Game of Thrones: Second Son of House Targaryen

Chapter 436: Hali’s Mathematical Mind

The sudden change left everyone on edge.

Inside the vast, warehouse-like laboratory, the wriggling pinkish-white flesh covered the floor, moving erratically. The air grew thick with a pungent, fishy stench, suffocating and invasive as it seeped into the lungs.

Viserys and the others instinctively drew their swords, assuming defensive positions. The ruby at Melisandre’s throat pulsed with a steady, ominous glow.

“My lord, I think they are destroying themselves,” Melisandre said, her voice calm but taut with unease.

“Self-destruction?” Viserys repeated, his eyes scanning the grotesque sight before him.

The flesh sprawled across the floor varied in size—some no larger than an infant, others as big as a fully grown adult. The cries they emitted were unsettling: the wails of babies, the groans of adults, and the animalistic screeches of unrecognizable creatures blended into a cacophony of despair. The sounds clawed at the nerves, making the scene feel like a vision of hell itself.

Despite the chaos, there was no sign of intelligence in these creatures’ actions. Everything they did seemed driven by instinct, devoid of autonomy.

Not all the entities were writhing or crying out. Some “people” lay motionless, their eyes vacant and lifeless, as though their souls had already fled.

This sight stirred a thought in Viserys’s mind. He recalled the three-headed statue in Tyrosh, which had ties to a magical item he had encountered. The three heads symbolized distinct functions: one devoured death, another breathed life, and the third, as Viserys had theorized and Shiera confirmed, stored souls.

Looking at the lifeless bodies, Viserys couldn’t shake the impression that these experiments had failed due to the absence of that very magical item.

“Could it be that Tyria’s genetic engineering collapsed because they lacked the means to house souls?” he wondered aloud.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a cacophony in his own mind.

[Master, please give me a body! Master!]
[Master, grant this lowly soul a vessel to inhabit.]
[Master, please!]

The Undying Ones clamored in unison, their ethereal voices piercing his thoughts.

[Shut up!] Viserys snapped, his patience wearing thin.

To him, these spirits were tools, nothing more. He would never forgive those who had once sought to kill him, and mercy was out of the question.

“I will decide when to release you,” he hissed in his mind. “Anyone who dares to speak out of turn will have their soul obliterated!”

The threat worked. Silence fell among the Undying Ones.

Refocusing on the grotesque scene before him, Viserys made a swift decision. Tyria’s experiments and its grotesque remnants were a blight—proof of their decline and corruption.

“Remove all written materials here,” he ordered coldly. “Burn everything else. Quarantine the people handling this place for observation before releasing them.”

The destruction would ensure safety, and the written materials might provide insights without preserving the horrors themselves.

With the laboratory dealt with, Viserys shifted his attention to the next challenge: making contact with the people of the Doom Ruins.

Shiera—now known as Shiree—had recently felt the call of House Sennesta from within those ruins, suggesting there might be a conflict of interest. Still, Viserys believed negotiation was possible. His primary goal was obtaining Dragonbones, which held no apparent value to the Doom Ruins’ inhabitants. In essence, he was offering to clean their "rubbish" and improve their environment in return.

He had no interest in venturing into the treacherous heart of Valyria itself. For now, collecting Dragonbone from the "suburbs" was sufficient.

Yet, there was one matter he needed answers to—what exactly had the Tyrians done to Princess Aerea? The mystery gnawed at him, and as a father, it had become personal.

Viserys had immersed himself fully in the struggles of this world, determined to secure the future of his descendants. He couldn’t bear the thought of House Targaryen suffering another downfall. This time, his enemies would pay dearly, starting with the resolution of Princess Aerea’s plight.

It was not just for vengeance but to send a clear message to the shadows: meddling with the Targaryens carried an unthinkable cost. He needed order and stability before he could turn his full attention to the ultimate threat—the Night King.

Since travel through Valyria’s outskirts was fraught with danger, Viserys devised an alternate plan. He had a printing press brought down from his ship to produce negotiation documents.

In just one day, 10,000 copies of a brief, single-page document were completed.

“Hali, you are not allowed to go,” Viserys declared firmly, stepping forward to stop her. He noticed that Hali was preparing to ride the dragon alongside him to Valyria.

“Why, Father? I can help you,” Hali replied, her confusion evident.

“Valyria is too dangerous. You know that. The Black Dread likely received his wounds there.”

“But I can become invisible. You've seen that,” she argued, a spark of defiance in her tone.

“That’s not an option...” Viserys began, only for Hali to cut him off.

“Father, you have ten children, but you are the only father they have. Hali and Hermine look exactly the same. Even if I’m not there...”

“Who taught you to say such things?” Viserys interrupted, his voice rising slightly with irritation. The many advisers and military officers nearby made his pride as a father sting even more.

Hali, however, seemed entirely unaware of any offense. She simply looked at Viserys with her striking heterochromatic eyes, her expression steady.

“I’ll go with you,” she insisted.

At that moment, Valsha approached, riding her dragon. As the massive creature landed beside them, everyone instinctively stepped back. Compared to Viserys’ dragon, Valsha’s was unnervingly grotesque—a beast that seemed more like a decaying specter than a living creature.

Some whispered of it as the "wight dragon." Its pallid, thin frame was riddled with holes, the wings appearing tattered and skeletal. The sight of it was enough to make even seasoned warriors uneasy.

“When the time comes, I will kill all Sennestas with my own hands,” Valsha declared, her voice cold and resolute.

“We may not necessarily go to war with them,” Viserys countered.

“That is my business. You don’t need to concern yourself,” Valsha shot back, before urging her dragon upward into the crimson-hued sky, accompanied by her four similarly skeletal dragons.

Once she was gone, Viserys turned back to Hali. His tone was sharp. “Don’t ever speak to your father like that again!” He mounted his yellow dragon and took off, leaving Hali behind.

The green dragon, loyal only to Viserys’ command, refused to take Hali to the Ruins of Doom. Watching her father leave, Hali stood in silence, a hint of despondence in her posture.

Arya, noticing her mood, approached gently. “Princess, in His Grace’s eyes, you are different from Princess Hermine. No one can replace you.”

But Hali’s reaction was unexpected. “But this is just a simple problem of mathematics.”

“Mathematics...” Arya repeated, her mouth twitching slightly as the subject veered into territory she wasn’t confident in.

The five dragons reached the Ruins of Doom in just an hour. As they descended to a lower altitude, Viserys and Valsha began their search. Below them stretched a desolate expanse, a stark contrast to the well-preserved Tyria. The ruins, bathed in perpetual red light, were overrun by reddish-orange vegetation.

Among the growth, plants of the Convolvulaceae family, resembling morning glories, climbed the remnants of dragon statues scattered throughout the ruins. Over the centuries, they seemed to have overtaken the grandeur of Valyria inch by inch.

To survey the entire area by dragon would take at least half an hour. As Viserys scanned the ruins, he recalled what he had read in books. Valyria, during its peak, had boasted a population in the tens of millions. Such a metropolis was unimaginable now. Even King’s Landing struggled to manage half a million residents.

It made sense when one considered the Valyrian social structure. The forty Dragonlord houses alone comprised one to two thousand people, the pinnacle of nobility. Adding their allied families brought the total to over ten thousand—a staggering number of elites. Beyond them, ordinary Valyrians enjoyed relative peace and prosperity, benefiting from the best aspects of their civilization.

But the peace of some came at the cost of others. Borrowing from the Old Empire of Ghis, Valyria had relied on an enormous population of slaves. Beneath the Fourteen Flames alone, millions of slave miners toiled. Countless others served as domestic slaves, sustaining the opulence of the Valyrian elite.

Despite the ruins' scale and the weight of history they carried, Viserys and Valsha found no signs of life—no intact structures, no inhabitants. It was as though the city’s grandeur had been utterly erased.

Just as they were about to leave, a strange noise interrupted their thoughts. A buzzing sound filled the air, rising in intensity. It was like the collective hum of countless giant wasps descending upon them.