No wailing, no struggling, and no severed limbs.
That section of the city wall, along with the people on it, was completely wiped from the world as if it had never existed.
Aegon didn't spare another look at his "masterpiece." He sat upright on the dragon's back, his face expressionless behind the visor, as if he had merely brushed away a speck of dust.
He patted the dragon's back; Ghidorah's three heads turned simultaneously, six molten gold vertical pupils scanning the deathly silent gap below and the city beyond, silent with extreme terror, without a hint of emotion.
With a beat of the giant wings, a gale rose, and the massive pale-gold body shot forward like an arrow from a bow, no longer lingering outside the city, flying straight into King's Landing.
The massive shadow, like a reaper's cloak, carried an unstoppable momentum as it crushed the air above the city, heading straight for the next target without the slightest hesitation or pause.
At the front of the coalition army, the shock following the dead silence swept over every Soldier like a silent wave.
Whether it was the elite of the Ash Company, clad in black cloaks like moving tombstones, or the knights of the Bloodsworn, wrapped in crimson cloaks like burning flames, they all gripped their weapons tightly, their knuckles turning white.
Fine plate armor glinted coldly, and a forest of spears pointed straight at the sky, yet they lowered slightly as the dragon's shadow passed, as if all sharp edges were futile before absolute power.
Tens of thousands of Soldiers looked up in unison, watching the pale-gold giant shadow fly seemingly slowly but actually at high speed into the city; everyone held their breath, and only the snapping of banners and the drum-like beating of hearts remained in the air.
Jon Connington did not ride a horse, standing alone at the most conspicuous spot at the front. His graying hair was disheveled in the gale from Ghidorah's wings, and the wrinkles on his face grew deeper.
Those eyes, which had weathered storms and seen loyalty and betrayal, hope and despair, stared fixedly at the direction where Aegon and the dragon were receding into the sky, until the giant shadow shrank to a point and merged into the gray-dark firmament.
The last trace of fantasy in his heart regarding knightly honor, the rules of war, and Targaryen glory and responsibility shattered completely into dust along with that golden lightning that had evaporated the city wall.
No declaration of war, no demand for surrender; even the civilians driven onto the wall had no chance of escape.
Only absolute, indifferent destruction, like a natural disaster.
He finally saw clearly and was forced to accept the fact he had been unwilling to face: this Prince he followed, Rhaegar's bloodline, had never returned to restore the old dynasty of songs.
He was here to purge, to reshape, using the most direct and cruel fire and thunder to burn away the rules, glory, and corruption of the old world all at once.
This was not a returning prince.
This was a descending Dragonlord.
A walking natural disaster in the human world.
"All forces—" Clinton took a deep breath of air mixed with gunpowder and dust, suppressed his surging emotions, and suddenly turned to draw his sword, pointing at the gap in the wall, his voice raspy but resolved with iron and blood, "Attack!"
"For Targaryen! For Prince Aegon!"
After a brief silence, a roar like a mountain landslide and a tsunami erupted, carrying the tremors of surviving a catastrophe and the fanaticism for victory.
A black and red torrent, like a flood breaking through a dam, surged into King's Landing through the gap in the North Gate broken by Ghidorah.
Inside the city, it was already an apocalyptic scene.
The remaining Gold Cloaks defenders near the Dragon Gate, having witnessed the terrifying sight of the wall and hundreds of people evaporating in an instant, were already paralyzed with fear.
Military orders, duty, and defending the capital were all cast aside.
They cried and screamed, throwing away their helmets and armor, fleeing in all directions through the streets and alleys; any officer who tried to regroup was swallowed by the tide of deserters.
The common civilians were even more terrified.
When the dragon circled, most had already hidden in their rickety houses. Now they tightly covered their own and their children's mouths, huddling in corners, under beds, and in any small space, trembling in the dead silence and extreme panic, waiting for an unknown fate.
The entire city was left with only the cries and sounds of fleeing deserters and the gradually louder shouts of battle from afar, shrouded in a suffocating low pressure.
But not everyone gave up resistance.
The deserters from the Dragon Gate poured into the Inner City like startled sheep, causing even greater chaos.
Amidst the chaos, a squad of elite guards with bright armor and deep red Lannister cloaks appeared.
They were the Red Keep Guards, the personal Soldiers of the Queen Mother and the King, currently ordered to set up defenses at the street corners, trying to gather the deserters for a final stand.
"Go back! Those who desert in the face of the enemy will be executed without mercy!"
A Red Keep guard officer with a distorted face shouted and gestured with a blood-stained longsword; the blood on the sword came from a Gold Cloak who had tried to flee.
Behind him, dozens of guards formed a sparse line, swords drawn, attempting to use death to intimidate fear.
The bright red armor was dazzling in the gloom, like the last few drops of uncoagulated blood in despair.
The human shields on the wall had turned to ash, yet these most loyal lackeys of the Lannisters were still resisting, trying to raise a final, fragile shield against the overwhelming torrent.
Just then, the sky suddenly darkened.
It wasn't clouds, but the shadow cast by giant wings, like the deepest night, instantly shrouding this street and these struggling Red Keep Guards.
Ghidorah's massive pale-gold body, like a divine punishment descending from the clouds, hovered over Visenya's Hill, directly facing this squad of guards.
Aegon sat on the dragon's back, his gaze through the visor accurately locking onto the glaring red below, locking onto the officer waving his sword and screaming.
No warning, no demand for surrender, not even the slightest emotional fluctuation.
In his eyes, these were just conspicuous insects blocking the way.
Ghidorah's right head turned slightly, golden light flickering in its mouth.
In the next second, a more condensed, more brilliant, and faster golden lightning, like a javelin thrown by a god, fell straight down!
"What is that..."
The Red Keep guard officer's roar came to an abrupt end.
He didn't have time to look up, no time to react, as his field of vision was filled with endless golden light.
The light dissipated.
Along with the officer, the dozens of Red Keep Guards lined up to block the way, and the street surface beneath them, completely disappeared.
In their place remained only a scorched, smooth, long strip-like mark emitting a high-temperature burnt smell, and a few wisps of drifting smoke.
Fine steel plate armor, steel longswords, and the stone-paved road had all been wiped away like pencil marks by an eraser, leaving no trace.
Dead silence descended again, more complete than before.
The Red Keep Guards who were lucky enough not to be hit stared blankly at the place where their companions had disappeared, at that scorched mark and the golden dust in the air, their expressions frozen, eyes wide, with a fear deeper than death in their pupils.
"Mon... monster..."
Someone squeezed out a broken groan with all their strength.
"Run... run quickly!!!"
Fear exploded like a plague.
The fighting spirit and discipline of the remaining Soldiers completely shattered; they let out inhuman screams, discarded their weapons, tore off their cloaks, and fled madly toward the Red Keep.
Loyalty and duty became a laughingstock in the face of incomprehensible absolute destruction.
But could they escape?
Ghidorah's central head turned, its molten gold vertical pupils indifferently watching the red dots fleeing in all directions.
Another golden lightning bolt fell silently.
This time, the lightning covered a wider area. The fleeing Soldiers, along with a section of wooden houses and brick-and-stone streets behind them, all turned into nothingness in the golden glow.
Streets, houses, deserters, and perhaps civilians who didn't have time to flee—everything returned to nothingness, leaving only a larger scorched mark like a scar on the earth.
Aegon still didn't spare another look.
To him, this was no different from brushing dust off his shoulder.
He rode Ghidorah, wings beating again, a hurricane swirling, as he continued steadfastly toward the next target.
He didn't intentionally have Ghidorah breathe dragonfire, nor did he aim for another lightning strike.
He was just flying.
Merely the massive body passing at low altitude and the terrifying hurricane whipped up by the beating wings were enough to destroy everything.
And King's Landing, this crowded and chaotic city of five hundred thousand people, simply could not withstand such a "passing by."
The wind pressure was like a solid wall of force, using the dragon's flight path as an axis, crushing everything on both sides frantically!
Rumble—!
Continuous sounds of collapsing and shattering replaced the silence and screams, becoming the main melody of the city.
Whether it was the maze-like, dilapidated Flea Bottom or the exquisitely built Silk Street; whether it was the mud and wood shacks of the slums or the brick and stone manors of the wealthy districts, in the face of the violent wind pressure, the outcome was no different.
Walls were torn and pushed down like paper, wooden beams groaned and snapped, tiles flew like rain, and entire buildings collapsed like kicked-over building blocks in a loud crash, turning into a sky full of dust and rubble.
Destruction made no distinction between noble and lowly, descending equally on every inch of land beneath the dragon's path.
In front of the Great Sept of Baelor, an old septon broke away from the hiding crowd and knelt alone before the tall marble statues of the Seven, his hands tightly clutching the crystal around his neck, using all his strength to cry out bloody prayers and shouts toward the sky.
"Father, please show your justice! Mother, please grant mercy! Warrior, please protect your people! Stranger, please take away that evil beast! Gods! I beg you! Manifest! Save this city! Save these innocent souls!"
He was hoarse, tears streaming down his old face, as if pouring his entire life's faith into this moment.
And what responded to him was not a miracle.
It was a hurricane sweeping in from afar.
As Ghidorah's sky-blotting giant wings approached, an invisible wall of wind, like a surging tide, swept across from afar.
Along the way, roofs were blown off, bricks and debris flew through the air, rows of houses collapsed one after another, and the earth trembled.
This massive wall composed of wind and destruction did not pause for a second, crushing straight through the square in front of the Sept.
The old septon, along with the magnificent Great Sept of Baelor behind him, was swallowed by the violent wind pressure.
Marble pillars as thick as three men's embrace cracked and snapped, towers inlaid with stained glass crashed down, and shattered stones and crystals fell like rain, completely burying his final prayers and hopes in the roar and dust.
In a deep alley, a young mother tightly held her infant in her arms, huddled in the corner of a stone wall.
She protected the child with her body, her whole being trembling, her eyes wet with tears, but she clenched her teeth and didn't dare make a sound. They were the most ordinary people, never having harmed anyone, only seeking to live and raise the child.
They were innocent and should not have been involved in this conflict.
But when the nest is overturned, no egg stays unbroken.
The violent wind pressure swept through the alley, the stone wall they leaned against groaned, and a rickety three-story wooden building next to them collapsed completely under the impact of the hurricane, crashing toward the corner.
Broken beams, bricks, and dust instantly swallowed the embracing mother and child, leaving not even a cry of alarm.
In another ruin, an old man in white-haired rags luckily survived, huddled in a corner.
His clouded eyes watched the apocalyptic scene, watched the city being trampled by the giant shadow, his parched lips trembling as he muttered to himself:
"Retribution... this is all retribution..."
"Back then, Lord Tywin broke the city, slaughtered his way into the Red Keep, not even sparing Prince Rhaegar's infant in swaddling clothes... blood flowed like a river..."
"Seventeen years... there's no escaping it... the Dragonlord has returned to collect the debt..."
Before he could finish, a nearby high building that hadn't completely collapsed crashed down, completely burying his sighs for the past and his laments for fate.
The same tragedy played out silently and tragically everywhere Ghidorah flew.
Aegon did not intentionally target civilians, nor did he attack specific residences; it couldn't even be considered an active attack.
He was just riding a dragon, flying toward the Red Keep.
But this crowded and fragile city, along with its hundreds of thousands of terrified lives, simply could not withstand the passing of a Dragonlord.
The wind pressure carried by the flight itself was a natural disaster that mortals could not resist.
The Bloodsworn and Ash Company Soldiers who finally entered the city mostly froze in the streets near the wall, unable to take another step forward.
They had seen Aegon fight on a dragon, in the Stormlands and Duskendale, and had witnessed the terrifying power.
But today's unreserved, almost natural force of pure destruction still far exceeded their imagination, heavily impacting their understanding and minds.
Where was the battlefield now? Where were the enemies to charge? Where were the city gates to break through?
As far as the eye could see, there were only endless ruins.
Broken walls, shattered wood and stone, and thick, un-settled dust.
Once-bustling streets disappeared, slums and wealthy districts became equal in the face of disaster, leaving only piles of rubble mixed with unidentified remains.
Occasionally, a survivor covered in blood with empty eyes crawled out of a gap, looking at the Soldiers in black and red armor, weeping silently or simply fainting.
King's Landing, once noisy and foul-smelling but alive, was now left with only sporadic sounds of collapse and the wind blowing through the ruins, a deathly silence.
A massive, hollow silence where even grief was stripped away.
The Soldiers stared blankly at all this, at the golden dust trail of the dragon receding in the sky, their minds a complete blank.
Their previous fanaticism and fighting spirit froze and dissipated before this destruction that transcended war.
They finally understood clearly:
They were not warriors conquering a city.
They were merely servants following behind a Dragonlord, cleaning the battlefield and planting banners.
An Ash Company Centurion's face twitched as he gripped his sword hilt and then slowly released it.
He looked toward the spire in the direction of the Red Keep that was still standing but rickety, and gave a dry-voiced command:
"Regroup. Search for remaining enemies. And then..." His gaze swept across the endless ruins, his voice barely audible, "Plant our banners on every piece of land the Dragonlord has flown over."
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