Chapter 17 The song sung by the drowned man (end)

Although the Drowned King mixed with his people to show his friendliness, he at least knew not to create panic among them, and Aegon the Conqueror and his dragons were obviously the source of panic.

So when Renly's announcement fell, he immediately dismissed the people around who were watching the excitement.

The beach, which was originally crowded with people, became much quieter. A large number of believers were blocked by the king's soldiers in the distance. Only the king himself and the two guards behind him stood in front of Renly.

Observing closely, the Drowned King actually looked quite ordinary, with a flat nose, light blue eyes, a square chin, and some freckles on his cheeks.

Only his tall body and long dark green hair looked very eye-catching. The long hair flowed down the gaps on both sides of the hood that was recently put on, like a strange seaweed.

Of course, Renly was more concerned about the emblem embroidered on the front of the other's gray, green and blue wool robe - a glowing driftwood stick with an arm raised on a blue background.

To others, this emblem seemed to fully demonstrate the holiness of the Drowned Man, but to Renly, the glowing stick quietly withered and turned into a thin rotten tree root.

This made him more certain of his thoughts.

So when the king asked him for details, Renly handed over a letter written on parchment.

"This is a letter from Lord Lucas to His Majesty."

This letter was actually written by him, because the Drowned Man Lucas could not read or write, so he could only dictate it to Renly and ask him to do it for him.

A tall blond guard of the king stepped forward to take the letter, but the Drowned King himself did not pay much attention to this. Instead, he could not wait to ask: "You said there is a letter from Aegon Targaryen--"

A sudden scream interrupted his words, and the scream caught people off guard. The blond guard who had just taken the letter turned around and ran away with a pale face, and the letter that should have been in his hand was thrown away by him without any care.

The king was stunned on the spot, and another guard behind him shouted loudly at the fleeing guy, but at this moment, the crowd watching in the distance suddenly burst into exclamations.

Because the brown-haired boy who had bent over to hand over the letter suddenly jumped up and pounced on the king himself!

Everything happened so fast that it was hard to keep up, running, shouting, screaming, and jumping up. When the screams appeared one after another, the Drowned King with dark green hair had been thrown to the beach by the audience!

After a moment of stunned silence, the black-haired guard wearing a light mail and leather jacket roared and swung the long-handled axe in his hand to chop at the figure that pounced on the king, but the other party turned over on the spot and moved his body under the king!

The sharp long axe suddenly tilted and chopped on the beach surface beside them with a bang, splashing a lot of sand and dust.

This temporary change of attack seemed to make the guard very uncomfortable. His round face flushed red, and his eyes widened as he looked at a dagger across his king's neck, while the owner of the dagger glared at him fiercely at this moment.

"Let go of your majesty!"

He roared angrily, and with an uproar, the believers who were blocked in the distance also quickly gathered towards this beach.

"Back off, or I can't hold my strength!" The brown-haired boy declared loudly, dragging the captive to stand up and retreat with difficulty.

"Your name is Hal? You should be our loyal warrior. Who ordered you to do this?" The captured king asked, his face remained calm, but then his ear was pinched hard, so he couldn't help but cry out in pain.

"Damn it, he is blaspheming the gods!" The round-faced guard, who was afraid of the consequences, looked furious, but dared not move rashly, and even trembled with anger. The large number of believers who approached were also furious, gritting their teeth and wishing to eat the attacker Renly alive.

However, the parties concerned were mostly focused on the king in their hands at this moment.

At this time, he had his back to the sea, and in front of him was a dense crowd of figures. There seemed to be drifting ships not far away in the ocean, ready to move, and some soldiers aimed their bows and arrows at him.

The situation was precarious, Renly's heart beat fast, and his muscles couldn't help but tense, but the tension accounted for most of it--

In any case, it was the first time he faced such a situation.

But it was not just him who was doing it for the first time. The Drowned King, whose neck was tightly held by him, looked calm, but his body was shaking unconsciously, and his voice was trembling.

"Let go, the wrath of the Drowned God is coming. If you make a big mistake, you will be thrown into the cold hell of the Storm God."

Renly ignored his words. At this time, he kept holding the dagger tightly against the prisoner's neck with one hand, and the other hand was across the prisoner's face. After a glance around, he whispered: "Look at my hand!"

Although he didn't want to obey, the Drowned King couldn't help but glance at this hand.

This is a hand with stubby fingers, muddy nails, and calloused palms. In other words, this is an ordinary iron man's hand.

The only thing worth noting is a bronze ring on the middle finger of this hand.

No, it's not a ring, but a ring, a ring with colorful rust on the surface and a ghost face protruding on the inside.

It seemed that after just one glance, the Drowned King felt that all his eyes were being sucked into the bronzed face that was so close at hand. All the hustle and bustle around him quickly faded away, leaving only the terrifying, twisted skull-like face in front of him. It got bigger and bigger, until it filled his entire field of vision, until the huge skeletal mouth swallowed him whole.

Then, deep down, he saw God!

A scream of horror suddenly came out, and the young king who had been held hostage and managed to remain calm suddenly began to struggle in the enemy's arms, his eyes widened and his face turned pale.

Renly had to exert force to prevent the other party from breaking away from his embrace. In the end, he had to pierce the other party's cheek with a dagger to make him become more honest.

The onlookers didn't know what happened, but they seemed to feel the same way. Some couldn't help sobbing, some shouted in despair, and many more shouted angrily that those who blaspheme should die miserably!

However, the presence of these crowds did not bring much comfort to the king. He was shaking all the time and his eyes were filled with fear.

"The Drowned God, save me... No, no, no, I didn't mean to, I just, I just, I never meant to pretend to be your son, it's all them, yes, it's all them!"

Seeing this, Renly secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and then said in a low tone, "Let me answer your question just now. Yes, it was the Drowned God who sent me to find you. Now, tell me! How did you summon the school of fish, how did you deceive These Ironborn!"

"I, I just used the powder ground from Naga, Naga's ribs..." Information that was difficult to obtain under normal coercion was easily asked at this time. The captive in his arms was shaking and crying.

"As long as you sprinkle a small amount, the fish in the sea will... But I didn't think about becoming king at first, yes, I didn't, it was all them, yes, they forced me!"

He accidentally spoke a little too loudly, and the guard closest to him opened his eyes wide unconsciously, looking at his king with disbelief. However, he suddenly discovered that this usually holy and majestic son of the Drowned God, at this moment The lower body of the robe was already soaked with urine.

"So everything is your lie? Son of the Drowned God? Holy Kingdom?" The questioning continued.

"No, that's right, I'm just an ordinary fisherman's son, not the son of a god. I -"

"Louder! I didn't hear you!"

These words made the Drowned King suddenly hesitate, but Renly showed off his ring at this time, and the grimace appeared again. The man in his arms suddenly tensed up, and then collapsed in his arms as if he had lost all his strength. In an instant, Turned into a pile of soft bones.

"I, I confess, I am a liar, a complete liar!" His crying and howling voice spread throughout the beach, so much so that the originally noisy and angry crowd suddenly seemed to have been splashed with water. Cold water, all sounds suddenly stopped.

"I've been good at diving since I was a child, and many people thought I was qualified, so I became a drowning man!"

"The secret of the ribs was told to me by the old drowned man who taught me, but he didn't know how to use it. He was very, very stupid, so I killed him so that the secret would be mine alone!"

"Heron was burned to death. I thought this was an opportunity, and then I... I actually didn't want to be the king, but those Drowned People insisted on me..."

"I also like boys..."

…

What he wanted to hear, what he didn't want to hear, what he expected, what he didn't expect, the young priest who was crowned king by forty Drowned Men was leaning against Renly, crying all over himself. Everything he did was told.

People strolled in, and the increasingly angry faces kept approaching, old wrinkled cheeks, young and immature teenagers, dark-skinned fishermen, women holding children...

The anger rising to the sky seemed to make the sea wind sweeping around them much stronger, but the target of their anger was no longer the previous attacker, but their king, the son of the Drowned God who they once admired with all their hearts.

The crowd kept getting closer, and when he saw that the situation became precarious, Renly pushed the prisoner away and quietly retreated.

No one paid attention to his presence anymore, and everyone's eyes were fixed on their Majesty the King who was lying on the ground. This weird atmosphere made the person involved quickly escape from the state of panic. He leaned on the sand and swallowed, then supported his body with his arms and kicked his feet on the ground, trying to stay away from the angry crowd in front of him.

The former guard who had been watching his every move suddenly stepped forward, grabbed the collar of his robe and roared angrily: "Liar! Liar!!"

"He is the real blasphemer!"

"The Drowned God punishes him!"

"Fake, all fake! My poor child——"

"shame!"

Countless angry shouts quickly erupted like a firewood pile.

…

A violent scene was born behind him and intensified. Renly left quietly and ran towards his target.

The naga rib may sound strange, but Renly knows about it, and even now it is in his sight——

The place where they are now is called the Sacred Coast, and the coast is named after a place called Naga Hill not far away.

On the approaching hill, forty-four towering ribs like huge white tree trunks broke out of the ground, like curved and hard white ancient trees. The ironmen believed that these bones were the world's first sea dragon— —Naga’s ribs.

The king of the ancient Ironborn, the legendary Grey King, killed the sea dragon Naga himself and made a palace out of its bones.

Now, there is only a pile of huge bones left in the ancient palace, but the Ironborn regard this place as a holy place, and Old Wyk Island has become the most sacred island in the archipelago.

But this sacred place has become extremely noisy at the moment.

There are many angry people on Renly's way, but in the face of this scammer, they unconsciously give way, so Renly can run up the hill smoothly.

This is a barren and rocky hill, located high up, where you can overlook the entire sacred coast and the sea in front of the coast.

The sun shines down, and the shadows of forty-four huge ribs cover his head, making him feel as if he is in an ancient and barren palace of bones.

The roars, accompanied by screams of fear and wails, were clearly audible. Looking down at the large number of "ant colonies" that seemed to be attracted to a corner of the beach by honey, Renly suddenly felt that he should speed up.

So he touched the hand axe on his waist, clenched his hands, and chopped hard at the nearest bone.

He looked like he was chopping a tree, but unfortunately his chopping was not very effective. After a loud collision, only an inconspicuous crack appeared on the surface of the rough rib he was aiming at.

Renly was a little dumbfounded, but he did not give up. His mind was racing. He suddenly bit the handle of the hand axe in his mouth, and then used all four limbs to climb up along the root of a rib.

Under the vast and bright sky, the beach was crowded with people, but the hill of bones, which was usually regarded as a holy place by all the iron people, was ignored at this moment.

A tiny figure crawled on a skeleton and kept moving forward, finally straddling the top area of ​​the curved ribs, waving the axe in his hand and chopping vigorously.

Thousands of believers roared angrily, the king's wailing was completely drowned out, and the dull chopping sound was mixed in these chaotic noises, which was almost inaudible.

And when the drowned king, whose body was covered with terrible bruises, was stripped of his clothes, screamed and was held high above his head by his former people in anger, and walked towards the sea, the chopping sound suddenly disappeared.

…

Since obtaining the bronze ring, Renly couldn't help but think about a question.

The mission goal is to stop King Rhodes from jumping into the sea.

So if the target is no longer the king, or there is no chance to jump into the sea forever, is this mission considered completed?