Tarth Island in the Narrow Sea.The newly refurbished Evenfall Hall gleamed beneath the sun, its bright white tiles shimmering with reflected light.
Morning sunlight quietly crept in through the skylight atop the Dawn Tower of the eastern castle. The room—larger than an ordinary sitting hall—was flooded with brilliance.
"Galedun Tarth, Galedun Tarth, come~!"
"Answer the call of destiny. Come beyond the Wall—I can help you become a Green Seer!"
"The long night stretches on. For Westeros, for House Tarth—come~! Come find me~!"
"..."
Upon a black-lacquered, mother-of-pearl-inlaid bed lay a handsome blond youth, his eyes tightly shut, brows faintly furrowed. Waves of whispering—like the murmurs of an evil god—slipped through his ears, echoing endlessly within his mind.
Strange!Sinister!Yet irresistibly persuasive!
"Child, come! Accept your mission. Become a Green Seer, worship the Three-Eyed Raven, serve the Mother Goddess!"
"Galedun Tarth~... come~ come beyond the Wall to find me!"
"..."
The morning light crawled slowly toward the boy's brow like a snail, while the "evil god's whispers" seemed to come from some unknown place, ringing beside his ears—growing ever more ethereal, ever more urgent!
More and more like a courtesan straining herself hoarse to lure customers, impatient to the extreme!
"Boom!"
In an instant, as if the dream shattered, the boy on the bed seemed to have seen something utterly terrifying. His tightly shut eyes flew open, sapphire-blue pupils blazing. His hands clenched the velvet quilt as he gasped for breath in great gulps.
"It's already been six years since I left the Citadel, and there's still such a strong echo lingering… damn that Three-Eyed Raven!"
After a long while, Galedun Tarth finally woke completely, cursing viciously under his breath."Bastard crow Brynden—serves House Targaryen right for being wiped out!"
[Host, based on current information analysis, the Targaryen bloodline has not been completely extinguished.]
A crisp mechanical voice suddenly rang out in Galedun's mind, dispersing the resentment born of years of disturbed sleep.
"I know. I'm just venting! Forget it—you artificial idiot wouldn't understand anyway!"
He decided to ignore the emotionless brain. In his previous life, during that great storm, this thing had somehow fused with his very soul.
After mutating, the brain not only possessed basic functions like information storage and analytical simulation, but could even take over his body to conduct knightly training.
Moreover, because the brain had fused with his soul, it caused the original owner's already extraordinary skinchanger talent to mutate and expand once more. The mutated talent was so exceptional that it even drew the covetous gaze of the Three-Eyed Raven.
But it was also possible that Galedun Tarth—who by fate should have drowned at the age of eight—kept hopping about and stirring trouble at the Citadel of Oldtown, thus attracting the intervention of the Three-Eyed Raven, who could observe the flow of time and space across Westeros.
A skinchanger refers to a human capable of invading the consciousness of animals and controlling their actions. Such talents usually appear only among the people of the North or the wildlings.
As for why Galedun—a so-called "southerner"—could awaken a talent exclusive to Northerners and wildlings, that really was thanks to the ancestors of House Tarth.
House Tarth loved to boast to other noble families about their intermarriages with Houses Durrandon, Baratheon, and Targaryen.
Durran, the founder of House Durrandon, the first royal house of the Stormlands, was a true werewolf! His nickname was "Godsgrief."
In the legendary Age of Heroes eight thousand years ago, Storm King Durran even fell in love with and married Elenei, the daughter of the Sea God and the Goddess of the Wind—both of whom were among the Old Gods.
A mortal uniting with a divine maiden was an affront to the gods. In their fury, the Sea God and the Wind Goddess once unleashed devastating storms that destroyed dozens of castles built by Durran.
In the end, with the help of Brandon the Builder, ancestor of House Stark, Durran constructed Storm's End—a fortress immune to the divine tempests. Thereafter, Durran ruled the Stormlands for a full thousand years!
Until eight thousand years later, when Orys Baratheon, the bastard brother of Aegon the Conqueror, slew the last Storm King, Argilac Durrandon,
and received Storm's End as his fief.
The skinchanger talent of the original Galedun Tarth very likely originated from House Durrandon—from the divine blood of the Old Gods.
However!
"Serves the Old Gods right for being showered off the stage with flowers!"
The current Galedun felt no fear of the Old Gods at all. Seven years ago, when he transmigrated into the body of the eight-year-old Galedun Tarth, he had still held deep reverence for the gods of this world.
But after hearing too much of this world's so-called "local specialties," he gradually became numb.
"Blind Old Gods! To actually choose Brynden Rivers—that damn mongrel—as the Three-Eyed Raven!"
"Rivers" was the surname given to bastards of the Riverlands. Brynden was a bastard—a Targaryen bastard!
"A mongrel turning into some tree-spirit grandpa, and he still wants to seduce me!"
Especially whenever he thought of the original owner—a child raised on an island, given elite noble education, protected by multiple loyal knights and male servants—yet still ending up drowning to death!
Such a stifling way to die was truly—!
"A joke!"
Thinking of his own two younger sisters, whose predetermined fate was to die in swaddling clothes, he couldn't help but curse again,"Shit! It's all rigged—black-box manipulation!"
"Brain, haven't you already driven that power into the shattered corners of my soul? Why are the residual echoes still so strong?!"
In name, Tarth Island was a vassal island of Westeros. In reality, it lay in the Narrow Sea, separated from the mainland by a strait.
The Three-Eyed Raven's power was infinitely weakened here. After he ordered every single weirwood tree on the island to be ground to dust, he was rarely harassed by that dead crow anymore.
[Intruding virus unknown. Unable to parse source code. Currently, the brain can only confine the data stream to the trash partition. Complete removal is not possible.]
[For complete removal, formatting and reboot are recommended.]
"Format? Reboot?"
Galedun rolled his eyes hard.You're trying to devour your master, you artificial idiot!
The brain was, after all, his golden finger for surviving in this brutal world. He understood that before gathering enough foundational data, a technological product like the brain simply couldn't analyze supernatural power.
But being harassed by that dead crow year after year—he was truly sick of it!
"Brain, keep a close watch on the trash partition! The Red Comet hasn't even appeared yet, and this power is already strong enough to root itself in the soul. Either it's a talent similar to my skinchanger ability, or it's the Old Gods' power being borrowed by that dead crow!"
Galedun Tarth rose from the bed, donning a dark-black robe patterned with gilded water ripples, while communicating with the brain through thought.
"No, this power's essence is far too high! That dead crow's talent tier is at least two levels above a skinchanger!"
[Acknowledged!]
"Thump! Thump! Thump..."
Just as he finished dressing, the bluestone-tiled floor of the castle began to tremble.
Inside the room, three "colossal beings" charged rapidly toward Galedun.
Watching the newly laid stone tiles crack under their weight, he felt helpless and thought,"At this rate, will I have to sleep in the courtyard from now on?"
These three creatures—nearly eight meters long and resembling the legendary, muscle-bound Godzilla of his previous life—were the skinchanger companions he had chosen after traveling the world, on a remote island near the Smoking Sea.
They were mutated lizard variants produced by exposure to high-grade magical radiation. Even before mutation, their appearance already resembled marine iguanas from his previous life.
After mutation, the three little "Godzillas" looked almost exactly like the American Legendary Godzilla.
The same triangular body structure.The same thick, resilient gray-black scales.The same rows of sharp dorsal fins.The same overwhelming霸气!
They were practically living, breathing chibi Godzillas!
Yet Galedun knew clearly in his heart that these three little ones were, for now, mostly just impressive-looking shells.
Despite their striking resemblance to Godzilla, what they possessed inside were merely biological organs many times tougher than normal.
Aside from extraordinary digestive ability, they lacked a nuclear reactor, high-energy sacs, uranium pouches, and other core organs of Godzilla—thus they had no abilities like atomic breath.
"Xiong~!"
"Xiong~!"
"Xiong~!"
As Galedun pondered, the three little ones had already rolled over the cracked floor and arrived before him, lifting their heads and roaring in unison as if urging him on.
He lowered his head, patted the three glossy gray-black heads pressed against his waist, drew the gleaming silver dagger from his belt, and slashed hard across his left palm.
Blood immediately gushed forth from the chopstick-thick wound like a spring!
Expression calm, Galedun clenched his fist tightly, letting copious amounts of blood flow freely down his palm, one after another pouring into the gaping, ferocious mouths of his three skinchanger companions.
Only when the healthy flush on his face faded and turned pale did he finally loosen his grip.
He stared blankly at his palm, where pink flesh buds wriggled and knitted together.
His self-healing ability really had grown a bit stronger.