After the army rested for a night, taking advantage of their high morale, they charged straight toward the city of New Ghis.
The walls of New Ghis were slightly shorter than the Black Wall of Volantis, but they appeared thicker and heavier, with many Scorpion Crossbows and Catapults positioned atop them.
When the Imperial Army arrived beneath the walls of New Ghis, they thought that having lost their main force, the city would give up resistance.
However, they saw no white flags of surrender; instead, they saw even more Harpy banners being hung, and the walls were crowded with figures, among whom were even the elderly, women, and children.
The stubbornness of the people of New Ghis was beyond imagination. They did not believe in the mercy of dragons, nor did they trust the promises of the "breaker of chains." The paranoia bred from thousands of years of hatred led them to choose the most extreme path.
Some figures dressed in the robes of ancient Ghiscari priests moved about, seemingly performing a ritual to pray for the protection of the gods of the Old Empire of Ghis.
The messenger previously sent by Viserys to demand surrender had been sent back with his ears cut off.
And they brought back their response: "The Ghiscari will never yield. The followers of the Harpy would rather die in the flames than kneel to a dragon king. They will live and die with New Ghis."
"They are mad." The playful look on Daario's face was replaced by solemnity. "Are these people truly not afraid of death?"
"They have chosen destruction." After hearing the messenger's account, the last shred of Viserys's patience vanished.
He was already exhausted from the consecutive days of warfare, and these people of New Ghis were so resistant to even the slight kindness he offered. To end the current conflict as quickly as possible and integrate the empire's existing forces, he made his final decision.
"Since they wish to live and die with New Ghis, then I shall grant them their wish."
Ghidorah and Black Flame took to the skies at the same time.
Viserys showed no mercy. The two dragons no longer distinguished between targets. Ghidorah's three types of breath and Black Flame's dark red Dragonfire blanketed every corner of the city.
The people of New Ghis fought back with Scorpion Crossbows, but the bolts only left shallow marks on the dragon scales. Instead, they only served to reveal the positions of the Scorpion Crossbows, inviting even more violent retaliation.
The towering Harpy statue in the center of the city vaporized under the Golden Ray, and the sturdy walls were sliced open with gap after gap, collapsing and shattering under the interwoven breaths of ice and fire. The warehouses storing grain were ignited by Dragonfire, turning into pillars of flame that reached the sky. Stone houses became brittle under the high temperatures, while wooden structures were instantly reduced to ash.
Even so, no one surrendered—or if they did, they were quickly swallowed by the flames and collapsing buildings. These Ghiscari fulfilled their oath to live and die with New Ghis.
The dragons' rampage lasted for an entire day.
The entire city was burned to the ground, leaving behind nothing but ruins from the fire and ravines carved by the golden light.
Early the next morning.
The Imperial Army poured in through the gaps in the ruined walls. Although the city was in such a state, fighting still broke out—and it was a brutal street-to-street battle.
Incited by priests and the remaining nobility, the surviving civilians of New Ghis rushed out from the ruins with crude weapons, launching suicide attacks on the Imperial Army. The entire city turned into a bloody meat grinder once again.
"Mad... they've all gone mad..." a young Free Folk soldier said tremblingly, his sword covered in blood. Before him lay a boy no more than ten years old, whom he had just stabbed to death.
Daario cut down an elderly man who lunged at him and spat. "The stubbornness of the Ghiscari lives up to its reputation."
The street fighting lasted until late into the night, with fires still spreading through the city. When Viserys landed before the Temple of the Harpy in the center of the city on Ghidorah once again...
Inside a secret chamber beneath the temple, the last survivors—about twenty priests and a dozen nobles—were performing a final ritual. They slit their wrists, smearing blood onto the Harpy statue on the altar, sacrificing the hundreds of thousands of civilians who had died or been injured in the city.
By the time Viserys commanded Ghidorah to break through the temple's secret chamber, the sacrifice had already concluded.
The High Priest leading them was a withered old man. His life was at its end, and he was already blind, yet he turned accurately toward Viserys. "Dragon king, you will eventually be consumed by the final fury of Ghis."
Before he collapsed, he said his final words: "The Harpy will remember every drop of Ghiscari blood on this salt-parched land."
Viserys looked at the eerie Harpy statue before him and unhesitatingly ordered Ghidorah to fire the Golden Ray at it. However, when the ray struck, the statue did not vanish like everything else; it seemed as though something was protecting it.
When the light dissipated, Viserys saw that the Harpy had actually come to life.
After the surface of the statue completely peeled away, Viserys saw its true appearance.
It was only the size of an ordinary person. Its dark gold body had a metallic luster, appearing as if cast from gold yet possessing the texture of a living being. The woman's face was beautiful but cold, with dark purple lips, but her eyes were two bottomless black holes.
From the waist down, it had the body of a bird of prey covered in golden scales, with a pair of eagle talons that looked incredibly sharp and glinted coldly. The wings on its back were made of countless fine metal plates, which made a metallic scraping sound when they unfurled.
After waking up, it stared at Viserys with its black-hole-like eyes.
"Bloodline of the valyrian dragon king," its voice echoed from all directions within the chamber. "Your ancestors once buried the Empire of Ghis in flames. Today, you shall pay in blood."
With that, the eagle talons of its lower body dug into the stone slab of the altar, and its entire body flew rapidly toward Viserys.
Its speed was extremely fast; Viserys had no time to react. However, Ghidorah could. The moment the Harpy moved, she spat three dragon breaths at it. Unfortunately, it still managed to dodge; the dragon breaths only grazed the Harpy's wings, damaging a few metal feathers but failing to deal a fatal blow.
It flapped its wings again, and this time, instead of flying toward Viserys, it quickly darted through the large hole in the secret chamber and rushed outside.
After all, the space inside the secret chamber was narrow, with few places to dodge, which was very disadvantageous for it.
"Pursue!" Seeing the Harpy fly into the sky, Viserys hurriedly steered Ghidorah to follow. After all, he at least had the ability to deal with it; if it flew directly to Valyria, those small dragons would be no match for it.
Based on the brief clash, Ghidorah guessed that this was likely a vessel for the faith of the "god" of the Old Empire of Ghis. By defeating it, they could weaken the "god's" power and perhaps find the "god's" true body through it.
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