Chapter 121: Aemond

In the world where Arthur resides, while magic is rare, it is by no means non-existent.

To say nothing of those further away, among the mercenaries by his side alone, over a dozen are wearing bronze Plate Armor inlaid with magical runes.

Generally speaking, the magic of this entire world can be categorized into Blood Magic, Water Magic, Shadow Magic, Fire Magic, as well as the special abilities of the First Men such as "Skinchanger" and "Greenseer."

The most famous Blood Magic is when the Dragon Queen Daenerys Targaryen used the three lives of Ma Wang, a witch, and her unborn child to imbue the souls within three Dragon Eggs, hatching three dragons from these fossilized eggs.

A relatively famous Shadow Magic is when the Lord of Light's witch Melisandre, in the original work, used Stannis's shadow to assassinate Renly and the Castellan of Storm's End, Cortnay Penrose.

Of course, the Lord of Light also possesses other magical abilities, such as resurrection, prophecy in flames, and making swords burn.

Water Magic is exclusive to the Rhoynar; its most recent appearance was when the surviving leader Nymeria manifested several oases after the Rhoynar were driven to Dorne by the Valyrian.

Skinchangers and Greenseers are the most common magical means; it is said that only one Skinchanger appears among every thousand First Men, and one Greenseer among every thousand Skinchangers. A so-called Skinchanger is someone who can easily enter an animal's consciousness and then control the animal's actions.

Among the six in the younger generation of House Stark, Robb, Jon, Bran, Arya, and Rickon—these five all possess the ability of a Skinchanger, which shows the strength of the Stark bloodline.

Arthur guesses that this might have to do with Eddard's father Rickard marrying a Stark, which strengthened the bloodline of House Stark.

Where there is magic, there are naturally magical creatures.

White Walkers, Children of the Forest, and Dragons are relatively common magical creatures.

And as far as Arthur knows, White Walkers are transformed from living humans; the master of the Nightfort north of the Wall even sacrificed his own sons to the White Walkers.

Considering that Craster himself was born of a Stark ranger and a Wildling, and Craster took his own daughters as wives, many of the White Walkers are Starks.

The Children of the Forest lived on this land before the First Men conquered Westeros, while the origin of dragons is very mysterious.

One theory is that magical creatures are not naturally occurring; they require magic to be cast upon a prototype creature to be born.

On the continent of Sothoryos, there is a dragon-like creature called a wyvern, which is smaller than a Valyrian Dragon and cannot breathe fire. A Maester Barth believed that dragons were precisely created by Valyrian Blood Witches using wyverns.

Of course, there are other theories regarding the origin of dragons.

This same Maester Barth once recorded a legend from Asshai: a mysterious people tamed dragons in the Shadow Lands and then taught the art of dragon-riding to Valyria.

Others have recorded that the Valyrian discovered dragons in the Fourteen Flames of the circular peninsula and learned the art of dragon-riding.

But this does not explain why only the forty noble families of Valyria could ride dragons, while ordinary Valyrian were not favored by dragons.

And judging by the reproductive situation of Aegon I's son Maegor, Dragon King families like the Targaryen must hold great secrets.

Maegor took six wives; three were already married, and one was a Pentos courtesan. These four wives were all fertile, but after marrying Maegor, they could only produce lizard-like, half-dragon, half-human stillborns.

Although Maegor's lack of heirs was influenced by the Pentos courtesan Tyanna's poisoning, the lizard-like appearance of the stillborns is not something that could be caused by poison alone.

This is enough to show that the bloodline of the forty Dragon King families is different from ordinary humans.

Back to the matter at hand.

After selecting the largest black Dragon Egg, Arthur ordered people to gather a large amount of branches, hay, and firewood to form a circle, then placed the black Dragon Egg and Qiaodadi at the very center of the funeral pyre.

Of course, to ensure the hatched Dragon would recognize him as its master, Arthur specifically cut his hand and let the blood drip onto the black Dragon Egg.

Joffrey's mouth had been gagged the whole way, unable to speak; only when resting or eating could he threaten or curse a few times.

Now, even if he were unreasonable, he knew it was a matter of life and death.

Thus, he struggled desperately, using his tongue to push the rag stuffed in his mouth out with all his might.

"Release me, I can give you whatever you want. I am the King, Protector of the Realm, master of the Iron Throne..."

"Save it." Arthur ordered his men to light the fire. "If you die, won't I be able to take your things?"

Whoosh!

The hay was the first to emit black smoke, then red flames drifted up; the tongues of fire darted toward the branches and firewood like snakes, and the latter began to burn.

Crackle!

Because this place was near the Dorne Sea, the branches and firewood contained quite a bit of moisture, which caused the funeral pyre to quickly billow with thick black smoke, obscuring Joffrey's figure.

"Ah—"

Under the dusk, in the thick smoke, this pure-blooded Lannister let out the most miserable scream since his birth.

The two hundred or so mercenaries were very interested in this scene, gathering in a circle and chattering in discussion.

Their hometown of Norvos also frequently held fire sacrifice rituals, and they were very familiar with Blood Magic that always failed.

"I think the master's method is wrong; he should have killed him first and performed the Blood Magic while the blood was still hot."

"I don't know what the point of putting a Dragon Egg is? Does the master actually want to hatch a dragon?"

The Maester Qyburn who came along took out a small notebook and began recording while hunched over a large rock.

Arthur brought him because this man knew some Valyrian, so he was kept in reserve.

"What are you recording?"

"My lord." Qyburn did not lift his head, his quill scratching away. "I am recording the excavation of the fossilized Dragon Egg and the fact that the King is being burned together with the Dragon Egg."

He actually wanted to use Joffrey for some human experimentation.

After all, not every Maester has the opportunity to come into contact with a King's body.

But it seems now, he would only get the charred remains of the King.

Arthur thought for a moment and decided to let Qyburn continue recording.

Among the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms, the Hightower are the most insidious. The Citadel on their territory is secretly erasing the traces of magic in this world.

Qyburn came from the Citadel but is very interested in live experimentation; letting him attempt this might actually reveal some hidden truths.

The fire would have to burn for a long time, so Arthur ordered the cooks in the team to start making dinner, and the whole team began to rest.

Late at night, after adding firewood to the funeral pyre three or four more times, a strange hiss finally came from the fire.

The dragon had finally hatched.

The funeral pyre was on the verge of going out when a black, bipedal winged dragon slowly crawled out and crept toward where Arthur was.

This was a very young dragon, small enough to be about the size of a two-and-a-half-year-old hen. But the hatchling was clearly much more aggressive than a hen.

Its entire body was neatly lined with small, sharp ridges; the ends of its legs were claws similar to those of a hawk; its tail was long and winding, with spikes at the end that might grow into barbs.

The red light emanating from the hatchling's eyes made one feel fear just by looking at it.

It is worth mentioning that this dragon's wings are unusually large, disproportionate to its small body.

This means it can carry a heavier load.

Perhaps after it reaches adulthood, it can be armored, thereby reducing damage from weapons like ballistae and javelins on the ground.

【Please name your magical pet】

A blue light screen appeared, reminding Arthur that it was time to choose a name.

"Alduin."

Arthur entered the name with his thoughts.

This is the name of a black dragon, which is perfectly fitting for a hatchling born from a black dragon egg.

【Alduin (Mount-type pet) has joined your party】

【Note: You can ride a dragon after Riding is greater than 10】

Arthur looked at this note and suddenly felt happy.

Since many character skills were temporarily unused, he had added his skill points to Athletics, Ironflesh, and Power Strike.

When the system was activated, he had three points in Riding, which he had never added to.

And since every level-up grants two skill points, reaching ten points would require at least four level-ups.

Although leveling up was a bit slow, as long as he met the requirement of Riding being greater than ten, he would be able to ride the dragon; by then, Alduin would surely have grown up.

Arthur had previously worried that he might not be able to ride a dragon. After all, according to the world-view of Ice and Fire, one must have the bloodline of the forty Dragon King families of Valyria to ride a dragon.

The conditions for riding a dragon without Dragon King bloodline were too harsh and required the price of one's life, so it was not in his scope of consideration to begin with.

He had not expected the system to give him this cheat, sparing him the regret of not being able to ride a dragon.

It was already late at night, and only a few people saw the hatchling crawl onto Arthur, which gave their worldviews a tremendous shock.

The young man Gendry was the first to kneel and press his head to the ground; he was born in King's Landing and had naturally been to the Dragonpit, which had already been scorched, so he knew what a dragon meant.

The remaining few mercenaries on watch knelt as well, though they were not as pious as Gendry.

As people from Essos, the mercenaries' awe of dragons was far less than that of the Westerosi.

Arthur ordered them to rise and then get back to their business.

The next day, basically everyone knew about the birth of the black hatchling, which suddenly made Arthur's image become mysterious.

Qyburn naturally did not get the royal corpse he wanted, because Joffrey's body had been burned to ash, not even leaving large pieces of bone.

Most of the people in the party were discussing the birth of the hatchling; of course, the way they looked at Arthur was just as fervent as how they looked at the hatchling.

Bracken did not pay attention to the fervent gazes of this group of people; after ordering the traces of the fire sacrifice to be cleaned up, he took the entire party, Alduin, and the remaining six dragon eggs north.

He ordered the death of Qiaodadi and the origin of the dragon to be kept strictly confidential.

During the process of hatching the dragon, basically no outsiders participated, which allowed this matter to circulate only among this group of people for the time being.

As for Joffrey's death, Arthur's story was that Qiaodadi had thought of escaping at night, but ran into the Kingswood and was gored to death by a group of wild boars.

After another dozen days of riding, the group finally arrived near the Blackwater River.

Here, Arthur learned about the latest situation on the continent.

Stimulated by the North-Riverlands Coalition besieging King's Landing, Stannis took over a hundred longships south, defeated part of the Redwyne fleet along the way, and reached Shipbreaker Bay, preparing to besiege Storm's End.

As for the West-Riverlands front, Robb first sent out several small groups of decoys outside Golden Tooth, which made the defending Jaime extremely irritable, so he led his troops out of the city to pursue the small Northern units, only to fall right into an encirclement.

Jaime was captured again.

Afterward, Robb took hostages to Golden Tooth to demand a surrender, but was refused by the defenders, so the Young Wolf led his troops through a path discovered by his direwolf to invade the Westerlands and marched straight toward Lannisport.

The interception battle organized by Edmure did not have much effect; Tywin's army crossed the Red Fork very smoothly and then pursued them to Golden Tooth.

In order to force Robb's army to retreat to the West-Riverlands to fight the Westerlands army, Taiwen Laoye subsequently sent out a large number of small units to execute a "scorched earth policy," which made the farmers of the West-Riverlands suffer immensely.

The Fish-Wolf Alliance's response was to let the ten thousand-plus people on the East Xian continue westward to fight the small units of the Lion House in the West-Riverlands.

On the battlefields of the Riverlands and the Westerlands, the Fish-Wolf Alliance was temporarily in the upper hand, but the situation in the North was very worrying.

When Robb was crowned in Riverrun, he had sent Theon Greyjoy to the Iron Islands to bring reinforcements.

Theon was the only living son of the Iron Islands' leader, King Balon; with no hostages left in the North, King Balon dispatched most of the Ironborn to invade Moat Cailin, and in order to make his father accept him, Theon performed even more actively, personally leading men deep into the heart of the North and capturing Deepwood Motte and Torrhen's Square.

This caused a considerable number of Northern soldiers to start feeling homesick, and military morale became slightly unstable.

On the Southern front, Renly, stationed at Bitterbridge, had already learned of the disastrous defeat at Shipbreaker Bay, so he led an advance force of nearly twenty thousand cavalry eastward, preparing to rescue Storm's End.

Of course, the most miserable one was Cersei in King's Landing; it was said that she had been driven nearly mad by the disappearance of Joffrey I, and her curses and roars could be heard in the Red Keep all day long.

Yet, there was no news of her son among the "rebels," the Crownlands, or the Riverlands.

Arthur was not a heartless person, so he sent two mercenaries to King's Landing to announce the news of Joffrey's death, so that Cersei could end her hope of her son returning.

"Just say he was gored to death by wild boars while trying to escape, and let Cersei pin Joffrey's death on me, so she doesn't trouble the House Stark people."

Legend had it that after the late King Robert was severely injured by a wild boar and died, Cersei became extremely fond of eating wild boar meat. Now that she heard her eldest son was also gored to death by a wild boar, one wonders what she would think.

Once the King's Landing side knew the news of Joffrey's death, they would inevitably crown Tommen as king.

Then the two brothers of House Baratheon would continue to fight the King's Landing side for the Iron Throne.

In over ten days, Alduin had grown twice as large; although it could not yet breathe fire, Arthur had already learned the pronunciation for fire in High Valyrian.

"Dracarys!"

Although Tyrion Lannister was still in King's Landing, without the coalition as his backing, Arthur did not want to take such a small number of people to fight four or five thousand Gold Cloaks, so after crossing the Blackwater River, he led his men north to Harrenhal.

Only when he got there could he plan what to do next.

Ten days later, Harrenhal.

This castle was not much different from when he left nearly two months ago, except for the addition of some Northern soldiers.

"Open the gates quickly, the new Earl of Stone Hedge has returned," the guard at the gate shouted.

Arthur, who was leading, was confused by this form of address.

He did not remember ever having such a title!

Only after entering the Hall of a Hundred Hearths and seeing Sansa Stark, Herman Tallhart, Robett Glover, and the others stationed there, did he understand what it was all about.

(End of chapter)