Game of Thrones: The Black Dragon King

On either side of the entrance to the circular arena stand two enormous bronze gladiator statues, one holding a spear and the other a shield and sword, both in combat stances.

Above the two bronze statues, in a niche, is a white marble statue of a woman with a curvaceous body, but with eagle wings and a ferocious face. It is the harpy, the goddess worshipped by the slave owners.

Inside the arena, the stands were packed. The stands closest to the best viewing spots were filled with richly dressed slave owners, followed by citizens of the city-state of some status, and then the poor and slaves in the outermost circle. Regardless of age or gender, everyone was jubilant, with thunderous cheers, applause, and shouts that never ceased.

Accompanied by the sounds of trombones and drums, and escorted by cavalry carrying banners, the master of ceremonies, dressed in a dazzling golden robe, arrived at the round stone in the center of the arena. As he raised his hands, the stands instantly fell silent.

Whether by coincidence or design, the architect who designed the arena created a circular stone wall that perfectly conforms to acoustic principles. Spanning nearly a hundred meters, the sound is clear, loud, and long, adding an indescribable divine quality to this brutal structure used to witness carnage.

"Great masters of Meereen! Citizens of Meereen! Distinguished guests! By the blessing of the saints and great lords, welcome to the ultimate competition!" The emcee's voice was loud and melodious, drawing cheers and excitement from the audience.

"In the first contest, let the gods decide which venerable lord will receive the harpy's blessing? Daznak? Kalar? Or Graza...?"

As they spoke, twenty elaborately dressed children entered the arena. Each of them wore a silk vest embroidered with the coats of arms of great lords and carried a short sword or spear.

"I fight for your glory, even unto death!" The innocent voices of children echoed the gladiators' slogans.

The maids would pour a whole jar of honey, berries, or foul-smelling, sticky fish blood and caviar, or other foods that the great masters believed would attract wild beasts, over the heads of the half-grown children.

As the others quickly left, deep within the gates where the beasts were kept, the tamer used his spear to repeatedly stab the hungry animals in their cages. The roars and howls carried through the long passageway into the arena, sounding even more eerie.

Several slaves worked together to turn the winch, and the heavy arena gates slowly opened. A massive brown bear, weighing nearly a ton and almost 3 meters tall, leaped out of the gates, then ferociously turned and pounced on the fence behind them, causing the sturdy hardwood fence to shake violently. Several slaves, terrified by the bear's imposing presence, instinctively released the winch, and the gates slammed down, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Seeing that it couldn't break through the fence, the brown bear slowly turned around and looked at the group of small, slender, yet enticing live prey in front of it.

"The great families would bet on which child the bear would eat first, and then the arena would be named after the master of the first slave to be eaten," Pardara explained.

Reed stared at the group of children, most of whom had already wet themselves in fear, his face grim.

"You don't like it?"

"Although the work I do inevitably involves getting my hands dirty, it doesn't mean I like it."

"I thought you weren't opposed to our traditions. After all, I had the servants deliver the program beforehand." Pardara paused, then added with a playful tone, "A mercenary leader who makes money by killing, yet has a compassionate heart."

"Don't mock me. I'm far from being merciful. I would definitely enjoy watching two adult men fight, but feeding children to bears as live food is unacceptable."

"To prevent you from doing anything out of line, I must remind you that this event is sacred, and any interference or obstruction will be considered an offense against the harpies; moreover, the arena is heavily guarded, with 500 Unsullied and 1000 slave soldiers guarding every corner."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Before you, there were many knights of Westeros, or water dancers of Braavos, who impulsively stepped forward to do some 'righteous deeds.' In the end, it was all in vain. They were either killed on the spot by the Unsullied guarding the arena, or they were sentenced by the saint to participate in cruel trials as punishment, and their bodies were never found." Pardara's tone was tinged with contempt, as if she were talking about a trivial matter.

In the arena, the brown bear seemed to have lost its patience. It let out a deafening roar and slammed its front paws into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. The children screamed in fright, pushing and shoving each other as they scattered, only to be trapped by the surrounding fences with nowhere to escape.

Pardara's gaze swept over the restless brown bear and the trembling child on the field, as well as Reid's struggling eyes, before he slowly spoke again: "Of course, compassion is a virtue, but it should be practiced within the framework of order and etiquette. With the recommendation of the Great Lord's family and the permission of the Saintess, a compassionate hero can take his or her preferred melee weapon to replace a child, practicing the noble spirit of sacrifice and protection. The Daznak family has this opportunity. Do you have the willingness and determination, noble mercenary sir?"

"..."

Seeing Reed fall silent, Pardara sneered, "You speak like a knight from Westeros, but in reality, you're just as cowardly and selfish as we are. As a mercenary, every gold coin you earn is stained with blood, no different from us."

"In Dothraki, the strong prey on the weak; in Slave Bay, slave owners control slaves; even in Braavos, the rich oppress the poor. This is true throughout Essos, and indeed throughout the world. If you want to do anything big, you will inevitably encounter bloodshed, slaughter, plunder, and oppression."

"Don't rush to deny this. Did you earn your wealth by tilling the land with your own hoe and shovel? Or did you fight your way to it with your own sword and spear? You should be glad that you have some wealth and strength, and have already escaped the ranks of the flesh and become the bear."

"It shouldn't be like this."

But that's just how reality is.

"Does being overly focused on reality just because it's favorable to you? Especially when reality is in your favor?"

"Newcomers who are suddenly rich but whose minds are still not quite up to par. I'm not talking about our debate, but about the necessary conditions for achieving success and greatness."

"You call letting wild beasts devour children 'great'?"

"That is the cornerstone of the great Meereen! It existed long before my father and me, and it will continue to exist when my grandchildren and I return to dust!"

Amidst the roars of wild beasts, the screams of children, and the deafening cheers of the audience, Pardara opened his arms as if basking in a strange sense of glory.

Looking at the guy who was caught up in a state of high spirits, Reed suddenly recalled a line of poetry about the Colosseum in ancient Rome: "As long as the Colosseum stands, Rome stands; as long as the Colosseum falls, Rome falls, and the whole world collapses."

As a product of the peak of slavery, the arena is a magnificent structure that consumes a large number of lives to obtain excitement.

For this group of abstract slave owners, the daily material enjoyment of fine silks and delicacies could no longer satisfy them; they became more craving for sensory and spiritual stimulation.

They crave honor and bloodshed, yet simultaneously fear injury and death, so they drive their inhuman slaves to risk their lives to satisfy their bloodlust.

But scenes of lavish prosperity and extravagant indulgence are usually followed by negative terms like decline and ruin. Is Meereen truly built upon these arenas of dead people, where every day is filled with jubilation? Or the decadent, hedonistic mentality of the ruling class and the entire populace? Or is it the distorted slave trade economy, with a slave-to-citizen ratio as high as ten to one?

These are the attics on the foundation. The savages who are no different from beasts in the eyes of slave owners, the gladiators in the arena, the slaves who work hard in the fields and workshops, and the poor people who scavenge leftovers—these are the foundation, the unstable foundation.

But Pardara was right about one thing: you can't get rich overnight through hard work and sweat. As the saying goes, a horse won't get fat without night grazing, and a person won't get rich without windfall gains. Suppressing a vague sense of guilt towards some great prophet, Reed patted O'Ellis, who was watching the brown bear eat with an excited expression, and abruptly asked, "Just how much money does the Pardara family have?"

Before Oyllis could speak, Pardara answered the murmurs behind him with the haughty tone of a true man who never looks back at an explosion. "The largest arena and the second largest pyramid, three gladiator schools, seventy-nine shops of various kinds, and an equal number of workshops supplying these shops, twenty trading ships, five thousand acres of land, more than eighteen thousand slaves, one thousand private soldiers, including six hundred Unsullied."

Reed's deep eyes were fixed on the man's retreating figure, but he deliberately used a flattering tone to continue asking, "Forgive me for being a poor man who has suddenly become rich and is ignorant of these things that aren't money. I just want to ask how much real money you have?"

"Heh! Not on the same level!" Pardara laughed with a contemptuous yet arrogant tone. "You'd better broaden your horizons and change your mindset sooner rather than later! Newcomer, what I'm talking about is real money, a never-ending source of wealth. If managed properly, it's practically inexhaustible! Of course, if you're just curious about how many gold coins the Daznak family has in their treasury, I can satisfy you. There's no specific amount; it's constantly increasing and changing every day. Just in my family's pyramid vault alone, there are no fewer than 400 million gold coins!"

"The second largest pyramid vault, four million gold coins, equivalent to 133 million gold dragons, is more than enough!" Reid was deeply grateful to this "good teacher and helpful friend" and "windfall benefactor" with whom he had shared profound insights despite their brief acquaintance.

Upon arriving, Reed, with the help of the system, spent a year building a small, manor-like castle on the outskirts of Pentos, accumulating wealth of around 8000 gold dragons, an army of about a thousand men, and several hundred acres of farmland. He still had to struggle for a few thousand gold dragons. Even with the recent bonus from defeating the Dothraki, he only had a meager 3 gold dragons, far from Reed's small goal of "one million."

As for why it's one million, it's because it corresponds to a gray dragon icon in the troop recruitment section that indicates it's unrecruitable: Dragon, recruitment conditions: Dragon or Dragon Egg: 0/1, Gold: 12305/1000000.

Reed no longer focused on the carnage in the arena, but instead immersed his attention in the space of consciousness.

In the outskirts, at the Black Dragon Legion's encampment, amidst the tents of the system soldiers, a tent-like building constructed of leather and wooden frames, resembling a Dornish style (actually Arabic style), suddenly appeared – the mercenary camp.

Immediately, in Reed's consciousness space, the refugees sitting around the pot of cooking food in front of the lord's hall suddenly disappeared one by one, and then new people kept coming out from the archway of the lord's hall to join the crowd of people eating around the stove; in the newly built mercenary camp, fully equipped figures kept appearing suddenly.

Assassins, a unique unit of the Arab faction, cost a hefty 16 gold dragons to recruit, just like the horse archers—expensive, but elite. Clad in black, hooded and masked, they are equipped with ropes, grappling hooks, and short swords. They excel at stealth, scaling high walls, silently opening enemy gates, or delivering blades to sleeping foes. Even when exposed, they can use their formidable attack power to trade one for one, or even two, with heavily armored warriors.

Arab warriors are a unit of the Arab faction born for desert warfare. The recruitment cost is as high as 16 gold dragons. They wear full chainmail, a spiral-patterned iron helmet, and small plates reinforced their chest, shoulders, and elbows. They wield thick-backed Arab cleavers and round shields made of hardwood and raw cowhide.

Arab archers, recruitment cost 15 gold dragons, equipped with half-body chainmail, composite bow, and short sword.

Arsonist Slave, a unique cannon fodder unit of the Arab faction. The recruitment cost is 1 Golden Dragon. Barefoot, wearing only a pair of underwear and carrying a torch, this low-level unit is all he owns, but he is a master at setting fires.

The mercenary camp was spitting out troops at a rate of one soldier per second, while Reed's golden dragons were also constantly disappearing. About 16 minutes later, with the disappearance of 10400 golden dragons, 50 assassins, 300 Arab warriors, 300 Arab archers, and 300 arson slaves filled the system's mercenary camp to the brim.

All ready, waiting for the darkest night!