With less than a year to go before the start of Aegon's Conquest, Rafael finally awoke. Just as when he fell asleep, he found Aisha in his room, smiling and welcoming him.
After Aisha reported that nothing bad had happened to the Order of Sages and its members in the last 16 years, she also reported that Liza had recovered from her injuries, and that his father, Anurys, was also well, and Rafael now even had two younger siblings... Only then did Rafael finally relax, and true to his earlier promise, he transformed Aisha into a first-generation vampire.
But upon completing the Blood Embrace, the messages that followed proved that Aisha wasn't the first…
[You created a First Generation Vampire!]
[First Generation Vampires 3/10]
Rafael took a deep breath and calmed down. He told Aisha to train to get used to her new body and that he would listen to her request later…
After being alone, he finally checked the Bloodline tab in the system, but what he saw next left him even more shaken…
As a Primordial Vampire, it was normal for his blood relatives to receive the Blood Affinity due to their blood kinship, but Rafael didn't know if this peculiarity was something exclusive to him, since blood was his specialty, or a benefit that all Primordial families received…
It was then that Rafael confirmed that possibly both "Marta" and "Silvia" existed in the system as his maternal relatives. Of course, the system marked everything as a family tree where the words "mother" and "aunt" with their first and last names blurred were highlighted, confirming that they were alive and had even received the Blood Affinity. There was even a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, and a female cousin whose existence Rafael never knew. But what surprised Rafael was that no Targaryen had received this benefit!
Starting with his father, the entire Targaryen lineage of Daenys "The Dreamer" should have received the magical talent of the Blood Affinity… But the system confirmed that there was no one alive in his paternal lineage!
That part of the family tree was completely erased, and for a second, Rafael even thought that Aisha had tricked him and his father might be dead, but all the Targaryens couldn't be dead, so the truth hit him like a truck: Anurys was not his biological father!
Rafael felt terrible for the father who had raised and loved him despite having no blood ties to him, and he was even sadder because Anurys didn't even know this truth!
Was his mother really that vile and manipulative? Who had been his biological father? And why was there no one else alive from his paternal lineage?
Rafael couldn't waste time speculating, because in the family tree below his name, there were two children!
A boy and a girl! And according to the system, they were the two First Generation Vampires who were transformed immediately after their racial change.
"I hope this racial change hasn't caused problems for the two of them, and now that my mother's suspicious character has become even more dubious, I need to go after these 'children' urgently and, if possible, remove them from this family.
***
After verifying that the Calamity of Abominations was still ongoing without any solution to end it, Rafael spent an entire day resolving many problems and minor matters, in addition to alerting his Priests that he had already awakened.
Rafael then left a blood clone on Asshai. He decided to send the second clone to observe the unfolding events of the end of the Century of Blood and Aegon's Conquest. As for his main body, he would go to Sothoryos in search of his children…
With the help of Esmer, who had also awakened 5 years prior, he successfully managed to get Aisha, Zaya, Jack, Omar, and his wife out of Asshai. Leaving Liza and Natasha to take care of everything in the Shadowlands with the help of his clone.
Flying on Varnak's back, the group soon left the phosphorescent green waters of Asshai. Of course, they only flew through the Calamity environment with the help of Rafael's Primordial Charm and Esmer's Dragon Fear. Varnak, now tens of meters long after living for over 30 years as a wild beast and after consuming the growth pill that Rafael possessed, managed to bring them all to the safe Isle of Sages, which in the past was once Aisha's home…
After landing on the island, Omar and his wife, Katya, released their sea dragons into the sea. Their goal this time was to explore the entire Jade Sea while finding a suitable place for the dragons to lay their eggs. After that, in a few more years, they would reunite with Rafael's clone in Westeros to carry out a certain mission…
Rafael bid farewell to his friend and gave him one of his Subsystems to aid in his future growth and also facilitate real-time communication should they encounter problems.
After that, the next to leave was Zaya. She was going to hunt and try to tame the troublesome wild dragon that survived the Doom of Valyria: Queen Sun. After that, she would try to find more Shadow creatures to improve the use of her Ultimate Ability, Shadowmancer, since in Asshai, during a Calamity, this was no longer possible. She also promised to meet with Raphael's clone some years later in Westeros.
Jack was the last of the group of Sages to leave; his mission this time was to follow a lead involving the money that financed Master Baron Bones' operations in Asshai… These leads would take Jack to Braavos, where he could use his old identity as a Faceless Man to uncover more information about the group behind so many conspiracies involving the mysterious keys of the Tower of Distortion.
Rafael gave him one of the last Subsystems to facilitate communication and then bid farewell to Esmer, who was heading to the mysterious Continent of Ulthos to reunite with a family member…
***
Esmer had flown for several days in his human form without rest before finally landing on a beach full of black sand on the coast of Ulthos. The atmosphere of this place screamed that something was wrong in the very air, but before he had time to observe the inhospitable environment to get his bearings, he was quickly greeted by a powerful and intimidating aura.
The owner of this aura did not have good intentions and clearly came to Esmer looking for trouble.
Upon seeing the owner of the aura and recognizing him, a loud, masculine voice was heard:
"I told you that you were not allowed to set foot on this continent again… Did you think I had no way of discovering your arrival?"
Smiling, Esmer looked at the Master Invincible and replied sarcastically, cracking his neck and slapping his right fist against his open left hand:
"I knew you would sense me, but this time I have the confidence to teach my rebellious son some manners…"
As soon as the word "son" left Esmer's mouth, a roar escaped King Kane's lips, and a red energy enveloped his body before he lunged at Esmer, ready to beat him to death.
Esmer merely smiled, his green eyes shifting to serpentine dragon eyes as he underwent a partial transformation, and he clashed head-on with the "strongest" Master known in this world…
The battle between the Master Invincible and the Primordial Dragon lasted several days, completely altering the landscape of the region…
***
A few hours after leaving the Isle of Sages, Rafael, Aisha, and their clone flew side-by-side on two dragons in the skies of the Jade Sea. The first was Varnak, with its bluish-white color, and the second was Vulcano, the Firewyrm that had finally completed its evolution and become a true mutant fire dragon, gaining a pair of wings and even scales on its rigid carapace. However, it still closely resembled a Firewyrm, with its thin, serpentine body, which was dark red and covered in black spots.
Mounted on Vulcano's back, Rafael's main body waved to Aisha and his clone, who were on Varnak's back, and bid them farewell, flying towards Sothoryos…
While flying alone to find his children and perhaps the answers he needed from his biological mother, Rafael opened the system to investigate something strange he had discovered when he delivered the Subsystems to Omar and Jack.
Everything remained the same in the subsystem he gave to Zhang; the system showed that it was inactive and out of reach. There was nothing he could do about it; he had no way of verifying what happened in case of death, not even in case of death in a place capable of sealing off detection by the main system…
In Omar's system, everything seemed normal, but it was during the granting of the subsystem to Omar that Rafael noticed the first anomaly…
Jhon's name appeared as if he were still alive!
The system even asked the final question seeking confirmation to hand the system over to the Green Sage, but after that, Rafael canceled and handed the subsystem over to Omar.
"Why would Jhon fake his own death?"
The thoughts of a Primordial moved quickly to connect it to the supposed death of the Plague Master…
"An adulterous couple on the run, seeking a new life?" After all, he always knew about this forbidden relationship, since Jhon himself had told him… It shouldn't be just that, right?
Suddenly, the familiar feeling Rafael had felt before, stemming from his own clairvoyance, made him remember his own children…
"A child? That makes sense..."
"Alright, John, I'll give you a break for a while to take care of this son or daughter, and ignore the fact that you made me and all the Sages mourn your fake death, since I'm also currently dealing with my own personal problems…"
Returning to the details of the system, it was at that very moment that the second anomaly occurred…
When he handed the subsystem over to Jack, the name of the system's carrier changed completely!
The power and origins of the System were something Rafael himself still couldn't understand or discover. But his information about the world bordered on omniscience regarding certain events, and made Rafael not doubt his information…
That's why, when the system's bearer's name ceased to be Jack, Rafael immediately believed that this had always been a false name used by the Faceless Man since they left Valyria; after all, it made sense for a mysterious assassin like Jack to have done this all along…
Rafael's surprise was enormous, not because Jack lied, but because the name was very familiar to him! Not only to him! It was a familiar name to everyone who had read the books of A Song of Ice and Fire! And this person remained by his side for almost 100 years without him ever realizing it!
His real name was:
"Jaqen H'ghar"
****
Special thanks to the Patreons:
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