Blood Wind Makes His Entrance

Littlejon Umber, nicknamed "Little Jon," was Greatjon's son and the heir to Last Hearth.

In the original story, he eventually betrayed House Stark, taking Rickon and Shaggydog's head to join Ramsay.

During the Battle of the Bastards, he was killed by the Wildling Tormund.

Little Jon was actually pretty aggrieved!

The warriors of House Umber were renowned throughout the North for their bravery in battle, loyalty, and fearlessness.

Greatjon had two fingers bitten off by Grey Wind, yet he admired Robb's courage and remained loyal to him, eventually dying at the Red Wedding.

Little Jon, who had escaped by sheer luck, remained at Last Hearth and held out instead of surrendering to House Bolton.

That lasted until Jon Snow led all the Wildlings across the Wall.

For all these years, Last Hearth had been the first fortress defending against Wildlings crossing the Wall, serving as the shield of the North.

After more than a thousand years of fighting, they and the Wildlings harbored a deep-seated hatred for each other.

So Little Jon's eventual rebellion was completely understandable.

The current Robb would never again allow such a loyal warrior to betray him, but after greeting everyone equally, he did not engage with them too enthusiastically.

Some people had to be handled through diplomacy, while others needed to be shown strength.

After greeting all the warriors, Robb coughed once and shouted, "Brothers, I know that all of you are warriors loyal to House Stark.

"But most of you and I have never met, and I'm sure you're also observing what kind of person I am.

"More words would be pale and meaningless. So now I'll stand here and spar with each of you in turn. Whoever can knock me down will receive a hundred silver stags!"

"Lord Robb is truly generous!"

"Woohoo, I'm in!"

"I..."

As soon as Robb finished speaking, the warriors, who had been somewhat tired, immediately perked up.

The sons of these northern bannermen had little spending money to begin with, yet they usually spent it lavishly. A hundred silver stags was already quite a substantial reward.

Immediately, one of the warriors closest to Robb asked for a spar.

Clang! Clang!...

The sound of blunted swords striking each other rang out continuously across the Training Ground.

Although Robb had saved a great deal of energy by resting and observing the warriors during his training breaks,

he was ultimately not tireless. After defeating six warriors in a row, he was knocked to the ground by the female warrior Daisy with a single sword strike.

"Woohoo!"

"Daisy! Daisy!"

When they saw Robb fall, all the watching warriors excitedly roared Daisy's name.

As one of the few female warriors in Westeros, Daisy had never experienced this kind of treatment before. Her face flushed as she raised the blunted sword in her hand, looking as if she had won the entire world.

"Ptooey... You all did great. The prize goes to Daisy. Tonight, she's treating everyone at the Hearthfire Inn in Winterfell Market."

Hearing the cheers around him, Robb got up and spat out the dirt that had gotten into his mouth. Laughing heartily without the slightest concern for his appearance, he pointed at Daisy and announced loudly.

"Long live Daisy! Long live Lord Robb!"

"Haha, I'm going to drink all the ale at the Hearthfire Inn!"

The Training Ground was as noisy as a marketplace today, filled with all kinds of sounds.

A certain lord observing from the shadows watched Robb blend in so quickly and nodded in satisfaction.

After dealing with the spoils of war, compensation payments, and other matters, Robb's days became highly regular yet fulfilling.

Every day, aside from taking care of Blood Wind and carrying out his routine training, he drank and chatted with the warriors.

As his closeness with the guards deepened, Robb added small-unit combat training to the exercises arranged by Ser Rodrik.

The warriors of Westeros had no problem charging in formation, but once the two armies clashed, battles generally devolved into indiscriminate chaos, with practically no coordination at all.

Thus, Robb divided the thirty-one warriors into six squads. After secretly manipulating the groupings, he had each squad fight and spar independently, with the strongest member serving as captain.

Daisy Mormont, Littlejon Umber, and Owen Norrey were elected by their respective squads without any surprise.

The other three squads chose Toren Karstark, Edd Karstark, and Theon Greyjoy.

Yes, the reason there were thirty-one warriors was that after having a heart-to-heart with Theon, Robb personally obtained Edd's consent and added him to the guard.

Toren and Edd were Robb's cousins, scions of House Karstark, and both possessed considerable fighting ability.

As for the Blood Contract Points, perhaps it was because the high-intensity training every day consumed so much physical energy.

Robb's appetite had increased greatly over the past week, but even with all that eating, he had gained only a pitiful three points.

After repeated testing throughout the week, Robb had tentatively summed up two rules for allocating points.

First, adding all the Blood Contract Points at once would leave the body feeling completely hollowed out, resulting in the negative status of weakness and fatigue.

Second, Blood Wind's highest attribute could not exceed three times its lowest attribute.

Blood Wind's current attributes were four points in speed, three in strength, and seven in constitution, with one Blood Contract Point held in reserve.

Seven points in constitution had made Blood Wind swell like a balloon, and Robb could see it growing day by day with his own eyes.

By today, Blood Wind had grown from the size of a small teddy bear into something as large as an adult Alaskan Malamute. Its shoulder height when standing was around seventy centimeters, and it weighed nearly eighty pounds.

Over the past ten days, the other five Direwolves had also grown at an extraordinary rate, reaching the size of five- or six-month-old puppies. But compared with Blood Wind, they were in an entirely different league.

Of course, aside from the male servant responsible for transporting meat every day, no one else knew that Blood Wind had grown to this size.

Unlike his younger siblings, who loved showing off their Direwolves everywhere, Robb had kept Blood Wind in his bedroom throughout this period, and it had never gone outside.

Aside from eating, it spent most of every day sleeping. This was probably one of the negative effects of rapid growth!

Creak!

The bedroom door opened, and Blood Wind, lying beside the solid-wood bed, immediately raised its head to observe the situation.

"Blood Wind!"

Once the door was fully open, Robb appeared in the doorway wearing standard Chainmail.

He called softly, and Blood Wind immediately conveyed its happiness. It quickly rose, pushed off with its wolf claws, nimbly leaped over the solid-wood bed, and came up beside him.

Robb dropped to one knee, held Blood Wind's fluffy head in both hands, and vigorously scratched its cheeks for a while. Blood Wind closed its eyes in comfort, looking every bit like a goofy husky.

"All right! Blood Wind, let's go. Today I'm taking you out to see the world."

Remembering the task Eddard had assigned him, Robb stopped scratching and took Blood Wind with him as he left the bedroom.

In the Main Keep's corridors, every servant who saw Robb and Blood Wind instinctively looked frightened and dodged to the side.

As a supernatural creature, Blood Wind acted like a goofy husky in front of Robb. But before strangers, its eyes gleamed coldly, its fangs showed, and it looked every bit the ferocious predator.

At the entrance leading from the Main Keep toward the Training Ground, Eddard and his wife, along with Robb's younger siblings, were waiting for him with their respective Direwolves.

When they saw Blood Wind, which had already begun to take on the form of a beast in just ten short days, looks of disbelief appeared on all their faces.

When Blood Wind saw the other Direwolves from its pack, it suddenly stretched out its neck and threw back its head, letting out a long wolf howl.

"Awooooo!!!"

An early update for today's second chapter, because I received a private message from the site today! The signing process is beginning now, so everyone, feel free to invest and enjoy a wave of coin benefits! Finally, thank you all for your support!