate."

"It will re-establish the signal."

"It's not an intrusion warning formation—it's a redundant backup formation."

"The Abyss has set up more than one formation in Slavers Bay."

He did not destroy the rune immediately.

Instead, he first used Dragon Perception to scan the entire basement, confirming there were no other hidden runes or traps.

Then, he carefully used his dragon claws to cut out the entire section of the well wall surrounding the rune—taking both the rune and the stone with it.

After the stone was cut out, the rune was still glowing.

But it had lost its synchronized pulse with the Main Rune.

It became an isolated signal source.

"Keep it."

"I'll give it to Missandei to study later."

"She likes this sort of thing."

He curled his tail around the stone slab and carried it out of the basement.

The eighth rune was in the foundation of an abandoned arena.

This arena had been used for gladiator fights during the era of the Great Masters, and its foundation was submerged underground, half-flooded with water.

Drogon directly used his Dragon Breath to evaporate all the water in the foundation—the Ice Fire froze the water, and then it evaporated—revealing the rune beneath the silt.

When the rune was destroyed, the entire arena ruin shook.

It felt as if something deep underground had been awakened.

Drogon hovered above the ruins.

His slit pupils stared down below.

The shaking stopped.

Nothing came out.

"It might be a tributary of the underground river."

"The energy fluctuation from the destruction of the rune triggered a tremor in the water veins."

Drogon didn't speak.

He stared at the ruins for a few seconds.

Then he turned and flew away.

But he made a mental note—he would have White Mane bring people to dig this place up later and take a look.

The remaining four runes were cleared quickly.

The ninth was at the base of the harbor lighthouse.

The lighthouse had been relit after the Unsullied took over, and its base was covered in nautical records from the era of the former Great Masters.

The rune was mixed in with the recorded text, carved in the cursive script of the Ghiscari Empire, making it impossible to distinguish without careful inspection.

Drogon used the tip of his tail to re-trace every groove of the rune—not to destroy it, but to overwrite it.

He used the barb on his dragon tail to carve new marks into the grooves of the original rune, turning the Abyss rune into invalid garbled code.

The light of the rune flickered twice and then went out.

"You can do that?"

"My comprehension is 14."

"This is a small matter."

"...Host, you just don't want to admit that you are becoming more and more like a dragon."

"Shut up."

"Get to work."

The last Sub-rune.

The twelfth one.

It was at the entrance of Drogon's own treasure vault.

This rune was only discovered by White Mane at the very end.

She had missed it during her previous sweep—the rune was carved on the lintel of the bronze vault door and covered by a piece of decorative gold foil.

The gold foil had been applied by Drogon himself.

He said it was called facade decoration.

White Mane only noticed the faint, eerie blue glow seeping from the edges of the gold foil during her second round of investigation.

Drogon landed at the entrance of the vault.

He stared at the rune on the lintel.

The eerie blue light seeped from the edges of the gold foil, casting the gold into a strange blue-green hue.

"The one who set up the formation carved a rune on my door."

"Is it a taunt?"

"Or do they want to monitor me?"

"It is highly likely the latter."

"The lintel rune can monitor the frequency and time of the host's entry and exit from the vault, which can be used to calculate patrol patterns."

"The person who set up the formation may have used this to avoid White Mane's previous sweeps."

Drogon didn't speak.

He tore off the gold foil and gouged out the rune along with the stone from the lintel.

Then he used his dragon claw to re-carve a few words on the lintel.

It was not a rune.

It was the Common Tongue.

"This place belongs to a dragon."

"Trespassers without permission will face the consequences."

The words were carved crookedly.

But with great force.

Each stroke was half an inch deep.

He landed on the top terrace of the pyramid.

His dragon form shrank to five meters, and he crouched on the edge of the terrace.

His tail hung down, the tip swaying gently in the night.

His slit pupils stared into the city.

All the light points of the Sub-runes had gone out.

In his Dragon Perception, only one signal source remained—the Main Rune on the stone platform in the middle of the underground river.

It was still pulsing.

It was still sending signals to the north.

But it was blind now.

With all the Sub-runes destroyed, the Main Rune only had its positioning function left and could not trigger any traps.

White Mane walked up from the staircase.

Her armor was covered in fresh mud, and there was a new bandage around the web of her hand.

Her amber eyes shone with a tired but sharp light under the moonlight.

"That new rune in the warehouse area was the thirteenth one."

"By the time you took action, I had also closed the net on my end."

"Three suspects—two committed suicide, one is alive."

Drogon turned his head to look at her.

"What did the living one say?"

"Not much."

"He is a distant nephew of Grazdan, named Morraz."

"He said he is not from the Abyss, just hired to do a job—someone paid him two hundred gold coins to place some 'artifacts' in designated locations."

"He didn't know what they were."

"And he didn't know the identity of his employer."

"He only remembered that the employer had a strange accent—not from Slavers Bay, not Dothraki, and not Westerosi."

"Not from those three places."

"Then there is only one possibility left."

"The Abyss."

Drogon was silent.

The dark golden light in his slit pupils swirled.

"At least it's confirmed."

"The Abyss has a sleeper network in Meereen."

"It's not one undercover agent."

"It's a network."

"Morraz was just a hired tool."

"The real core hasn't surfaced yet."

White Mane leaned against the stone wall beside him.

She leaned her great blade against the wall.

She closed her eyes.

The brand on the back of her neck was slightly warm.

"Are we going to the underground river now?"

Drogon stood up.

He transformed back into his human form.

His black trench coat flapped in the night wind.

His tail flicked behind him.

"Yes."

"But this time, you take the lead."

"That Main Rune—your brand can sense its danger level more accurately than I can..."

White Mane opened her eyes.

A trace of imperceptible light flashed in her amber eyes.

"...Are you admitting that I am more useful than you?"

"I am admitting that your brand is more sensitive than mine in certain specific areas."

"Don't get carried away."

White Mane's lips curled slightly.

She shouldered her great blade.

And walked ahead.