When the Black Dragon Princess Onyxia appeared in front of the three bandits like a living mountain, they pissed themselves on the spot.
A dragon!
A real, living dragon!
A creature that had been extinct in Westeros for over a hundred years was now standing right in front of them, flesh and blood.
What's more, whether it was because Leo had repeatedly killed her in the game, or because she was furious at being reduced to a mount and losing her freedom, Onyxia let out a terrifying roar the moment she appeared.
The dragon's roar hit like a shockwave, nearly knocking the men off their feet.
Deep in her gaping, monstrous maw, bright magical flames roared to life in her throat, ready to incinerate all three of them in the next second.
The bandits collapsed in pure terror, sobbing and screaming as they crawled through the dirt, too weak with fear to even stand and run.
Even Leo himself was stunned by the sheer size and presence of the massive creature.
But he knew Onyxia had been summoned from his mount stable. She was his mount.
According to the game rules, a mount could never attack its owner.
So even though primal fear gripped his soul, Leo ignored her for the moment. He raised his Grand Marshal's longsword and drove it straight into the heart of one bandit who was desperately trying to get up.
He then chased down the second man who had crawled a short distance away and finished him off as well.
Fighting back the nausea of his first kills, Leo walked up to the last bandit. After some harsh intimidation, he got the information he needed.
This wasn't Azeroth after all. It was the world of Game of Thrones—Westeros. He was currently in the Kingswood, in the southeastern part of the continent.
Anyone who had read the books or watched the show knew how brutal and treacherous this world was. Leo had only watched the TV series, but he was still a big fan.
The story was gripping, but it was also full of betrayal, lies, and backstabbing at every level. Kings, lords, knights, sellswords, even commoners—almost everyone important eventually died in shocking ways.
As the saying in the show went: The night is dark and full of terrors.
In this world, you never knew when something would come out of the shadows and rip you apart.
The best way to survive was to eliminate every possible threat.
Just like Queen Cersei once said: In the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
So once Leo understood where he was and got the answers he needed, he didn't hesitate. He drove his sword into the last bandit—the one who was kneeling, crying, and begging for mercy—and ended him.
There was no room for being soft-hearted here. Anyone who showed mercy to their enemies usually ended up regretting it bitterly.
Like Eddard Stark, for example.
There was also another reason.
When Leo killed the first bandit, the words "+100 EXP" had floated across his vision. At the time he thought he was seeing things. After the second kill, he saw another +100.
While questioning the third man, he quickly checked his system panel and saw the experience bar now read "200/300".
One more kill and he would level up.
So after getting what he wanted, he naturally claimed that last 100 EXP.
Just as expected, the moment he killed the third bandit, he leveled up to lv2. His Strength increased by 0.2, and [Slam] rose to level 2.
The exhaustion from his first real fight vanished instantly. His body felt completely refreshed, bursting with new energy.
Now he had to deal with Onyxia.
As he suspected, after her initial roar, she hadn't attacked him. She simply watched him coldly while he dealt with the three bandits.
With a dragon like Onyxia, Leo figured he could dominate this world. He now knew the timeline—roughly ten years after Robert Baratheon had taken the Iron Throne.
Dragons had been extinct in Westeros for over a century. With Onyxia, he could build an army like Daenerys and eventually take the Iron Throne, maybe even unite both Westeros and Essos.
But he had to be smart. In the early stages, before he had his own lands and troops, he couldn't let anyone know he possessed a dragon. He would become a target for every lord and king in the realm.
The best plan was to lie low for a few years and wait for the War of the Five Kings to begin. Once he had money, land, and soldiers, he could reveal the dragon and seize power in one decisive strike.
It was a beautiful plan.
Reality, however, was far more difficult.
When he tried to mount Onyxia, she let out an angry roar that stopped him dead in his tracks.
Then, to his shock, she spoke.
She cursed him viciously and declared she would rather die than become his mount.
The reasons were simple: dragon pride made her refuse to let any human ride her, and the deep, burning hatred from being repeatedly killed by him in the game—her head hung in Stormwind's square time after time—was beyond words.
Leo was completely stunned.
He never imagined that his in-game actions would carry over like this.
But farming mounts was completely normal! If he hadn't kept killing her, he never would have gotten Onyxia in the first place.
More importantly, this clearly wasn't just a game mount. This was Onyxia herself, fully conscious.
A talking dragon.
That also meant she could probably use real dragon magic on top of breathing fire.
No matter how much Leo tried to explain and apologize, Onyxia remained hostile and refused to obey him.
With no other choice, he dismissed her summon.
He still had other dragons in his mount collection, so he tried summoning them instead.
After several attempts, Leo realized with frustration that Onyxia was the only dragon he could bring out.
In fact, any mount with magical or fantastical elements wouldn't work. Mechanical mounts didn't either.
The only ones he could summon were ordinary warhorses or common animal mounts like elephants, goats, wolves, and so on.
His dream of using multiple dragons to conquer Westeros was dead.
Left with no choice, Leo summoned a swift white stallion—a standard human racial mount—and followed the directions the last bandit had given him. He found the Kingsroad and rode it until he reached the inn by the Wendwater River.
He would have to start everything from scratch.