"As long as you bring the person here, this power will be yours."
Jon and Ygritte were thrown into turmoil.
Body, legacy, magic...
These words, when strung together, exuded a chillingly evil aura.
Jon's hand gripped his sword hilt again, the wariness in his eyes almost palpable.
Ygritte, even more frightened, backed away repeatedly until she was hiding behind Lynn, as if he were her only reliance now.
Lynn, however, remained calm.
He even smiled.
"Sounds like a good deal."
His gaze shifted from the Three-Eyed Raven's withered face to Leaf standing nearby.
"However, before I help you find that poor bastard, I need to know a few things."
The Three-Eyed Raven's single eye turned slightly, seeming to wait for Lynn to continue.
"Skinchanger."
Lynn said the word.
"This ability of mine, what exactly is it?"
He had wanted to ask this for a long time.
Back in King's Landing, he could control the Faceless Man, make Daenerys write, force Littlefinger to jump from a building, and even manipulate Jaime into doing unspeakable things.
But he could only achieve simple influence, and the backlash to his mental strength varied greatly each time.
For instance, controlling Daenerys had absolutely no side effects.
But forcing Littlefinger to jump nearly drained his mental strength completely.
He had always assumed it was because others had particularly strong willpower, but now it seemed things weren't that simple.
"That is not skinchanging."
The Three-Eyed Raven's voice carried a tone of mockery.
"That is playing with fire."
His muddy, single eye seemed to pierce through time, witnessing the scene on the Street of Silk in King's Landing.
"The souls of animals are simple and pure; their consciousness is like a clear stream."
"You can easily step into it, even change its flow."
"But humans are different."
"A human soul is a turbulent ocean, filled with desire, fear, memory, and obsession."
"Especially their survival instinct—it is a brand carved into the deepest part of the soul, indestructible."
The Three-Eyed Raven's voice grew deep.
"Forcing your way into that ocean and trying to command it to raise a tsunami that destroys itself is an act that violates the most fundamental rules of the world."
"In that instant, you faced the most frenzied and thorough counterattack from the target's soul."
"That force is enough to tear apart any intruder who isn't strong enough."
"At best, mental derangement, turning you into a drooling idiot."
"At worst, soul disintegration and sudden death on the spot."
The temperature in the cavern seemed to drop a few degrees.
Jon and Ygritte were confused, but they could sense these were definitely not good words.
A layer of fine, cold sweat seeped from Lynn's back.
He finally understood.
No wonder he felt an unprecedented weakness and exhaustion after controlling Littlefinger that day.
It wasn't simple mental exhaustion.
It was his soul engaging in an invisible life-and-death struggle with another soul.
And he hadn't even realized he had walked right up to the gates of hell.
"The reason you succeeded,"
The Three-Eyed Raven continued,
"Is firstly because your soul is far more powerful than you imagine."
"And secondly because your target, the man named Petyr Baelish, had a heart filled with failure and fear. The dikes of that ocean had already broken."
"That is why you could step into it so easily."
"You merely lucked out in a gamble you should never have participated in."
"Had it been anyone with a strong will, complex thoughts, or absolutely no fear of you, and you tried to make them commit suicide, you would likely be a corpse right now."
"Like that Lannister knight."
"If you wanted to control him to commit suicide, you would need dozens, even hundreds of times his mental strength to do it."
Lynn's heart sank completely.
So that was it.
It wasn't that Jaime had exceptionally strong willpower.
It was that Jaime, at the time, didn't believe he could be controlled by magic. His soul was in an "unguarded" yet "unyielding" stable state.
Lynn couldn't shake his survival instinct at all.
Fortunately, he only controlled Jaime to do those unspeakable things, which didn't trigger fierce resistance.
If he had tried to make Jaime commit suicide, he would have likely suffered unprecedented damage.
"Playing like this, you will kill yourself sooner or later."
The Three-Eyed Raven concluded.
Ygritte, listening from behind, let her mouth hang slightly open.
From the fragmented conversation, she finally understood.
This Southerner had actually used his own methods to make a living man jump off a building?
Madman!
This guy is a complete madman!
She looked at Lynn's back, her eyes incredibly complex.
Fear, shock, and perhaps a trace of admiration she hadn't even noticed herself?
Free Folk respected the strong.
And Lynn was evidently the strongest and craziest person she had ever met.
"So, I need your knowledge."
Lynn let out a long breath, suppressing the lingering fear.
He looked at the Three-Eyed Raven, his eyes more serious than ever before.
"Teach me how to use this power correctly."
"Of course."
The Three-Eyed Raven seemed satisfied with Lynn's attitude.
"But you must also fulfill your promise."
"Teach me first," Lynn turned to the Three-Eyed Raven.
"How do I correctly use the Skinchanger ability?"
"Once I know, I will naturally find a suitable candidate for you."
"Feel, do not control."
The Three-Eyed Raven was concise.
"Like this."
As he spoke, his single eye suddenly turned toward Ygritte behind Lynn.
Ygritte felt an irresistible will, like a warm spring, gently wrapping around her soul.
It wasn't uncomfortable; in fact, it was very soothing.
Like soaking in a hot spring on a cold winter night.
It made her unconsciously lower all her defenses.
Then, she heard a voice ring directly in her mind.
"Raise your left hand."
Ygritte subconsciously wanted to comply.
But just as her hand was about to lift, another thought popped up.
Why should I?
Why should I listen to you?
A rebellion stemming from the depths of her Free Folk bloodline made her abruptly stop the movement.
That warm will didn't force her; it simply receded like the tide.
"See?"
The Three-Eyed Raven looked at Lynn.
"This is feeling."
"I can feel her resistance, feel the pride deep in her soul."
"Unlike your method of completely blocking the other person's perception."
"So I did not force her, because that would only incite stronger resistance, ending in mutual destruction."
"What you need to do is find the cracks in her soul, use your will to guide her, persuade her, and make her willing to be used by you."
"This is true Skinchanging. It is communication and resonance on the level of the soul."
"Not plunder and control like yours!"
Lynn was thoughtful.
simply put, if force doesn't work, use persuasion. Attack the heart.
"I want to try." Lynn said.
"You may. If something goes wrong, I can save you in time."
The Three-Eyed Raven's gaze landed on Ygritte again.
Ygritte shuddered, suddenly feeling as if she had been stripped naked.
These two devils!
Are they going to use me as a test subject?!
"You... don't come any closer!"
She backed away in terror, her bow and arrow already aimed at Lynn.
"Relax, I won't touch you."
Lynn soothed, putting on what he thought was a kind smile.
He closed his eyes, mimicking the Three-Eyed Raven, and carefully extended a thread of his mental power toward Ygritte.
No forced entry.
Just like a gentle breeze, brushing lightly against her tense soul.
Lynn saw it.
He saw the truest scene deep within Ygritte's soul.
It was a desolate plain covered in ice and snow, with wind howling.
A little girl with red hair stood alone in the blizzard, hugging a longbow taller than herself, looking stubbornly into the distance.
Beside her were the cold corpses of her kin.
In her eyes were hatred and sorrow that could not melt.
And deeper within that wasteland, beneath layers of ice and snow, Lynn felt a throb that didn't belong to this frozen world.
It was like a seed buried under the permafrost.
Longing for sunlight, longing for warmth, longing for an embrace she could rely on.
Lynn's heart stirred.
He turned his mental power into a ray of the warmest sunlight, shining carefully onto that seed.
Ygritte's body trembled violently.
The bow and arrow in her hands lowered without her realizing.
Those grey eyes, usually filled with vigilance and stubbornness, were now filled with confusion and mist.
She seemed... to have returned to that cave.
Returned to that cold night.
She was leaning on a warm, solid chest, smelling that clean scent that made her feel incredibly safe.
It was the most peaceful sleep of her life.
"Put down the bow."
Lynn's voice sounded in her mind again.
This time, it was unbelievably gentle.
Without almost any hesitation, Ygritte obediently placed the bow and arrow in her hands gently onto the ground.
Beside them, Jon watched, utterly dumbfounded.