The Trident was no longer a river; it was a jagged, weeping scar on the world. The sky above the ruby ford shimmered with a sickly, bruised violet haze as a Mega-Rift tore the atmosphere wide. This was no minor leak—it was a direct gateway to the deepest pits of the Abyss.
The royal army was already a shattered ruin. Aerys II had sent thousands of soldiers armed with the silver weapons his smiths had frantically mass-produced. But against the Greater Horrors and Armor-Clad Archons pouring from the rift, the thin silver plating on King's Landing steel was useless. It shattered against obsidian hides, and the screams of dying men filled the valley as the monsters feasted.
In the Red Keep, Aerys watched the reports with eyes wide and bloodshot. "Why won't they die?!" he shrieked, clawing at his throat. "I gave them the silver! Burn them all! Burn the demons! Burn the cowards!"
But the wildfire of the alchemists was a flickering candle against the rising sun.
Then, through the choking stench of sulfur and rot, a low, rhythmic thudding began. It was the sound of iron-shod boots and the guttural, rhythmic baying of Hellhounds.
"The North has arrived," a dying knight whispered from the mud.
The Silver Legion didn't charge with the desperation of men; they moved with the cold, terrifying precision of a machine. At their head was Philips Lancaster, his eyes glowing like violet stars, flanked by Ned Stark and the Seven Kings.
"Wardens, engage!" Ned bellowed, his voice amplified by Beelzebub's resonance. He leaped from his horse, his Bestial Axe wreathed in the dark, crushing gravity of his pact.
A Greater Archon—a towering, six-armed beast of bone and shadow—lunged at him. In any other age, this creature would have slaughtered a hundred knights. Ned swung the Infernium-forged axe in a brutal arc. The blade didn't just cut; it roared. The Bestial Axe bit through the Archon's obsidian plate as if it were parchment, the Infernium core detonating in a pulse of red heat that cauterized the demon's essence.
Beside him, the elite guards brandished their Orc Lord Evisceration Cleavers and Ferocious Cleavers of Ancient Demon. Each strike was a death sentence. Where silver had failed, the weapons forged from Demon Teeth and Infernium found the soul of the enemy.
"Maesters! Focus the core!" Philips commanded.
The Abyssal Sorcerers raised their Occult Staves of Bisith, weaving Leviathan's blue lightning with the necrotic siphons of their Trophies of Death. As the demons fell, their life-force was visibly torn from their bodies and channeled into the Legion, healing the minor wounds of the soldiers in real-time. The Northmen fought with a tireless, terrifying stamina that broke the morale of the few surviving royalists watching from the ridges.
Philips toggled into his Infernal King form, his silhouette growing to a towering height as he stepped toward the center of the rift. He drew his Forbidden Ritual Daggers, carving runes of sealing into the very air. With a final, violent surge of Essence, he slammed his palms against the tear.
The sky screamed. The Mega-Rift buckled, turned inward, and vanished in a thunderclap that knocked every man to his knees. The remaining wild demons, cut off from their source, were systematically hunted down by the Hellhounds and the Sisters of the Pit.
The silence that followed was deafening.
In King's Landing, the report reached the Mad King. He sat on his throne, his long hair matted and his mind finally shattered beyond repair.
"The boy... the Lancaster boy," Aerys whispered, laughing a high, thin sound. "He used the bones. He used the teeth. My silver was a lie... the monsters' remains are the only truth."
Realizing that his royal authority was worthless compared to the dark, practical craft of the North, Aerys didn't scream anymore. He simply sat in the shadows of the Iron Throne, staring at his reflection in a pool of spilled wine.
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[SYSTEM: MEGA-RIFT CLOSED]
[REPUTATION (WESTEROS): LEGENDARY]
[NEW STATUS: THE SAVIOR OF THE TRIDENT]
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The aftermath of the Trident was not a time of feasting, but a time of cold, calculated harvesting. While the few royal survivors watched in shell-shocked silence, the Silver Legion moved through the mountains of demon carcasses with surgical precision. They weren't just clearing a battlefield; they were strip-mining a miracle.
"In the world of the Abyss," Philips spoke to his men, his voice carrying clearly in the aftermath of the battle, "the enemy is not just a threat. It is the raw material of our evolution. To kill the greater beasts, we must stop pretending that common prayer or castle-forged steel is enough."
As the Legion marched north, they carried more than just their banners; they carried the terrifyingly practical knowledge of the Great Crafts. Philips ensured this secret wasn't kept by a few, but disseminated as a fundamental truth of this new, apocalyptic world. The realm learned that normal people could forge these weapons, provided they had the proper materials and the precise knowledge of the formulas Philips provided.
The Bestial Foundation: Any common blacksmith could learn the process, but they needed the right base "Great Weapons"—the Bestial Axe, the Torture Cleaver, or the Ferocious Slasher. These were specific blueprints designed to handle the volatile demonic materials.
The Abyssal Catalyst: The entire continent was stunned to learn that Infernium Ore—the glowing, volcanic heart of the rifts—was the only substance capable of binding human steel to demonic essence. Without it, a blade was just cold iron, useless against the Archons.
The Essence of the Predator: The final piece was the Demon Tooth or Monster Fang. These were the biological anchors. When fused with Infernium, they granted the weapons their legendary, monster-slaying properties: the Orc Lord Evisceration Cleaver and the Ferocious Cleaver of Ancient Demon.
The news that any person could craft weapons of power, provided they had the demon parts, turned the political chaos into a desperate resource scramble.
The Smallfolk's Hunt: Peasants who once fled in terror now looked at "Lesser Crawlers" with a grim, greedy eye. A single tooth was worth more than a decade of harvests.
The Citadel's Crisis: The Maesters began documenting the properties of "Great Crafts" over traditional alchemy, accepting a dark truth: the old ways were dead.
The Mad King's Envy: In King's Landing, Aerys II sat amidst useless piles of silver. He had realized the most bitter truth of all: his "royal authority" could not forge a single Trophy of Death. He watched his kingdom's foundations crumble as every lord in Westeros looked to the North—not for a king, but for the raw materials of survival.
"You've shown them that the monsters are the only way to stay alive," Ned Stark said, watching the first Northern smith successfully fuse a Monster Fang into a blade.
"I've shown them that we are no longer at the bottom of the food chain," Philips replied, watching the Hellhounds pick through the scraps of the forge. "We are the predators now."
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[SYSTEM: KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION COMPLETE]
[WORLD STATUS: ERA OF THE GREAT CRAFT]
[ALERT: THE MAD KING HAS ORDERED THE MASS EXECUTION OF SMITHIES WHO CANNOT REPLICATE THE "BESTIAL AXE".]