79: Chapter 77 The Gaze of Roses

Just as he suppressed his murderous intent and prepared to back away from the crowd—

Margaery Tyrell's gaze, those deep brown eyes that always carried a hint of a smile, suddenly turned toward the crowd.

She swept over the faces of several commoners, then landed on him.

Eye contact. Less than a second.

Drogon's deep brown pupils and Margaery's deep brown almond eyes met in the crowd—like two needle tips touching in the air.

He nodded slightly, expressionless. A standard merchant's salute to a noble—neither servile nor overbearing, neither dodging nor flinching.

Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd. His pace was not fast, but steady. There were no scales on the back of his neck, but there was a subtle tingling sensation in that spot—like being lightly brushed by a feather.

Margaery withdrew her gaze. She took Joffrey's arm and continued walking toward the Red Keep. But the curve of her lips tilted upward by the tiniest fraction more than before.

She whispered in a voice only she could hear.

"A Meereenese. Shoulders broader than a Westeros merchant. Stands like a warrior, but walks like a merchant. Dark gray robes—that's Qarth silk, not local goods. Interesting."

Drogon had already walked far away. Crossing the square, he turned into an alley. After confirming no one was around, he lowered his voice.

"System. She looked at me for less than a second just now."

"Yes. But in that less than a second, her interest in the host—inferred from facial micro-expressions—jumped from zero to approximately fifteen percent. Reason unknown. Hypothesis: She noticed the host's build and posture, which differ from an ordinary merchant. It is also possible that she simply thinks the host's nose looks good."

"The host's appearance rating in human form: 8.5. This is a purely objective biological assessment and does not contain any encouraging components."

"Don't tell me the appearance rating. Tell me—what is the probability now that she has recognized me as a dragon?"

"Five percent. But she will remember your face. This may pose an unknown variable for subsequent missions. It is recommended to avoid members of House Tyrell when operating in King's Landing."

Drogon leaned against the alley wall. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

The first day in King's Landing wasn't even over yet. He had almost stabbed Joffrey with black salt. He had his fake face remembered by the Rose of Highgarden. He had bought a fake sword and a real sword in the black market. He had taken two bites of sawdust-filled bread. The air was so foul he wanted to turn off his Dragon Heritage Perception.

He began to understand why Jorah would say, "King's Landing is no place for a man." He was a dragon, and even he felt this place was no place for a man.

Late at night. The lowest level of the black market.

Drogon did not return to the inn. He returned to the black market—pushing aside the broken wooden crates piled at the entrance of the secret passage; the crates were empty, but the dust had accumulated to half a finger's thickness.

The fake sword vendor from the day before, after being slipped a gold dragon, had revealed an important piece of information: at the lowest level of the black market, there was an old secret passage half-blocked by rubble, said to be one of the escape tunnels built during the time of The Mad King Aerys, leading directly to the ruins of the dragon pit beneath the Red Keep.

An iron door. Rusted and covered in spots. The lock had long since rusted shut.

Drogon used his arm strength, which was still far beyond a normal human's even in his fully human form, to twist off the lock cylinder and pushed the door open silently. The hinges didn't creak—it wasn't rusted; someone had recently oiled them. It still felt smooth. It wasn't him. Someone had used this secret passage before.

Behind the door was a narrow stone staircase extending downward. The walls were seeping water; droplets trickled down the stone crevices, splashing into tiny droplets upon hitting the steps.

The air was filled with the smell of stagnant water and mold, and another, deeper, more pungent layer—wildfire vapor. It was like someone was boiling a pot of scorched sugar in the depths of the darkness.

"Detected ahead: tunnel structure, a branch of the Red Keep secret passage network. This passage leads to the ruins of the dragon pit beneath the Red Keep—which is also the overlapping signal area of the two relics. However, the system also detects residual combustible gas in the passage.

Gas composition: wildfire vapor, concentration approximately 0.3 percent. The concentration is insufficient for spontaneous combustion, but if an open flame is introduced, it may trigger a localized explosion—the explosion range could destroy the entire secret passage.

It is recommended that the host not use any items that produce sparks within the passage. This includes flint. This includes any fabric friction that may generate static electricity."

"wildfire vapor? I know The Mad King buried wildfire all over the underground of the Red Keep back then. But this vapor indicates—some of the wildfire storage jars are already leaking. How long have they been leaking? Months? Years? How many jars are leaking? Does Cersei know how many jars of this stuff she is sitting on?"

"Intelligence unknown. But this is one of the main purposes of the host's infiltration of the Red Keep to investigate the wildfire reserves.

Recommendation: After the relics are recovered, use Dragon Heritage Perception to mark all wildfire storage locations to provide precise strike coordinates for subsequent sieges. If these wildfires can be detonated, the foundations of the Red Keep will collapse entirely."

"Fine. First recover the relics, then mark the wildfire. If there is enough time—go to the Red Keep kitchen and steal a piece of venison. Dinner in Flea Bottom is too terrible. Sawdust bread with stinking water, I've had enough."

He walked down the stone steps. Footsteps echoed in the narrow passage—tap, tap, tap, like someone was following behind him. The stone steps were steep, and with every step, he could hear the faint hissing of the wildfire vapor churning beneath his feet, like a snake flicking its tongue in the darkness. After walking for about ten minutes, the stone steps came to an end.

In front was an archway half-blocked by rubble. The rubble was newly piled—not from hundreds of years ago, but from recent years. Someone had deliberately blocked this path, but judging by the size of the gaps in the rubble, the person who blocked the road didn't intend to seal it too tightly. Drogon squeezed through the gaps in the rubble, tearing his sleeve on a sharp stone edge. He ignored it.

The end of the secret passage opened up suddenly.

Drogon stood in a huge underground domed space.

Stone pillars supported the vaulted ceiling, each pillar so thick that three men couldn't wrap their arms around it—obsidian pillars, not marble, but volcanic rock.

The stone walls were carved with blurred dragon-shaped reliefs—not the slender dragon shapes of Valyria, but earlier, wilder dragons. There were no scale details, only outlines.

The dragons in the outlines had six legs. They had two tails. The wings were not membranes, but feathers. The ground was scattered with broken dragon bone fragments, and several empty skulls with their dragon-glass cores pried out leaned against the base of the stone pillars, their hollow eye sockets staring at the dome.

The dragon pit.

The dragon pit during the heyday of the Targaryen dynasty. Later abandoned, covered by the foundations of the Red Keep. No one had been here for hundreds of years. The air was permeated with the smell of old dust and historical oblivion—the smell of dry bones, the smell of ancient stone powder, and some indescribable, residual aura belonging to dragons.

Drogon closed his eyes. Dragon Heritage Perception was fully active, capturing signals from deep underground.

Two relics. Their echoes were extremely close, almost overlapping at the same coordinate. In his consciousness space, two points of light pulsed right next to each other—one dark gold, one silver-white. The dark gold pulse was coarse and powerful; the silver-white pulse was fine as a needle.

"Relic location accuracy improved. Coordinates: approximately twelve meters directly below the dragon pit ruins.

Relic A: Dragon-glass core fragment—bloodline attribute extremely high, presumed to come from an ancient dragon king not recorded in the Targaryen genealogy.

Relic B: valyrian steel sword—energy fluctuation is negative, sword name suspected to be 'dragon-kiss', the legendary sword of Visenya Targaryen. Both relics are sealed by The Mad King Aerys's wildfire jar array in a small stone room. The entrance to the stone room is sealed by a valyrian rune lock.

Breaking the rune requires advanced Old Valyria reading ability plus a Fire Element attribute greater than or equal to fifty. The host meets the conditions for breaking it."

Drogon opened his eyes. Vertical pupils could not be manifested in his fully human form, but the dragon blood within him surged violently as he approached the relics—it felt like dark golden fire burning in his veins, rushing along the vessel walls toward his fingertips.

"Visenya's sword? The fiercest one among the three sisters of the Conqueror, that Visenya? How could her sword be beneath King's Landing?"

"History records that Visenya died in Dragonstone, but her sword went missing during the Dance of the Dragons. It is presumed that a Targaryen prince brought it to the King's Landing dragon pit to sacrifice to their ancestors, and it was later sealed by wildfire.

The specific history requires further verification—but the complementarity of the negative bloodline on the sword and the host's positive ancestral dragon bloodline is already confirmed."

He found the entrance to the stone room.

A circular stone door surrounded by valyrian runes. The runes glowed with a faint blue light in the darkness—not extinguished after hundreds of years, but the brightness was very low, like charcoal fire about to go out.

He placed his hand on the rune core, using his dragon talent to write out the Old Valyria incantation to break the runes. When the first character fell, the rune lit up—blue light spread from the core outward. When the second character fell, the blue light at the edge of the rune began to flow along the grooves, like water pouring into a dried-up riverbed.

When the third character fell, the runes on the entire door flashed three times simultaneously, then slowly extinguished.

The stone door swiveled open silently. The sound of the stone axle turning was extremely light—the lubrication hadn't dried yet.

A thicker wave of wildfire vapor rushed toward him. Drogon held his breath and stepped inside.

Behind the stone door was a tiny stone room, three steps square.

The four walls were filled with pottery jars—wildfire storage jars. The wax seals on the mouths of the jars had turned black but were not yet broken; the jar bodies emitted a very faint green light in the darkness, which was the fluorescence of the wildfire itself.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of wildfire vapor—sweet, burnt, like syrup scorched and mixed with alcohol. Any spark would turn the entire stone room into a purgatory.

In the center of the stone room. On an obsidian altar, two things were placed.

A fist-sized dragon-glass core fragment, still emitting a faint dark golden light.

Its surface was covered in cracks, but with every pulse, dark golden light shone through the cracks, illuminating the altar in a flickering manner—when bright, one could see the outlines of the pottery jars on the walls; when dark, nothing could be seen.

A slender valyrian steel sword, dark silver throughout, with a crossguard carved into intertwined dragons. There was no rust on the blade. No dust. Hundreds of years later, it was still new. The blade shimmered with cold light on the obsidian altar, so cold that looking at it felt like one's eyes were being cut.

Dragon-kiss.

Drogon stepped into the stone room.

His vertical pupils could not be manifested in his fully human form, but the dragon blood within him surged violently as he approached the two relics—the dark golden flames in his veins burned upward from his chest, burning to his throat, burning to his eye sockets.

He pressed his chest. His heartbeat synchronized with the pulse of the relics. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like two drums beating in the same rhythm.

"Detected: dragon-glass core fragment—bloodline attribute equivalent to approximately fifteen percent gain of the host's current bloodline, can be increased to approximately 1,900 points. Detected: valyrian steel sword 'Dragon-kiss'—the blade has a trace blood oath of Visenya Targaryen attached, which is a negative dragon bloodline, and can form a complement with the host's positive ancestral dragon bloodline.

It is recommended to simultaneously recover and absorb the core fragment; it is recommended to bring back 'Dragon-kiss' and gift it to Daenerys—as a Targaryen ancestral relic, the political significance is greater than the combat significance—or to White Mane—as a practical weapon, her current arakh has already chipped three times in battles against the Ironborn."

"'Dragon-kiss' goes to White Mane. Her arakh chipped the last time she fought the Ironborn, and when she brought it back, the edge was bent like a sickle. Dragon-glass core—absorb it now."

He wrapped the 'Dragon-kiss' sword in coarse cloth and carried it on his back, crossed over the fake valyrian steel sword. Then he lifted the dragon-glass core fragment from the obsidian altar with both hands.

The moment the core touched his hands, it suddenly erupted with blazing dark golden light—more intense and violent than the resonance of the Orys dragon bone. This unknown ancient dragon king had sealed all residual energy into the core before death, without a will, without dragon bones, only pure energy. Hundreds of years. Waiting for him.