Transmigration

280 AC

King's Landing, the Red Keep

Viserys Targaryen's bedchamber

The young Targaryen prince struggled violently in his dream.

Two barbarians held his arms pinned as he knelt before an earthenware pot filled with molten gold.

A towering barbarian looked down at him with a savage twist to his lips.

Then he lifted the pot and poured its contents over his head, saying, "Here is the crown you wanted."

Viserys felt as though an invisible hand had closed around his throat. Hoarse, rasping sounds escaped him, and he could still feel the scalding, viscous liquid metal, gleaming with a horrifying golden light, burning his scalp, melting his flesh, and devouring his skull.

The acrid stench of scorching and the sickening odor of his own burning flesh seemed to linger deep in his nostrils. Just before he lost consciousness, a cool murmur sounded beside his ear.

"A true dragon... does not fear fire..."

The instant those words faded, he jolted awake. His body leaped like a fish out of water, then fell heavily back onto the silk bedding soaked with cold sweat.

In the darkness, he gasped violently, his chest heaving, every breath trembling with the terror of a narrow escape from death.

The agony of molten gold pouring over him had felt so real that his fingers instinctively clawed at his face in spasms. Only when he touched warm, unbroken skin did he dare believe it had been a dream.

Yet before he could recover, another, entirely different tremor struck him from the depths of his soul.

Boom!

Something seemed to explode inside his mind. Countless chaotic, fragmented images, scraps of knowledge, and emotions surged into his young brain like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

On one side were the memories of Viserys Targaryen, a five-year-old boy, the king's second son, with the blood of the dragon flowing through his veins.

On the other was the entire life of an adult man named Lin Feng, who had come from a distant world.

Two utterly different souls, two vastly different sets of memories, frantically intertwined, collided, and merged deep within his consciousness... Viserys Targaryen... that tragic bit player known as the Beggar King... I've actually transmigrated into his body.

Although his current body had been reconstructed during its passage between worlds, he still looked as he had in his original world, only smaller.

But he could hardly say whether this change was good or bad. After all, this world's original protagonist was Jon Snow, the bastard born of House Targaryen and House Stark. A Song of Ice and Fire referred to his bloodline.

The guy was ridiculously overpowered, too. He could come back to life after dying, and the Dragon Queen fell for him after meeting him just once.

It was enough to leave anyone speechless. On top of that, he was a sanctimonious prick.

The Dragon Queen had done so much to help him, yet Jon still stabbed her to death. The real issue was that Cersei had acted like a complete monster, and the Dragon Queen had only been venting the fury she had bottled up for so long.

Besides, by the time she was stabbed, she had already finished venting. If they really couldn't stand her, they could have sent her back to Essos.

She loved you so much, after all. You could have talked anything through. Unbelievable. And in the end, Bran Stark actually became king, which was even more absurd.

What use was he besides rolling his eyes? That cryptic bastard was infuriating.

Still, now that he had transmigrated, he certainly wasn't going to suffer such a humiliating death as he had in the original story.

What's more, the War of the Usurper hadn't even broken out yet. But he didn't want to change the original plot right now, either, because he had no cheat ability. Apart from knowing the original story, he had nothing.

If Viserys told Aerys or Rhaegar that he had awakened the gift of prophetic dreams, knew a war was coming, and wanted them to strike first...

Leaving aside whether his father, the Mad King Aerys II, and his elder brother Rhaegar would believe a five-year-old brat, the crucial point was that they had no dragons now. House Targaryen's power wasn't that strong, and victory was far from certain.

Besides, the Mad King hadn't earned his nickname for nothing. Any one of his outrageous moves could bring about an even more unpredictable future.

So what Viserys needed to do most now was prepare for the dozen or so years he would spend in exile in Essos.

He had been given another life. Surely he wasn't going to wander endlessly after Ser Darry died, as he had in the original story. And there was Daenerys. Since he had transmigrated, he certainly wouldn't let her marry Khal Drogo in the future.

Besides, he was no longer the old Viserys, so he might as well be the one to uphold House Targaryen's traditions now. The same went for the other women.

Heh heh. There was another important reason he hadn't wanted to change the original story: some of its characters wouldn't be born for several more years.

If he changed the plot so that Lyanna Stark wasn't abducted by Rhaegar, Robert Baratheon wouldn't marry Cersei Lannister.

And if Viserys's newfound father, the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen, didn't burn Brynden Stark to death, Catelyn Tully wouldn't marry Eddard Stark. Then "Sansa the Fool" and "Little Arya"-Sansa Stark and Arya Stark-would never exist, and he really would cry himself to death.

After all, how could this crumbling, rotten dynasty, his newfound father, or his foolish elder brother matter more than those women? He had been a loser to begin with, wasting over twenty years of his life, accomplishing nothing and drifting through each day in a daze.

What's more, the current Viserys barely knew them. He wasn't like those transmigrators in other worlds who were orphans and immediately embraced the original body's family as their father and elder brother, their hearts trembling every other moment as though they had never known familial affection before.

Then it was all talk of one loved one or another being their untouchable bottom line, as if their feelings ran deeper than the sea. He had originally had a happy family. He might not have been particularly capable himself, but they had all gotten along.

He simply didn't know what would happen to them after his transmigration. But his elder brother was still there, so they should be fine.

That was all he could tell himself now. After all, who could have predicted that even someone living in a second-floor rental could be rammed into another world by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

So these members of House Targaryen were nothing more than strangers to him. He didn't mind sacrificing them, and he certainly wouldn't feel guilty about making a move on Daenerys and the other women.

He wasn't the real Viserys. Besides, their existence only put obstacles in his path. Once they were gone, Viserys could ascend the throne with even greater legitimacy.

Outside the window, dawn was approaching King's Landing. Viserys sat on the edge of the bed and began to plan in earnest.

He needed to exploit his foreknowledge without tipping anyone off, preserve his own life, and ensure that those beautiful "historical figures" were born on schedule.

In his eyes, this crumbling dynasty and these unfamiliar "family members" mattered less than his own ambitions and desires.

After all, in this cruel world, the true winner was whoever survived to the end and lived comfortably.

"A true dragon does not fear fire..."

The first light of dawn shone into the bedchamber, stretching Viserys's small shadow long across the room.

A carefully planned game of survival had only just begun.