[175] A Dragonking’s Reign

Chapter 175: A Dragonking's Reign

—

They called it the Dragon's Peace.

A decade of prosperity built on the ashes of my enemies. Peace, I learned, was not the absence of conflict, but the absolute certainty of its outcome. My outcome.

The world had learned the price of defiance in Braavos, and in the frozen wasteland where the Night King's memory was now buried under green grass. The lesson was simple. The dragon had won.

Now, the world learned to live with its new ruler.

Ten years have passed. A heartbeat to one who'd touched the Dragon Icon, but enough time for kingdoms to transform under my rule. My empire sprawled across continents, my domains overseen by queens who'd proven themselves worthy of my trust and power.

Margaery ruled the West with a merchant's cunning and a politician's smile. She’d turned the Six Kingdoms – for only Dorne retained its ‘sovereignty’ – had been transformed into an economic engine that rivaled the glory of Old Valyria. Under her stewardship, gold flowed like rivers, and with it came influence that even dragonfire couldn't match.

Where I conquered with flame, she conquered with ledgers and trade agreements.

Arianne claimed the South sitting at Dorne. Her court was interesting, a fusion of Dornish fire and Essosi intrigue. From her glittering new capital in the Stepstones, she controlled the sea lanes that connected East and West. Pirates who once plagued those waters now sailed under her banner, taxing trade rather than plundering it.

She’d also picked up a hobby from Ros. Arianne’s spies reached every corner of the known world, their whispers flowing back to her like tributaries to a mighty river. I appreciated having two different sources.

Daenerys remained in the East. By now, she’d become something between goddess and queen to the people of Slaver's Bay – now called Dragon's Bay. Very fittingly. The tales of her exploits grew with each telling, until even I wasn't certain where truth ended and myth began. They said she could transform into a dragon at will, that her gaze could turn men to ash. Not entirely false, but the reality was far more terrifying than the stories.

And Sansa, who might not seem impressive in many eyes, had turned the misery of King's Landing into something approaching paradise. I was happy. The smallfolk whispered her name like a prayer.

While the others were Queens who wielded authority and influence, Sansa was like a goddess of mercy who walked among the commonfolk in simple clothes, her red hair blazing a beacon of hope in the squalid streets. Be it orphanages, hospitals, and schools, Sansa Stark built them all, cementing my dynasty's foundation in love as much as fear.

It made me happy. For conquest could only claim, not control.

But conquest is a dragon's nature.

Peace – even the peace I'd imposed through fire and blood – felt like a cage for a creature born to burn and claim. And in the far east, another ancient power sat on a throne of jade, watching, waiting. The God-Emperor of Yi Ti. The last piece on the board.

“So here we are.”

I'd known this day would come from the moment I took the Iron Throne. Two great powers cannot share the world forever. One must inevitably consume the other.

The wind tore at my hair as I soared through the skies above Yin, capital of the Golden Empire. Below, the most ancient and sophisticated city in the known world burned.

The war had been raging for months – a blink in the eye of these immortal opponents that was I and the God-Emperor. Yi Ti had been preparing for my coming since the day the Night King fell. Ten years they'd spent gathering power, honing ancient magics, and building defenses against dragonfire. Their golden armies, a million strong, had stood firm against my forces.

Until I arrived.

My Viserion along with the other two dragons led by Dany turned the tide of the battle. Flames and roars sounded all around me, but after a while, I left the mundane battle to rise into the sky.

From this height, the city of Yin resembled nothing so much as a colossal jade mandala laid upon the earth. Concentric rings of white stone walls divided the city into perfect circles, every one of them represented a different level of access to the God-Emperor himself.

The innermost ring, a fortress of pale jade so perfectly fitted that not even water could seep between its stones, housed the Jade Throne.

And upon that throne sat the being who'd challenged my right to rule.

The air fractured around me as a blast of emerald energy tore through reality itself. I twisted, barely avoiding the attack as it punched through clouds behind me, creating a perfect circle of empty sky.

"We? No. It’s just me. Your reign ends today, Dragon King," a voice like grinding mountains spoke directly into my mind. "You are but a passing storm. I am eternity."

The God-Emperor floated before me, his form both impossibly ancient and eternally young. His body, clad in jade-scaled armor, rippled with power that bent light around him. The veil of green pearls that obscured his face shifted with his movement, creating odd patterns.

I laughed, the sound echoing across the heavens.

"If you truly were eternal, you wouldn't fear me for ten years.”

With a thought, I called forth power from the [Dragon Icon] that pulsed above my head. Spectral dragon heads materialized behind me, covering the entire sky. Dozens of ghostly wyrms, all bearing names from legends, materialized around me. Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar were among them. The mounts of my ancestors answered my call, their transparent forms gleaming with golden fire.

"I do not fear you," the God-Emperor replied. "I simply recognize that two suns cannot share the same sky."

He raised his hands, jade rings glowing on each finger, and tore open the fabric of reality. From the rifts emerged warriors formed of pure jade, their faces masks of perfect serenity as they charged toward my spectral dragons. The collision sent shockwaves across the sky, shattering clouds and creating ripples in the air itself.

I didn't waste time watching the battle of our summoned forces. Instead, I launched myself directly at the God-Emperor, my fist wreathed in dragonfire so hot it burned blue.

He caught my punch with one jade-covered palm, the impact creating a thunderclap that shattered windows throughout the city below. For a moment, we hovered there, locked in a contest of raw strength that threatened to tear apart the sky itself.

"You've come far, little dragon," he said, his voice now audible rather than telepathic. "I recall your story. Such a fun tale. From the beggar prince to the conqueror of the West. But Yi Ti was ancient when Valyria was young. Our magics were old when your ancestors were still shepherds."

"And yet," I grinned through the strain, "here I am, making you fight for your life."

I channeled more power through my arm, drawing on the Dragon Icon's limitless energy. But while the Icon was limitless, I wasn’t. It was like trying to carry an ocean in a pot. Of course, my body cracked. My stamina drained fast, as did my mana. The air between us began to warp from the heat, reality itself protesting the forces we were unleashing.

The God-Emperor's veil of pearls shifted, revealing glimpses of a face that had watched millennia pass like seasons. "You know nothing of life or death, child of summer. I have died a thousand times and returned. What is one more death to me?"

With that, he released a pulse of jade energy that sent me hurtling backward.

I crashed through three of Yin's massive walls before regaining control, every impact powerful enough to level a castle. Below me, civilians fled in terror as stone and dust rained down on ancient streets.

I wiped blood from my mouth, tasting copper and something else – something ancient and powerful that lingered in the air of Yi Ti itself. This was old magic, power drawn from the very bones of the earth rather than from fire and blood.

"Is that why you hide behind those walls?" I shouted, rising back into the sky. "Why you've never expanded beyond your borders? You call yourself eternal, but you're just stagnant."

The God-Emperor did not respond with words.

Instead, he waved his hand. The sky itself seemed to fold around him as he manipulated space, appearing directly before me in an instant. His fist, now the size of a wagon, slammed into my chest with the force of a falling star.

The impact drove me down through the palace district, through layers of stone and earth, until I found myself in darkness. Ancient catacombs, I realized, where generations of God-Emperors had been interred. Their jade sarcophagi glowed with faint inner light, illuminating my impromptu tomb.

Just where I wanted to be.

I laughed, despite the pain. Blood poured from wounds that would have killed any mortal man a dozen times over. But I was no longer mortal – hadn't been since I'd claimed the Dragon Icon. But neither is my enemy.

The God-Emperor was powerful beyond measure. He could be compared to a God in mortal flesh, and the main difference between him and a God was that he truly was a mortal. According to Ros and Arianne’s intelligence, his immortality had a secret.

My crashing into this exact spot had been part of my plan.

"So the rumors are true. I see why you're so confident," I called up through the massive hole my body had created. "You’re not truly immortal, you just switch bodies with a young prince. Your power comes from them. From your predecessors."

I placed my palm against one of the sarcophagi, feeling the ancient magic pulsing within. These weren't just burial chambers. They were batteries, storing the accumulated power of three thousand years of God-Emperors.

Well, that wouldn't do at all.

I channeled dragonfire through my hand, not the ordinary flames that had reduced the Wall to a river of ice, but the purifying fire that had consumed the Night King himself. The sarcophagus cracked, then shattered, releasing a wail of anguish that echoed through the catacombs.

Above, I heard the God-Emperor's roar of fury. The ground trembled as he descended toward me, tearing through stone and earth in his haste.

Perfect.

I touched another sarcophagus, then another, destroying them in rapid succession. Each released more anguished wails, more power that dissipated into the air rather than flowing back to the current God-Emperor.

By the time he reached me, I'd destroyed dozens. His jade mask had fallen away entirely now, revealing a face contorted with rage and – yes – fear.

"You fool!" he howled, the sound causing the remaining sarcophagi to vibrate. "You've doomed us all! Without their power, the barriers fall!"

"Barriers?" I raised an eyebrow, curious despite the battle rage coursing through me.

"Beyond the eastern sea," he hissed. "Things older than gods or men. Things that hunger. For three thousand years, we have held them back. For what? So that upstarts like you could conquer and rule the scraps we protected?"

I considered his words for a moment. They might even be true. But I'd faced the Night King, the embodiment of winter itself. Whatever lurked beyond the eastern sea couldn't be worse than the endless night.

Besides, I was planning to conquer the entire planet. Not just this little land.

"If I’m not strong enough," I said calmly, "I'll build new barriers. Stronger ones. Forged in dragonfire rather than jade and tradition."

The God-Emperor screamed in wordless rage and lunged at me, his form shifting and growing until he resembled a colossal jade dragon, serpentine in shape. His jaws, large enough to swallow a horse whole, snapped at me as his claws tore through the stone floor.

Ultimately, dragons ruled the world one way or another. Why does he look so much cooler than me? What a pity. I’d always loved the Easter Dragon shape.

But I was done playing games.

I'd learned what I needed from this encounter, the creatures beyond. There was no need to drag this any further. The God-Emperor, for all his power and age, was bound by fear. Fear of change, fear of what lay beyond his carefully maintained borders.

I rose into the air, the Dragon Icon pulsing above me as I ascended through the hole and back into open sky. The God-Emperor followed, his jade form gleaming in the sunlight as we soared above his burning capital.

"You had your time," I told him as we circled each other. "Three thousand years is a good run. But the age of jade is over. The age of dragons has begun."

I inhaled deeply, drawing power from the System, from the Dragon Icon, from every dragon that had ever lived on this planet, every spark of fire that had ever burned. The energy coalesced in my chest, building to levels that threatened to tear me apart from within.

The God-Emperor must have sensed what was coming. He charged, desperate to stop me before I could release the attack. But he was too late.

[Breath of Annihilation]!

What emerged from my mouth wasn't fire, at least not as most would recognize it. It was a beam of pure nothingness, a concentrated absence that devoured everything in its path. Where it touched the God-Emperor's jade form, the burning and melting was so strong and fast that it seemed like erasure, as if those parts had never existed at all.

The beam continued through him, through the Jade Throne behind him, through the palace and the mountain upon which it was built. When I finally closed my mouth, a perfect cylindrical void cut through the heart of Yin.

The God-Emperor, or what remained of him, fell. His jade form crumbled as it descended, until nothing but dust reached the ground.

[You have slain the Lone God-Emperor of Yi Ti!]

[Incredible amount of experience points…!]

[You have reached Level 500!]

[Achievement Unlocked: The One True King.]

I hovered above the silent, kneeling city, watching as the dust that had once been the immortal ruler of the world's oldest empire settled on ancient stones. A laugh bubbled up in my chest, a sound that shook the heavens themselves.

Ten years. A heartbeat. I had conquered the rest of the known world.

The Beggar King was a god in all but name, and his hunger was limitless. But even gods must deal with the ghosts of their past.

As I descended toward the palace to claim my newest conquest – where the Emperor’s wives and wealth awaited – my thoughts turned to the God-Emperor's final words. Beyond the eastern sea, he'd said. Things older than gods or men.

Perhaps my conquest wasn't complete after all. Perhaps there were still worlds to burn, powers to claim beyond the maps of known lands.

The Dragon Icon pulsed above me, responding to my thoughts with a hunger that matched my own. It seemed I wasn't the only one curious about what lay beyond.

Let them come, these ancient horrors. Let them test themselves against dragonfire. Let them kneel or burn like all the rest.

After all, what was a god without worshippers? And what was a dragon without something to consume?

****

Ah, how fun those times were. Full of fire and vigor.

How nostalgic. Has it already been that long…?

“Even conquest becomes routine after a while.”

First, you covet. Then you scheme. Then you burn. After enough cycles, the thrill fades like a lover's touch grown familiar. Victory tastes sweeter when it comes after struggle, after uncertainty. After the God-Emperor fell, there was no uncertainty left in the world. There was only me.

I stood on the balcony of my private wing in Kalyavar, the City of a Thousand Steps, watching the sun rise over a world that was, in all meaningful ways, mine.

Half a century had passed since I'd awakened in the body of Viserys Targaryen. Half a century of fire and blood and iron-willed purpose that had transformed a sniveling beggar prince into something beyond even gods.

Far below, the capital of the Saffron Realms sprawled in breathtaking perfection, carved into the face of a red basalt cliff. Spires of polished obsidian caught the dawn light, and waterfalls cascaded through hanging gardens that perfumed the air with sandalwood and marigold. The smallfolk moved through these spaces like blood through veins, their lives ordered and prosperous under my reign.

This was located in the Ulthos Continent. To summarize, this reminded me of the ancient Indian continent from my old world, amped by magic in this world.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

I didn't turn at the sound of Daenerys's voice. She moved to stand beside me, putting an arm around me. Her presence was a familiar comfort. After half a century together, we'd developed the easy silence of twins who'd shared a womb. In many ways, we were.

"It's efficient," I replied. "True beauty is what our queens build in our absence."

Dany's laugh was soft, almost musical. The years had not changed her physically. Yes, none of us who had tasted dragon's fire ever aged but they'd given her a poise that the frightened girl I'd once known could never have imagined.

"Always so practical, brother…" She bumped my shoulder with hers, a gesture from our childhood that had survived the transformation into godhood. "The reports from back home are troubling."

I raised an eyebrow. "More troubling than the last nine rebellions?"

"The Jade Remnants are a nuisance in the Grey Waste, as always. But Arianne's whispers speak of something new." Her tone grew serious. "The Phoenix Regent of Ulthos who’d fled us last time has declared our dragons blasphemy. Stolen fire to be reclaimed, he says. His Saffron Banners are gathering, and they've made pacts with the shadow-binders of Asshai. Things might get troublesome."

"Asshai, huh…? Let them gather," I said with a dismissive wave. "They'll burn like all the others."

But even as I spoke, I felt something unfamiliar stir within me.

Not fear, of course. I'd forgotten that emotion around the time I'd slain the Night King. No, this was something more insidious.

Boredom.

When you've conquered everything, defeated everyone, what remains? When you've bent reality to your will and reshaped continents according to your whims, what challenge can possibly remain?

"You're brooding again," Daenerys observed, her violet eyes – identical to my own – seeing through my mask of indifference. "What troubles the Dragon King?"

I considered lying to her. Half a century of rule had made deception as natural as breathing. But this was Dany. My sister. My twin flame.

"Conquest breeds resistance," I said finally. "It's the natural order of things. The stronger I become, the more determined my enemies grow. But my greatest challenge didn't come from foreign emperors or ancient magics."

"The True Flame," she murmured.

I nodded, remembering a rebellion that had nearly toppled the Lannister regime before I’d intervened. "The embers of a house I thought extinguished."

****

I flew back to King’s Landing, enjoying the sight of my prosperous city. King's Landing sprawled in geometric perfection. Gone were the filthy, cramped streets I'd inherited. In their place stood broad avenues lined with white stone, public fountains that never ran dry, and buildings that soared toward the heavens.

The smallfolk moved through these spaces like blood through veins, their lives ordered and prosperous under my reign.

My mood was soured when I received the emergency reports. Months ago, I'd dismissed the first reports as insignificant and honestly stupid. Now, things were different as all the news had been confirmed.

Selyse Baratheon, the widow of the usurper Stannis, had escaped Dragonstone with her daughter Shireen and the Red Priestess Melisandre half a century ago. They were back.

They'd fled from Dragonstone to Asshai, the ancient magical realm with twisted shadows and whispering veils. There, they'd begun gathering followers.

Now they called themselves the True Flame, a rebellion born of grief and twisted faith. Under normal circumstances, I would have sent Viserion to reduce their little cult to ashes and be done with it. But these were not normal circumstances.

Shireen Baratheon's greyscale, that curse of stone that had once marred half her face, had spread – not as a disease, but as a weapon. Melisandre had weaponized it through blood magic, transforming the curse into a blessing. The girl could now willingly pass her condition to others, creating soldiers whose flesh turned to stone, making them immune to dragonfire.

I learned this the hard way when they led their first assault on Dragonstone.

The sky above the volcanic island was clear that day, perfect for a dragon's attack. I rode Viserion, her golden scales gleaming in the sunlight as we circled the ancient fortress. Below, I could see them gathering – hundreds of grey figures arranged in formation around the castle. Stone soldiers, waiting for my flame.

"Let's remind them who rules here," I told Viserion, patting her massive neck.

She didn't need further encouragement. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the island, she unleashed a torrent of golden flame upon the assembled army. I expected screams… and I expected the familiar scent of burning flesh and the satisfaction of watching my enemies reduced to ash.

Instead, the flames washed over them like water over stone, leaving them untouched.

I almost admired their strategy. They'd found the one thing in all the world that could resist dragonfire. And they'd built an army of it.

The stone soldiers launched massive ballista bolts coated in some dark substance that hissed when it cut through the air. One grazed Viserion's wing, and to my shock, she screamed in pain. The wound smoked, as if the bolt had been dipped in something caustic to dragons.

"Higher," I commanded, pulling back on her scales to guide her up and away from the attack. "We need to rethink this."

Of course, at my current level, with both my strength and magic, I could drop down and eliminate them easily. However, I didn’t want to dirty my hands today. I was feeling lethargic.

As we gained altitude, a figure emerged from the castle's highest tower. Even from this distance, I recognized the flash of red hair catching the sunlight. It was a Red Priestess. Melisandre stood with her arms raised, her voice carrying unnaturally across the distance.

"The night is dark and full of terrors," she called. "But the fire burns them all away."

The air around her shimmered with heat, and then, impossibly, flames erupted from her palms. Not ordinary flames, but serpents of living fire that coiled and twisted through the air, reaching for us with malevolent intent.

"Hmm, that looks troublesome. Anything Divine is troublesome. Dodge," I said, unnecessary as Viserion was already banking hard to avoid the fire snakes.

One caught her tail, and she shrieked in pain again.

I scowled. This couldn’t be normal fire. Viserys wasn’t a normal dragon, even. This was something older, something that predated even dragons. This was R'hllor's fire, wielded by a priestess who had found true power in her faith.

I'd underestimated them. A mistake I would not make again.

I didn’t want to take the risk of that fire touching me. So we retreated that day, Viserion's golden scales scorched black in places. For the first time in decades, I had encountered an enemy I couldn't simply overwhelm with raw power. It felt good.

Back in King's Landing, I called a council of war. My queens gathered around the painted table, each bringing their unique perspective to the problem.

"They have settled in Dragonstone. How bold and stupid. Let’s cut off their supplies," Margaery suggested, ever the pragmatist. "Dragonstone is an island. They can't feed themselves indefinitely."

"They don't need to," Arianne countered. "My spies report they've been infiltrating the mainland for months. Stone soldiers don't eat, don't sleep, don't tire. They're creating more every day, spreading through the Crownlands like a plague."

"Then we fight fire with fire," Yara said, her eyes gleaming with the prospect of battle. "If dragonfire won't work, we find another way to break stone."

Sansa, who had been quiet until now, finally spoke. "We need to understand their power before we can counter it. This isn't just about Melisandre's magic or Shireen's greyscale. They've found a way to combine the two, to create something new."

"Something that can hurt dragons," I agreed. "Which makes it the most dangerous threat we've faced since the God-Emperor. Perhaps even the Night King."

I turned to the one person who might understand what we were facing, the one who had studied the Red God's mysteries longer than any of them.

"Kinvara," I said. "What do you know of this magic?"

My High Priestess stepped forward, her red robes rustling softly. She had been with me since the beginning, since before I had claimed the Iron Throne. Her loyalty had never wavered, her counsel never failed.

Until that moment.

"The Lord of Light works through many vessels," she said carefully. "Melisandre has always been powerful, but this... this suggests R'hllor has granted her special favor."

"Why would your god favor my enemies?" I demanded.

Kinvara didn't meet my eyes. She lowered her head in shame, watching her nails. "The Lord's ways are mysterious. Perhaps... perhaps she has shown greater faith."

I dismissed the council after that, though I kept Kinvara behind. Something in her hesitation, in her careful choice of words, had awakened suspicion in me.

"You're not telling me everything," I said once we were alone.

"My king…"

"Don't," I cut her off. "We're long past such formalities. Tell me what troubles you, Kinvara. What do you see in your flames that you're afraid to share?"

She seemed to wage an internal battle, her face a mask of conflicting loyalties. Finally, she spoke. "I see two paths," she whispered. "Two chosen ones. Two potential saviors."

"And I'm only one of them," I finished for her.

She nodded, unable to speak the betrayal aloud.

"Shireen," I guessed. "The girl with stone in her veins."

"Fire and stone," Kinvara said, her voice strengthening. "Both children of R'hllor in their way. Both with the power to reshape the world."

I studied her, this woman who had been my very first faithful servant and, at one point, my most trusted advisor. "And you're not sure which of us will triumph."

It wasn't a question.

"The flames show only possibilities," she said. "I serve the one true god, and his will–"

"His will is written in fire," I interrupted. "And I am fire made flesh. Or have you forgotten?"

She smiled at the harshness in my voice. "Never, my king. But the girl... there's something about her. The way the greyscale has changed, the way it resists even dragonfire. It suggests divine favor."

I stepped closer, my height allowing me to tower over her. "So you've been hedging your bets. Playing both sides to ensure you're always serving the victor. I see. No wonder Ros’ spies missed the infiltration."

Kinvara didn't deny it. Her silence was admission enough.

"I am disappointed, Kinvara," I said quietly. "Not because you've questioned my divinity. Not even because you've considered that I might fall. But because you lacked the courage to tell me so to my face. Did you fear I’d kill you?"

“I wouldn’t die even if you kill me, my king.”

“How lovely of you to still refer to me with such adoration,” I muttered. This woman was a complex machine. She was loyal to me, that was for sure, but she was also faithful to her God. And she hoped, with all her heart, that whatever game her God was playing, I’d come victorious in it.

Only because I knew her thought process did I not kill her on the spot.

“It’s alright, my dearest priestess,” I caught her chin with my hand, forcing her to meet my gaze. "You will tell me everything. Every vision, every doubt, every communication you've had with them. And then you will help me destroy this rebellion from the inside."

"...And if I refuse?" she asked, a hint of her old fire returning.

I smiled, letting a hint of the dragon show through my human mask. "You won’t be. For tonight, I will show you a truer god than the one you've spent your life serving."

Kinvara could only bite her lip and moan as I threw her into the bed. Perhaps a part of her complied with the rebellion to make me angry so that I would take my anger out on her in this manner. Who knows?

****

Kinvara vanished in the morning. She told me a lot during the night, but somehow, she managed to slip out of the room by the time I woke up. How had she avoided my senses…?

Despite all the information she shared, it took weeks to unravel the full extent of Kinvara's deception. She had been in contact with Melisandre for months, sharing visions, comparing interpretations of their god's will.

In her defense, she had never actively betrayed me – she hadn't shared my plans or weaknesses – but her faith had wavered. She had begun to see Shireen as a possible alternative, a different path to the same glorious future.

I found her in the catacombs beneath the Red Keep, kneeling before a brazier, her flames whispering secrets to a Shadow Child that wore a stag's crown. It was a demonic creature, bound by that magic Kinvara was casting. The shadow of Stannis Baratheon, somehow preserved through blood magic and bound to Melisandre and his daughter's will.

Kinvara came here, without telling me, to stop it. She looked sickly. It must be an incredible pull on her existence to suppress this creature.

"I wondered how long it would take you to find me," Kinvara said without turning, panting a little. "The flames warned me this moment would come."

"Did they show you what happens next?" I asked.

She rose slowly, hands still extended toward the creature to keep the binding active. She faced me with dignity despite the tears that glimmered in her eyes. "Yes. They showed me fire. They always show fire. But whether it consumes me or transforms me... that was unclear."

I approached the brazier, looking into the flames that had guided her for so long. "Your faith has become a weakness by now, Kinvara. You still seek guidance from forces beyond yourself instead of trusting your own power. Instead of trusting me. Do you genuinely believe this creature poses a threat to me?"

I asked, and she didn’t say anything. My eyes locked with the Shadow’s. From violet, they became golden. The air began to sizzle. Superheated plasma blasted out of my eyes, blasting into the skull of the creature and dissipating it into thin air.

[You’ve slain a Wicked Shadow Child.]

Kinvara let out a breath. She let her arms rest, swaying until she fell to her knees. I didn’t hold her. I watched her struggle as she stood back up.

"Faith is strength…" she countered. "It gives purpose to power."

"Then let me show you a new purpose. I know you want me to."

I extended my hand, not to strike but to offer. She hesitated, torn between her centuries of devotion to R'hllor and her loyalty to me.

"I don’t see visions in flames. But I've seen how this rebellion ends," I told her. "I've seen how all rebellions end. Fire consumes all, eventually. The only choice is whether you burn or whether you become the flame."

Her hand trembled as she placed it in mine.

"Show me," she whispered.

And I did. I opened my Mana to her, watching her eyes widen. I allowed her to see what I had become – not just a king with a dragon, but something more fundamental. I showed her soul what it meant to touch the [Dragon Icon], what it meant to absorb the essence of mortal-gods, to transcend the limitations of flesh and blood.

I was fire incarnate, the principle of transformation itself. I showed her all.

Kinvara gasped, her eyes trembling as understanding flooded through her. "You… You're not his chosen one," she said in wonder. "You're his replacement."

"Aid me," I said simply. "Join me to end this rebellion. To save them. To show them a better god."

She knelt then, not in surrender but in genuine reverence. "My god," she admitted.

Stannis's crown waited on the ground as all of Kinvara's loyalty shifted irrevocably back to me. The flames in the brazier leaped higher, responding to her renewed faith – faith not in R'hllor, but in the Dragon King.

With Kinvara's help, dismantling the True Flame became a matter of patience rather than force. She returned to Dragonstone as my spy, feeding Melisandre and Shireen carefully crafted half-truths that led them into a trap of their own making.

She convinced them that their stone army needed to strike at King's Landing directly, that their moment of triumph was at hand.

When they came, we were ready. Not with dragonfire, which they could resist, but with something far more insidious. Glittering Fluid from the God-Emperor's sacred pools, a special kind of water that had absorbed the jade magic of Yi Ti over millennia. Water that, when touched by stone soldiers, caused their greyscale to crystallize and shatter.

The battle was brief and decisive.

I didn’t even have to step in myself.

The stone army crumbled before they reached the city walls. Selyse was captured trying to flee back to the ships. Shireen fought bravely, but in the end, her stone skin couldn't protect her when I intervened myself. She was a soft, delicious-looking girl, pretending to be all dark and gloomy with that bone crown and black hair covering one side of her face.

And Melisandre...

Melisandre stood her ground until the end, hurling serpents of fire at my forces, her faith never wavering even as defeat became inevitable. It was almost admirable.

I approached her myself after she'd been subdued, bound with chains of Valyrian steel that Kinvara had enchanted to suppress her magic.

"Your rebellion is finished," I told her. "Your army is dust. Your faith has failed you."

She laughed, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. "My faith is eternal. R'hllor's fire burns within me, even now."

"R'hllor," I repeated. "The Lord of Light. The God of Flame and Shadow. Grand titles." I leaned closer. "Did you ever wonder where gods come from, Melisandre? Did you ever question why they need priests and sacrifices and worship?"

Usually, such words from a tormentor wouldn’t get any reaction. But my [Authority] stat helped at times like this. It helped me influence people. Fear flickered in her eyes for the first time.

Not fear of me, but fear of the blasphemy I was suggesting.

"Gods exist because we believe in them," I continued. "They feed on faith. They grow stronger with each prayer, each sacrifice, each act of devotion. But what happens when that faith is redirected?"

I placed my hand on her forehead, and she gasped as heat flowed from me into her. Not burning heat, but something purer, more fundamental. Mana.

"I could kill you," I said softly. "I could have Viserion reduce you to ash. But there's a better way. A truer path."

Her resistance crumbled as my power flowed into her, rewriting the very essence of her faith. I showed her what I had shown Kinvara – the truth of what I had become, the reality that transcended her narrow understanding of divinity.

When I removed my hand, her eyes were different.

The fanaticism remained, but it had found a new focus.

"My god," she whispered, echoing Kinvara's revelation.

I smiled. "Your god. Your king. Your purpose. Aren’t I them all?"

And so the Red Witch and the Stag's Shadow became mine, their rebellion transformed into the most devout worship. I had to tame them properly first, these former enemies who had nearly unraveled everything I had built.

Selyse, Shireen, Melisandre. Each of them must be broken and remade in my image, so that they could serve as a constant reminder that faith was just another form of power. And all power, eventually, bowed to the dragon.

****

That night, I reclined on my throne-like bed, the royal chambers a cavern of shadow and flickering candlelight. Art depicting my conquests lined the walls, but my attention was on the living trophies before me.

The room was filled with sweet, euphoric moans. I was familiar with this music. But the singers of tonight’s song were new, and their tune was one of defiant surrender.

Red Priestess Melisandre lounged across a pile of crimson silks like some creature of living flame. Her red locks spilled over her shoulders in molten waves, catching the light, while her amber eyes burned with a hunger that mirrored my own.

Across from her, Shireen sat coiled in the dark. She’d been an innocent girl decades ago, now she looked like a predator at ease. Her eyes had changed from red to molten gold as I was actively suppressing her with my Mana. Even so, they carried a hint of madness, watching my every move.

Once, I think her hair was brown. Now it was black. Her hair draped around a face traced with pulsating red scars, a crown of black horns framing her head. The ugly scales covering her face were hidden under a cloth mask.

Between them, Selyse Baratheon knelt, rigid as a statue, her pride the only armor she had left. At least these ladies were strong-willed. Her thin lips were pressed into a line, her gaze fixed on one of the artworks as if she could will herself elsewhere.

And standing beside me, pouring wine with the serene grace of a goddess, was Kinvara. “Do you want more, my lord?”

She wore only a sheer red veil, the iconic ruby at her throat gone. She didn’t need that to retain her youth. For she’d chosen me. The others had been taken. The difference was everything.

"This much is good enough for now. It's a fine collection, isn't it?" I mused, taking the goblet from Kinvara. "The last embers of a house I thought extinguished."

Melisandre’s head snapped up. Her gaze, however, wasn't on me. It was on Kinvara. "I can’t believe this. You," she hissed, her voice like cracking embers. "Traitor. You abandoned the Lord of Light for this… this aberration."

Kinvara merely smiled, a peaceful pitying expression. "The Lord of Light showed me his face, Melisandre. And it was not the one you prayed to." She gestured to me. "The flames do not lie. I simply chose to follow the greater fire."

"Blasphemy!" Melisandre rose, her body humming with heat. "I know what you brought us three here for, and we don’t mind. We were prepared to face this fate. However, this doesn’t end here. You will burn for this. R'hllor will–"

"R'hllor is silent," I interrupted, my voice cutting through her fanaticism. "I am not."

I moved, faster than a human eye could track, and had her pinned against the wall, my hand around her throat. The heat radiating from her was pleasant, like standing before a hearth. Her amber eyes widened, not with fear, but with shock at my speed.

"Your god sent fire serpents against my dragons," I murmured, my lips brushing her ear. "A bold move. Tell me, priestess, does your god protect you now?"

Her hands came up to claw at my arm, her own magic flaring in defense. A wave of heat washed over me, enough to melt steel. I didn't even flinch. I simply absorbed it, my body feeding on the energy.

"You see?" I whispered, tightening my grip. "I am a dragon, and your fire is my food." I leaned in and bit her neck, hard enough to draw blood. She gasped, a sound of pain and something else, something she would never admit to. "You preach of a god who demands sacrifice. Let me show you what true sacrifice feels like."

I threw her onto the bed, her red gown tearing as she landed. Before she could recover, I was on her, my weight pinning her to the silks.

"You betrayed your god for a man who claims to be a god," Melisandre spat at Kinvara, who watched with detached interest. "You are a whore to a false idol!"

"Then let's make the blasphemy complete," I growled, ripping her gown open. Her body was magnificent, all pale curves and hidden fire. I took her without any further preamble, my cock slamming into her with the force of a battering ram.

She didn’t resist, her pride didn’t let her. She accepted the punishment that came with her loss. But she did scream, a raw sound of fury and violation that quickly turned into a gasp of shocked pleasure. Her magic flared around us, wild and uncontrolled, making the candles in the room burn higher.

"Yes, go and call him," I taunted, my rhythm punishing. "Let's see if your Lord of Light answers. Let him watch as I claim his most devout servant." I fisted her fiery hair, pulling her head back. "He is silent. But I am here. I am real. Who is your god now, Melisandre?"

Her answer was a choked sob as her orgasm crashed through her, her body convulsing around me. I fucked her through it, breaking not just her body, but the faith that had defined her entire existence.

When I was done, I left her trembling on the sheets and turned my attention to Selyse. The Baratheon queen had not moved, her face a mask of cold fury.

"You think to break me as you broke her?" she asked, her voice brittle. "I am Selyse of House Baratheon. I do not break."

"No?" I traced the line of her jaw with a single finger. She flinched but did not pull away. "You knelt to a god of fire. You watched your husband burn men alive for his ambition. Don't pretend you are a stranger to this kind of power, my dear. You simply chose the losing side."

I pushed her back onto the bed, next to the used, shocked, and still whimpering Melisandre. "You will learn to serve a true king. And you will beg for the privilege."

Her defiance lasted longer than Melisandre's faith. She had no reason to resist, but she remained rigid and silent as I stripped her, as I explored her body with a conqueror's possessiveness. But when my mouth found the flesh between her thighs, her iron will finally cracked. A strangled gasp escaped her lips, her hips bucking involuntarily.

"That's it," I murmured against her skin. "Show me the queen beneath the stone. Show me the woman who wants to be claimed."

How long could a widow resist, anyway? Even with Witch magic, it wasn’t long. By the time I entered her, she was weeping, her pride shattered into a thousand pieces. She clung to me, her body moving with a desperate hunger she had likely suppressed for years.

Finally, I turned to the last.

Shireen. She hadn't moved from her spot in the shadows, her golden eyes watching the proceedings with a terrifying, detached curiosity. The power I'd felt from her on Dragonstone was still there, coiled beneath her skin like a serpent.

"And what of you, little storm?" I got up from the bed, slowly walking forward while running a hand through my wet hair. "The girl with stone in her veins. Do you still think you can challenge me?"

To my surprise, she didn’t let me walk much. She began to crawl forward. Shireen glided to the bed, the shadows clinging to her like a cloak. She knelt before me, the horns of her crown grazing my thigh. "I have no god to betray," she said, her voice a low, melodic hum. "And my house is ash. I have nothing but the power you failed to take."

Does she have a plan?

I wouldn’t be surprised. In the last decades, many women had tried to end the lecherous dragon king by taking advantage of his lust. She had my good luck.

"Oh, I'll take it," I promised, my hand tangling in her black hair. "I will drink it from you. I will fill you with my own power until every last trace of your father's shadow is burned away. You will be my creature, my perfect weapon."

She smiled, a slow, unsettling curve of her lips. "Then take it, Dragon King. If you can."

Her challenge was the final spark. I pulled her onto the bed, into the tangle of limbs and broken wills. Soon her scales were glowing golden, healing under my care, though still cracked. My Mana overpowered her last-ditch effort, whatever spell it was, and she began to scream louder than Mel and her mother.

Only when I took her in front of the mirror, the room trembling with my thrusts, did she realize her face was getting fixed. Then she started truly enjoying the moment, for I was the man erasing her lifelong trauma.

Kinvara joined us at the very end, perhaps bored with her duty as observer. She moved in that seductive manner, her hands guiding the others, teaching them.

"This is how you serve a god," she murmured, positioning the gagging Melisandre to receive me again, this time from her knees. "Not with prayers, but with submission. Using your flesh."

I took them all, one after another, and then together. I broke them and remade them in my image. In the last half a century, the [Dragondick] had grown so powerful that it didn’t matter if the opponent was a witch or a goddess. Melisandre's faith, Selyse's pride, Shireen's power. All of it was consumed and reforged into a singular, unwavering purpose.

My ascension.

=== Page [⅓] ===

Viserys Targaryen

The Dragon King

75 Years Old

Level 670

Mana: 750/750

737 STR

745 END

776 DEX

990 INT

777 LUC

10550 AUTH

=== Page [⅓] ===

Kinvara was right. I did enjoy these games. Playing god with those who once defied me.

As I moved within Shireen, feeling her dark magic yield to my own, I addressed Kinvara, who was busy showing a still-dazed Selyse how to please a dragon properly.

"Is it a game if I've truly become divine?" I asked, my voice a low growl. "Is it playing god if godhood is simply what I am?"

Kinvara laughed, the sound cutting through the heavy atmosphere. "You haven't changed at all since the first day I met you. Still the same Viserys who awakened in a beggar prince's body, convinced the world owed him a throne."

"The world did owe me a throne," I corrected her, pulling Shireen into a punishing kiss. "It just didn't know it yet."

****

Weeks had passed since the True Flame was extinguished.

Melisandre, Selyse, and Shireen were now broken instruments in my orchestra of power, their wills reforged into tools of my ascension. With Kinvara's renewed, fanatical loyalty, my influence over the mystic arts also deepened. Things were looking better. The empire ran itself like a perfect machine humming along. But peace is an illusion for a creature of fire.

Arianne’s whispers spoke of new fires being lit on the horizon. These three Witches were not alone, of course. They had allies who grew cautious after their defeat.

The Jade Remnants in the Grey Waste had allied with shadow-binders from Asshai. In the uncharted continent of Ulthos, part of which already belonged to me, a so-called Phoenix Regent was gathering Saffron Banners, declaring my dragons blasphemy to be reclaimed. New enemies. New games.

But my mind was elsewhere.

It was in this suffocating quiet that the raven came from the North.

I stood on the highest balcony of the Red Keep when she arrived, and there was a real shift in the quality of the moonlight. Daenerys landed on the balustrade. She was a graceful, terrifying silhouette against the stars. Her violet eyes studied my face.

"Don’t be too relaxed, brother. This isn't the end," she said, her voice a soft melody that cut through the silence. "There are more enemies. And they won't be conquered by the bed." She moved to my side, her gaze following mine over the sleeping city. "Hmm… what’s wrong? Your expression is strange. Something beyond the rebellions is troubling you?"

I sighed, the sound a low rumble in my chest. "Even dragons must contend with time. Not their own, but the time of others."

Understanding dawned in her eyes. Not of a political threat, but of a fundamental, existential one. "Ah, I heard the news. Robb Stark," she whispered.

I nodded, the simple movement feeling impossibly heavy. "He died in his sleep. An old man, they called him. Surrounded by children and grandchildren who had never known a world not ruled by dragons." I turned to her, letting her see the hollowness that even I couldn't entirely conceal. "The first death was the hardest."

Robb had become a close friend, honestly. Arriane’s brother and father had long died, but I didn’t even feel anything when that happened. This one was different.

Dany’s expression softened with a shared, immortal grief. "The first one always is. The first time you realize what 'forever' truly costs."

****

The Great Hall of Winterfell was draped in black, the ancient stone walls seeming to absorb both light and sound.

I stood in the back, an unseen observer to the North's grief. Stark banners hung limply, the direwolf of their house seeming to mourn alongside its people.

Sansa knelt before the stone bier, her auburn hair now streaked with silver, though her face remained unlined. Her immortality was subtle, not the overwhelming power that Daenerys and I wielded, but a gentle suspension of time that kept her eternally in the autumn of her life rather than its winter.

Upon the bier lay Robb Stark, the last King in the North, his body arranged with dignity in death that matched the honor with which he had lived. His beard had grown white, his face lined with the wisdom of years, but even in death, there was strength in his features. He had died peacefully in his sleep, his long fulfilling life a gift to the pact we had made decades ago.

I watched Sansa weep, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Only at times like this could I not console my women. For a Dragonking could extend the lives of his mates, not of males. Around her gathered the lords of the North, many of the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of those who had followed Robb in his youth. They had known only peace in their lifetimes, had grown up in a North that prospered under Stark rule while acknowledging the ultimate authority of the Dragon King to the south.

I felt no grief. That was the strangest part. When the raven brought the news, I felt a little sad and thought it’d only increase when I saw my old friend’ dead body. But now that I was actually here… I felt a profound, chilling detachment, as if I were a mountain watching a river flow by.

Robb's life, his wars, his loves, his children – all of it now was just a paragraph in a history book that would grow ever longer as my reign continued.

The ceremony was brief, as was the northern way. No excessive speeches, no elaborate rituals. Just the quiet dignity of a people saying farewell to their Lord.

Afterward, I found myself on the battlements of Winterfell, the same place where I had once given Robb his ultimatum: kneel or watch his people perish. The snow fell softly around me, individual flakes melting before they could touch my naturally heated skin.

I expected Sansa to join me, to seek comfort in my presence as she had so many times before. Instead, it was Catelyn Stark who appeared beside me, her steps silent on the stone.

She had not aged a day since I had granted her the gift of immortality. No, she looked a lot younger. Over 100 years old now, there was a lot of gossip when people first noticed she wasn’t growing older but rather younger. However, how could anybody talk badly about the Dragon King?

Now her auburn hair was more vibrant than it had been the day I first met her, her blue eyes clearer, her skin smoother. She stood beside me, watching the snow fall over the godswood with an expression that mirrored my own detachment.

"He lived a good life," she said softly, her voice devoid of a mortal mother's grief.

"He did," I agreed. "The North prospered under his rule."

I still can’t believe Sansa asked me to do this herself. It was Sansa’s request. She’d come to me, a year after the Long Night. She requested that I grant her mother immortality. So I accepted it, even if it took a lot of seduction and pursuing to convince Catelyn Stark of all people.

Though not without cost. The price of immortality was separation from the natural cycle of life and death, a gradual distancing from mortal concerns and connections. I had watched it happen to all of them – my queens, my servants, even Sansa herself.

Only Daenerys and I had been spared that particular transformation, having never been fully human to begin with. We were Dragons, and we still are.

"Does it disturb you?" I asked Catelyn. "Watching your son die while you remain?"

She considered the question, her head tilting slightly. "It should," she admitted. "I did cry a lot. But once, it would have broken me. Now... I feel pride in what he accomplished. It’s strange and all your fault. I mostly just feel satisfaction in the dynasty he established. But grief?" She shook her head. "That belongs to those who still live within time's constraints."

Sansa joined us then, her face composed, though her eyes remained red from weeping. She didn’t talk for a good while. She stood on my other side, the three of us forming a triangle of immortality, looking out over a world of fleeting lives.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Sansa said, her voice barely audible over the wind. "At one point, I thought... I thought having forever meant never having to say goodbye."

"It's the opposite," Catelyn told her gently. "Having forever means saying goodbye is all we ever do."

Sansa surely realized that a long time ago. That was why she’d requested such a thing. I put my arm around her shoulders, drawing her against my side. She came willingly, seeking comfort that I wasn't sure I could provide. How do you console someone for the natural order of things? How do you ease the pain of a law as fundamental as gravity?

"The pack survives," Catelyn whispered, but the words had a new, colder meaning now. It wasn't about family, not anymore. It was about us. The ones who would endure when all others had returned to dust.

Sansa had begged me to make her mother immortal, but in the end, it had been Catelyn's choice too, made with clear eyes and full understanding of what it would mean. I had seduced her, yes, as I had seduced so many others who served me. But the end decision had been hers, just as the consequences were now hers to bear.

"How strange it is," Catelyn mused, "to outlive your children. To watch the world you knew fade into history. I wonder sometimes if this is how the Children of the Forest felt, watching the First Men build their kingdoms on the ashes of the world they'd known."

I had no answer for her. I had never known mortality the way she had. I had awakened in this world already marked for something greater, my path already diverging from the human experience. All thanks to the System.

"It gets easier, I’ll say," I said finally, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. "The detachment. The distance. In time, you'll watch civilizations rise and fall with the same equanimity with which you now watch the seasons change. Gods remain."

Sansa looked up at me, her Tully-blue eyes searching my face. "Just what did you see? Why can you… watch us grieve without feeling anything yourself?"

"I feel," I corrected her. "Just not the same things, or in the same way. I feel satisfaction in seeing the world I've built. Pride in how far we've come from the chaos I found upon awakening. Pleasure in the company of those who have chosen to walk this endless road alongside me."

It wasn't the answer she wanted, but it was the truth. Or as close to the truth as I could articulate, even to myself.

Sansa stared into my eyes for a bit and then rested her head on my chest. The three of us hugged in silence as darkness fell, the snow continuing its silent descent around us. Three immortal figures looking out over a world of fleeting lives, bound together not by love or even loyalty, but by the shared experience of existing outside time's natural flow.

The pack survives, indeed.

But what remains of the pack when its very nature has been fundamentally altered? What bonds hold when blood and time no longer have meaning?

These were questions for philosophers, not kings. And I had a world to rule.

****

The passage of time felt so strange. First it was Robb, and then a dozen more. It felt like yesterday, but it had been decades more.

It’d been about a century since I awakened in this world.

I ruled a lot more than before, but not all just yet. I was savoring it. I was worried about the boredom that’d come if I conquered everything so quickly. Thankfully, there were a lot of things to distract my mind. Such as my Queens.

My reign was not mine alone. It was held aloft by pillars of my own making, each a queen in her own right, each a facet of my will expressed through a different domain.

Margaery now ruled from Highgarden, the economic heart of my empire.

I visited her that spring, arriving without announcement to find her deep in negotiations with an envoy from the Summer Isles. She didn't miss a beat, seamlessly incorporating my presence into her strategy.

"As you can see," she told the envoy, a tall woman adorned with feathers that matched her ship's sails, "the Dragon King himself takes interest in our discussions. Surely that demonstrates the importance we place on this new trade route."

The Summer Islander bowed deeply, awe and fear mingling in her expression. I had that effect on people who hadn't grown accustomed to Draconic Presence in their midst.

After the negotiations concluded – successfully, as Margaery's always did – she joined me in her private gardens, a glass of Arbor gold in hand.

"Empress of Coin," I greeted her with a smirk, using the title that had spread among the smallfolk. "Still reshaping global commerce a century after most people would have retired to count their grandchildren."

She laughed, the sound as practiced and perfect as everything else about her. "Retirement is for those with limited vision, Viserys. You know this better than I do. Otherwise, you’d have spent your years in orgies rather than continuing to conquer slowly. Besides, what would I do with myself? Take up needlepoint?"

Margaery had transformed the Reach into something beyond a breadbasket. Under her guidance, it had become a nexus of trade that rivaled even Braavos in its prime. Gold flowed through her fingers like water, and with it, a subtler kind of power than that wielded by dragons or armies.

"Since you’re here, I’m assuming things are serious,” she said a few minutes later.

“Can’t I come visit my wife any time I want?” I asked, smiling as I pulled her close. Our noses brushed against one another as she smirked up at me, biting her lip. “Maybe I just missed you.”

“I missed you more, my king. But we both know you’re not here to enjoy your gold rose. The Yi Ti situation," she said, getting directly to business even as she whimpered to my touch. "How concerned should I be?"

I shrugged. "Concerned enough to diversify our eastern trade routes,” I said and kissed her, feeling her up. She’d grown hotter, more tempting to the eye, and the kiss tasted like flowers. “Not concerned enough to start moving gold reserves."

She nodded, already calculating adjustments to a dozen different financial strategies. "And Dorne? I heard some bad news."

"Ari is handling that. Life continues."

Margaery studied me over the rim of her wine glass. "You're restless," she observed. "I haven't seen you this way since before the God-Emperor fell."

She had always been perceptive, this rose of Highgarden. It was part of why I had kept her, transformed her, elevated her to her current position.

"Perhaps I am," I admitted. "Victory becomes routine after enough repetitions."

"Hmm? Then find a new game," she suggested, sitting on top of a table and sipping rich wine. Her eyes were full of wonder. "One worthy of what you've become."

I left her to her empire of coin, her words echoing in my mind. A new game. But what challenge remained for one who had conquered continents and devoured men who claimed to be gods?

Arianne awaited me in the Stepstones, that archipelago of rocky islands that had once been the haven of pirates and outlaws. Under her rule, it had become a center of intrigue and intelligence-gathering that put even Varys's old network to shame.

I found her playing cyvasse with a captured Yi Tish prince, her questions extracting the last secrets of the fallen empire while she systematically dismantled his defenses on the board.

"Your move, Prince Jian," she said, her voice musical with the accent of Dorne that she had never fully abandoned.

The prince, his jade-trimmed robes tattered from months of captivity, moved his elephant with trembling fingers. A mistake. Arianne's dragon swooped in, capturing the piece and putting his king in check.

"Much like your Eastern Coalition's attempt to flank our forces at the Jade Gates, how so very funny," she observed. "Predictable too, but ultimately fatal, and…” she glanced up, noticing my presence for the first time, "...about to be interrupted by a much greater power."

The prince followed her gaze, his face draining of color as he recognized me. He prostrated himself immediately, forehead touching the mosaic floor.

"Dragon King," he gasped. "M-mercy, I beg you."

Arianne rolled her eyes, a gesture so familiar it almost made me smile. "Get up, Jian. If my man wanted you dead, you'd be ash already."

I waved the prince away, and he scrambled from the room, relief emanating from him in waves.

"Queen of the Sands," I greeted Arianne once we were alone. "Still terrorizing prisoners with cyvasse matches?"

"It's effective," she said with a shrug, rising to embrace me. Her kiss was as passionate as ever, a century of shared history having done nothing to dim the fire between us. "The more they focus on the game, the less they guard their tongues."

Arianne had turned the Stepstones into an information hub that served as the nervous system of my empire. One of them, anyway. Ros was on the other end of the world. Nothing happened in the known world that she didn't eventually hear about. No secret remained hidden, no plot undiscovered.

"The Jade Forces," I prompted.

She nodded, moving to a map table where markers indicated troop movements, political alliances, and potential threats. "Growing stronger in the Grey Waste. They've allied with shadow-binders from Asshai, as we uncovered decades ago. But there's something else." She hesitated, a rare occurrence for her. "Something my agents can't quite pin down."

I raised an eyebrow. "The 2nd to hold the title of Queen of Whispers admits a gap in her knowledge? The world truly is full of wonders." She looked a little annoyed at being called the ‘2nd’, but she couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t the best in this line.

I’d have to contact Ros for this.

"Just hear me out. There are rumors of something beyond the Grey Waste. Something the God-Emperor feared, remember? The Jade Forces are either trying to control it or ally with it. But my sources disagree."

"Something that frightened even the God-Emperor, yes, I remember," I mused. "Now that is interesting."

Arianne watched me carefully. "You're not concerned? You know, in those fairy tales, it's around time like this where conquerors like you fall. Let’s not be careless, Darling."

"After a century of conquest, where the only real challenge came from within our own ranks, it’s hard not to be careless," I said. “But you’re right. Don’t worry, I won’t let my guard down.”

She laughed then, the sound rich and genuine. "Gods, you must be so bored lately. The most powerful being in existence, ruler of the known world, and even he is. The poor farmers will want to have your head if they hear this."

"Perhaps," I admitted. "Or perhaps I'm simply curious about what lies beyond the maps we've drawn."

Her expression sobered. "Be careful, my king. Even dragons can fly too close to the sun."

I just smiled.

From the Stepstones, I traveled to the far west. Yara Greyjoy commanded my fleets in the Sunset Sea. She spent most of her time on the ocean, so it was difficult to find her. When I did, she was on the deck of her flagship, dragon wings spread as she surveyed a newly discovered coastline.

The continent beyond was vast, unexplored, rich with possibilities. The former Pirate Queen stared at it with a longing expression.

"Took you long enough," she called without turning to look at me. "I've been mapping this place for months."

I landed beside her, my wings folding back into nothingness. I took in the dense forests and soaring mountains of this new land. "My Queen of Tides. Still pushing the boundaries of the known world?"

Yara had transformed the Iron Islands from a culture of raiders into a nation of explorers and cartographers without equal. Her fleets sailed farther than any in history, discovering new lands and resources that fed the ever-growing appetite of my empire.

"The natives call it Americos," she said, gesturing to the coast. "Peaceful enough if you respect their territories. Rich in resources we've never seen before."

Americos? Funny. I examined the charts she had drawn, impressed as always by her precision and attention to detail. "Another jewel for the crown."

She snorted, a reminder of the irreverent ironborn captain she had once been. "Another responsibility, you mean. Ugh. These people have their own gods, their own rulers. Conquering them would be more trouble than it's worth."

"Since when does the Queen of Tides shy away from trouble?"

"Since I learned the difference between conquest and discovery," she replied. "You might not agree, but some places are better left to develop on their own, at least for now. We establish trade, cultural exchange, and plant the seeds for future alliance."

I studied her, this woman who had once been among the most bloodthirsty of my followers. "You've grown diplomatic in your old age."

She didn’t look old, of course. She looked as young as before, and even more beautiful. I wanted to devour her every time I saw her, and that was the same this time too.

She laughed, the sound carrying across the water. "I've grown tired of pointless slaughter. There's more satisfaction in building something that lasts than in burning something to ash."

Her words stayed with me as I visited the remaining pillars of my empire. Myrcella at Casterly Rock, her face cold and beautiful as she passed judgment on a rebellious lord, her rule as absolute and merciless as Tywin's ever was. The Lioness of Eternity, they called her, her golden hair and green eyes unchanged since the day I had claimed her from the Dornish and made her mine.

She only smiled and giggled like the little girl she’d once been when I went to see her. That part hadn’t changed, she was still my needy Lioness.

Alysanne Clegane and Brienne of Tarth were now in the Dragonpit, overseeing the training of a new generation of knights for the Kingsguard, their orders shaping the martial future of the empire.

The Pillars of Law and Honor, bound to each other as much as to me, their dedication to order and justice a counterweight to the chaos that dragonfire could so easily unleash. It was funny how those two huge women got along together.

And finally, I returned to King's Landing, to my throne room, where one last petitioner awaited.

Cersei Lannister knelt before the Iron Throne, her golden hair falling around her face like a curtain. Yes, she was still alive. She had been the last to receive the gift of immortality, not out of love or respect, but as the ultimate punishment when she’d tried to scheme one last time. Now, she was cursed to live forever with the knowledge of her failure, to serve eternally the dynasty she had tried to destroy.

"My king," she murmured as I approached, her voice soft with submission that had taken decades to instill. "I bring news from the western provinces."

Once she had been proud, defiant, spitting venom even as I claimed her kingdom and her children. Now she was a shadow of that woman, broken and remade into something that served my purposes.

I gestured for her to rise, and she did so with the grace that had once made her the most beautiful woman in Westeros. That beauty remained, preserved by the same magic that kept her alive, though her eyes had lost the hateful glare that had once defined her.

"Speak," I commanded.

She delivered her report efficiently, her words carefully chosen to provide maximum information with minimum presumption. When she finished, she awaited my response, hands clasped before her, eyes downcast.

"You've done well," I told her, and her face lit with pleasure at the small praise.

Stockholm syndrome, they would have called it in my first world. Here, it was simply the natural result of power exercised over centuries. How amusing it was to look at.

I beckoned her closer, and she came without hesitation, her body responding to my command with practiced obedience. When I kissed her, she melted against me, all resistance long since burned away by time and conditioning.

"My king," she whispered against my lips, the words both plea and prayer. "My god."

I led her to the Iron Throne, seating myself upon it before guiding her to her knees. She understood without instruction what was required of her, her hands already working at the fastenings of my clothing.

"Do you ever think about the past, Cersei?" I asked as she pleasured me. "Do you remember when you were a queen?"

She paused, looking up with teary eyes that held genuine confusion. "Why would I want to remember that? I serve the true king now. The only king."

I laughed, the sound echoing through the empty throne room. "And they say gods can't perform miracles."

Her mouth returned to its task, her only desire now to please me. The once-proud Cersei Lannister, the woman who had proclaimed that power was power, now found her purpose in servitude to the very dynasty she had tried to destroy.

The strangest part? Even this feeling, the ultimate victory over my most dedicated enemy, brought only a momentary satisfaction. The thrill of conquest, of breaking wills and reshaping them in my image, had begun to fade like all other pleasures.

I had won. Every enemy vanquished, every kingdom bent, every desire fulfilled. I stood at the apex of existence, a god in all but name.

And I was growing utterly, profoundly, bored.

****

A long, long time later. The Fourteen Flames of Old Valyria roared around me, their heat intense enough to melt stone yet harmless to my dragon-blooded form. I stood at the heart of the ruined empire that had birthed my ancestors, seeking... what?

A connection to my roots? A new challenge? I wasn't entirely sure myself.

Kinvara worked nearby, her hands moving in complex patterns as she prepared the ritual that would channel R'hllor's power. She had sworn that this was possible – that here, in the place where magic ran thickest in the world, we could force the god himself to manifest.

Not to worship. To consume.

"The circles are complete," she announced, stepping back from the intricate patterns she had drawn in ash and blood. "The bindings are set. All that remains is the sacrifice."

I nodded, and she brought the captives forward. Thirteen in all, one for each of the ancient families of Valyria, their bloodlines traced through centuries to ensure purity. Trust me when I say this search was the hardest task of my life so far.

I didn’t feel bad. The captives were bound and gagged, eyes wide with terror as they beheld the dragon in human form who would consume their lives. My wings twitched, my horns glimmering as I watched them. I guess I looked like a devil to them.

"Since this is a sacrifice, will it hurt them more than a typical death?" I asked, not out of compassion but out of curiosity about the ritual's mechanics.

Kinvara laughed softly. "Does it matter?"

I conceded the point with a shrug. "...Proceed."

The ritual was complex, combining elements of R'hllor's faith with older, darker magics from Asshai and the ruins of Yi Ti. As Kinvara chanted, the sky above the broken peninsula began to bleed, crimson seeping into the blue like ink into water.

The sacrifices died one by one, their life force channeled not into R'hllor's service but into the binding circle that would force his manifestation. With every death, the air was growing thicker, heavier, charged with power that even I, with all my godlike attributes, found impressive.

When the final sacrifice fell, the world itself seemed to hold its breath. Then, with a sound like reality tearing, a presence descended.

R'hllor did not take physical form.

He was fire and shadow given sentience, a swirling vortex of crimson and black that filled the space within the binding circle. When he spoke, it was directly into our minds, his voice the roar of a thousand pyres.

"WHO DARES?"

Kinvara prostrated herself, fear and devotion warring on her face. Even after a century of serving me, some part of her still recognized this entity as her original god, the being she had devoted her long life to serving. It pissed me off a little.

I, however, felt only hunger.

"I dare," I replied, stepping forward. "I, Viserys Targaryen. The Dragon King. The Conqueror of Yi Ti. The Slayer of the Night King."

The vortex pulsed, tendrils of flame reaching toward me only to be stopped by the binding circle's edge.

"IT’S YOU…! ARROGANCE," R'hllor pronounced. "YOU ARE BUT A MOTE IN MY EYE, MORTAL. A MOMENTARY SPARK IN ETERNAL FLAME."

I smiled, allowing the Dragon Icon to materialize above me, its hexagonal form spinning slowly as power built within its crystalline structure. "I haven't been mortal for a very long time, R'hllor. And your eternity is about to be cut rather short."

The battle of the end began.

The battle to my godhood.

It was not a battle of flesh, for R'hllor had none.

It was a contest of will, of fundamental identity asserting itself against another. The god of fire and light brought his full power to bear, millennia of worship and sacrifice and devotion channeled into a force that should have annihilated any being of flesh and blood.

But I was more than flesh and blood. I was the lone Dragon King, touched by the Dragon Icon, empowered by the essence of many mortal-gods like the God-Emperor whom I had already consumed. Backed by the faith of a conquered world, by the Dragon Icon's limitless energy, by my own indomitable will, I did not bow.

I consumed.

R'hllor's essence poured into me like fire into a forge, transforming what it touched, remaking me yet again into something greater. I burst out laughing. It sounded like an endless earthquake. I devoured the Lord of Light, absorbing his divine essence into my own being.

How long did it take?

Seconds? Minutes? Or a century…?

I didn’t know. My senses were overwhelmed.

The moment the power settled within me after who knew how long, reality rippled. The Fourteen Flames roared higher, responding to the divine energy now coursing through their new master. Kinvara wept, her faith both destroyed and fulfilled in the same moment.

I had achieved true apotheosis.

I was the new God of Fire and Light.

And I was still… so terribly, profoundly bored.

Then reality rippled again, more violently this time. The air before me seemed to fold in on itself, creating a doorway where none had existed before. The flames around me grew grey in color. The world froze. Only I could move.

“What?”

There was a gate in front of me. And I wondered what it meant. Was I supposed to walk into it? Before I could decide, a man stepped out of the impossible door.

He wore simple robes of a style I had never seen, neither Westerosi nor Essosi in design. It was similar to Chinese robes, but not quite the same. His face wasn’t very remarkable, neither young nor old, neither handsome nor ugly. His eyes were red, hair long and black. He looked like more than one person at once.

But whatever he was, his presence made the raw divine power churning within me feel like a candle flame next to a sun. The aura he carried made the frozen world tremble.

An odd title floated above his head.

[The Immortal Venerable Over Heavens]

"That was quite the display, I’m surprised you achieved all this in such a short time," the man said, his voice calm and ancient beyond measure. "Some might say it’d be easy with the System, but most would fail. Are you pleased with the System I gifted you?"

I stared, for the first time in the last few centuries feeling something akin to surprise. "The Dragon System…? You created it?"

The Admin.

That was the creator of the System.

The awakening in Viserys's body, the game-like interface that had guided my early conquests, the Dragon Icon that had appeared when I faced the Night King – all of it orchestrated by this unassuming figure.

"One of many such tools I've scattered across the multiverse," he replied with a negligent wave. "Yours was tailored specifically to your nature. A dragon needs to consume, to grow, to dominate. I merely provided the framework.”

“You sent me here? Why?”

“No, it wasn’t I who sent you here. The Omniverse works in strange ways. Reality and Dreams often overlap, and some souls slip in. You slipped into this world, Planetos. I simply needed someone to rise from the world of Ice and Fire and noticed you. You seemed like a decent option so I gave you the System."

Understanding crashed through me like a wave. So it was luck that brought me here, and this entity here simply provided me with the System…?

"Let me repeat, why?" I demanded again, the grey world shimmering with color just for a bit. The fires of the Fourteen Flames rose higher in response to my agitation. The man smirked, looking around.

"You’re a feisty one, but watch one. I am too.”

“I don’t care. Why did you give me the System, and what do you want from me now?” I was ready to fight. There was definitely zero chance of me winning against this entity, but my Draconic Pride wouldn’t let me back down.

“Hmm. Well, there is a war," the Venerable One continued, his voice never losing its calm certainty, "on a scale you cannot yet comprehend. A struggle not for worlds or universes, but for the fabric of existence itself. It’s beyond the Omniversal scale. I am gathering allies. Beings like you. Aberrations. Conquerors."

He extended his hand, and in his palm, a galaxy swirled, stars and planets and cosmic dust rotating in perfect miniature. "This reality is but one of countless others. Some similar, some wildly different. All connected, all part of the greater painting. I’m not planning to force you or hurt you. If you deny, I’ll just leave. But if you're interested… there’s a lot more to conquer than this little world, Dragonking."

I looked from the galaxy in his hand to the world I had conquered, to the empire I had built through fire and blood and indomitable will. I had done it all and lived it all.

I am a god.

I am a king.

I am eternal.

But the man was right.

I am, first and always, a dragon.

And a dragon's hunger was never sated.

I met the Venerable One's gaze, and for the first time in a hundred years, a true, predatory smile spread across my face.

"Show me the way."

The Venerable One grinned a scary smile on his face, satisfaction filling his expression. "I knew you would choose correctly. Dragons are predictable in their ambition, if nothing else."

He gestured, and the doorway through reality widened, showing glimpses of worlds and possibilities beyond imagination. Realms where magic flowed like water, where technologies beyond comprehension shaped civilizations, where beings of pure thought battled across conceptual landscapes.

"But wait. What of my empire?" I asked. "What of those I've bound to me?"

"Time flows differently between realms," he assured me. "You can return to this exact moment, should you wish. You can come back and bring your lovers to the new world with you. Or you can let it all fade into history, a legend of the god-king who walked away from paradise to seek greater conquests."

I considered my queens, my servants, the world I had remade in my image. They would continue without me, perhaps. Or perhaps without my presence, it would all crumble back into chaos and war.

Honestly, despite not caring for things, I at least wanted to bring my wives along. Not yet, though. I’d have to see what the new world was all about first. If it was safe for them or not.

As if he could read my thoughts, the Venerable one spoke. “I like to work with people from the modern world since you guys understand things easier and better. The first world I’ll drop you in is what you may know as the DC Universe. Protected by the Blue Red Boy Scouts and Scowling Bats. It’s a dangerous place for a young God like you.”

I frowned. That place might cause some trouble for me alone. I looked at Kinvara, her body frozen in time. Well, taking one of them for now wouldn’t hurt. I walked over and grabbed her, throwing her frozen body over my shoulders. The Venerable One raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

"That sounds fantastic, very well," I said, stepping toward the doorway between worlds. "I accept your invitation, Venerable One. Show me these new realms to conquer."

He smiled in that odd, cold manner and led me away. It made me wonder for a moment who he was. What his story was and who he was fighting against. The world regained its color. As I crossed the threshold, leaving behind the world that had been my playground and prison for centuries, I felt something unexpected. Anticipation. Joy, even.

The thrill of the unknown, of new challenges to overcome, new powers to claim. The Dragon Icon pulsed once more in the empty air, then followed me into the new world.

Dragons never truly die, like how the spirit of Balerion aided me even now.  Dragons simply find new skies to darken, new worlds to burn. And somewhere beyond reality itself, a new conquest began.

I was Viserys Targaryen. The Dragon King. The God-Eater. The Conqueror of Worlds.

My story was just beginning.

**

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Master4thWall Note

Whew!! October 30, 2024. That's when Game of Thrones: Reign of the Dragonking began serialization on . It's been a year since then! And the journey has come to an end.

This is my third book that I got to finish, and although the vibe of this story is different from my usual stories (it might not seem that way given its the same selfish mc harem troupe) I did enjoy writing it a lot. It was a power-storming story, and that continues till the very last scene. And beyond.

Dragonking was special in the sense that I didn't really have to worry much when writing it. Having a System in a low scale world like GOT meant I could take a swing without caring for finessed plot lines. Eternal Samsara was fun for me in its weird complexity, while this was fun in its simplicity.

Damnnn I am just happy to finally have finished this chapter. Took really long!!

Guys, there were like 10 pics here in this chapter, find them ALL in Discord please!!!

Discord: https://discord.gg/yWzJynC6wD