Soren’s heart gave a violent, sudden spasm, as if squeezed tight by an invisible hand.
The lines of code before his eyes dissolved into a blur of static, and a sharp ringing in his ears instantly drowned out the roar of the server racks.
Then came a tearing pain in his chest, and an endless darkness swallowed his consciousness whole.
*** *Gasp—* Soren sucked in a desperate breath, but his lungs felt as though they were filled with ice crystals.
Opening his eyes, his vision blurred with heavy double images, but the face hovering right before him made his scalp go numb.
It was the misshapen, ugly face of a dwarf.
A broad forehead, tangled blonde hair like dried straw, and most chilling of all, those eyes—one green, one black—teeming with resentment, mockery, and a desperate, manic rage.
Tyrion Lannister.
The name leapt instinctively from the depths of Soren’s memory.
Howling winds whipped past, biting like cold iron against the bone.
Soren shivered, realizing he was wearing a rough boiled-leather jerkin, with a longsword in a cracked scabbard hanging at his hip.
Half a meter to his right, a man with shaggy hair was idly rubbing the hilt of a sword, his thumb repeatedly easing the blade out half an inch before letting it snap back with a click.
Bronn.
“You!
It was you, you vile dwarf!” A hysterical screech pierced the air.
Soren looked toward the sound, freezing where he stood.
This was the Eyrie, the High Hall.
Rows of white marble pillars supported the vaulted ceiling, and at the far end of the hall, a heavy timber door stood wide open.
Beyond it lay no steps—only an abyss of deep azure void and rolling clouds.
The Moon Door.
Beside the throne, a gaunt-faced Lysa Arryn clutched a sickly, misshapen boy to her chest.
“It was you and your family!
You murdered my husband, Jon, and now you want to kill little Bran!” She shrieked, spittle flying from her lips.
In her arms, Robert Arryn sucked his thumb, echoing her cruelly, “Make him fly!
Mommy!
I want to see the little bad man fly!” Nearby, Lady Catelyn Stark stood with furrowed brows, her eyes filled with panic as the situation spiraled out of control.
At that moment, memories of the original host flooded in like a deluge.
Soren had transmigrated.
He hadn’t become a high lord or noble—just a wandering sellsword who had followed Lady Catelyn all the way up the mountain escorting the Imp for a handful of silver stag coins.
Soren’s job should have ended the moment Tyrion was handed over.
All that was left for him to do was watch these arrogant Vale nobles perform their farce, take his coin, and leave.
“Lady Arryn,” Tyrion spoke up from his knees.
“I must reiterate: I know nothing of your husband’s death, nor of Bran Stark’s fall.
Accusing me requires proof, not merely—” He glanced at the Vale lord beside him who was currently picking his nose, “—the crazy ramblings of a child.” “Proof?” Lysa cackled, her voice echoing off the marble pillars.
“My sister’s word is proof!
Guards!
Throw him out the Moon Door!” “Mommy!
Make him fly!” Little Robert clapped, his face red with excitement.
Several Vale knights clad in silver and blue armor stepped forward, their eyes haughty as if looking at a gutter rat.
Bronn’s grip tightened on his hilt, but he didn’t draw his blade.
Offending the entire Vale for a doomed dwarf wasn’t a profitable calculation.
Meanwhile, Soren stood anchored to the spot, his heart pounding wildly against his ribs.
This wasn’t a game.
The howling wind outside the Moon Door, the bone-chilling air—all relentlessly hammered home the reality: this was the real, unforgiving world of A Song of Ice and Fire, where life was cheap as dirt.
As a bottom-tier sellsword, Soren barely qualified to be cannon fodder in the game of thrones about to sweep across the Seven Kingdoms.
“Hold!” Tyrion’s voice rose sharply, cutting straight through the wind and Lysa’s screeches.
“I confess!
I confess to my crimes!” The entire hall fell dead silent.
Everyone stared at him in astonishment.
Tyrion looked around the room, taking on the theatrical tone of a minstrel as he began his famous confession: “My whole life has been full of sin.
I confess to stealing biscuits at six; stuffing sheep dung into my sister’s slippers at ten; underpaying prostitutes at twelve…
And I confess my greatest sin of all was being born a dwarf!
For that, I am guilty!” The Vale knights turned pale with outrage, feeling utterly mocked.
Tyrion stood up slowly.
Though caked in mud, the intelligence burning in his eyes overwhelmed everyone present.
“Truth counts for nothing here.
I committed none of the crimes you accuse me of.
But I demand—” He took a deep breath and roared: “Trial by combat!” The thunderous cry ripped through the hall.
Lysa Arryn’s face twisted in fury: “Fine!
Ser Vardis!
You shall be my champion!” An elderly knight in silver armor stepped forward, bowing stoically.
“As you command, my lady.” Right at that moment, a cold, mechanical voice chimed in Soren’s mind: [Ding!
Host detected as involved in a core world event.] [“War & Gold: Path of the Sellsword and Knight System” activated.] [Current Rank: Wandering Sellsword (Lowest Tier).] [Scenario Choice Quest Triggered: Life-or-Death Gamble.] [Tyrion Lannister is seeking a champion, while Bronn is weighing his options.] [Option 1: Silence is golden.
Reward: 1 Gold Dragon.
System will unbind immediately afterward.
Good luck in Westeros!] [Option 2: Beat Bronn to the punch and hijack this gamble of fate!
Fight as Tyrion’s champion!] [Reward: Combat Memory Fusion: “Wandering Swordplay (Proficient Level)”—The system will help you fully absorb and refine the original host’s years of practical combat experience forged in heaps of corpses.
Equipment Status Refresh: “Rust Removal & Sharpening”.] Soren stared intently at the interface in his mind.
There were no max-level god gears, no invincible sword arts.
The system’s rewards were remarkably restrained.
It merely pushed the host’s physical baseline and combat experience to their limit while granting him a weapon that wouldn’t shatter after two swings.
Against Ser Vardis, who was aging but clad in heavy plate armor, this was still a high-stakes gamble on the edge of a blade.
Tyrion’s gaze swept over the room.
He looked at the Vale knights sneering in contempt, then at Lady Catelyn’s grave expression.
Who would fight for an infamous Lannister dwarf?
Tyrion’s eyes finally landed on the mercenary sellswords standing near Soren.
He was looking at Bronn.
Bronn stroked his stubbled chin, eyes narrowing slightly.
Soren knew Bronn was calculating—waiting for Tyrion to name a higher price, assessing just how tough Ser Vardis’s heavy plate armor would be to breach.
In those few brief seconds, Soren’s mind raced at breakneck speed.
Choose Option 1?
After leaving the Eyrie, outside lay the Mountains of the Moon, teeming with Wildlings from the mountain clans.
With his current gear and solitary state, the odds of dying on the way down the mountain were ninety percent.
Even if he miraculously survived, the War of the Five Kings was about to erupt in full force.
What fate awaited a bottom-tier sellsword with no backing or connections, other than being conscripted into an army as frontline cannon fodder?
Having been given a second life, after surviving endless nights grinding code, was he really going to die like a bug crushed underfoot in a place like this?
A Lannister always pays his debts.
Tyrion was not only the future Hand of the King, but also the thickest thigh Soren could latch onto right now.
Bronn’s lips twitched; he was about to speak.
*Now.* Soren took a sharp step forward.
His iron-shod boot clattered heavily against the cold marble, ringing out with a harsh, echoing snap.
Ignoring the sudden astonishment in Bronn’s eyes and the sudden widening of Lady Catelyn’s, he locked eyes with Tyrion Lannister’s mismatched green-and-black gaze, his right hand gripping the hilt of his longsword—now stripped of rust and feeling cool to the touch courtesy of the system.
*Schwing—* The longsword cleared its sheath, its edge glinting like cold lightning.
Pointing the tip toward the floor at an angle, Soren spoke low and firm into the dead silence of the hall: “I will fight for him.”