The dead silence continued, but it was replaced by a deeper, grander sound.
It was the roar of an impossibly massive existence, a sound like the world itself groaning as it stirred the clouds and atmosphere during its slow descent.
The sky, with its already low-hanging lead-gray clouds, began to spin frantically as if stirred by an invisible giant hand, collapsing inward to form a dark vortex so vast it covered the entire battlefield in despair.
At the center of the vortex lay an ultimate darkness that swallowed all light.
Then, six glimmers of molten gold, like six cold suns from a mythic age, slowly lit up in the deepest depths of that dark vortex.
Immediately after, the clouds were violently torn apart and pushed aside.
A pale gold, mountain-like magnificent shadow descended from the center of the vortex with an absolute pressure that demanded all things in heaven and earth bow down, elegant and slow.
Sleek lines were covered in cold scales that no earthly metal could possess; three heads topped with hideous bone crowns bowed slightly, and six molten gold vertical pupils were like the eyes of a deity wielding the power of destruction and creation.
Indifferent, precise, and devoid of any emotion, it looked down upon this stretch of sea where a mortal tragedy had just played out, now appearing as small as a speck of dust.
Its name needed no announcement.
When it fully revealed its form, blotting out the already scarce daylight and shrouding the entire battlefield in its immense pale gold shadow, its existence itself became the only law, the only truth, the only... final judgment.
A majestic dragon might, like a physical firmament, came crashing down.
The "Fury" shuddered violently, and nearly everyone still standing on the deck... whether Soldier, sailor, or officer, was struck in the same instant as if by an invisible heavy hammer, collapsing to their knees or fainting outright.
Weapons slipped from hands, shields fell to the ground, and the stench of incontinence filled the air. Even more people were in a state of total stupor, their pupils dilated and unfocused, their thoughts completely frozen by boundless terror.
Even those Soldiers who had survived the boarding action and were crazed with bloodlust now stopped their movements, frozen in place, looking at the sky in awe.
Stannis Baratheon did not kneel.
His tall but already stooped frame swayed violently the moment the dragon might descended, like a withered tree in a gale.
But he suddenly reached out, his ten fingers like hooks, gripping the edge of the ship's gunwale before him.
The sharp pain of splintered wood cutting into his flesh flared, but it allowed him to reclaim a sliver of control over his body from the boundless shock.
With difficulty, bit by bit, he straightened his back once more. Though that back seemed so fragile now, as if it might break at any moment.
He raised his head, his graying hair dancing wildly in the turbulent winds generated by the descending behemoth.
Those deep-set blue eyes, however, reflected little fear now, only a cold, heavy void that seemed capable of crushing the soul.
He first looked toward the sea... his once vast Fleet, which had carried his dreams of kingship, was now nothing but scattered, burning, and sinking wreckage, like toy boats stepped on by a naughty child and tossed into a puddle.
More had been reduced to absolute "nothingness" under that bolt of golden lightning.
He then slowly turned to his side.
Melisandre still stood there, maintaining the posture she had held after her previous prayer.
But her face no longer bore that mysterious, certain expression of one wielding divine oracles.
Her lips were slightly parted, and her deep red eyes were wide to the limit, filled with an unprecedented bewilderment, shock, and a total, hollow stupor—the look of a faith violently torn apart to reveal the cold void behind it.
She gazed at Ghidorah in the sky, at the existence that had so easily erased her so-called miracles and represented absolute power, her body trembling almost imperceptibly.
The ruby at her throat, which had once glowed with searing heat, was now completely extinguished and dull, its surface even appearing... shrouded in a layer of ashen shadow.
She seemed to have turned into an exquisite pottery figurine in red robes—beautiful, yet devoid of life, empty inside.
The Fleet, shattered like bubbles.
The miracles, extinguished like a joke.
The faith, dissipated like a phantom.
Stannis watched all of this, watching everything he had been obsessed with, relied on, and fought and sacrificed for throughout his life.
Law, duty, the iron throne, the navy, and even this lord of light who brought shadow and fire, all became so small, so illusory, so... absurdly laughable in the shadow cast by this pale gold, three-headed world-ending dragon that had stepped out of myth and into reality.
For these ethereal things, he had silently watched Robert build his rule on the blood of innocent infants; he had murdered his brother with shadows; he had sent loyal friends to desperate places; he had led those still willing to follow him into a death trap.
He had walked all this way, to this sinking, broken ship, under this all-encompassing dragon shadow, before this long-predestined end.
Suddenly, on his face that had been tense for half a lifetime and seemed never to have relaxed, those harsh lines softened for a fleeting, almost imperceptible moment.
A faint, bitter curve—a mixture of endless mockery of fate and a final, absurd realization—crept onto the corners of his cracked mouth.
It was a smile.
A smile of realization that Stannis Baratheon had perhaps never truly shown before.
Laughing at this ridiculous life, laughing at these empty pursuits, laughing at this inevitable end.
Then, he released his bloodied hands that had been digging into the charred wood.
The pain remained, but it no longer mattered.
In this apocalyptic scene of the sky falling and the sea overturning, with the behemoth looming and all things trembling, he used the last of the strength in his body—a shell drained by duty and eroded by failure—to slowly, bit by bit, straighten his back, which had never bent for any enemy.
He lowered his head, his gaze falling upon the sword hanging at his hip, decorated with the Baratheon Crowned Stag.
The scabbard was covered in soot and bloodstains, simple and old, much like his life.
He raised his arm and gripped the cold, familiar hilt.
"Clang—"
A slight but clear sound of metal friction, in this world where now only the terrifying breathing from on high and the low sobbing of the waves remained, weakly yet clearly announced the beginning of an end.
He drew his sword.
The cold blade reflected the gloomy daylight, the pale gold dragon shadow, and his own face, which was calm to the point of being hollow.
He pointed it at no one; there was no roar, no last words.
He simply raised the blade, pointing it diagonally toward that despairing sky filled with the pale gold dragon body and boundless pressure.
Toward that incomprehensible, invincible, magnificent existence that represented the end of all things.
This was the final posture of a warrior after losing all armor, shields, and comrades.
This was the final dignity of a king after losing his kingdom, army, subjects, and faith.
In the sky, Ghidorah's middle head—the most majestic, with a rugged bone crown like a royal diadem—turned slightly in an almost elegant arc.
Six molten gold vertical pupils, like six simultaneously focused suns of destruction, precisely locked onto that burning, sinking, collapsing sea of death below...
Onto that tiny, dust-like black speck, the only one who still dared to raise a faint reflection of metal toward it.
No roar, no gathering of strength.
Only in the depths of that middle head's throat, a point of golden light far more brilliant and pure than the previous thunder of judgment, containing the ultimate will of annihilation, began to silently gather, expand, and brighten.
That light grew brighter and brighter, quickly filling and swallowing Stannis Baratheon's entire field of vision.
The tilting deck, the burning wreckage, the stunned Red Woman, the collapsing Fleet, the sobbing waves, the gloomy sky, the pale gold dragon shadow, all things in the world, all colors, all forms, all meanings...
In the end, they all returned to a boundless, silent, absolute, and eternal silence—a silence of the purest annihilation and end.
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