Chapter 69:
The plains outside Eastwatch-by-the-Sea had now become a bizarre basin woven from frost and scorched earth.
The ancient ice dragon, once empowered by the Others with necromantic magic and capable of spewing breath that could freeze souls, now lay in a humiliating posture on the frozen soil of the North. Its hundred-meter-long body resembled a collapsed transparent mountain range. The ghostly blue cold light that once flowed beneath its scales was rapidly fading, replaced by a deathly gray-white caused by the loss of vitality.
In its swollen abdomen, a giant hole more than three meters in diameter was still gurgling with viscous, faintly glowing blue blood. This wound had been violently torn open by Drogon — the fierce dragon clad in heavy Valyrian steel composite armor — in a near-suicidal sonic-speed dive.
"Roar…"
Drogon landed heavily beside the ice dragon's corpse. His massive wings stirred up a hurricane mixed with ice shards. The red magitech runes on the power armor that Victor had meticulously designed for him still glowed hot and flickered from the intense impact and overload, emitting a "hiss-hiss" sound as they cooled.
This fire-breathing behemoth proudly raised its head, snorting a plume of pungent sulfur-scented smoke from its nostrils. Its gaze toward its fallen rival was filled with disdain — in the face of House Pompey's steel armament, even ancient legends were nothing more than deconstructed material.
"Don't burn it! My gods, that is the Creator's masterpiece! An irreplaceable biological specimen!"
Maester Marwyn completely ignored the bone-freezing cold. He leaped off his still-roaring snowmobile. This old madman who had spent most of his life in the Citadel now had disheveled hair. He clutched his precision sampler and special medicine box tightly as he scrambled toward the ice dragon's wound. A thick layer of frost instantly formed on his glasses, but he paid it no mind, frantically examining the crystallizing dragon flesh through a magnifying glass.
Victor dismounted.
To maintain the ritualistic image of the "Iron Duke" in the minds of the Northern lords and soldiers, he had not ridden in an armored vehicle. Instead, he rode a black horse that had undergone bio-engineering and mechanical prosthetic modifications. Its hooves struck the ice with a dull metallic clang.
"Sandor, stand back." Victor stopped the eager Hound, Sandor Clegane, who wanted to deliver one final sword blow to the beast.
"My lord, even dead this thing makes me uncomfortable." The Hound cursed. Even through his thick fur cloak, he could feel the temperature dropping geometrically.
Indeed, although the ice dragon was dead, the extreme cold divinity it had accumulated over tens of thousands of years was now leaking out uncontrollably. Centered on the corpse, the oxygen within a hundred-meter radius seemed to be solidifying. Any ordinary soldier who got too close would have their lung tissue completely frozen in a single breath, turning into fragile ice shards.
"Only bloodline can resist the cold, and only bloodline can inherit divinity."
An ethereal yet deep voice sounded behind Victor. The red priestess Melisandre slowly stepped forward. Even her usually warm red robes were now coated with white frost. Her gaze passed through the battlefield and locked directly onto the woman standing beside Victor — Sansa Stark.
At this moment, Sansa's state was eerily alarming.
A strand of her flame-red hair had quietly turned into a striking silver-white, dancing like a spirit snake in the biting cold wind. Her pupils were no longer their usual clear color but had taken on a deep icy blue, like an unfathomable abyss of the far north.
"I'll go."
Sansa said softly. Her voice no longer carried a maiden's softness — it sounded like an echo rising from ten-thousand-year-old glaciers. She gently pushed away Victor's concerned hand. The hand that had once been warm was now cold as ice crystal, yet filled with a vibrant, life-filled power.
"Victor, don't stop me. I can hear it crying… It is part of the North's ancient curse, an exiled watcher. Now, it wants to come home, and it has chosen me as its vessel."
Victor was silent for a moment. As a transmigrator, he trusted data more.
[Scanning Target: Sansa Stark (Spouse / Vassal)]
[Status: Deep Bloodline Awakening (Ancient Winter King Bloodline Concentration 89%)]
[Environmental Assessment: Extremely High Compatibility. Energy Siphon Effect Establishing.]
"Be careful." Victor whispered, releasing her hand.
Under the shocked gazes of thousands of soldiers, Sansa walked step by step toward the colossal beast.
With every footfall, the hard, scorched snow beneath her parted on its own, as if welcoming its true queen.
When she finally reached the ice dragon's semi-transparent head and gently pressed her slender, pale palm against the diamond-like brilliant scale in the center of its forehead—
Buzz————!!!
A visible blue shockwave exploded outward!
A violent storm of extreme cold erupted from the ice dragon's depleted body, forming a thick blue pillar of light that poured straight into the top of Sansa's head. The surrounding ruins were instantly coated with a thick layer of ice glaze. Maester Marwyn was knocked to the ground by the blast wave, yet he continued recording frantically in the snow: "Divine infusion! This is direct conversion of matter and energy!"
Victor clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. The system windows in front of him flashed wildly:
[System Notification: High-purity "Ice Divinity" material detected.] [Family Offspring (5th Child) Fertilized Egg Receptor is absorbing raw energy…] [Progress: 1%… 15%… 45%… 80%!]
Sansa tilted her head back, her entire body floating in mid-air. Her Stark bloodline achieved a perfect resonance with the extreme cold energy. What Victor had once seen as inexplicable supernatural phenomena was, in the system's underlying code, simply a high-energy particle capture triggered by genetic compatibility.
Crack!
The ice dragon's massive head suddenly split open with a straight fissure.
A deep blue crystal the size of a baby's fist, perfectly geometric and radiating bone-chilling cold light, slowly emerged and finally settled gently into Sansa's palm.
With the departure of this crystal, the ice dragon's enormous corpse rapidly weathered away, turning into a sky full of ice dust.
[Acquired Special Magitech Material: Ice Dragon Core.]
[System Analysis: This substance possesses absolute zero steady state and is the ideal energy suppressant.]
[Industrial Use: Ultimate coolant for magitech reactors (nuclear fusion / antimatter). With it, your "Never-Falling Floating City" power unit will no longer risk destruction from thermal runaway.]
Victor strode forward, removed the thick bear-fur cloak from his back, and tightly wrapped the exhausted, falling Sansa in it.
At this moment, half of Sansa's long hair had turned completely silver. She leaned weakly against Victor's chest, opened her palm, and the crystal's faint glow illuminated both their faces.
"It left its power for our child." Sansa smiled weakly, her other hand gently stroking her abdomen.
Victor kissed her forehead. In that moment, what he felt was not only tenderness but also a heavy sense of responsibility.
At that time, the system's reward notification arrived as expected, accompanied by the mechanical sound of technology blueprint unlocking:
[Congratulations, Host! Due to the offspring's bloodline awakening ahead of schedule and acquiring a divine relic, family prosperity has surged!] [Rewards Issued Early: Unlocked Heavy Industrial Blueprint — "Winter-1 Heavy Tracked Chassis (All-Terrain Tank Prototype)"] [Unlocked Magitech Technology: Valyrian Steel Ice-Crystal Composite Armor Smelting Technique.]
[Explanation: Now that you possess petroleum and the internal combustion engine, you now possess a steel body capable of withstanding any dragon's breath. As long as resources are sufficient, you will own the King of Land Warfare that can sweep this world.]
Victor looked around.
The broken walls, the dead warriors, the roaring dragons, and the surviving soldiers who shivered in the cold wind yet had fanatical eyes.
He knew the rules of this world had completely changed.
While others were still scheming over a single iron sword or a single castle, he had already obtained the key to the industrial age — and even the interstellar age.
"Doctor, stop crawling in the snow."
Victor gave a cold order, his voice cutting through the blizzard. "Immediately mobilize the Seventh and Ninth Engineering Battalions. Bring high-frequency cutting saws. Dismantle every bone of this dragon and transport them back to Winterfell. Every piece of ice crystal and every dragon scale must be forged into composite armor that meets specifications."
"My lord! That is an excellent magical conductor!" Maester Marwyn shouted excitedly.
"They must first be the best killing weapons."
Victor looked toward the distant horizon, where deeper darkness lay beyond the Wall.
"We will let the entire world know that the journey of House Pompey is not limited to this cold land."
He carried Sansa toward the mechanical warhorse. As he mounted, he glanced back at the deep blue core held in his hand.
"With this, my floating city is no longer a dream. Our child will be born above the clouds."
"Return to the city!"
With Victor's command, hundreds of snowmobiles started their engines at once. The roaring sound shook the sky of the North. House Pompey's black banner fluttered fiercely above the ice dragon's remains — a declaration:
The age of magic is rotting away, while the truth of steel and bloodline has only just begun to rise.
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