Viserys didn't flinch, but his grip loosened.
He turned to Daenerys, barely more than a whisper in his voice. "Grab something."
Then he shoved her, hard.
She stumbled back, nearly falling over her own feet. At the same moment, the wild pig charged, flame trailing behind his sword like a comet's tail.
"HERETIC!"
The pig-man roared, voice tearing out of his throat like a war drum crack. His grip tightened on the flaming sword until his knuckles whitened, tendons straining under the skin.
If the blade had been made of anything less than steel, wood, stone, even bronze, it might've splintered under the pressure.
He brought it down with intent to cleave Viserys in half, from skull to groin. A clean divide. No poetry to it, just meat being split. It wasn't war. It was butchery.
He swung for the kill.
CLINK!
Steel met stone.
Viserys had already moved.
A precise shift, his left foot pivoting, his torso twisting just enough to slip past the arc of the swing. The sword slammed into the flagstone, sparks flying as it scraped across the floor in a shriek of metal on rock. The sound echoed in the hall like a scream that didn't belong to any living thing.
Viserys didn't flinch.
His gaze met the beast's, flat, expressionless, cold as dead ice. No fury, no fear. Just calculation. He looked at the pig-man the way a god might regard insects clawing at the gates of heaven, not with anger, but with contempt.
Or maybe like a Caesar watching a broken gladiator crawl across the sand. Slightly amused. Not enough to smile.
The pig-man's nostrils flared. His eyes widened. He understood the mistake, but too late.
Viserys moved first.
His hand snapped forward in a blur, the broken neck of the wine bottle still in his grip. A jagged shard of green glass led the way, and the gap between them closed in less than a heartbeat.
"AGHH—!!"
The pig-man grunted, low and raw, trying to swallow the pain, but his body betrayed him.
The bottle drove deep into his right side, just under the ribs. The glass tore through skin slick with sweat and muscle stretched too tight, piercing the gallbladder with a wet crunch. The bottle didn't stop.
It broke further on impact, fragments scattering inside him, a dozen razor shards cutting with every twitch of his gut.
He staggered back, blood pouring out of him, thick, dark, hot. His breath hitched. The pain didn't come all at once, it arrived in a dozen stabs, each half a split-second behind the last.
The wound wasn't just ugly. It was fatal.
The bottle shattered deep inside the bastard's gut. Shards of green glass tore through flesh and organ, slick with blood and bile.
Viserys didn't step back. He stayed close, too close, his fingers pressing against the pig-man's slick, sweating belly. His nails dragged just slightly, enough to make the man twitch.
"You're no true warrior," Viserys said, voice flat, almost amused. A faint smirk cut across his lips, not out of joy, but disgust.
The beast trembled. Not from fear, not yet, but from the shock ripping through his system. His eyes stayed hard, but his body betrayed him.
Hands shaking, knees giving way inch by inch, his lungs hitching with every breath. The gallbladder was done for, and somewhere inside, his body knew it.
'A true warrior', Viserys thought, 'would've struck back the moment the glass hit flesh. There would've been blood on both sides, a fight worth remembering.'
But this one just stood there, pissing away his last breath like a dog that didn't understand it had already been killed.
And his face, gods, that face. Twisted up like a mutt that had just watched its own leg get hacked off by knights. No rage now. Just confused pain.
Then the pig-man muttered something.
"...Oh, R'hllor... Almighty…"
Viserys froze.
The words were soft, prayer-like, but the shift in the room was immediate.
The bastard's eyes lit up, not metaphorically, not with resolve, but literally. A glow came into them, unnatural and deep, a red-orange shimmer that grew brighter by the second.
His pupils vanished behind the light. Viserys had seen flames before, many times. He'd never seen them inside a man.
Then the sword responded.
The flames around it swelled, doubling in size, twisting upward like a serpent uncoiling. The heat hit Viserys in the face, forcing him to squint, his skin tightening from the sudden blast.
The fire turned darker, redder, less like fire, more like blood catching light. It hissed and pulsed, alive.
The tip of the blade now hovered just inches from Viserys' ribs.
Still smirking? Not anymore.
SWOOSH!
The fire roared.
The sword came down with a hiss, cutting the air wide open.
Viserys moved. Barely.
The blade missed his chest by an inch, maybe less. The heat curled around him, licking at his tunic. A second slower and it would've gutted him, split his ribs open like a roasted boar.
He didn't step back.
He stepped in.
"DIE! HERETIC!"
The pig-man swung again, wild and angry. His grip was strong, but his arms weren't steady anymore. Blood loss made him sluggish, his swings harder to control. Powerful, yes. But slow. Predictable.
Viserys ducked under the second arc, boots scraping hard across the blood-slick stone. He dropped his weight, turned his shoulder, and drove it forward, full force, straight into the bastard's gut.
There was a sound. A wet, fleshy crunch as glass already buried in the pig-man's belly was crushed deeper, tearing what was left of his insides.
He screamed. Loud, guttural, real.
Viserys didn't flinch. He moved again.
Fast. Precise. Brutal.
The jagged neck of the wine bottle was still in his hand. Sticky with blood. He ripped it out of the pig's stomach and slammed it into the man's thigh, punching straight through the meat, twisting it like he was gutting a deer.
The pig-man howled and swung back—desperation more than skill now. His sword came up in a wide, reckless arc, half flame, half steel.
This time it hit.
Not the edge, just the flat. But it was enough.
It struck Viserys across the ribs. His body jolted, pain burning through his side. His tunic seared to his skin in an instant, the stench of scorched cloth and flesh choking the air.
He grunted. Didn't fall.
Didn't stop.
He closed in again, stepped inside the pig-man's reach, too close for a full sword swing, and grabbed his arm. The sword arm.
Bare-handed.
His palm sizzled.
"ACH!"
The flames licked at his skin, and the pain came sharp and fast, like hundreds of knives stabbing into the nerves at once. He could feel the flesh blistering, the skin splitting.
But he held on.
He yanked the bastard forward, forcing their bodies chest to chest, faces inches apart. He could smell the bastard's breath, blood, rot, smoke. The pig-man tried to jerk back, but Viserys had already reached low, grabbed the broken glass still lodged in the belly—
And he shoved it deeper.
Hard.
All the way in.
The pig-man jerked once, stiffened. His mouth opened like he wanted to scream, but no sound came. Just a sharp exhale.
HAAAAAAA
The flame around his sword shuddered, like a candle caught in a wind.
It flickered.
Then it died.
The steel clattered to the floor. The hall went quiet again, except for the sounds of breath and blood dripping onto stone.
Viserys released him.
The pig-man took two shaky steps back, stumbling like a drunk. His mouth still moved, maybe praying, maybe cursing, but his body was done listening.
He dropped to his knees.
Then his chest hit the floor.
And didn't move again.
Blood spread across the stone, dark and steaming. Bits of green glass poked out from the ruin of his stomach, like teeth growing where they didn't belong.
"We've grown weak."
Viserys muttered it under his breath, staring at the corpse sprawled across the stone floor. Blood still seeped from the man's open gut, staining the edges of the broken green glass that had been shoved in deep enough to gut a boar.
His words weren't loud. Just low. Honest. Bitter.
"Truly fucking weak."
He didn't look victorious. There was no satisfaction in his eyes—just cold frustration and a flicker of something uglier underneath: shame.
In his old life, a beast like that wouldn't have lasted a heartbeat. No steel, no fire, no blood spilled. Just a broken neck and silence. Simple. Clean. Efficient.
Now?
His ribs ached. His hand was scorched and raw. His breathing was tight, his grip weak, and his shoulder burned where the fire had kissed him too close.
It had taken too long.
Too much.
The body at his feet wasn't the embarrassment. He was.
He clenched his jaw, jaw ticking, as if it would hold back the taste of bile rising in his throat. This wasn't a victory, it was a fucking warning.
The world had shifted while he'd been gone. The rules had changed, and he was still dragging himself through it half-blind, half-broken.
The room was quiet again. Not the kind of silence that follows glory, but the kind that hangs after a mistake. Heavy. Lingering.
(Ding.)
A sound rang inside his skull—not in the air, but somewhere deeper. Like a blade tapping bone.
[Hidden Objective Complete – "Survive the First Envy of Fire"]
Viserys flinched slightly. No one else in the room reacted. Just him.
[Tributes Received:]— Insight (x1)— Gold Coin (x12,870)— Horny Drink (x3)
He stared blankly for a moment, breathing through his nose, blood still trickling down his fingers.
.....
Somewhere far from Braavos… far from Caesar his glory…
A stone chamber, half-lit by the flickering fire in a golden bowl, stank of sweat, dried herbs, and burnt incense. Books lay open on the floor. Scrolls unrolled halfway and forgotten.
Potion flasks half-empty. A robe lay crumpled near the hearth like it had been ripped off in a hurry.
Melisandre knelt naked on the cracked tile. Skin pale. Eyes wild. Her long red hair clung to her shoulders with sweat.
The fire in the bowl hissed and snapped. It wasn't just heat that made her sweat.
It was fear.
"Oh, Great R'hllor," she whispered, breath shaky. "What shall I do?"
She wasn't performing a ritual. She wasn't casting flames high into the air, proclaiming victory. She was begging. Panicked. Lost.
She'd failed.
A vision had come to her in sleep—not summoned, not asked for, but forced into her mind like a dagger into a throat.
Three flames had risen. Not from the Red Temple. Not from the East. Not from the chosen. But from some crooked house in Braavos. Not a house of prayer. Not a throne room. Just a place.
And the flames screamed as they rose.
"Roma Invicta," they had shouted in unison, with a fury that burned across the vision like wildfire. The sound had no tongue she knew, but the meaning crawled into her gut and took hold like worms.
She didn't know what it meant. But she knew what it felt like.
Doom.
Not the kind that ends a man. The kind that swallows cities. The kind that terrifies even gods.
When she'd woken, her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. For the first time since she'd taken the red robes, the heat of the flame didn't comfort her. It mocked her.
It wasn't hell she saw.
No. She was sure of it now.
It was the future.
Her Lord had shown her, in His own cruel way. And as the fire settled into coals, He had whispered another image:
A man. Silver-haired. Purple-eyed.
The flames had twisted around his face. Blurred. Muffled. Almost distorted—like the fire itself feared to hold his shape too long.
That terrified her more than the vision.
The Lord of Light had never been unclear. Never hesitant. Never afraid.
And yet the fire flickered when it showed this one.
Still, she obeyed. She had sent the command through flame and smoke, speaking a spell of suggestion and control into the mind of a follower in Braavos. A simple man. One of many. A faithful soul, slow-witted, perhaps, but pure.
She told him to kill the silver-haired man. Strike fast. No questions. A clean death.
And now…
{A/n}
I'm BACK, baby!
By the way, your humble author has officially survived another year on this wretched rockIt's my birthday today(Can I get some power stones, Please?). 🎉
With this chapter, the current arc has officially come to an end.Next up: we move into the new arc—"Glory and Foundation."
Yeah, the name might sound a bit cringe, but let's be honest... it fits right in with Game of Thrones-style themes.
Also, finally, we have someone new to hate! Our villain. Or rather, villainess.
And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the extra chapters.They'll be coming in about 6 hours, Or both will be uploaded within 12 hours once I finish some final edits.
Alright, have a great day ahead, and thanks for sticking with me.