Thinking back on tonight's events, Clinton's expression shifted several times before he spoke in a complicated tone.
"This is the first time I've seen a legendary deity. I don't really know how to judge the old man in the river, but he's certainly better than the Crab King who wanted to rob and murder us."
"When have you ever not seen a deity?" Dany rolled her eyes, then pointed to Big Black, who was chewing on crab meat at the side. "Big Black is a demigod. From the very first moment you saw him, you'd already laid eyes on a legendary deity!"
"Uh… really?"
Old Jiong froze for a moment, then suddenly recalled the scene of Big Black's dragonflame detonating and blasting the Crab King dozens of meters away while he himself remained unmoved. He exclaimed in awe:
"Your Majesty is right, I was blind and overlooked the Great Protector of Light! Then the Seven must truly exist, far beyond ordinary deities!"
Before Dany could reply, Old Jiong's face suddenly grew solemn, his voice turning devout.
"I have sinned. I was misled by heretic mages into believing the Seven were nothing more than carved wooden idols. I have sinned! Your Majesty, you are the High Septon. Please, you must help me confess!"
Dany stared dumbfounded at the man across from her. A faint sigil of the paladin's mark shone at the center of his wrinkled brow—proof that he was now qualified to bond with a wyvern.
Had he suddenly reached enlightenment?
She hurriedly linked with Big Black's dragon soul and examined Clinton's thread of faith.
Damn! From a mere 2.0, his faith had skyrocketed to 20 points!
Not as terrifying as White Knight Barristan's fifty, but already surpassing most of her knights.
"Alright, when we return to Astapor, I'll hear your confession," she said, swallowing.
Hearing confession meant listening to his sins and finally granting him absolution on behalf of the Seven.
It was a bit like Christianity, where guilty believers confess in a "phone booth" to a priest behind a screen, recounting their deeds and condemning themselves.
Thanks to Clinton's sudden interruption, the earlier topic had lost its flavor. Dany stopped teasing and said directly:
"The Old Man of the River swore by the Mother of the Rhoyne. If he breaks that oath, he won't be able to remain anywhere along the thousands of miles of the Rhoyne.
Besides, he's a benevolent god with great power. I want to bring him into the fold.
Sixty ingots of Valyrian steel is both the price for our next meeting and his final test of character. If he passes, I'll persuade him to join the cause of freeing the slaves.
And well, he can help pull the ship!"
A giant turtle pulling a ship—the thought itself was thrilling.
The Old Man of the River was a symbol of good fortune. Having him pull a ship would be like a qilin drawing a chariot. Even if she wasn't trying to show off, she still had five dragons!
Big Black was destined to inherit the Seven's legacy, and with the other four, producing a Sea Dragon King was not impossible.
What Dragon King goes without a turtle vizier?
"But will the Old Man of the River agree?" Big Bear asked doubtfully.
"The Valyrians and Balerion wiped out the Rhoynar people… well, half of them. They even slew the Mother Rhoyne herself along with hundreds of lesser deities under her command. That was the Old Turtle's mother and brothers!
Even if it was a personal grudge, after wandering exiled for over fifteen hundred years, do you think he feels nothing?
I am now locked in a life-and-death struggle with Balerion. What reason would he have to refuse joining us?"
"But you want him to pull the ship…" Big Bear mumbled.
"Of course I wouldn't just say, 'Hey, come be my ferryman,'" Dany snapped.
"Hissss—"
As they spoke, sudden chaos broke out. Little Green, who had been gnawing crab bones in the woods, suddenly let out a wail without warning and began thrashing wildly on the ground, snapping birch trees apart with loud cracks.
"What's wrong? Food poisoning? Did he eat something bad?"
Dany panicked, running over to soothe him, but Little Green seemed unconscious, rolling uncontrollably and refusing to let her near.
Rolling didn't ease his pain either. Covered in mud, he slammed his head into the ground, hollow "thuds" ringing out as rocks cracked beneath him.
"Hissss—" Even bashing his skull couldn't stop the agony. Little Green began spewing dragonfire wildly.
Fortunately, Dany used her fire control to redirect the flames.
Otherwise, she might have escaped with a few burns, but the two knights rushing over would likely have perished.
"Big Black, hold him down!" Dany shouted.
"Hissss—" Big Black leapt like a hawk upon a chick, landing squarely on Little Green's back. He bit into the neck beneath his skull, while his wings and claws pinned the flailing wings hard against the ground.
Little Green's eyes were frenzied, his roars unending, but he could no longer struggle free.
Dany rushed forward, entering her dragon-soul state. She pulled Little White's soul from Slaver's Bay into her body and pressed her palm to Little Green's brow.
Just like in the Bay of Sorrows, when Euron used a dragonbinder to control him, and the soul of the ancient dragon within forced itself into Little Green's mind to suppress him.
Dany's soul strike had always been modeled after the dragonbinder. Though Little White was not as strong as that ancient demigod dragon, once fused with Dany's half-divine soul, they were not much weaker, allowing her to replicate the dragonbinder's control.
"Buzz—"
Dany's and Little Green's heads shook in unison as her second soul merged with Little White and plunged into Little Green's soul-sea.
"Seven above, what is this?"
Barely forcing her way through Little Green's mental barriers, she entered his magma-like soul-space—only to be stunned.
Countless tender green raindrops floated midair, filling almost the entire sea of consciousness, while a battered, bloodied green dragon crashed wildly through the storm.
It was like a torrential downpour frozen in time, with only Little Green able to move.
But every raindrop was as corrosive as the strongest acid. Wherever they touched his body, holes burned straight through, while the raindrops themselves remained unharmed.
"This isn't spirit essence, nor divinity… what is it?" Dany cautiously reached out and touched one.
"Pop!" At the brush of her fingertip, the droplet darted away like a shy tadpole.
"Mm—" Dany's head went blank, as if struck by a club.
"I see!" Her eyes lit up, overjoyed as she gazed at the drifting rain.
The raindrops hadn't struck her mind. Instead, at the moment of contact, a flood of information had surged into her brain, causing it to short-circuit with a sharp flash of pain.
And that information carried with it a feeling that was all too familiar.
Inside the Black Gate of the Great Wall, when she touched the Song of Wind, she too could sense vast amounts of information—watching Brandon begin with a broken branch and spend decades building the Wall, the whole process clearer than 4K. How immense was the amount of information?
At this moment, however, the information was not past images but the analysis of the Law of Water.
If the Song of Wind and the Song of Water were both courses,
then when the Gatekeeper sang the Song of Wind for Dany, it was like teaching through entertainment—while showing her the grand undertaking of building the Wall, he taught her how to chant the Song of Wind.
The Gatekeeper did not teach her the knowledge of the course itself, but he did teach her how to learn on her own.
Now, however, there was no Mother of the Lorne River to guide her. No teacher. Only a textbook describing the Song of Water.
The textbook, of course, was dry. It could only pass on ancient knowledge—the knowledge the Crab King had learned from the Mother of the Lorne River.
It was not a method, only a vast accumulation of laws and principles.
Even Dany felt her head grow heavy and stuffy after receiving the knowledge contained in a single drop of water, while inside Little Green's sea of consciousness, it was pouring rain. No wonder he had nearly gone mad.
Dany frowned, thought for a moment, then entered the state of the Song of Wind. In an instant, she found two raindrops at the core.
Yes. Unlike the Song of Wind, which in the Gatekeeper's world had only a single core, among the countless raindrops in Little Green's sea of consciousness, there were two cores.
Dany thought briefly and understood: the two cores of the Song of Water belonged to the Loach and the Crab King!
Sure enough, when she raised her hands and virtually grasped a raindrop in each, uncountable other raindrops flocked back like swallows returning to their nest—like a high-speed reverse playback of a fountain beginning to spray.
Finally, two masses of emerald-green droplets condensed in her hands, jellylike.
One was the size of a pigeon egg, the other the size of a soybean.
Though small, they ceaselessly poured vast amounts of information into Dany's mind. Her head was on the verge of exploding!
In the real world, when the Dragon Queen pressed her right palm against Little Green's forehead, he ceased struggling, and the madness faded from his eyes. Instead, Dany's beautiful face swelled with a web of terrifying veins.
Capillaries burst. From nostrils, eye corners, lips, and ears came true blood flowing from seven orifices.
Her once flexible and charming violet eyes bulged, like ping-pong balls shot through with blood-red veins.
She looked nothing like a human and almost entirely like a ghost.
Mortals had no right to command the Songs of Law that belonged to the True Gods.
Had Dany dared not return the Gatekeeper's Song of Wind last time at the Black Gate, her fate then would have been a hundred times more tragic than now!
"Ahh!" The Dragon Queen, nine parts like a ghost, let out a ghastly wail, staggered back a step, and pulled her consciousness from Little Green's sea of mind.
Though lengthy to describe, it all happened in but a moment.
To Old Jiong and the Bear Knight, one instant the Dragon Queen looked like a divine consort, the next she had become a soul-reaping specter. Before they could cry out in alarm, she howled again and retreated.
"Your Majesty, what—" The Bear managed only half a question before his vision went black and he fainted.
At the same time, Old Jiong and the fish and shrimp in the nearby river also collapsed. The creatures of the forest had long since fled, terrified by the Dragon's might and the Crab King's presence.
Then, the Dragon Queen opened her mouth and spat out two crystalline drops, one large and one small, gleaming emerald with dazzling brilliance.
They were far more splendid than diamonds, spinning rapidly, exuding a breath of supremacy, divinity, and dominion that overshadowed all things.
Even the Upper Lorne River, dozens of meters away, ceased its flow. The waters lost their weight, floated into the air, and drifted slowly toward the forest, circling the two crystals at the same rotational speed.
"These are the laws that form the world!" Dany's eyes turned hazy, filled with reverence and longing.
"Chhh—" In an instant, Big Black merged with her dragon soul, and then she saw a heart-rending sight: the two Songs of Water were evaporating!
To the naked eye, only their radiant glow was visible.
But through Big Black's divine sight, she saw the drops emit streams of turquoise mist, like water evaporating into white steam.
The crystals were visibly shrinking, proving her fear true—outside the sea of consciousness, the Songs of Water were dissipating!
Instinctively, she tried to use Spirit Bestowal to preserve the turquoise glow evaporating into the air.
Naturally, there was no effect.
Helpless, Dany opened her mouth again and swallowed both "beans" back—drawing them into her sea of consciousness.
"Awooo—" Once more, the beauty became a ghostly fiend.
"Big Black, I can't take it anymore, help me!" Dany's soul cried out, though she did not dare recklessly merge their spirits again.
"What do I do? I'm kind of afraid of it," Big Black whimpered.
With sudden inspiration, Dany thought of a place and cried urgently, "Open the channel of faith, we'll go to the Pool of Faith!"
"Buzz—" The next moment, the void quaked. Big Black transformed into the Seven Gods, Dany merged with him, and together they entered the mysterious Pool of Faith: a strange realm made of the power of divine belief.
Like spitting out scalding chestnuts, "Pah!"
The two crystals bobbed up and down, floating in the milky-white sea of faith.
(End of Chapter)
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