Thaddues coughed. The consequence of using combined magic at that scale consumed a vast amount of his magic. Blood slipped from beneath his lips in a thin crimson line, tracing his chin before dripping onto shattered stone.
"My Lord!"
Esteban rushed forward at once, his calm facade cracking with alarm.
Thaddues raised a hand before Esteban could approach further.
"Stay back."
His voice remained steady, though strained beneath exhaustion that even magic could not fully conceal. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, then slowly lifted his wand once more.
The destroyed chamber responded as if it were alive.
Broken stone rose from the floor, reversing its destruction as though time itself had been forced backward. Cracked pillars reformed with unnatural precision, rubble returned to its place along restored walls, and drifting dust gathered into fractured statues that reshaped themselves into their original forms.
Within moments, the ruined tower stood whole again, as if nothing within it had ever been broken.
Esteban stood frozen, unable to reconcile what he had just witnessed. Even after everything he had seen at Thaddue's side, watching destruction undone so effortlessly felt deeply unnatural.
Thaddues paid him no further attention. His gaze had already shifted beyond the tower.
He stepped toward the balcony overlooking the sea.
Below him, Salt Shore burned.
The coastline had become a battlefield drowned in blood and smoke. Ships crowded the horizon like a spreading plague, their dark silhouettes crawling toward Dorne. Fires tore through the harbor while soldiers clashed along the beaches beneath relentless volleys of arrows, every inch of ground paid for in blood.
Yet despite the chaos, the fleets had not fully landed.
There was still time.
Thaddues stared at the invading armada with cold, unblinking eyes.
"I will let them remember today," he said quietly.
The wind rising around the tower carried his words away into the storm.
"That rulers may command armies," he continued, his fingers tightening around his wand, "but those born with true power kneel to no throne."
From within his robe, he drew two potions—one a shimmering golden liquid, the other a healing draught—both glowing faintly, as though they held captured moonlight.
Without hesitation, he drank it. The two potions burned as it went down, searing his throat with bitter heat.
Almost instantly, magic surged violently through his body once more. His veins pulsed as strength returned in a sudden, violent rush, pushing back against the exhaustion that had begun to claim him. The two potions did not restore him completely, but it was enough.
Enough to continue. Far below, another explosion shook the shoreline, sending smoke and fire rolling across the sand.
Thaddues stepped onto the edge of the balcony.
Then he jumped. For a moment, it seemed as though he would fall, but instead his body rose, levitating against gravity as his robes snapped violently in the wind. Then he shot forward across the sky like a dark comet tearing through the storm.
Clouds parted in his wake. Beneath him, the sea churned violently beneath the shadow of war.
The battlefield below had become hell. Men drowned in crimson surf where broken bodies floated beside shattered shields. Horses screamed as arrows rained endlessly from ships anchored just offshore, turning the coastline into a storm of death.
The defenders of House Gargalen fought desperately to hold the line, but exhaustion was beginning to break them. Every advance cost too much, every retreat left too many behind.
A knight looked upward instinctively as something descended through the clouds.
A figure fell from the sky. When Thaddues landed upon the blood-soaked shore, the impact alone shattered the sand beneath his feet, sending cracks spidering outward in every direction.
For a moment, the entire battlefield froze.
Invaders hesitated mid-motion. Dornish spearman stopped where they stood, staring as disbelief rippled through both sides of the conflict.
Recognition came first in whispers.
"The Wizard…"
"Lord Thaddeus…"
"He's here…"
Relief spread through the defenders so suddenly that it almost broke them.
Even Lord Gargalen stood stunned amid the carnage, his sword still dripping blood as he stared at the man who had just arrived as though he could not trust his own eyes.
The Steward of House Peverell had stated that once the Lord of House Peverell is back, the invading army is done for.
"Lord Thaddues!" Lord Garagalen called out.
Thaddues did not respond immediately. His gaze moved slowly across the battlefield, taking in everything without expression.
Burning homes.
Dead children beside shattered carts.
Spears impaling broken bodies.
Men at arms of House Gargalen dragging wounded comrades through smoke and blood, trying desperately to outrun slaughter.
Something cold settled deeper inside him as he watched.
Then he raised his hand. He conjured a violent wave of wind and hurled it forward. The invaders were thrown backward as if struck by an invisible tidal wave.
Hundreds of men were lifted off their feet at once, hurled across the sand. Shields shattered on impact, spears snapped in half, and bodies tumbled violently through smoke and fire as screams tore through the shoreline.
The sudden gap in the fighting gave the defenders an opening.
Dornish spearmen surged forward, dragging the wounded to safety while others pressed the advantage with renewed desperation.
Lord Gargalen could only stare in silence.
There were no siege engines—only one man standing at the center of it all.
Above the chaos the archers aboard the ships seemed to recognize him, the wizard of Dorne, the ships recovered, and their commanders gave the order.
"FIRE THE ARROWS!"
Thousands of arrows darkened the sky as they descended in a deadly wave.
Thaddues did not move. He watched the falling arrows. Then his wand lifted slightly. The arrows changed midair.
Wood and steel dissolved into soft pink petals that drifted gently through the air, carried by the sea breeze across Salt Shore.
Cherry blossoms rained across a battlefield soaked in blood.
The contrast was almost unbearable.
Petals settled upon corpses, burning sand, and men still screaming in agony.
Lord Gargalen reached out instinctively and caught one. The fragile flower rested against his blood-stained palm.
Magic.
Real magic.
Everything he had once dismissed as exaggerated tales from merchants now felt grotesquely understated.
A roar shattered the sky. Every man of House Gargalen and House Peverell looked upward again.
Another dragon appeared at the sky. Caraxes tore through the clouds like a living catastrophe, crimson wings spreading wide as flames erupted from his jaws.
Upon his back sat Prince Daemon Targaryen. But something had changed. He was no longer amused. His eyes locked onto Thaddues with sharp, immediate focus.
Above them, another roar answered. Isolde crashed into Caraxes midair, blue dragonfire pouring from her jaws.
The impact shook the heavens. Both dragons collided in a frenzy of claws and flame, twisting through the air as fire painted the clouds in red and sapphire light.
Daemon's focus broke, shock visible on his face looking at the unfamiliar dragon.
A dragon in Dorne? What fool dares raise a dragon beyond House Targaryen?
Daemon was filled with anger, feeling the Iron Throne had been disrespected. He looked at the wizard again but Thaddues vanished. He then defended every attempted assault of the blue dragon in the sky.
A sharp crack echoed across the battlefield as Thaddues reappeared atop a cliff overlooking the sea.
From there, the scale of the invasion became clear.
Hundreds of ships stretched across the horizon, an armada vast enough to swallow entire kingdoms. All of them had come for Dorne.
Wind whipped violently around him as waves crashed below the cliff.
Then Thaddues spoke.
"Targaryen."
The voice amplified by charm carried far beyond what should have been possible. Daemon heard it clearly above the chaos.
"You've said I was holding back," Thaddues continued, slowly raising his wand toward the sea. "Then watch what happens when a wizard no longer holds back,"
The air shifted.
Even the ocean seemed to recoil.
Daemon felt it immediately—a deep, instinctive warning crawling under his skin.
But before Daemon could fully grasp the warning, Thaddues closed his eyes and released everything he had been holding back.
Grief. Rage. Guilt. Exhaustion. The weight of Sunspear. The memory of loss he refused to forget.
All of it poured into an advance version of a spell. A spell he had not mastered but the only option to end everything at this moment.
"Diabolica Dominium."
The world ignited.
Sapphire flames with streaks of black along their edges erupted from his wand in a violent wave that surged across the shoreline like living destruction.
These were not ordinary flames. They rose in deep sapphire blue, darker than dragonfire yet brighter than any natural blaze, staining the battlefield in an eerie, ghostlike light. At their core burned a searing white intensity, so pure it seemed almost absent of color—like the heart of a dying star collapsing inward. Along the shifting edges, thin veins of black flickered and writhed, not smoke, but something deeper, as though shadow itself had been woven into the fire.
The inferno moved like hatred given form.
It did not behave like fire was meant to. It flowed with intent, swallowing the battlefield within seconds as it raced through sand, steel, and flesh alike, ignoring all natural limits.
Yet it did not consume indiscriminately.
Only those who harbored hostile intent toward Dorne were engulfed by the flames, as though the fire itself could discern judgment. To the innocent, the flames parted or passed without touch, leaving them untouched amid the devastation.
The screams began almost immediately. Those judged by the fire burned where they stood, collapsing as the flames clung to them with unnatural persistence. Even those who tried to escape found no refuge, for when they threw themselves into the sea, the fire followed them beneath the water, refusing to be extinguished by anything in the world.
Panic spread through the fleet. The inferno reached the ocean—and did not stop.
Ships erupted one after another, turning into floating pyres as explosions lit the horizon. Men leapt into the sea only to find it had become no sanctuary at all. Within minutes, Salt Shore was engulfed in a blue inferno visible for miles.
The defenders stood frozen in horror. One Household Guard of House Peverell whispered, voice trembling beyond control.
"Lord Peverell, is he even human?"
Far above, Daemon watched the Reach fleets burn and for the first time, fear truly reached him.
Not fear of dragons.
Not fear of war.
But fear of the man standing below.
"Dracarys!" he shouted panic visible in his voice.
Caraxes unleashed dragonfire towards Thaddues position. But Isolde intercepted it instantly with blue dragonfire, their flames colliding midair in an explosion that shook the clouds.
Thaddues looked upward calmly. Ignoring the exhaustion from the spell he cast.
"You should have remained in your brother's shadow."
A crack echoed through the air as he vanished and reappeared directly before Daemon.
Dark Sister struck. A shield formed instantly, stopping the blade without effort. He apparated again in the air.
And for the first time, Thaddues smiled. It was not warm. It was not kind. It was the expression of someone who had stopped holding anything back.
"I was foolish before," he said softly.
His wand flicked.
A blasting curse struck Caraxes directly, tearing through scale and flesh as dragon blood rained through the sky.
The dragon screamed and Daemon nearly fell.
"Afraid your little dragons might come if I had not shown restraint," Thaddues asked quietly.
Another motion of his hand sent an invisible force crashing into Caraxes like a falling mountain.
Dragon and rider plummeted, smashing into the cliffs with devastating force. Stone erupted. Dust swallowed everything.
When it cleared, Caraxes lay broken among shattered rocks while Daemon struggled beneath debris.
Thaddues descended slowly, robes moving like shadows trailing behind him.
"But you had exhausted my restraint," he said as he approached. "You and the Reach have gone far enough, Targaryen."
Caraxes roared and unleashed another blast of dragonfire.
Before it could reach him, Isolde crashed down upon the dragon, pinning it beneath massive claws.
Daemon tried to crawl backward, but his strength was gone.
Fear had replaced everything else.
Real fear.
The kind that stripped a man bare. There were forces in this world dragons could not overcome and he had awakened one of them.
"Please…" Daemon whispered.
Thaddues stopped before him.
"Don't kill me…"
His voice broke as he coughed blood.
"My brother… the Iron Throne… gold… anything…"
Thaddues looked down in silence. The Targaryen Prince had thought gold could sway him again. Yes, maybe before. But now?
He laughed softly. Green sparks gathered at the tip of his wand.
"Very well," he said.
"Then let your death satisfy my anger."
Daemon's eyes widened.
But before he could speak the killing curse he heard a monotonous voice and a screen appeared before his eyes.
---
[SYSTEM UPDATE COMPLETE!]
[J. K Rowling System in Westeros. ]
[Congratulations for the host for completing the update as compensation you've been rewarded with the Book of Death.
Book of Death: Created by R'hllor, the lord of light. It has the secrets of reviving the dead. ]
---
The world stopped.
The killing curse died in his throat.
Reviving the dead?
Lily.
Hope struck harder than grief ever had.
But beneath it came something colder.
----
[A Pureblood Targaryen Fragment detected.]
Extract blood fragments for the Book of Death curse to be disperse?
[Require Fragments:0/5]
----
The book is cursed and can only have its curse lifted by the blood of five pure Targaryens.
Thaddues' gaze lingered on Daemon a moment longer, the corner of his mouth curving into something almost like amusement.
"What a lucky bastard," he said softly.
Behind them, the blue inferno still raged across the evening sky, devouring the horizon in silence and fire.
End of ARC II
.
Thaddues unleashing an advance version of Protego Diabolica.
TBC
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