Subjugating the Game of Thrones

Chapter 1 Death Knight

The sounds of battle cries and hooves striking the earth filled the entire world, the pungent smell of blood strong as a heavy battering ram that came crashing down upon his high and fragile nasal bone with a thunderous boom.

A strong sense of sourness emerged instantly, only to be swiftly replaced by intense pain.

This was not the end of the disaster.

The force of the impact caused him to fall involuntarily from his horse, but a stirrup caught around his lower leg prevented him from completely detaching from his chestnut steed, instead, he was dragged at a breakneck speed, headfirst.

His fully armored body dangled upside down by the side of the galloping horse, his head, encased in a steel half-helm, rolled and wailed in the wet and greasy mud, the murky scent of the mire slightly obscured by his damaged nose. His eyes, too pained to open, felt a swarm of riders rush past him, perhaps enemies, but maybe allies.

Such thoughts crossed his mind, but the next moment left no time for such considerations.

A faint whooshing sound arose, and then, the horse fell!

With the horse's whimpering cries, with the immense force of a heavy object hitting the ground, his upside-down legs were swiftly crushed and twisted out of shape, finally snapping like chopsticks in the middle with a crack.

The hysterical scream of agony had not yet formed in his throat when it abruptly ceased, drowned out by the collapsing roar. The light chainmail on the chestnut warhorse clashed violently with his silver-linked armor, a fierce force struck, and a whole row of ribs broke as a result. His breathing, heavy under the cover of the massive weight, was intermittent also due to his broken neck.

Everything before his eyes quickly turned pitch black, the clashing of weapons, the black three-headed dragon banner fluttering in the wind, the rumbling sounds of riders passing by, screams, laughter, wails, roars, pleas for mercy...

All of it was stripped from the battlefield, leaving only pain as his true enemy, the pain in his cheeks, neck, heart, all over his body, that omnipresent ache, mad, sharp, cruel, unbearable...

He was defeated!

He was not clear on when he was overcome by this terrifying foe, but as the darkness was lifted, as the world transitioned from chaos to silence, as a sleeping young boy in a tower bedroom screamed and sat up from his feather bed, gasping for air, the result of failure was self-evident.

...

Footsteps echoed from outside the room, followed by a knock on the door. "I thought I heard some noise, young Lord Renly, are you alright?"

The voice, muffled by the wooden door, sounded dull.

"I'm fine, just a nightmare!"

A hoarse voice, controlled and deliberate, responded to the servant, as if also trying to convince himself.

Unfortunately, while the words were deliberately controlled and normal, a mere glance down would reveal his small, fair hands clutching the silver-gray bedding and his two arms trembling uncontrollably, convulsing.

The servant outside, of course, could not see this, and so the footsteps echoed again and quickly receded into the distance.

The boy named Renly paid no mind to this and instead kept staring at his hands in front of him. His beautiful blue eyes still held the pain brought on by the "nightmare," but as a strange change occurred, his hands and his heart, which trembled in tandem, quickly steadied.

Race Level lv1

...

It seemed to float before his eyes, yet also seemed to be a special kind of insight. When this information was captured by his brain, he exhaled in relief.

"Fake, that's right, it's all fake! I'm still alive, I wasn't crushed by my own horse, and I'm not an adult knight..."

He muttered to himself, feeling carefully, the overwhelming pain from before truly had vanished without a trace, leaving only the lingering illusion in his memory to plague him.

But that was not real.

He comforted himself in silence, yet uncertainly turned his head to the side of the bedside table.

On the low oak bedside table were a few decorative scarlet garnets and moonstones, a half-melted white wax candle, and a silvered round mirror from Myr, across the narrow sea.

As he gazed upon it, the clear surface of the mirror reflected a delicate child's face, no more than four or five years old, with black hair and blue eyes, quietly regarding him, his bloodshot gaze filled with scrutiny.

Another piece of information thus emerged.

Heraldry lv6, Language lv1, Etiquette lv1

...

There was no such data-driven ability in dreams, so he was completely reassured, and everything around him that had been ignored quickly came flooding back.

This was a peaceful and small bedroom, with dim lighting, a heavy brown wooden door less than two meters from the bed, a blackened fireplace quietly set into the wall opposite the bed, separated from the foot of the bed by only a leg's length, upon which hung several exquisitely crafted light golden tapestries, the silk surfaces embroidered with the crowned stag emblem of House Baratheon and some of the family's past great achievements.

House Baratheon was an ancient and honorable family, one of the eight great feudal nobles of the Targaryen dynasty, so it was not hard to imagine how exaggerated the paintings on the tapestries were.

Renly did not linger his gaze on them for long, glancing before shifting his attention to the narrow window on his left side.

A beam of sunlight shone through the glass of the window, slender and bright, illuminating a patch of the floor, yet also enveloping a floating dust invisible to the naked eye.

At this moment, he was inside the towering tower of the family's Storm's End, high up, so that beyond the light in his line of sight, there was only a hazy sky.

But a peculiar fragrance wafted in from outside the window, strange and bookish, like the blend of ink and parchment, yet with a hint of burnt scent.

So Renly threw back the silver silk bedding, put on the shoes by the side of the feather bed on the floor, and in only a thin black velvet pajamas, he stepped towards the window.

Sparse and trivial sounds accompanied his walk, the fault of a layer of rush mats laid on the floor; usually, Renly always complained that they were too noisy to walk on, but at this moment, he had basically ignored them, his attention entirely focused on his goal.

The window, set into the wall, was not low, and his height was not enough to reach, so he moved a nearby bench over and climbed up, then pushed open the narrow square window.

With a creak, the wind that had been kept out immediately blew in through the window, the sound of seagulls in the air, the salty sea breeze ruffling his charcoal black short hair, the cold carried by the wind raising goosebumps on his fair arms.

His gaze went beyond the courtyard below the tower and a grove of godswood, to the sea beyond the city walls enveloped in the morning fog, obscuring what should have been a vast ocean view.

Further out, vague ship shapes swayed slowly in the depths of the mist, not one or two, but dozens, hundreds.

They were neatly arrayed, surrounding the castle on the towering cliffs from the sea, looking like a group of black knights hidden in the fog, riding proudly, lances aimed at the enemy, ready to charge at the sound of a horn—targeting Storm's End.

The head of House Baratheon, his current elder brother Robert Baratheon, had previously instigated a rebellion against the royal Targaryen family, but it had barely begun when they were dealt a heavy blow by their good neighbors to the west, the Riverlands lords loyal to the crown, the Tyrells, forcing him to disappear far from his own territory, and the family's Storm's End was thus besieged by the soldiers of the Riverlands.

But they had been besieging for more than half a year now, and there was still no movement. The maester who taught Renly claimed that Storm's End had never been conquered in thousands of years, and the Tyrells obviously knew this, which was why they only besieged and did not attack, hoping that the supplies within the castle would run out and starve them to death.

Renly was not sure whether this was correct or not, nor was he interested in delving deeper, because if things went as expected, the castle would hold out until the last moment, until Robert Baratheon smashed the Targaryen heir to death with a hammer, successfully usurping the Iron Throne.

Of course, he could not be certain of this; although this was a world he seemed to remember, no one could guarantee whether it would develop according to the plot he remembered...

The tower was tall, but limited by the position of the bedroom, Renly's line of sight at the moment could only see the side facing the sea, and there was nothing much to see there.

So he shifted his gaze.

From behind the high tower, there were faint sounds of soldiers shouting, possibly from daily training, or perhaps someone was making a speech. He stretched his neck to look down and saw two figures conversing face to face in the courtyard at the base of the tower.

Too far away to hear any words, and due to the height, they looked like two little ants, one black and one gray, not eye-catching.

Yet Renly could clearly