The old wild man looked solemn as he leapt into a savage, mysterious dance. The one-armed man faced Dany and raised his bloody severed limb toward her.
The next moment, Dany felt a power filled with blood and desire descend upon her.
This power was, if one called it strong, not even one percent of the magic within her.
But if one called it weak, its energy level was slightly higher than ordinary magic. It seemed to be divine power, although much weaker than the wind-god power inside her. Its overall quantity was roughly equivalent to the High Sparrow fasting and praying for half a month.
This power had no owner. As long as she wished it, she could immediately absorb it and strengthen herself.
After only a moment of thought, she suddenly understood: the wild men below were offering her a blood sacrifice.
She herself was half-divine now, and in theory, capable of receiving blood sacrifices—gaining true and tangible power from them.
There were two ways to initiate a blood-sacrifice ritual to an evil god: perform it directly in the god's presence without knowing its true name or appearance, or chant its true name and offer sacrifice while visualizing the god in as much vivid detail as possible, which increased the ritual's efficiency.
Offering a sacrifice to an evil god was very similar to tipping an online streamer. If you want to give a streamer a reward, you either give money directly while watching her live, or you transfer it to her account.
In other words, you must give the money to the right person.
Dany pondered.The dragon's appearance had been abrupt and sudden, but Kong had arrived even earlier—and he was enormous.
The striped people on the mountain had surely noticed Kong at the foot of the hill, so they brought heavy offerings to sacrifice to him.
As for why they were offering sacrifices to Kong…Ancient people worshipped gods for protection.
They prayed to good gods for assistance; they also prayed to evil gods, hoping they would stay away from them and torment their enemies instead.
It had always been this way through the ages.
But unexpectedly they encountered the demon dragon and Dany.
The striped people had prepared nothing to offer the "Iron-Skinned God", so they could only chop off ten arms on the spot to give to her.
Well… Iron-Skinned Dany wasn't that big, so ten arms were theoretically enough for her to chew on for a meal.
This was the simple, unadorned hospitality of the striped savages.
High-quality ingredients often require the simplest preparation.And the old wild man dancing below with pickled cucumbers dangling from his waist was a priest; he recognized Dany's half-divine nature.
Had this happened before, she could have controlled every strand of magic and every muscle fiber in her body. Now, however…It was like a peacock spreading its tail, letting her semi-divine aura flare out unrestrained.
In contrast, Big Black concealed his divine power, making the old striped priest believe he was merely the winged pet of the "Iron-Skinned God".
Therefore they offered all their sacrifices only to the Iron-Skinned God; Big Black received none of their respect.
Dany glanced sideways—Kong had really accepted the raw diamonds and gold nuggets.
On his furry black face was a lecherous grin of satisfaction.
That silly brute…
Suddenly, the old wild priest who had been dancing so fervently widened his eyes in terror. The drummer stiffened where he stood, and the drums fell silent.
The striped priest had sensed that the "Iron-Skinned God" had rejected their offering.
In the wild rainforest, this was like in Westeros: a host offering bread and salt to a powerful guest, and the guest refusing to eat.
What did that mean?Something terrible was about to happen.
And indeed, a great disaster was about to befall the mountaintop village.
But it really was only coincidence.
The Dragon Queen was righteous and hated evil, so of course she rejected the blood sacrifice.
In her heart, accepting a blood sacrifice meant becoming a demon.
"Wuuuah!" The old striped man howled in grief and venom, then immediately turned and bolted.
He didn't even care about his companions and rushed straight into the forest.
The other wild men stared in shock for a moment, then scattered into the dense jungle like a startled flock of sparrows.
"What are they doing?" Dany was stunned.
At once, rapid drumming echoed from within the forest, declaring the area an official battlefield.
Even the birds and beasts sensed the coming conflict. The macaws fell silent, the monkeys gathering fruit on the treetops curled their tails tightly. Their eyes darted about as they watched cautiously.
The rainforest became unnaturally quiet.
Dany shrugged indifferently and shouted at Kong, "Idiot, go pull the aggro!"
Kong glanced around nervously while holding his gold nugget and giant diamond. He crouched, poked a finger into the muddy yellow riverbank, and made a pit as wide as a barrel and a meter deep. Then he put his treasures inside.
He pinched a millstone-sized rock between two furry fingers and placed it over the hole like a lid. Only then did he grin with satisfaction and stride toward the mountaintop village.
With a hum, two radiant angel wings unfurled behind Dany. She leapt lightly, gliding more than thirty meters, and landed beside Kong's stash.
She flipped the millstone rock four or five meters away with one hand.
Bending down, she scooped up the raw diamond.
It was the size of a human head, heavy in her hand, its uneven facets shimmering faint pink under the sunlight.
"Heh, I knew it. This is a magic power gem!"
Feeling divine energy move unobstructed within the diamond, Dany beamed.
She didn't bother putting the stone back. With another leap and a beat of her wings, the breeze lifting her like a great bird, she landed on Big Black's back.
She opened the leather pouch strapped to him and shoved the diamond inside.
In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, dragonglass was the most common arcane material, but it wasn't the best.
There were extremely rare natural crystals with far greater efficiency in storing and channeling magic—such as the crystal sphere at the Dragonstone weave-nexus, which Marwyn purchased from Myr for seventy thousand gold dragons.
Even rarer than magic crystals were magic gemstones. Dany's Knight-King armor had two pinky-tip-sized diamonds embedded at the shoulders—those were Fire-Wing exhaust ports.
Another example was the ruby worn around Melisandre's neck.
Have you ever seen Melisandre use a glass candle?Whenever one saw that woman, her hands were folded inside her sleeves, her red robes billowed gracefully, and she moved with serene, intimidating elegance.
Her spellcasting was effortless, mesmerizing, and awe-inspiring.
And gemstones larger and more precious than that ruby…
"Today's my lucky day. I came out to hunt for food and ended up 'picking up' such a precious giant diamond."
Watching Kong charging forward in the distance, Dany felt delighted.
Well, it wasn't exactly coincidence. Kong had visited this mountain range several times, and each time the pig-nosed striped priests would offer him gold and gems.
The old priest understood supernatural power and deliberately chose a magic diamond to give to his "old friend".
Who knew that old friend would turn hostile, accept their offering, and then still attack their village?
In less than half an hour, Kong had charged from the base to the mountaintop, smashing through four of the pig-nosed striped men's checkpoints, crushing, stomping, and devouring over a hundred wild warriors along the way.
"Roar, roar, roar!"
"Thud, thud, thud!"
King Kong stood on the mountaintop, pounding his chest and roaring toward the back mountain from the open area in the center of the village.
From five hundred meters in the air, as Dannie looked down from the dragon's back, she saw no temple in the village, and only a dense banyan forest behind the mountain.
Just as she was wondering, a jet of white spring water shot out from the forest, spraying a hundred meters into the air. It suddenly spread wide and transformed into a massive "fishing net" that almost covered half the village.
King Kong had always known exactly who he was dealing with. While provoking his opponent, he remained highly alert. When the giant net came down from the sky, he didn't retreat. Instead, he surged forward with great strides, racing toward the source of the web.
"Boom, boom, boom!"
The thirty-meter-tall gorilla, weighing over a hundred tons, sprinted with long strides. The ground shook lightly as if trembling under a small quake.
The massive tree trunks as thick as a man's embrace and the wildmen's thatched huts along the way fared no better than an old grandpa faking an accident on the roadside—they were effortlessly smashed apart or sent flying.
King Kong even pulled off a move only seen in martial arts films: sprinting at high speed, grabbing a long spear stuck in the ground as he passed, and immediately hurling it.
Except, what he pulled out wasn't a spear but a towering sky-reacher tree forty meters tall at the village's outer edge.
Once uprooted, the tree triggered a small landslide on the mountain—two huts near the sky-reacher tree collapsed as their foundations gave way.
A sharp screech tore through the sky.
"Creak—" The monster in the forest spat out another web, but it was torn apart instantly by the sky-reacher tree spear, as easily as ripping through a pair of silk stockings that landed in the hands of an overexcited monk.
"BOOM!"
Where the spear landed, an entire swath of trees snapped apart. Broken branches and green leaves erupted dozens of meters into the air.
From above, the lush forest now had a straight path carved through it by the "spear."
"Roar!"
King Kong leapt into the air, soaring forty to fifty meters high like a cannonball, and crashed down just ten meters from the tree spear.
"Splatt—BOOM!"
In the deafening crash came a barely noticeable but crisp sound, like squeezing a frog's belly until it burst.
"Roar, roar!" King Kong grinned wide, revealing the classic black-gorilla smile, and waved at Dannie in midair.
Dannie was expressionless.
The Mighty Heavenly Dragon hadn't even made its entrance yet, and the monster had already been stomped to death by this brute.
After going down to check, she confirmed it was a spider demon about the size of a double bed.
It looked like a pile of fresh cow dung blown apart by a grenade—colorful guts splattered across nearby tree trunks, leaves, rocks, and the ground.
Even King Kong's feet were coated with a thick layer of flesh and gore.
Pinching her nose, Dannie had him scrape off the meat paste.
She didn't bother collecting remains. While the corpse was still warm, she quickly burned it with dragonfire.
The amount of spiritual essence was barely acceptable, but the divinity was pitifully low.
It wasn't even comparable to the bat demon, much less the immortal killed by Little Black during his juvenile stage.
Still, Little Black finally unlocked his third profession.
After hesitating for a long time, Dannie chose warrior over stranger.
She wasn't sure whether the stranger's divine power extended into the domain of death, but with a major battle coming, the warrior path would help Little Black—and her—far more right now.
As expected, under the warrior's divine power, Little Black's dragonfire grew stronger once again.
The blacksmith's divine fire was good for altering the shape of matter, transforming solid to liquid.
The warrior's divine fire, clear purple like Dannie's eyes, had the nature of explosion and destruction.
The warrior's divine power also greatly enhanced Little Black's close-combat ability.
Dannie had the feeling that if Little Black continued tempering his body with the warrior's divine power, his claws and fangs would become even harder and sharper, and his physique would grow along with them.
Naturally, divine vocation did more than convert divine power—it also granted Little Black the corresponding knowledge: the accumulated combat experience of every warrior who devoutly worshipped the Seven over thousands of years in Westeros.
Including every generation of the "Dawn Sword."
(ps: The Dawn Sword is not one person, but a shared title for the knights of House Dayne of Starfall who wield the divine sword "Dawn," much like the First Hokage and Second Hokage, both holding the title of Hokage.
"Fudiao Sword" is not a homophone for "Dawn Sword," but a reference.
It comes from Jaime Lannister's evaluation of Arthur Dayne's swordsmanship: "I trained under 'Dawn Sword' Arthur Dayne. Let me tell you, he could piss with his right hand—his dominant hand—while using his left to wield a sword and cut down all five of you losers." (The five White Knights serving Tommen, including Loras Tyrell.)
The White Knights flushed with shame, but none dared to argue.
This evaluation cemented Arthur Dayne's reputation as "the greatest swordsman in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire." In truth, Arthur died before the main plot of Game of Thrones even began.
In other words, 'Dawn Sword' does not necessarily refer to Arthur Dayne, but 'Fudiao Sword' always does.
Also, today's update is late, my apologies. I was rewriting the explanation of divinity in Chapter Three, which took some time.)
(End of chapter)
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