"Faster! Hurry up! What are you dawdling for?! Waiting for a whipping?!"
The shouting behind him, mixed with the sharp crack of a whip through the air, pierced Hop's ears.
He quickly bent his already hunched back even lower, almost pressing his face against the cold stone steps, gritting his teeth as he braced a heavy, moss-slicked stone against his shoulder, dragging it upward with both hands and feet.
Damn Gold Cloaks! They could do nothing against the rebels and monsters outside the city, yet they only knew how to vent their anger and show off their might against poor commoners like them!
Hop cursed everything in his heart, from the little King Joffrey to the lackeys of the City Watch, and from the Targaryen remnants outside who had nothing better to do than cause trouble, to this damned world. But out loud, he didn't even dare to breathe heavily, let alone make a sound.
Half an hour ago, he had seen with his own eyes a reckless young lad who, just because he was slow in moving stones and muttered a complaint, was cut down on the spot by a Gold Cloak captain.
Blood flowed down the steps, nearly splashing onto his face, scaring the wits out of him.
He still had a shack in Flea Bottom; he didn't want to become a pile of mangled meat on the steps.
He like a beaten mule, hauled bricks and logs for the city's defense one after another.
Sweat mixed with dust ran into his eyes, causing an unbearable sting, but he didn't dare raise a hand to wipe it, fearing that a single slow step would bring down a beating.
Finally dragging the stone onto the city wall, Hop could barely catch his breath.
It was as crowded as a barrel full of stinking fish, making it hard even to turn around. Men, women, the elderly, and children were packed shoulder to shoulder—there were the sour-smelling poor from Flea Bottom, and residents of the Silk Street whose clothes were dirty but had once been decent; all of them were in a wretched state now.
Those who had just been driven up were pale-faced, staring up at the sky in a daze at the three-headed beast circling above King's Landing, paralyzed with fear.
Those who arrived early, like Hop, though equally terrified, could only shiver and work non-stop under the whips and shouting.
After catching his breath, Hop couldn't help but look up at the sky shrouded in shadow.
A suffocating sense of oppression instantly gripped his heart.
He had been driven onto the wall yesterday; at that time, the dragon was still perched in the distance, like a fearsome golden mountain.
But now, it was circling overhead, its massive wings spanning wide enough to almost blot out half the sky. Every flap brought a low rumble, and its shadow firmly covered the entire city and the people on the walls.
Hop's legs went weak, a chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and his scalp tingled.
"Damned monster..." he cursed inwardly, forcing himself to look away and bow his head to pick up rubble, pretending to be used to such scenes.
Having lived in Flea Bottom for so long, he knew that at a time like this, one must never show weakness, or they would only be bullied.
But his feigned toughness crumbled instantly upon seeing the faces around him, all filled with fear, bewilderment, and despair.
To hell with toughness; they were all the same—nothing more than shields thrown out by the little king, breathing meat shields behind the battlements.
Weren't the lords of the Silk Street shivering under the whip now just like him, a rat from Flea Bottom?
Hop remembered seventeen years ago.
He was young then, and the city was also under siege. King's Landing was surrounded; inside the Red Keep was The Mad King Aerys, and outside was Tywin Lannister's army.
Those days were also filled with panic and food shortages, but even the Mad King had never driven all the city's commoners onto the walls to act as meat shields.
Comparing the two...
"Damn it," he spat disdainfully in his heart, "even the Mad King had more humanity than that little bastard Joffrey!"
Another crack of the whip and a roar came from behind: "What are you dazing off for?! Do you want to die?!"
Hop shrunk his neck in fear and quickly lowered his head to work hard at moving stones, though he cursed even more fiercely in his mind.
It was all the fault of those rebels outside the city! Couldn't they just stay on the other side of the Narrow Sea? They've been dead for seventeen years and still came back to fight for the iron throne! Can that broken chair be eaten as food? They fight for power and profit, so why must they involve innocent civilians!
Joffrey drove them like cattle, beat and scolded them, and even killed them at will... Hop didn't dare to be angry, didn't dare to curse, and even when he secretly cursed in his heart, he only dared to do so in the faintest voice.
Toward those in front of him who held blades and could take his life instantly, he never dared to have a single word of complaint, let alone a thought of resistance.
That was a fear and obedience to power carved into his bones.
But when he quietly shifted his gaze toward the endless black and red military camp outside the city, and that black banner embroidered with a red three-headed dragon snapping in the wind, his expression changed instantly.
The suppressed anger and the resentment transformed from fear in his heart seemed to have found a safe outlet, surging up all at once and pouring out viciously and without reservation toward those enemies who were "far away" and could not yet threaten his life.
"Targaryen bastards, you've been dead for seventeen years. Why didn't you just rot away on the other side of the sea instead of coming back to cause trouble!"
"If it weren't for you damn people attacking, would King Joffrey have driven us onto the city walls? Would we be suffering like this?!"
"Fighting for the throne? Grabbing the iron throne? Do you even deserve it? Wouldn't it be better to die overseas and feed the fish? You just had to come here and implicate us ordinary folk! A bunch of troublemakers! Harbingers of doom!"
With his neck shrunk, he moved bricks half-heartedly while muttering in a low voice to a tall, thin man beside him who was equally ashen-faced. The more he spoke, the more he felt he was in the right, and the angrier he became.
It was as if the root of all suffering came from those "restless" invaders outside the city.
"If you ask me, it's just a bunch of bastards with nothing better to do, popping up from some corner. Do they even deserve to fight for the iron throne? They've made us share their bad luck..." He spat out non-existent phlegm.
The tall, thin man next to him was also an old acquaintance from Flea Bottom. At this moment, his voice was trembling with fear as he stole a glance at the massive shadow moving slowly in the sky, lowering his voice almost to a sob:
"Ho—Hop... You—you say... that dragon... that monster, if it... if it really breathes fire down on us, what—what should we do..."
Hop was also scared to death in his heart, but he couldn't lose face.
He immediately glared at his companion. Although his own face was just as pale, he forced himself to growl in a voice he thought was tough but was actually a bit shaky: "Bah! Stop talking such nonsense! Does he dare?!"
He pointed to the dense, huddling crowd on the wall, as if to embolden himself:
"Look, how many people are here? Almost everyone in King's Landing is here! If he wants to be king, if he wants this city, he has to care about his reputation!"
"Does he dare to act against so many civilians? Isn't he afraid the whole Seven Kingdoms will curse him to death? That he'll be drowned in spit? Let him try to touch one of us! I'd like to see if he has the guts!"
He seemed to have been convinced by his own "logic," or perhaps he had to use this bluster to combat the boundless fear.
While continuing to mutter curses at the army outside, he resignedly lowered his head to move the bricks that could never be finished, still clinging to that last bit of pathetic, ridiculous luck in his heart...
Maybe, maybe they really would care about their reputation and not dare to harm civilians? Maybe, if the siege lasted long enough, reinforcements from the Westerlands would arrive?
Maybe, once the siege was lifted, he could quickly slip back to that stinking shack in Flea Bottom where he could at least hide, and continue his life of barely scraping by.
Just as his mind was wandering, using curses against the army outside to numb himself...
Suddenly, from within the crowded mass of people, someone let out a shrill, distorted scream. The sound was like a knife thrust out with all one's strength, abruptly piercing the suppressed clamor, weeping, and shouting on the city wall:
"Dragon—! That dragon! It... it's coming toward us!!!"
Hum—!
Hop felt his mind go blank, as if someone had struck him hard on the back of the head with a hammer.
All sounds—the whistling of whips, the shouting of Gold Cloaks, the weeping of women, the crying of children, his own heartbeat, and heavy breathing—were stripped away and distorted at this moment, turning into a sharp ringing in his ears.
Almost by instinct, he jerked his head up and looked at the sky.
Then, he saw it.
The sky suddenly darkened.
It wasn't clouds gathering, nor was it night falling early.
It was a beast, a beast so massive it exceeded the limits of imagination, pressing down toward the section of the wall where they stood at a speed that seemed slow but was actually incredibly swift!
Its outspread wings, covered in pale golden scales, were like two moving, sky-blotting mountain ranges spanning across the firmament. They easily cut off the afternoon sun that should have been bright, dragging the city wall and the ant-like crowd on it into a cold, silent, and despair-inducing dark shadow.
Hop's mouth hung open in shock, his pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks due to extreme fear. His throat felt as if it had been forcefully stuffed with a lump of cold, viscous mud, and he even forgot the most basic instinct of breathing.
He could hear the chattering of his own teeth, feel a wave of uncontrolled heat in his crotch, and smell the stench of excrement and urine that instantly filled the air along with an even denser scent of despair.
But he couldn't move, couldn't think; he could only stand rigid, watching helplessly as the shadow of death, like the heaviest curtain, descended upon him and everyone else.
In the next second, the three-headed beast, which had already come to a halt directly above the wall, slowly raised its three hideous heads and aimed them at the crowded section of the wall.
A golden light, so brilliant it was blinding and almost burned the eyes, began to frantically converge, compress, interweave, and churn within the three massive maws filled with sharp teeth!
That was not fire; it was a more violent, purer destructive energy that seemed to originate from the beginning of the world's creation, forcibly restrained and shaped into three increasingly bright and terrifying golden bolts of lightning!
There was no deafening roar.
There was no earth-shaking rumble.
Only an absolute silence that seemed to freeze the soul, like an invisible giant hand, gripping the entire section of the wall and seizing everyone's throat and heart.
Time, at this moment, seemed to be infinitely stretched and frozen.
Then—
Those three bolts of golden lightning, compressed to the extreme and turned into liquid flows of light, suddenly erupted from the massive maws. Like three golden spears of judgment falling from the highest heavens, they crashed down toward the wall and the dense, ant-like crowd upon it, straight and silent, yet with a momentum that could annihilate everything!
Hop saw it.
He clearly saw how that golden, destructive light split the stagnant air and rapidly enlarged in his suddenly constricted pupils, coming straight for his face and the countless faces around him filled with extreme terror!
Run! He wanted to run!
Dodge! He wanted to dodge!
Scream! He wanted to scream out loud!
But his body, and the bodies of everyone around him, seemed frozen by the hardest ice, pinned to the spot by invisible nails.
Extreme fear drained their last ounce of strength and stripped them of their final ability to react.
They could only be like a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered on an altar, watching helplessly as the destructive light engulfed them.
The moment the lightning fell.
The wall suddenly went dark. It was as if all light, including the last light of their lives, had been sucked away by that gold.
Then—
A pure, extreme, and blinding golden light erupted, one that defied description!
It was not burning fire.
It was total annihilation.
It was existence itself being erased from the most fundamental level.
In Hop's last remaining vision, he saw that thick bolt of golden lightning, like a hot knife cutting through congealed grease, effortlessly and without resistance strike the thick and solid wall of King's Landing.
The section of the wall directly hit by the lightning, built of hard granite and having weathered centuries of wind and frost, did not explode, did not shatter, and did not collapse.
It just, within the golden light, like ice under a fierce sun or a sandcastle cast into a void, silently and starting from the point of contact, simply "evaporated."
The hard stone, along with the rammed earth and binder inside, instantly decomposed and vaporized, turning into the finest, shimmering golden dust that drifted away.
And the dense crowd of men, women, the elderly, children, Gold Cloaks, Flea Bottom paupers, and Silk Street residents packed on that section of the wall...
They didn't even have time to let out a complete scream before their bodies, upon contact with that golden lightning, were like pencil marks erased from a drawing paper by an eraser.
Along with the clothes on their backs, the stones in their hands, the fear in their hearts, and their humble Hops, they all turned into even finer gray dust mixed within the golden crystalline dust.
There was no blood and flesh flying everywhere.
There were no severed limbs.
There was only the most thorough, cleanest, and most hair-raising... disappearance.
Hop's last sight was not the oncoming golden light of destruction, but in the instant before the golden light descended, those six molten-gold, vertical-slitted, dragon eyes on the three massive heads in the sky, calm and devoid of any emotion.
That gaze was like a god looking down at an anthill, or a child staring at a puddle—no hatred, no pleasure, only a pure, absolute indifference toward a tiny existence.
Then, his consciousness, all his indignation, curses, fears, Hops, and every humble thought about Flea Bottom, about tomorrow, and about living, all turned to ash along with his body, dissipating in that all-annihilating golden light and the subsequent dust mixed with stone powder and bone ash.
Silence.
A deathly silence shrouded this section of the wall and everyone nearby who had witnessed it.
Only a light breeze blew through that terrifying gap where a section of the wall had vanished into thin air—smooth as a mirror, with edges still shimmering with a faint golden light and a glassy luster from the high-temperature scorching—making a faint, wailing sound.
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