Chapter 7: The Obsidian Hoard, Echoes in the Ash
The nascent god stood upon a jagged pinnacle of newly formed obsidian, the last vestige of a mountaintop that had once kissed the Valyrian sky. Below him, where the heart of an empire had pulsed with fiery life, now lay only the Smoking Sea – a turbulent, boiling expanse of water choked with ash, sulfur, and the ghostly steam of instantly vaporized landmasses. The sky was a perpetual twilight of swirling volcanic clouds, lit by the malevolent glow of still-active fissures and distant, secondary eruptions. The symphony of annihilation had reached its deafening crescendo and was now fading into a desolate, rumbling diminuendo.
Aizen Sōsuke, his form subtly yet profoundly altered by the cataclysmic influx of souls and the Heart's ancient power, surveyed his handiwork. His dark hair, now imbued with an inner luminescence, drifted around his face as if in an unseen solar wind. His eyes, no longer merely dark brown, held the depth of star-strewn abysses, reflecting the raw, untamed power that now coursed through him. The tattered remnants of Aemond Xantys's specialized armor clung to a physique that was leaner, yet radiated an undeniable, almost visible aura of condensed spiritual pressure. The Hōgyoku, nestled against his chest, was a serene, blazing sun, its hunger sated for the moment, now humming with the quiet satisfaction of immense, assimilated power.
Vhagarion, his obsidian scales now shot through with pulsing, emerald veins of what looked like solidified soul-fire, rested beside him. The dragon was larger, his presence more overwhelming, his intelligence burning brighter in his reptilian eyes. He was no longer just a beast of Valyria; he was a creature reborn of the Doom, a true harbinger, inextricably linked to his master's divine ascension.
Aizen felt no remorse, no sorrow for the millions of lives extinguished. They had been fuel, necessary components in his grand equation of godhood. Valyria itself had been nothing more than a magnificent, volatile crucible. Now, from its ashes, he would begin to gather the materials for his new world order.
"The first task," Aizen mused, his voice a low resonant hum that Vhagarion seemed to understand perfectly, "is to sift through the wreckage. Even in utter ruin, there is value. Knowledge, tools, resources… the seeds of future power."
His motives were far from the petty greed of mortal men. Each category of salvage served a strategic purpose:
* Dragon Eggs and Corpses: The dragons of Valyria, for all their bestial nature, were vessels of immense magical energy and unique biological properties. Surviving eggs would allow him to cultivate a new generation of dragons, perhaps even improve upon the Valyrian breeding process with his own advanced understanding of spiritual genetics. Corpses, especially those of ancient and powerful dragons caught in the cataclysm, could yield invaluable insights into their physiology, their connection to fire magic, and the nature of their souls – a distinct, primal form of spiritual energy.
* Valyrian Steel: The legendary metal, with its unmatched sharpness, lightness, and inherent magical properties, was a resource of immense military and arcane value. Understanding its forging process, lost even to most late Valyrians, would be a significant advantage. Hoarding existing blades and armor was a practical first step.
* Magical Tomes, Scrolls, and Artifacts: Valyria, for all its arrogance, had accumulated vast repositories of knowledge, particularly concerning blood magic, fire sorcery, enchantment, and the binding of elemental spirits. While much would be lost, any surviving texts or artifacts could provide crucial insights, alternative magical pathways, or warnings of forgotten dangers. Even their failures were data.
* Precious Metals and Gems: Gold, silver, rubies, diamonds – the mundane currency of mortal empires. While of little intrinsic value to a being of his power, they would be indispensable for influencing the lesser civilizations beyond Valyria's smoldering corpse, for funding agents, bribing officials, and establishing the economic foundations of his future influence.
Vhagarion let out a low rumble, smoke 뜨겁고 에메랄드 빛이 감도는 연기가 그의 콧구멍에서 새어 나왔다. He was ready. His enhanced senses, now almost as keen as Aizen's own in certain spectrums, could pierce the gloom and detect the faint signatures of hidden vaults or magically shielded locations beneath the rubble and boiling waves.
Their salvage operation began. It was a perilous ballet of destruction and meticulous recovery. Aizen, with Vhagarion as his unstoppable instrument and steadfast companion, navigated the treacherous, ever-shifting landscape of the Valyrian ruins. Islands of freshly cooled obsidian rose and sank with disconcerting frequency. Pockets of superheated gas and still-molten rock lay hidden beneath crusts of ash. The sea itself was a scalding, acidic brew, prone to sudden, violent geysers and whirlpools.
Aizen moved with an effortless grace that belied the immense power he now wielded. Kido-like shields shimmered into existence around him and Vhagarion, deflecting falling debris and bursts of scalding steam. He used focused blasts of spiritual energy, refined from his Shinigami repertoire and amplified by the Hōgyoku, to clear pathways, vaporize obstacles, or precisely cut through layers of fused rock and metal to reveal what lay beneath.
Their first significant target was the remains of the great dragoneries atop the Dragonmont, Valyria's largest volcano, now a shattered, fuming caldera. Most hatcheries had been instantly incinerated or buried under mountains of pumice. But Aizen, guided by a combination of old Xantys family charts (memorized before their destruction) and his own powerful senses, located a series of deep, magically reinforced vaults, designed to withstand even significant eruptions.
Vhagarion's soul-infused fire, now a focused beam of destructive green-black energy, melted through obsidian doors thick as castle walls. Inside, amidst ash and ruin, they found treasures. Dozens of dragon eggs, miraculously intact, nestled in their incubation chambers. Some were common stock, but others were from rare, ancient bloodlines, their shells patterned with exotic colors and textures. Aizen handled them with care, his Reikaku probing their dormant life forces. He could feel the faint, nascent souls within, sparks of draconic potential. He created stasis fields around them using a modified Kido, preserving them for later study and controlled hatching.
In one heavily warded vault, clearly belonging to a paramount Dragonlord family – perhaps even the lost Targaryens, though Aizen cared little for such lineage beyond its genetic markers – they found a clutch of eggs of an almost pearlescent white, radiating a strange, cold energy. These were different. The Hōgyoku pulsed with particular interest when near them. Aizen set these aside, marking them for special attention.
Dragon corpses were a more gruesome, but equally valuable, find. Many dragons had been caught in the sky, their bodies flash-burned or torn apart. Others lay entombed in collapsed lairs. Aizen was particularly interested in the remains of the oldest, most powerful beasts. He and Vhagarion retrieved several massive carcasses, including what appeared to be the remnants of Balerion the Black Dread's ancestors, their bones like blackened obsidian logs. Aizen meticulously harvested tissue samples, solidified dragonfire glands, and, most importantly, attempted to analyze the unique spiritual residue clinging to their remains. He found that dragon souls, while powerful, were fundamentally different from human souls – more elemental, more primal, intrinsically tied to the raw magic of fire and earth. This knowledge would be crucial.
Valyrian steel was scattered throughout the ruins, often in the armories of collapsed noble manors or buried with their former owners. Aizen used Vhagarion to lift entire sections of fallen towers, sifting through the debris with precise energy blasts. He collected hundreds of blades – longswords, arming swords, daggers – their surfaces still ripple-patterned and unnaturally sharp despite the inferno they had endured. He also found suits of articulated Valyrian steel plate, breastplates, and helms. Each piece was a testament to a lost art, and Aizen, as he handled them, used the Hōgyoku to try and "read" their creation, to absorb the latent energies and knowledge embedded within the metal during its forging. He began to form a hypothesis about the spellsongs and, more importantly, the blood sacrifices involved.
The libraries and scriptoriums of Valyria were mostly lost, consumed by fire or buried under unimaginable tons of rock. Yet, Aizen's persistence yielded results. In the heart of what was once the Freehold's grand repository of knowledge, partially shielded by a massive, collapsed dome of dragonstone, he found a section of archives miraculously, if chaotically, preserved. Scrolls were charred, codices waterlogged and reeking of sulfur, but many were salvageable.
He spent days, insulated from the toxic environment by his Kido barriers, sifting through these texts. He found treatises on advanced blood magic that made the practices of Rhaegar Xantys seem like children's nursery rhymes. There were detailed accounts of Valyria's early interactions with dragons, the rituals used to bind them, and the genetic manipulations employed to enhance certain traits. He discovered texts on enchanting Valyrian steel, on the creation of fused dragonstone structures, and even fragmented histories that hinted at civilizations predating Valyria, and the great beasts and powers they had contended with – perhaps even the creators of the Heart. Each piece of knowledge was absorbed, cataloged, and cross-referenced by his vast intellect, the Hōgyoku facilitating the process, highlighting connections and filling in gaps.
One particularly fascinating find was a series of obsidian tablets, inscribed not in High Valyrian, but in an older, more angular script. They detailed Valyrian expeditions into the Shadow Lands near Asshai, and their fearful encounters with entities of pure shadow, their attempts to bind or weaponize them – mostly ending in disaster. Quaithe's people, it seemed, guarded their secrets jealously. The tablets also spoke of "wells of darkness" from which these shadow entities emerged, and the Valyrians' dawning, terrified realization that these wells were somehow connected to the growing instability of their own Fourteen Flames.
Gold, gems, and other material treasures were almost laughably abundant. Vaults lay cracked open, their contents strewn amidst the rubble. Aizen gathered these with a detached efficiency, Vhagarion acting as a colossal beast of burden, carrying nets filled with glittering jewels and stacks of ingots. He established a primary cache on the large obsidian island where they had first witnessed the Doom's finale. Using his powers, he carved deep, shielded vaults into the island's core, reinforcing them with Kido barriers and Valyrian glyphs, creating his first treasury, a dark, formidable fortress rising from the ruins – a nascent Las Noches.
During these scavenging operations, Aizen sometimes encountered lingering spiritual phenomena. Most Valyrian souls had been harvested, but in places of extreme magical power or horrific death, potent residues remained. The tortured echoes of powerful sorcerers, their consciousnesses shattered but their magical energies still clinging to their sanctums, sometimes manifested as spectral guardians or chaotic bursts of wild magic. Aizen dealt with these with clinical precision. He didn't fight them; he dissected them, analyzing their composition, the nature of their lingering attachments, before absorbing their remaining energy into the Hōgyoku. Each encounter was a lesson in the diverse expressions of spiritual power in this world.
His own abilities were constantly being tested and refined. He practiced his Kido on a grand scale, using high-level Bakudō to stabilize collapsing structures while he retrieved artifacts, or powerful Hadō to vaporize obstacles with pinpoint accuracy. His physical strength and durability were now far beyond mortal comprehension; he could lift tons of rubble with ease and withstand temperatures that would incinerate Valyrian steel. His senses were so acute he could detect the faint pulse of a dragon egg buried deep beneath ash, or the lingering scent of a specific magical ritual performed centuries ago. He even began rudimentary experiments with spatial manipulation, attempting to create small, temporary pockets of distorted space to store smaller, more delicate items, a precursor to the Garganta he knew he would eventually need to master again.
The Hōgyoku was his silent, ever-present partner in this endeavor. It not only amplified his power and processed the energies he absorbed, but also acted as an intuitive guide, subtly directing him towards items of true significance, filtering out dangerous ambient energies from cursed artifacts, and even providing flashes of insight into the workings of forgotten Valyrian technologies.
Weeks turned into months. The immediate chaos of the Doom subsided, leaving behind a scarred, steaming, and utterly dead landscape. Aizen's hoard grew immense. Vaults filled with dragon eggs of every conceivable type. Mountains of Valyrian steel weapons and armor. Shelves groaning under the weight of salvaged books and scrolls. Chests overflowing with gold and jewels that could buy kingdoms.
One day, while exploring the deeply buried ruins of what his maps indicated was the ancestral stronghold of one of the most ancient and reclusive Dragonlord families, known for their mastery of fire magic bordering on the divine, Vhagarion sensed something potent. After hours of careful excavation, Aizen broke into a perfectly preserved, circular chamber, its walls made of seamless, unblemished obsidian that seemed to drink the light.
In the center of the chamber, on a simple stone pedestal, rested not a weapon, nor a book, but a single, enormous dragon egg. It was larger than any he had yet found, its surface the color of volcanic magma, shot through with veins of pure, solidified gold that pulsed with a faint, internal heat. The spiritual energy radiating from it was immense, ancient, and possessed a clarity and focus unlike any other dragon egg. It felt…regal. Almost sentient.
The Hōgyoku resonated powerfully with this egg, a hum of profound recognition and desire.
"Interesting," Aizen murmured, his eyes narrowing as he circled the pedestal. His Reikaku delved into the egg, sensing the colossal draconic spirit slumbering within, a power that dwarfed even the potential he had sensed in the pearlescent white eggs. This was not merely a dragon; this was a potential king of dragons, perhaps even something more.
Beside the pedestal lay a single, slender obsidian rod, cool to the touch, inscribed with Valyrian runes of immense power and antiquity. A control rod? A key? Or something else entirely?
As Aizen reached for the rod, the golden veins on the magma-colored egg flared with intense light, and he felt a wave of immense, ancient draconic will wash over him – not an attack, but a query, a challenge, a demand for recognition.
He met that will with his own, a silent clash of nascent god and slumbering dragon king. For a long moment, the chamber thrummed with their unseen contest. Then, slowly, the light from the egg subsided, the pressure receded. It had acknowledged him, not as a master, but as a power worthy of its attention.
Aizen picked up the obsidian rod. It felt warm in his hand, alive with dormant magic. This egg, and this rod, were clearly his most significant find thus far, a puzzle and a promise of immense future power.
With his initial scavenging operations largely complete, Aizen stood once more upon the highest peak of his new island fortress. Vhagarion was a colossal shadow beside him, gazing out over the desolate Smoking Sea. The treasures of a dead empire lay secured in the vaults below. The knowledge of its magic, its strengths, its fatal flaws, resided within his mind, amplified and integrated by the Hōgyoku.
The first stage – survival, apotheosis, and resource acquisition – was complete. Valyria had served its purpose magnificently.
Now, his gaze turned inexorably westward, across the turbulent waters, towards the distant, unsuspecting shores of Westeros and Essos. The world was vast, filled with petty warlords, burgeoning kingdoms, ancient secrets, and countless souls ripe for the shaping. His plans were already forming, intricate and spanning centuries. He would need agents, armies, strongholds. He would need to understand the unique magics and power structures of these new lands. He would sow conflict, nurture ambition, and then, when the time was ripe, he would harvest.
"The foundation is laid," Aizen Sōsuke said, a chillingly serene smile on his lips. "Now, let us begin to build."
The age of mortals was ending. The age of Aizen was about to dawn upon a world utterly unprepared for the god who had risen from Valyria's ashes.