Aegon's breath hitched.
A chill shot straight up his spine to the top of his head.
From the blood that had not yet dried, it was clear that Old Buck had died here not long ago, yet as he struggled forward...
Why had there been no sound?
No screams, no struggle?
Aegon suppressed his horror, calming himself as he looked around. Only then did he realize the terrain had changed.
The dense holes on both sides converged and squeezed together here, finally merging ahead into a single, massive, upward-sloping pitch-black cave mouth.
The edges of the opening were jagged and covered in massive gouges, as if repeatedly gnawed by giant teeth.
The fluorescent moss grew dim here; the light barely illuminated the edges, and beyond that lay a darkness that swallowed everything.
This opening did not look like a passage, but more like the slightly agape throat of a sleeping behemoth.
And he was standing right before that throat.
At his feet were Old Buck's still-warm blood and remains.
On the system map, that golden light point pointed unflinchingly deep into the cave... silent.
To enter, or not to enter?
Inside the cave were the system's warnings and Old Buck's bloody omen.
In his current state, was there really a way to survive if he went in?
But if he didn't go in?
Staying here meant no food or medicine, severe injuries and hypothermia, and the faint presence of watchers in the dark.
Staying was just a slow death.
Henry and Karl were still missing.
And that check-in point, that possible glimmer of hope, was inside the cave.
The ghastly green fluorescence reflected off his pale face. He looked at Old Buck's face, frozen in terror, then toward the bottomless cave mouth.
The coldness of the long blade traveled from his palm.
Aegon closed his eyes briefly for a second or two, taking a deep breath of the cold, blood-scented air.
When he opened them again, the fear remained, but it was joined by a cold resolve.
It was a choice born of desperation, a gamble on a slim hope, or perhaps an instinctive impulse brought about by the paranoid and mad side of the Targaryen bloodline.
There was no way back.
He gripped the hilt tightly and stepped over the pool of blood.
Dragging his injured leg, he stepped into that darkness... The darkness was like thick ink, swallowing Aegon's figure; only the faint green light of the moss at the cave entrance flashed once on his silver hair before he disappeared entirely.
All his senses were taut, and the only things left in his ears were his own heavy breathing and the drum-like beating of his heart.
And... a very subtle, persistent rustling sound.
It didn't come from any fixed direction; it was more like it filled the air, flowing along the stone walls, fine and rhythmic, somewhat like the wail of wind blowing through a narrow crevice, yet... thicker, with a cold, damp texture.
Aegon stopped in his tracks, listening intently, every muscle in his body tensing.
The sound was pervasive, plucking at his frayed nerves. He forced himself to analyze it calmly.
It's the sound of the wind.
He told himself in his heart that it must be the echoes of airflow passing through these complex holes and cracks.
This place is just a giant resonance box.
The knowledge and logic of his past life were trying to dispel his instinctive fear.
He remembered that in certain caves or canyons, specific wind speeds and angles could create eerie sounds similar to wailing or even human voices.
The environment here was only more complex; it was perfectly normal for sounds to be distorted and amplified.
His taut nerves relaxed slightly. Though that omnipresent rustling still made his spine tingle, at least there was a 'rational' explanation.
He no longer tried to find the source of the sound, instead treating it as background noise. He refocused his attention on the dark path beneath his feet and the faint system light point ahead, continuing to limp deeper inside.
At the same moment, in another corner of this vast underground labyrinth...
The same faint, elusive rustling sound reached Euron Greyjoy's ears.
His situation was even worse than Aegon's.
When falling from the heights, he had reacted extremely quickly. Relying on his inhuman sense of balance and cruel survival instinct, he had managed to kick off several unfortunate Ironborn in mid-air to slow his descent, finally crashing into a relatively soft pile of mud and narrowly surviving.
But one arm was clearly dislocated, hanging limp, and several deep abrasions had been added to his face.
The Ironborn gathered around him numbered fewer than a hundred, every one of them injured and looking terrified.
A few even had broken legs and could only be supported by their companions, letting out suppressed groans in the darkness.
They had just escaped from a fork in the road, leaving behind several corpses torn beyond recognition, as well as a pungent, fishy stench and another indescribable sweet, sickly odor that had not yet dissipated from the air.
That thing, or those things, moved frighteningly fast, making almost no sound of footsteps, only erupting into teeth-grinding friction and tearing sounds at the moment of attack.
Crow's Eye hadn't even seen their full form, only catching glimpses of several swift, whip-like shadows and shell-like silhouettes reflecting a faint light.
It was that slippery old Mercenary, Buck something, who happened to be in the direction the monster pounced from, and Euron had pushed him out without hesitation.
Old Buck's short scream and the subsequent scalp-numbing sounds of chewing had bought them precious time to flee.
Now, they were huddled in a relatively sheltered rocky hollow, listening to that seemingly omnipresent rustling, as if enveloped in an invisible spiderweb.
'Are... are those things coming again?' a young Ironborn's voice trembled, his knuckles white as he gripped a chipped long-axe tightly.
'It's the wind, you fool.' Euron's voice rang out. It wasn't loud, but it carried a strange, cold penetration that drowned out the low, fearful murmurs. His one good eye slowly scanned the crowd in the gloom, his blue-purple lips twitching in the shadows.
'Just the wind blowing through stone cracks, and you've lost your nerve? Forgotten you're the chosen of the drowned god? Forgotten how the men of the Iron Islands pillage in the storms?'
He paused, using his one functional hand to nonchalantly stroke the hilt of the dagger at his waist, his blue-stained fingernails tracing a ghostly glint in the dim light.
'That bastard Corleone...' Crow's Eye slowly uttered the name, his voice laced with undisguised venom, 'he used these filthy tricks of his ancestors to screw us over.'
'I will repay this debt with his blood, piece by piece, carved from his body.'
'Do you want to hear what kind of pleasant wails a self-proclaimed noble descendant of the Dragonlords can make?'
In an almost chanting, cruel tone, he described several hair-raising methods of torture with vivid detail.
Fear can sometimes be temporarily replaced or diverted by another, more focused and specific fear or hatred.
The gazes of many Ironborn shifted from scattered terror to a gradually coalescing fierce light.
'But this hellhole,' Crow's Eye changed the subject, his lone eye flashing with greed, 'also hides the good things his Dragonlord ancestors accumulated over who knows how many years. Dragon Eggs? Dragon bones? Valyrian Steel? Or some other treasures... who knows? Those things painted golden on the murals aren't just pigments.'
He licked his lips as if he could already taste the wealth.
'Follow me out, find those treasures, and every one of you can build a stone house in the Iron Islands that will make everyone envious, marry the most beautiful women, and drink the strongest wine. What the drowned god cannot give you, I can.'
Intimidation and inducement—simple, yet often effective. Especially for this group of Ironborn who had just suffered a crushing defeat, faced an uncertain future, but still possessed their savage nature.
The commotion temporarily subsided as the desire for survival and greed for wealth overpowered the pure fear of the unknown monster. Though that eerie rustling still lingered in the darkness,
At this moment, it was more like background noise, an obstacle to be overcome, rather than an incomprehensible phantom.
'Move.' Crow's Eye commanded briefly, rising first and dragging his dislocated arm toward the direction he believed might lead to the upper levels, or at least to another area.
Behind him, the remnant of fewer than a hundred men followed closely, the flames of fear, savagery, and greed reigniting in their eyes.
In this subterranean abyss, the boundary between humanity and bestiality was becoming blurred.
And they, along with Aegon and the unknown presence deep within the cave, were slowly approaching a point of inevitable intersection along their respective paths in this massive labyrinth.
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