One day, two weeks later, Viserys was doing his sword training as usual.
Sweat streamed down from the top of his head like a stream, flowing into his eyes and making it almost impossible for him to keep them open.
But his hands tightly gripped a wooden sword, and his eyes stared at Ser Barristan’s wrists.
He tried to anticipate the position of the next slash from those tiny movements.
Every parry caused the force of Ser Barristan’s sword stroke to travel along his arms throughout his entire body, causing his consciousness to slip slightly.
“Focus, Your Grace.” Ser Barristan’s solemn and earnest voice echoed across the training yard.
“On a real battlefield, the price paid for a momentary distraction is your life.
Your enemy will not show mercy because of your age.”
“Hmm.” Viserys squeezed a muffled grunt from his throat in response, pulling his attention back.
He could feel that this body was growing stronger at an abnormal speed.
From the most basic sword-gripping posture to today’s sparring, his training intensity had been secretly raised by Barristan to the standard of a formal knight.
Although because of strength issues he was still using a wooden sword, you must know that he had only started training for about a month, not to mention he was only a little over five years old—this was a very astonishing thing.
It was just that Viserys was unaware; after all, his original self had never trained either, and this was a world of dragons and magic, so he still thought he was just slightly more talented than ordinary children.
Although Barristan was shocked by Viserys’s talent, the dragon king bloodline of House Targaryen was quite special, and special talents could possibly appear in every generation.
He also thought Viserys had awakened some kind of bloodline talent, which didn’t seem to be unexplainable.
“That is all for today.” After a long while, Barristan finally announced the end of today’s training.
Viserys merely waved his hand; he felt like the bones in his whole body were wailing, and every muscle was swollen and sore.
But he had to admit that this feeling of tangible growth in strength could be addictive.
Viserys dragged his disobedient legs away from the training ground, his mind filled with only wanting to immediately soak in a steaming hot bath and properly relax.
Just as he stepped out of the training ground, a hoarse cry of “Caw—” came, and a raven landed on a stone beside the training ground.
At first, he thought it was the maester’s raven landing to rest because it was tired of flying, because ravens were a fierce carnivorous bird species, so there couldn’t possibly be any other birds in the Red Keep.
But the instant his gaze caught a glimpse of it, Viserys instantly felt cold sweat slide down his back.
The raven he saw actually had three eyes, two of which were no different from ordinary ravens, their black eyes revealing alertness, but right above the center of its brows was a blood-red eye.
That eye was like a burning ruby, exuding an alluring and sinister glow.
At this moment, it was tilting its head, using its three eyes to stare fixedly at Viserys.
The Three-Eyed Raven—how could it come to King’s Landing?
This shouldn’t be.
After all, he had only time-traveled for a little over a month, hadn’t touched the wheels of history yet, hadn’t changed any story lines, and even less should have attracted this person’s attention.
In the original work, the Three-Eyed Raven told Bran that activating his abilities required the assistance of a weirwood tree, and now, except for the North, the weirwood trees south of The Neck had basically all been chopped down.
There should only be a few remaining in the territories of a few families in The Riverlands and the Vale who still worshipped the old gods, plus one in the center of Thousand-Eye Lake, and the rest might still exist in the rarely trodden depths of the Red Mountains in the southern The Reach.
In short, its appearance in King’s Landing was in itself an extremely dangerous signal.
Viserys only glanced at it, pretended not to notice anything unusual, and paced along with the maid to wash up.
However, his inner heart had long since stirred up monstrous waves, his heart sinking straight to the bottom of the valley.
He felt that this thing was definitely coming for him.
Was it because his transmigrator soul had disturbed some damned line of destiny?
All afternoon, he remained in a trance-like state.
That blood-red eye flashed repeatedly in his mind.
At dinner, faced with a table full of meticulously prepared dishes, he found them tasteless like chewing wax.
The maid serving him seemed to have noticed the prince’s abnormality, but silently attributed his silence to the exhaustion of training.
Night completely enshrouded the Red Keep, pitch-black outside the window.
Viserys lay on the soft, large bed, yet had no sleepiness at all.
In his mind, Bloodraven’s terrifying image and that Three-Eyed Raven kept circling.
Now it was confirmed: that thing was definitely coming for him.
Sure enough, not long after, Viserys felt a strange drowsiness forcefully wash over him.
It was not natural sleepiness, but rather felt more like a mental kidnapping; his consciousness was dragged into a cold, viscous vortex.
When the weightless feeling vanished and he opened his eyes once more, he found that he was already in an unfamiliar environment.
“You are very special, little one.”
The voice came from behind, dry and hoarse, like tree bark rubbing together.
Viserys turned around abruptly, his heart almost leaping out of his throat—what did he see?
Beneath a massive weirwood tree that defied description, a tall figure was half-embedded in the intertwined roots.
He wore a tattered black cloak, so skinny he was nothing but skeleton.
Most terrifying was his face; the position of his left eye was occupied by pale tree roots, those roots plunging deep into his eye socket as if they had become a part of his body.
His remaining right eye was blood-red, like frozen fire, and the Three-Eyed Raven perched on his shoulder, its three eyes likewise staring at Viserys.
“You… who are you?” Viserys let his voice carry a just-right trembling, and stepped back as if suffering some kind of fright.
“Where is this?
Am I dreaming?”
Bloodraven let out a cough-like laugh: “Heh heh… A dream?
You could say that.
This is the crevice between reality and dreams.” His good eye—let’s call it a good eye—exuded a red light, narrowing slightly.
“But you… your life thread is shrouded in mist, and I cannot see clearly.
You are not entirely you, little one.”
Viserys’s heart tightened, but his face revealed a blank expression as he replied: “I don’t understand what you are talking about.
I am Viserys Targaryen.
You haven’t answered me yet, who on earth are you?”
“Targaryen?
Perhaps.
I am also a Targaryen, Brynden Rivers, have you ever heard this name?” Bloodraven’s voice was completely calm, as if stating a fact unrelated to himself.
“Brynden Rivers?
I have heard this name.
You are Brynden Rivers?
Then you are not a Targaryen, you are merely a bastard.” Viserys put on the arrogant expression that an overbearing child should have, emphasizing the word “bastard”.
“Discussing these has no meaning.
I pulled you here simply to want to tell you that I have seen something even more terrifying approaching—that is the extreme cold originating from the end of the world, and the aura of death spreads like a tide, enshrouding all things.
The Long Night is coming, and we need all our strength to fight it.
Winter is coming, child.”