In the world where Arthur lives, magic is rare, but it is not absent.
Not to mention the distant ones, among the group of mercenaries around him, there are more than a dozen people wearing bronze plate armor with magic runes.
Generally speaking, the magic of the whole world can be divided into blood magic, water magic, shadow magic, fire magic, and special abilities such as "Aliens" and "Green Prophet" among the ancestors.
The most famous blood magic is that Daenerys, the mother of dragons, used the three lives of the horse king, the witch, and the child in her belly to give three dragon eggs the inner soul, and hatched three dragons from these dragon egg fossils.
The more famous shadow magic is that the witch Melisandre of the Lord of Light in the original book used the shadow of Stannis to kill Renly and Cortanay Penrose, the acting lord of Storm's End.
Of course, the Lord of Light also has other magical abilities such as resurrection, prophecy in fire, and burning swords.
Water magic is exclusive to the Rhoynar. The last time it appeared was when the Rhoynar were driven to Dorne by the Valyrians, and the surviving leader Nymeria materialized several oases.
Aliens and greenseers are the most common magical means. It is said that only one alien appears in a thousand ancestors, and one greenseer appears in a thousand aliens. The so-called aliens are able to easily enter the consciousness of animals and then control their actions.
Among the six young people of the Wolf family, Robb, Jon, Bran, Arya, and Rickon all have the ability of aliens, which shows the strength of the Stark family bloodline.
Arthur guessed that this may be related to the fact that Eddard's father Rickard married a Stark and strengthened the bloodline of the Wolf family.
Where there is magic, there are naturally magical creatures.
White Walkers, children of the forest and dragons are relatively common magical creatures.
As far as Arthur knows, the White Walkers are transformed from living people. The owner of Craster's Fortress north of the Wall sacrificed his sons to the White Walkers.
Considering that Craster himself was born to a Stark Ranger and a wildling, and that Craster married his daughters, many of the White Walkers are Starks.
The Children of the Forest lived on this land before the ancestors conquered Westeros, so the origin of dragons is very mysterious.
One theory is that magical creatures are not naturally produced, and they need to be born by casting magic on the prototype creatures.
In Sothoryos, there is a dragon-like creature called the Long Winged Dragon, which is smaller than the Valyrian dragon and does not breathe fire. A monk of Bath believes that dragons were created by Valyrian blood wizards using long-winged dragons.
Of course, there are other theories about the origin of dragons.
It was also this monk of Bath who recorded a legend of Asshai: a mysterious nation tamed dragons in the Shadow Land and then handed over the art of dragon taming to Valyria.
Some people also recorded that the Valyrians discovered dragons in the fourteen fire peaks of the circular peninsula and learned the art of dragon taming.
But this cannot explain why only the forty noble families of Valyria can ride dragons, and ordinary Valyrians are not treated favorably by dragons.
And according to some of the fertility of Maegor, the son of Aegon I, the dragon king family like Targaryen should have a big secret.
Maegor married six wives, three of whom were married to other people and one was a Pentos socialite. These four wives were good at giving birth, but after marrying Maegor, they could only give birth to lizard-shaped, half-dragon, half-human dead babies.
Although Maegor's childlessness was affected by the poisoning of Tiana, the Pentos socialite, the dead baby was lizard-shaped, which could not be caused by poison.
This is enough to show that the blood of the forty dragon king families is different from that of ordinary humans.
Let's get back to the point.
After picking the largest black dragon egg, Arthur ordered people to find a large number of branches, hay, firewood, etc. to form a circle, and then placed the black dragon egg and Emperor Joe in the center of the fire offering.
Of course, in order to ensure that the hatched dragon recognized his master, Arthur also deliberately cut his hand, and the blood dripped onto the black dragon egg.
Joffrey's mouth was blocked all the way, and he couldn't speak. He could only threaten and curse a few words when he rested and ate.
Now, no matter how unreasonable he was, he knew that it was a matter of life and death.
So he twisted his body desperately, and his tongue tried his best to push out the rag blocked in his mouth.
"Let me go, I can give you anything you want. I am the king, the guardian of the whole realm, and the master of the Iron Throne..."
"Forget it." Arthur ordered people to light the fire, "If you die, can't I take your things?"
Whoosh!
The hay first emitted black smoke, and then a red flame floated. The flames jumped towards the branches and firewood like a snake, and the latter began to burn.
Crackling!
Because this place is close to the Dorne Sea, there is a lot of moisture in the branches and firewood, which caused the fire offering pile to quickly rise up billowing black smoke, and Joffrey's figure was covered up.
"Ah~"
At dusk, in the thick smoke, this pure-blooded Lannister let out the most tragic scream since he was born.
More than 200 mercenaries were very interested in this scene and gathered in a circle to discuss it.
Their hometown of Qohor also often held fire sacrifice ceremonies, and they were very familiar with the blood magic that always failed.
"I think this master is doing the wrong thing. He should kill first and perform blood magic while the blood is hot."
"I don't know what it means to release dragon eggs? Does the master want to hatch a dragon?"
The maester Qyburn who came with him took out a small notebook, lay on a big stone and began to record.
Arthur brought him here because this person knew some Valyrian, so he was prepared.
"What are you recording?"
"My Lord." Qyburn wrote with his feather pen without raising his head, "I am recording the excavation of the dragon egg fossil and the burning of the king and the dragon egg together."
He actually wanted to use Joffrey for human experiments.
After all, not every maester has the opportunity to touch the king's body.
But now it seems that he can only get the charred remains of the king.
Arthur thought about it and decided to let Qyburn continue to record.
Among the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms, Hightower is the most sinister. The Citadel above his territory is secretly eliminating the traces of magic in this world.
Qyburn was born in the Citadel, but he is very interested in live experiments. Let him try this, maybe he can really discover some hidden truths.
The fire will have to burn for a long time. Arthur ordered the cooks in the team to start cooking dinner, and the whole team began to rest.
Late at night, after adding three or four more firewoods to the fire offering, a strange hissing sound came from the fire.
The dragon was finally hatched.
The fire offering was almost extinguished, and a black two-legged pterosaur slowly crawled out and moved towards Arthur.
This was a young dragon, about the size of a two-and-a-half-year-old hen. But the young dragon was obviously more aggressive than the hen.
Its body was neatly lined with small and sharp thorns, its legs ended with claws similar to those of hawks, and its tail was long and winding, with thorns at the end, which might grow barbs.
The red light coming out of the young dragon's eyes made people feel scared.
It is worth mentioning that the wings of this dragon were surprisingly large, which was disproportionate to its small body.
This means that it can bear more weight.
Maybe it can wear dragon armor after adulthood, thereby reducing the damage from weapons such as crossbows and javelins on the ground.
[Please name your magic pet]
The blue light screen appeared, reminding Arthur that it was time to name it.
"Alduin."
Arthur input this name with his mind.
This is the name of a black dragon, and it is just right to name the young dragon hatched from a black dragon egg.
[Alduin (mounted pet) joins your team]
[Note: You can ride a dragon after your riding skill is greater than 10]
Arthur looked at this note and suddenly felt happy.
Since many character skills are not available for the time being, his skill points are all added to running, iron bones, and strong attack.
When the system is activated, there are three points of riding skills, and they have never been added.
And each upgrade has two skill points, and it takes at least four levels to add ten points.
Although the upgrade is a bit slow, as long as the requirement of riding skill greater than ten is met, he can ride a dragon. By then, Alduin must have grown up.
Arthur had worried that he might not be able to ride a dragon. After all, according to the worldview of Ice and Fire, only people with the bloodline of the forty dragon king families of Valyria can ride a dragon.
The conditions for riding a dragon without the bloodline of the dragon king are too harsh, and it costs life, which is not in his consideration.
Unexpectedly, the system gave him this cheat, so that he doesn't have to regret not being able to ride a dragon.
It was late at night, and only a few people saw the young dragon crawling onto Arthur, which greatly impacted their ideas.
The young man Gendry knelt down first and put his head on the ground. He was born in King's Landing, and naturally he had been to the charred dragon cave and knew what dragon meant.
The remaining mercenaries who were on night watch knelt down, but they were not as pious as Gendry.
As people from the continent of Essos, the mercenaries were far less awed by dragons than the people of Westeros.
Arthur ordered them to get up and do what they had to do.
…
The next day, basically everyone knew about the birth of the black young dragon, which made Arthur's image suddenly become mysterious.
Coben naturally did not get the king's corpse he wanted, because Joffrey's body was burned to slag, without even a large piece of bone.
Most people in the team were discussing the birth of the young dragon. Of course, they looked at Arthur with the same fiery eyes as they looked at the young dragon.
Bracken ignored the burning looks these people gave him. After ordering the fire sacrifice to be cleaned up, he led the entire team, Alduin and the remaining six dragon eggs northward.
He ordered that the death of King Joffrey and the origin of the dragon be kept strictly confidential.
There were basically no outsiders involved in the process of hatching dragons, which allowed the matter to be circulated only among this group of people for the time being.
As for Joffrey's death, Arthur said that King Joffrey wanted to escape at night, but ran into the Royal Forest and was killed by a group of wild boars.
After riding for more than ten days, the group finally arrived near the Blackwater River.
Here, Arthur learned about the latest situation on the continent.
Due to the stimulation of the North-River Alliance besieging King's Landing, Stannis led more than a hundred longships southward, defeated part of the Redwyne fleet along the way, and killed to Shipbreaker Bay, preparing to besiege Storm's End.
As for the West River, Robb first sent out several small groups of decoy troops outside the Golden Tooth, which made Jaime, who was guarding the city, very irritated. He then went out of the city to chase and kill the small group of Northern troops, but was surrounded.
Jaime was captured again.
Then Robb took the hostages to the Golden Tooth to persuade them to surrender, but was rejected by the defenders. So the Young Wolf led his troops to attack the Westerly through the path discovered by the direwolves, and went all the way to Lannister Port.
The interception organized by Edmure did not play a big role. Tywin's army successfully crossed the Red Fork River and then chased to the Golden Tooth.
In order to make Robb's army withdraw to the West River to fight against the Westerly Army, Lord Tywin subsequently sent a large number of small troops to implement the "scorched earth policy", which made the farmers in the West River miserable.
The response of the Wolf and Meat Alliance was to let more than 10,000 people on the eastern front continue to move westward to fight against the small troops of the Lion Family in the West River.
On the battlefields of the River and the Westerly, the Wolf and Meat Alliance was temporarily in the upper hand, but the North was very worrying.
When Robb became king in Riverrun, he sent Theon Greyjoy to the Iron Islands for reinforcements.
Theon was the only living son of King Balon, the leader of the Iron Islands. After the North had no hostages, King Balon sent most of the Ironmen to invade the Moat Cailin. In order to make his father accept him, Theon was more active and personally led people deep into the heart of the North to capture Deepwood Motte and Torrhen's Square.
This made quite a number of Northern soldiers begin to miss their homes, and the morale of the army was slightly unstable.
In the south, Renly, who was stationed at Bitterbridge, had learned of the disastrous defeat at Shipwreck Bay, so he led a cavalry advance force of nearly 20,000 to the east to rescue Storm's End.
Of course, the worst was Cersei in King's Landing. It was said that she was almost driven crazy by the disappearance of Joffrey I. Her curses and roars could be heard all day in the Red Castle.
Unfortunately, there was no news of her son in the "rebels", the crown territory, or the riverlands.
Arthur was not a cruel person. He sent two mercenaries to King's Landing to inform him of Joffrey's death so that Cersei would end her hope of her son's return.
"Just say that he was killed by a wild boar while escaping. Let Cersei remember Joffrey's death on my head and don't cause trouble for the wolf family."
It is said that after the former king Robert was seriously injured by a wild boar and died, Cersei loved to eat wild boar meat. Now she heard that her eldest son was also killed by a wild boar. I wonder what she thinks.
After King's Landing learned of Joffrey's death, it would certainly make Tommen the king again.
Then the two brothers of the Deer family continued to fight with King's Landing for the Iron Throne.
In a dozen days, Alduin had doubled in size. Although it could not spit out flames, Arthur had learned the pronunciation of flames in High Valyrian.
"Dracarys!"
Although there were still little demons in King's Landing, without the coalition as a thigh, Arthur did not want to take such a small number of people to fight with four or five thousand gold cloaks, so after crossing the Blackwater River, he led his men north to Harrenhal.
Once there, he could plan what to do next.
...
Ten days later, Harrenhal.
This castle was not much different from when I left almost two months ago, except that there were more northern soldiers.
"Open the door quickly, the new Earl of Stonehedge is back." The soldiers guarding the city shouted.
Arthur, the leader, was confused by this title.
He didn't remember having this title!
Only when he entered the Hall of a Hundred Hearths and met Sansa Stark, Helman Tallhart, Robert Glover and others stationed there did he understand what was going on.