Dany took on the form of a warrior, immersing herself in the countless mysterious and extraordinary sword techniques granted by her divine power.
She greedily absorbed every insight into the Way of the Sword that resonated with her, forgetting time, forgetting where she was, even forgetting herself.
But King Kong hadn't forgotten his payment!
"Ho ho!" The big black brute wore a fawning grin as he took two steps closer to Big Black.
"What is it?" Dany opened her eyes and spoke lightly.
The instant she looked up, it seemed as though countless dazzling, razor-sharp beams shot from her violet pupils. The lewd grin froze on King Kong's face, his steps halted, and he rubbed his eyes in shock and confusion.
When he looked again, nothing seemed amiss.
He bared his teeth—white and still flecked with bits of flesh—and pointed at the scorched ground, then at himself.
A thought entered the ape's mind as Dany released strands of divine power from the Song of Strength into his soul core.
Before the naked eye, his soul took on traces of gold, and golden stripes appeared on his black fur.
Dany's pupils narrowed. Those stripes seemed to form runes on his arms, chest, thighs, forehead…
She committed each rune to memory.
Of the three-quarters of her divinity, King Kong absorbed a bit more than half before reaching saturation.
Twice as much as Dany could take.
Yet in reality, King Kong was still merely a black chimpanzee. The golden stripes did not appear on his physical body.
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"
His strength had multiplied several times over. Wild with excitement, he pounded his chest and roared, the surrounding air trembling for dozens of meters, the distant valley echoing with his howl.
"I'm leaving," Dany waved a hand, calming him down. With a serious expression, she instructed, "I'm giving you a mission. From today on, you will become a wandering King Kong and travel across the continent of Sothoryos on my behalf.
Do your best to find evil gods and mark their locations. When I return, I'll take you to hunt them one by one."
"Remember, you may provoke the evil gods, but don't kill them all."
Judging by how easily he had obliterated the spider spirit…
King Kong wasn't a demigod, but the demigods of this world weren't exactly extraordinary.
For a mortal to slay a god was not difficult.
With fists as big as a locomotive, even mountains would shake under his blows—ordinary demigods couldn't withstand a single punch or kick.
Finally, Dany tempted him: "The more evil gods you find, the greater your reward will be, just like today."
She had paid dearly this time, trading divine power from the Song of Strength for the spider spirit's worthless divinity.
But King Kong wasn't a demigod. Aside from the Song of Strength, he couldn't absorb any other type of divinity.
The explanation was complicated, so Dany repeated herself several times. Only when King Kong's confused expression turned into comprehension did she ask, "Do you understand?"
"Ho! Ho!" King Kong nodded repeatedly.
Dany smiled with relief.
He couldn't speak human language, but his intelligence was far from low.
To make sure he took the mission seriously, she earnestly added, "You're the last surviving member of your King Kong clan. If you don't go out, explore, and find a mate, your family line will die out in a few years."
"Oo… oo…"
Before she finished, a whimpering cry sounded beside them.
It was the pig-nosed old priest who had offered a blood sacrifice earlier. He had come down from the mountaintop village with a group of tribesmen.
"Uwaa—" The old priest held up a massive wooden tray filled with dog-head gold, agates, amber, tourmalines, and other gems.
But atop all the jewels was a small bundle of bark, each strip about the length of a palm.
King Kong's eyes lit up. He strode over, seized the entire tray in one hand, raised it to his face, opened his palm, and rapturously sifted the treasures with his fingers.
Then he puckered his lips in disgust and blew away the loose bark with one breath.
By pure coincidence, a strip of old bark landed on Big Black's neck. Dany picked it up on instinct—not because she saw something, but because she caught the scent, faint and bitter, one she knew well.
After a brief moment of thought, her pupils contracted and her expression changed drastically.
Cinchona!
It was cinchona bark!
She didn't even know what expression she should wear in the face of such an unexpected miracle.
"Where did this come from?"
She shook the bark in her hand, asking the naked old priest.
The tattooed tribesman muttered gruff, simple syllables, each breath snorting through his piglike nose.
As he spoke, he rose onto his toes and pointed in a certain direction with his thin arm.
He couldn't understand Dany's words, and she couldn't understand his.
But both understood each other's meaning.
Or rather, the old tattooed man clearly knew the value of the cinchona tree and understood that Dany would need it.
He offered this priceless treasure to protect his homeland.
It all stemmed from their earlier misunderstanding—the Dragon Queen had declined his voluntary sacrifice.
To Dany, it was natural; she didn't want to learn bad habits. But to the old priest, it was a sign of hostility.
Then King Kong stormed the mountain, killed people, destroyed their village, and even trampled their ancestral god to death, confirming his fears.
He never expected that Dany had come only for the evil god and was already preparing to leave. Yet here he was, hurrying over to present the tribe's greatest treasure, passed down for centuries.
Just like on Earth, the indigenous people of this world desperately hid the "Sacred Tree of Life."
Sothoryos lay far too close to Essos.
From New Ghis to Sothoryos was only a few hundred kilometers.
Qarth and Sothoryos were separated by a strait barely a dozen kilometers wide.
The tattooed tribesmen might not have been able to reach Essos, but the people of Essos could easily reach Sothoryos.
Getting there was easy. Returning alive was hard.
Sothoryos was plagued with disease.
Yet the more people who visited, the more likely someone would notice the tribes' secret: the wild tribes seemed to possess a sacred medicine that could cure plagues.
It was only an unverified suspicion.
The wildlings guarded their treasure with great care, and no one had ever been able to determine whether the so-called divine medicine was real or not.
Now Daenerys was certain that the wildlings of Sothoros truly possessed something capable of changing the course of the world.
Daenerys patted Big Black's head and flew into the sky. Kong scooped up the old wild man with the brown-and-white striped skin and strode down the mountain.
Twenty kilometers away, halfway up an eight-hundred-meter peak, there was a dangerous crocodile pool with more than a hundred saltwater crocodiles living there.
Unfortunately, a cluster of cinchona trees stood right at the edge of the pool. When Daenerys arrived, a fifteen-meter-long grayish-green saltwater crocodile was sleeping beneath the tree.
Well, it was unfortunate for the crocodile.
Kong charged forward and, like an ordinary man chewing sugarcane, grabbed a still-thrashing crocodile and stuffed it into his mouth.
Crisp and crunchy.
The remaining crocodiles all fled in terror.
"Something seems off." Daenerys stood under the tree, frowning in thought.
The leaves were bigger, the size of an adult's palm; the trunk was dark purple instead of gray-white.
And why were the fruits so big? They weren't apples.
"How do you use this?" Daenerys pointed at the tree and asked the old priest.
The old man stepped forward, stood on tiptoe to snap off a small piece from a drooping branch, and put it directly into his mouth to chew.
As he chewed, he looked at Daenerys with a fawning, foolish grin.
Daenerys twitched the corner of her mouth. At least this proved that the otherworldly cinchona wasn't poisonous.
"You can go now." Daenerys climbed back onto the dragon's back and waved for the old man to leave.
The old striped man retreated more than ten steps but did not go down the mountain.
Then Daenerys shouted loudly and had Kong dig with his hands. He forcibly uprooted three tree saplings as thick as bowls, with their roots still clinging to a lump of soil.
The three trees were tied together with rope twisted from banyan bark and hung from Big Black's claws. Daenerys peeled off another large bundle of bark and decided to leave Sothoros.
Standing beside the pool, Kong watched Daenerys disappear into the sunset. He then turned back and looked thoughtfully at the cinchona trees.
Suddenly, he strode forward and, like pulling scallions from the earth, yanked up more than a dozen trees in succession, tied them into a bundle, slung them over his shoulder, and walked away.
Only then did the old striped man follow Kong, jogging down the mountain—he was afraid of running into crocodiles on the way.
After less than half a li, Kong suddenly stopped, turned around, scooped up the old priest into his hand, and sprinted madly back toward the mountaintop village.
With heavy thuds, he ran back up the mountain. Kong looked left and right, stopped in front of the largest two-story wooden building, poked a hole in the roof with a thick finger, tossed the old priest inside, and then, like catching chickens, grabbed the terrified wildlings one by one and stuffed them into the building.
People squeezed against one another, and both floors were packed full.
Then Kong lifted the entire wooden building as if it were a basin, pulled it from its foundation, placed it on his right shoulder, grabbed the bundle of cinchona trees with his left hand, and strode away.
He had not forgotten the treasure hidden beside the waterfall at the foot of the mountain.
"Roar!" Losing the raw diamond ore made him stomp with rage.
After two days, Kong returned to Gourd Valley. He set the wooden house and the cinchona trees aside.
Then, eyes flashing with ferocity, he walked toward the wildlings' huts. He grabbed every single one, regardless of age or gender, stuffed them into his mouth, and chewed them alive.
"Roar!" After filling his belly, Kong roared at the striped people in the wooden house and pointed at the saplings and the wildlings' huts.
The old priest immediately understood what Kong meant—he intended to keep them penned like livestock.
While the old priest led his people to plant the trees, Kong happily ran back to the stone cavern, lay down in the place where the magical energy was densest, and fell fast asleep.
A wandering Kong?
Impossible.
Daenerys was having adventure after adventure on the neighboring continent and had even successfully advanced to a demigod, but all in all, her trip had taken only a little more than three days.
Carrying a bundle of cinchona trees, Big Black caught up with the wyvern flock near Old Ghis.
She had spent last night making contracts with thirty-five wyverns and didn't bring them along; she sent them ahead first.
The wyverns certainly did not know where Astapor was, but they only had to fly north. That was why, before they even reached Slaver's Bay, Daenerys had already caught up to them.
Passing over Old Ghis, Daenerys went down to the small town below and gave Commander Morono five cinchona seeds the size of green apples.
"Try planting them and see if they can grow."
She also let this Free Wing archer commander, who had followed her for years, choose a wyvern.
Morono also bore the Paladin's Seal.
After that, she planted a sapling in the Five Dragons Cave among the mountains.
Returning to Astapor, she planted another on the Great Pyramid, and the last one would be taken to Meereen.
During the four days she was gone, the allied forces detected nothing unusual, and nothing major happened in Slaver's Bay.
Only one piece of news enraged her.
The eastern army of the coalition had chosen Bayasabhad as their landing point, so she had sent an envoy to warn the "High Father": if they dared aid the wicked, they would one day face fiery destruction.
At that time she had no wyverns, and the envoy traveled by horse. There had been no news from him for a long time.
She had thought the journey was too dangerous and that the poor man had died abroad.
Two days ago he finally returned alive, but Little Jiji was gone.
The High Father had not killed the envoy but had castrated him for his "insolence."
Just as she was thinking about when to teach the heirs of Haelcolonne a lesson, Old Jorah arrived.
"Your Majesty, the prince's armor has been forged, and his wedding will take place five days from now. I must depart."
Seeing Daenerys unharmed and returning with the wyvern flock, Old Jorah let out a long sigh of relief. Then he bid her farewell.
He needed to take leave and return to Westeros to preside over his foster son's wedding.
The reason he had waited until today—aside from worrying about Daenerys's safety—was that he had been waiting for Aegon's Valyrian-steel armor to be completed.
(End of chapter)
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