Dany had once been extremely envious of the Three-Eyed Raven for possessing the ravens of the Children of the Forest.
As the ravens that served as the Children's second lives possessed immense magical power, the Three-Eyed Raven needed only to merge a single thought into them to turn a raven into an incomparably powerful avatar.
Those Children of the Forest who could awaken a second life within a raven were all exceptionally gifted skinchangers, some even being greenseers.
They possessed all the traits of skinchangers: resilient souls and formidable magical power.
More importantly, they shared the same origin as the Three-Eyed Raven, allowing their magic and sorcery to align perfectly in nature.
When she first came to Westeros, even when Dany was merged with the spirit of the great black dragon, she was unable to detect the "Brandon Raven" that had slipped into her sea of consciousness, which showed just how powerful that raven avatar was.
And that raven had merely been an ordinary Child of the Forest, paired with a single thought from Brandon.
Later, Dany finally managed to obtain the two ravens, Munni and Fugin, but her profession as a fire priestess did not match the raven attributes of a skinchanger.
Neither her magic nor her sorcery was compatible.
As a result, she could not, like the Three-Eyed Raven, unleash nearly half of a raven's inherent strength with just a single thought.
This regret became the original motivation that drove Dany to use her talent of creation through fire to create fire spirits.
To put it bluntly, Dany wanted to show off with powerful raven avatars the way Brandon did, so she roasted Big Mist and Ah Fu with fire. By sheer accident, she ended up creating the fire spirit Little Mist.
Fire spirits were born with vast reserves of fire magic, which happened to match the Dragon Queen's sorcery perfectly. That was how she could display divine power before others.
Today, she had put on quite a show in front of the shadow demon R'hllor.
If a single fire raven possessed half of Dany's fire magic, how terrifying would the power of twenty-seven fire ravens be?
Her true body remained in Winterfell. By splitting off a single thought and sending it into a fire spirit, she directly stormed into the shadow demon R'hllor's death domain in Westeros and snatched the soul of the Knight with the Poxed Face from His grasp.
The entire process was effortless and unhurried. The opponent had no time to react, and even when he did, he could not stop her.
"Daenerys!" the bull-headed demon roared in fury through clenched teeth.
"Caw, caw, caw." One raven carried Richard away, while the remaining twenty-six ravens stayed behind, merging together like ink. A large blot of ink spread out, forming the silhouette of a gray-cloaked figure.
Her face was impossible to make out, and her form was indistinct. The gray cloak was like a shadow caught between reality and illusion, making her appear extremely blurred.
"This is Westeros, the domain of the Seven Gods. I am the ruler here," the Stranger Dany said calmly.
A god of death's death domain is the area where believers live and are active.
Wherever there are believers, the footsteps of a god follow.
If multiple gods of death exist in the same region, then whoever has more believers occupies the dominant position in that death domain.
A death domain is like mortal territory. Within their own "lands," a god of death moves with ease and achieves twice the result with half the effort. Once they leave the bounds of that domain, the situation reverses: divine power consumption surges while efficiency plummets.
Even a weak god of death can resist a powerful foreign death god within their own domain. For example, when the Black Goat cult of Qohor slaughtered rebellious followers of the Red God, R'hllor was unable to stop it.
As the foremost religion of the Seven Kingdoms, the death domain of the Stranger among the Seven Gods covered almost the entirety of Westeros.
Before the Stranger was born, other gods of death could freely enter the Stranger's domain. After all, there was no Stranger back then.
But now that the Stranger had emerged and absorbed a great deal of death divinity from the shadow demon's avatar, the death world of Westeros had completely become Dany's home ground.
Well, not entirely hers alone. There were also the Old Gods, and greenseers and the Night King could barely be counted as gods of death as well.
In fact, even before the Stranger was born, the death world of Westeros had already been a forbidden land for other death gods, because the Three-Eyed Raven had long regarded this continent as his exclusive preserve.
"Westeros may be your territory, but what about Slaver's Bay?" the shadow demon R'hllor sneered as he raised his right claw and spread his palm, revealing a cluster of wailing, weeping heads.
Like a bouquet of flowers, each blossom was a dead soul, with the flowers themselves being the heads of the亡灵.
Those twisted faces were filled with misery. Some cried in despair, some howled in pain, some begged bitterly, while others cursed loudly.
Dany could not recognize every face, but among those亡灵 were several that made her pupils contract and her expression turn murderous.
"Kekekeke!" The shadow demon laughed smugly, extending his left claw and plucking a single亡灵 from the "flower bed."
It was an elderly black man with graying hair: the fire mage Wood, who had once been known alongside Bogba the Rib Man as one of the "Twin Heroes of Volantis."
The Dragon Queen had taught the refined sorcery to the old mage and arranged for him to leave a soul mark on a high-ranking allied prisoner.
In the end, no intelligence was obtained. Instead, Jenny discovered the mark, and old Wood's luck ran out.
Following that mark, Jenny unleashed a series of terrifying soul attacks.
Old Wood had no power to resist and died on the spot, bleeding from all seven orifices.
"Your Majesty, save me! I've suffered so terribly!" old Wood wailed miserably.
"Didn't you believe in the Red God? How did you end up in R'hllor's divine realm?" Dany lost the calm she had maintained before.
There were several mid- and low-ranking commanders from Slaver's Bay among the "flowers." After a moment of thought, Dany no longer felt puzzled about how they had fallen into R'hllor's hands, because all of them had believed in the Red God during their lives.
The doctrine of the Lord of Light, R'hllor, is very popular among the poor. In most parts of the world, especially among slaves, it is a mainstream faith.
The Red God Church can be compared to the White Lotus Sect in the history of the Celestial Empire.
Slaver's Bay is already considered relatively mild, because the Ghiscari slave masters have always restricted the spread of the Red God.
They do not allow red-robed priests to establish temples in Slaver's Bay. Only itinerant red monks are permitted to spread the faith in streets and alleys.
At this moment, Dany felt somewhat relieved that Slaver's Bay was not like Volantis.
In Volantis, more than ninety percent of the slaves are fanatical followers of R'hllor.
Old Wood said mournfully, "I do not believe in the Lord of Light, but when I was young, I did perform blood sacrifices to the great shadow demon R'hllor several times.
He took notice of my talent and ability and 'remembered' me back then. The moment I died, I was dragged into the dark lands of the Far East."
"Were you brainwashed by R'hllor?" Dany asked with a suspicious look.
"Heh heh," the shadow demon sneered.
"No, did I say something wrong?" Old Wood asked, aggrieved and confused.
"What talent or ability of yours was worth His notice?" Dany mocked.
"Waaah… When I was alive, you praised me as the most talented and gifted mage in the Royal Mage Corps, which was why you secretly taught me a legendary grand wizard technique," Old Wood truly began to cry.
Dany felt a little embarrassed.
She had indeed said that.
When coaxing people into risking their lives, of course sweet words cost nothing.
Still, Old Wood did live up to the title of one of the 'Twin Prodigies of Volantis.' In just one week, he learned the spell for marking souls.
Then, the very next day, he died.
"Sorry, I did not make myself clear. Your talent is enough to stand above the age, but the shadow demon R'hllor is a true god. How could He be so easily shaken?" Dany said, the corner of her mouth twitching.
"Heh heh. To any dark deity, the soul of a transcendent is the most precious treasure. I was not shaken. I merely saw food and instinctively started drooling," the shadow demon said with a grotesque laugh.
As he spoke, he stretched out a purple-black, ox-like tongue and licked Old Wood from top to bottom and then from bottom to top twice.
Just like a child licking an ice pop.
That look of satisfaction sent chills through Dany.
"Oh, no!" Old Wood screamed as if a layer of skin had been dissolved by sweetness, wailing in agony. "Your Majesty, save me. It hurts so much!"
"If you send my few underlings back, I will return Richard's soul to you. How about that?" Dany proposed.
"No, no, no." The bull-headed monster licked Mage Wood again, making the old dark-skinned man howl in pain.
"Before, I did plan to trade with you, but now I find that compared to punishing that blasphemer, tormenting your loyal servant brings me even greater pleasure.
Because your pain and helplessness are the very source of my joy!" the shadow demon laughed triumphantly.
"Are you sure? Can you really forgive or forget everything that Ser Richard did to you?" Dany asked oddly.
The smile on the bull face froze.
The shame of piercing the sun, how could it be forgiven? How could it be forgotten?
"Fine. Come over here. Let's trade!" the shadow demon said.
"I cannot leave Westeros. You should come over instead," Dany replied.
The world of death is the shadow of the real world. The shadow may be somewhat distorted, but in general it shares the same landscape as the material world.
For example, between Westeros and Essos lies a long, narrow sea, the Narrow Sea.
It is also this Narrow Sea that forms the natural barrier of Westeros's world of death.
In the realm of the dead, everything is gray, like the picture on an old black-and-white television turned down to its darkest setting.
Before their eyes, the gray-black mist surged violently through a "river channel." This was the Narrow Sea, with Stranger Dany and the shadow demon each standing at one end.
The shadow demon's true body was in the dark lands of the Far East. Its current state was similar to Dany's, with only a single divine thought arriving at the boundary of its death domain, since the Free Cities all had large numbers of Red God believers.
At first, the shadow demon had already foreseen Richard's death, but it did not personally go to Qohor to wait for his soul, because Richard was a follower of the Red God and would automatically report to it after death.
However, Richard was wearing a "ticket to Heaven" given by the Dragon Lady. After death, his soul was supposed to be drawn to Heaven immediately.
The shadow demon hated him intensely and had been watching him closely. When it discovered that the soul of the Knight of the Pockmarked Face was not flying toward itself, it immediately knew someone was meddling. It then split off a single thought and came to the boundary of the death world of the Essos continent. Since it knew an enemy was snatching away its believer's soul, the shadow demon naturally did not dare let its divine thought enter Westeros.
In fury, it hurled out a shadow chain, intending to hook Richard back across the Narrow Sea.
What happened afterward is already known to everyone.
Now, Stranger Dany and the shadow demon spoke of exchanging "hostages," yet neither was willing to enter the other's death domain.
After a brief standoff, the shadow demon said, "How about this. We both throw the souls in our hands into the Narrow Sea at the same time, and then each of us relies on our own abilities to seize them?"
"Sure!" Dany agreed cheerfully.
Then the two of them shouted together, "One, two, three, throw!" After shouting, neither moved, and they just stared at each other, eyes wide against bull eyes.
After an awkward moment, the shadow demon said again, "Then how about we both enter the Narrow Sea and trade face to face?"
"That works too." After hesitating for a moment, Stranger Dany nodded in agreement.
The two faced each other, then each took a step forward and entered the rapidly surging "river channel."
(End of chapter)
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