Crackclaw Point – Golden Port, Underground Laboratory
As the black stone continued to split open, a twisted silhouette emerged from inside the massive cube.
It was roughly humanoid, but its entire body was made of countless pale, swollen, and partially rotting human arms.
These arms sprouted from the torso like the branches of some nightmare tree—grotesque, horrifying, as if a mad butcher had stitched together a corpse from hundreds of severed limbs. The "legs" looked like roots, but the sheer weight of the arms above should have made the thing collapse. Instead it stood perfectly stable, defying every law of physics.
Dozens of hands hovered in the air, fingers curling and uncurling, silently clawing at nothing. The sight was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
Pierce studied the abomination with a completely blank expression. "How strong is it? Have we nailed down the control method?"
Maester Ferren drew a steadying breath of the freezing air and kept his voice level. "My lord, based on the research notes Maester Qyburn sent and our initial tests, the 'Thousand-Hand Laborer' possesses strength equal to ten burly blacksmiths."
"Our Shifters can control them directly. With enough practice they'll follow simple verbal commands."
Ferren nodded to one of the assisting maesters. A familiar ripple passed through the air as the Shifter ability activated. The monster lurched into sudden motion.
"Right now we can direct it to perform any repetitive heavy labor—hauling, digging, assembly. Of course, it's still limited to basic instructions. More complex tasks will need further tuning."
Excitement and pride colored Ferren's words. Horror aside, this thing was a genuine breakthrough.
The "Thousand-Hand Laborer" was Qyburn's latest masterpiece, created with Pierce's unlimited funding and total freedom. Years ago Pierce had planted the idea of "tireless labor" in the mad maester's head. Qyburn, obsessed with the boundary between life and death, had immediately thrown himself into the project—blending his own necromantic research, forbidden Essosi texts, and the arcane knowledge Pierce had brought back from Qarth.
The Tyrant series had been the first generation—built for combat and guard duty. The Thousand-Hand Laborer was the second generation, designed specifically to meet Golden Port's exploding demand for construction and production muscle.
And at the heart of it all was the Others' ice magic. Pierce now had a foothold beyond the Wall; soon more White Walkers and wights would become raw material for his undead workforce.
Pierce stared at the motionless horror wreathed in cold mist. His violet eyes burned with raw ambition. This wasn't just a monster. This was a cornerstone of the magical industrial system he intended to build.
Use the Others' freezing energy as an almost eternal power source, pair it with perfectly obedient undead labor created through necromancy, and you could rewrite the rules of production and construction forever.
"Excellent," Pierce said. "Finish the stability and command tests as fast as possible. Start with the fish-processing line and raw-material transport in the cannery. Later we'll use them for black-stone mining, deep-pit work, even the dangerous jobs around the blast furnaces."
He turned away from the unsettling "Thousand-Hand Laborer" and looked at the two other specially marked black-stone cubes in the chamber.
There were ten cubes total. Four more held additional Laborers. The other six contained two new designs—three of each.
At Pierce's signal, Ferren motioned for the next cube to be activated.
The second black-stone block reacted to the dragon-glass stimulus with a series of cracking sounds. A stronger stench of rotting flesh and rust flooded the room.
Then a colossal monster unfolded before them, its height nearly brushing the ceiling—taller than the giants of legend beyond the Wall.
It kept a basic humanoid shape but had no arms. Its bloated body was a patchwork of broken corpses, reinforced metal frames, and toughened leather, making it look swollen and nightmarish. The most striking feature was its enormous maw lined with razor-sharp bone spikes and metal teeth—like some obscene industrial shredder. The cold gleam along the inner edges promised nothing but destruction.
"This is the 'Crusher,'" Ferren explained, a note of awe in his voice. "We've tested it. It can pulverize wood, small bones, broken pottery, even softer rock. Just as you envisioned, my lord—if we replace the teeth with rougher, closer-set grinding plates, it should theoretically be able to mill grain."
Pierce stepped closer, calmly examining the cold metal fangs and running a hand over the dried flesh on the outer shell.
He could already picture it grinding wheat. The organic residue that would inevitably collect in the seams would give the flour a very… "distinctive" flavor.
"Tell Qyburn the flour-mill concept is priority one, but before we use it for food we must solve cleaning and sterilization completely. I refuse to send soldiers into battle eating 'meat-flavored' black bread, no matter how tough they are."
He paused, then added, "For now, put it to work on construction debris and waste. Everything has its use."
"Yes, my lord." Ferren scribbled furiously.
The third black-stone cube opened without the same visual shock or stench.
This creation looked more like a crouching beast forged from black crystal and pale corpses. Its outline vaguely resembled an enlarged direwolf, but its belly was grotesquely swollen. A permanent layer of frost coated its body, and thin white mist continually leaked from every joint, dropping the chamber's temperature another few degrees.
"This is the 'Ice Beast,'" Ferren said. "Once it consumes dragon-glass, it can generate and maintain extreme cold inside its abdominal cavity. According to Qyburn's design, the internal space can be expanded. It should be able to store several tons of food and keep it frozen indefinitely."
Ferren's eyebrows danced with excitement; he clearly considered this invention a triumph.
"We've already run preliminary calculations. Fresh fish placed inside will freeze solid in one to two hours."
Pierce looked at the living refrigerator with clear satisfaction. This was exactly the kind of practical application he needed most right now.
"Perfect. Start designing large-scale cold-storage warehouses based on the Ice Beast immediately. Our fish catches, future slaughtered livestock, even temperature-sensitive medicines—everything can be preserved far longer. This will slash food waste and give us a massive advantage in long-distance trade and military logistics."
He could already smell the gold. The things could also produce ice. With King's Landing as a ready market, the profit potential was enormous.
None of these grotesque creations were actually built in Golden Port. Their research and "production" base was on distant Skagos, far to the north.
The cannibal island still looked primitive on the surface, but beneath the wild exterior it had become Pierce's secret laboratory and raw-material farm—thanks to Qyburn's dark methods and unlimited funding.
The original Skagosi had either been absorbed… or turned into the perfect "ingredients" for Qyburn's experiments.
Pierce had fed the mad maester countless concepts from his old world—mechanization, automation—guiding him to fuse them with necromancy and the power of the Others.
"Continue testing and refining, especially stability and control. I want these things ready for large-scale deployment as quickly as possible."
After issuing the order, Pierce turned and left the freezing, nightmarish underground chamber. The moment he stepped back into bright sunlight he felt as if he had crossed between two entirely different worlds.
After a brief rest he headed straight for the experimental fields outside the city. The long summer sun poured generously over both banks of the Golden Crab River. Newly cleared farmland stretched out, bursting with life.
The Yi Ti rice seedlings were thriving, a vast sea of vibrant green rippling in the breeze.
Pierce rolled up his trousers and waded knee-deep into the flooded paddy. His logistics chief Hassa and several agricultural overseers followed nervously.
Some landed knights might dirty their hands with farm work, but in their eyes a high lord like Pierce should never have to. Yet here he was, right in the mud.
They had no choice but to watch and learn. So far, only Pierce had ever seen—or planted—this particular crop.
"Watch closely," Pierce said, voice calm and commanding. He picked up a handful of bright-green seedlings. "First, use oxen to plow the soil loose and soft. Then flood the field. Once it's soaked, use a spiked frame to churn it into thick mud—water depth about here."
He pointed to his knee.
Demonstrating in the test plot, he pushed each seedling's roots precisely into the soft mud, spacing them evenly.
"Like this—one by one. Make sure the roots are buried and don't float. In the beginning we need this careful planting to give every stalk enough room to grow."
He straightened and looked at the attentive overseers and slaves. "Later, when we have enough seed and the scale is bigger, we can try the faster method—simply scattering the seedlings evenly across the prepared field. We call that 'broadcast sowing.'"
"We can also raise small river crabs, fish, and shrimp right in the paddies. They'll eat pests and weeds, and their droppings will fertilize the soil."
To prevent water loss or broken dikes, Pierce had already ordered the leftover black-stone scraps used to build rock-solid field borders. The glossy black stone gleamed in the sunlight, contrasting sharply with the green seedlings.
Pierce spent the entire afternoon working in the fields with them. Sweat soaked his shirt, mud splattered his trousers. He didn't care.
There was a deep satisfaction in personally creating something and watching hope literally grow from the earth—very different from the cold power he wielded in the underground lab.
By evening he returned to the command tent pleasantly tired. He had barely sat down when Maester Ferren asked to see him again.
"My lord, we've worked out the preliminary stable control methods for both the Thousand-Hand Laborers and the Ice Beasts. Energy consumption is lower than expected—especially for the Ice Beasts. A single standard dragon-glass crystal can keep one running for nearly a month."
Ferren's face showed a trace of worry despite the good news. "However… my lord, we're critically short on personnel—specifically Shifters with enough knowledge to control them. Including myself, we currently have fewer than ten people who can reliably operate a Laborer. That severely limits testing and future deployment."
Pierce tapped the desk lightly. He had anticipated this problem. Shifters were one-in-ten-thousand talents. Although he had developed the glass-candle stimulation method, the number of maesters was still tiny—and the number willing to serve him was even smaller.
"Normal recruitment is too slow," Pierce said, a decisive glint in his eye. "Send a raven to Qyburn. Tell him I need more 'operators.' Have him intensify the search beyond the Wall and in remote mountain regions. Find anyone who might possess the Shifter gift. Use whatever means necessary—bribery, threats, blackmail. I don't care. Just get them."
"At the same time, tell him to focus on cracking the mechanism and underlying patterns behind the Shifter ability. I don't care about the process. I only want results. Tell him money and 'experimental material' are unlimited. I want a stable, mass-producible method for creating controllable Shifters."
His voice was calm and ruthless. To build the magical industrial system that would change the world, to gain the power he craved, Pierce was more than willing to pay whatever price was required.
Ferren's heart tightened, but he knew better than to argue. He simply bowed deeply.
"Yes, my lord. I'll see to it at once."