Moon Gate.
"Waaah, it's over, it's all over." The false Queen Sansa wiped her tears and sobbed bitterly. "Stannis has sent word in all directions.
The people of the Seven Kingdoms all know now. They know Aegon's identity!The lords of the Vale are discussing stripping me of my title as Protector of the Vale, and they have taken away custody of Robert as well. None of them are loyal to Aegon anymore."
"You still have me. You still have the North," Jon comforted his sister with a pained expression. "You are Sansa Stark, the eldest daughter of Eddard and Catelyn, the eternal princess of the North."
"But you also support Stannis." Behind her embroidered handkerchief, a flash of resentment passed through Sansa's tearful eyes.
It was because she had met Meji and Gabeth, whom Jon had sent to ask for aid, that she had insisted on letting Aegon head north to Winterfell. Yet Jon stubbornly clung to illusory honor and refused to help her and Aegon deal directly with Stannis. He even came up with that crooked doctrine about "five knights being guaranteed to kill any sorcerer," forcibly wrecking King Aegon's excellent situation and driving it straight into collapse.If Aegon had not been captured, none of what followed would have happened. He would still be the noble son of Rhaegar and Elia, rather than a disgraceful bastard born of a prostitute and a merchant. Aegon was not a bastard; Syra and the Fat Man had a formal marriage, but Syra herself was an illegitimate child, and her Blackfyre ancestors were also bastards of House Targaryen.
"I swore an oath. I have a liege–vassal alliance with Stannis," Jon rubbed his face hard and said in distress. "You know how Robb died. The Red Wedding is the greatest nightmare of my life. No matter who I imitate, I cannot imitate Walder Frey."
"What about Bran? Where is he? What is he doing?" Sansa lowered her handkerchief, her swollen red eyes glaring angrily at Jon. "You told me he could know everything in Westeros through the weirwood. So why would he arrange this fate for me?
"Why didn't he warn me about Melisandre using a ruby to create a double?And this time, if we had known in advance that Stannis was putting on an act, that he intended to sabotage the allies' wyvern and horn, maybe…"
"If he had helped me even once, I wouldn't have fallen into such humiliation." Her face twisted as she vented her dissatisfaction with Bran toward Jon.
"I don't know. Maybe he is bound by something, or maybe something happened to him. I've been trying to contact him recently, but I haven't succeeded even once." Jon shook his head dejectedly.
"Actually, the theory of the five knights was something he told me. After Melisandre's attitude toward me changed, it was he who kept teaching me extraordinary knowledge.
"He knows the skills of shadowbinders, and he knows fire sorcery as well.
"He even helped me create the Winter Wolf's Howl based on Daenerys's method of soul attacks.
"He clearly understood the Dragon Queen's techniques inside and out and taught me defensive skills, yet for some reason, he rarely mentioned Melisandre and never analyzed her sorcery for me.
"At the time, I thought I already knew all of Melisandre's trump cards, so Bran said nothing. Perhaps…"
"Perhaps the power of the greenseer also has limits. He didn't know Melisandre's abilities or her plans," Jon said hesitantly.
"Jon, Jo–on, Jo–on!"
Suddenly, Jon's eyes rolled back. His body stiffened and collapsed into the high-backed chair, his limbs and head convulsing like an epileptic seizure.
"Jon, save me, Jon. He's coming. He's coming. Jon, Jon, Jon!"
This was Bran's voice, exploding inside Jon's mind like fireworks under the midday sun: loud, yet weak and powerless, growing increasingly frantic until it merged into an indistinguishable howl.
"Bran, Bran, is that you? What's wrong? Who's coming? How do I save you?"
Sansa watched Jon suddenly suffer a seizure, then inexplicably shout and struggle violently. She was utterly confused and terrified.
"Jon, what's wrong with you? I don't blame you anymore. Don't go mad. Don't scare me!" she cried with a sob.
"He's here. He actually wants to seize the Mark of the Greenseer. No… aaah!" In his haste, Bran chose to forcibly don the Crown of the Greenseer. His eyes filled with blinding white light, and his voice became shrill and piercing. "Burn them all!"
He shouted orders to the Children of the Forest who were throwing magical grenades.
Blood poured from Jon's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The veins on his face and neck nearly burst through his skin as he let out a thunderous, hoarse roar in a voice not his own: "Burn them all!"
"BOOOOM!" It was as if a soul nuclear bomb had been detonated inside Moon Gate.
Jon and Bran's consciousnesses were linked. The immense will of the Mark of the Greenseer surged through that connection into Jon's mind, then violently spread throughout Moon Gate.
Sansa, who had been shaking Jon with all her strength, was struck as if by a heavy blow to the face. She fell backward onto the ground, blood streaming from her seven orifices, yet she screamed at the top of her lungs, "Burn them all!"
Everyone in Moon Gate, nobles, knights, servants, guards, and even the sow in the pigsty, wore ferocious expressions and howled toward the sky, "Burn them all!"
Well, the sow and the mongrel dogs did not speak human words. They used their own vocal cords to shout.
In everyone's mind within Moon Gate appeared the same image: in a dark, cramped stone cave, cold freezing mist surged in from outside. Several squirrel-like creatures held black "stones" as large as melons, retreating as they hurled them into the fog.
With a thunderous rumble, once the melon-sized black stones hit the ground, sparks flew everywhere, and they exploded into a mass of red flames the size of a washbasin.
The flames hissed within the pale mist that glowed with a ghostly blue light, visibly weakening until they finally went out.
But after the cry of "Burn them all," the squirrel-men began hurling the black stone firebombs onto the surrounding white, long-snake-like tree roots.
The roots burned as if doused in oil, igniting at the slightest touch.
The white, serpent-like roots blazed with red flames, like the tentacles of fire demons, holding back the icy freezing mist.
The image vanished.
Aside from Jon, Sansa possessed the strongest soul power in Moon Gate. She was the first to groan and recover.
"Ugh, my head hurts so much. What happened?" She shook her head hard, muttering in confusion.
Jon slowly forced open his bleeding eyes and said weakly, "Bran. It was Bran. He—"
Before he could finish the sentence, the gray eyes that had just regained clarity rolled back once more.
"Aaah!" Jon opened his mouth wide and roared wildly, "Oh, no! Hold the door!"
In that instant, Bran's emotions were far too intense. The more intense his emotions became, the more violently they conflicted with the cold, merciless Mark of the Greenseer. That fierce clash caused an enormous outpouring of energy.
Sansa watched in terror as Jon before her grew hazy and unreal, as if he were about to vanish from this time and space.
"No—!" At last, Jon was no mere mortal. He began to resist, to fight back. His left eye was shrouded in an inky darkness, while his right eye ignited with a brilliant red glow.
"Bran, hold on!" Jon let out a subconscious cry, not to save Bran from the icy creatures threatening him, but to pull his younger brother out from beneath the crushing imprint of the greenseer.
If he were conscious, Jon would only have been at a loss, confused and bewildered. Acting on instinct, however, he launched the most "correct" and sharpest counterattack. The soul of the direwolf Ghost entered his body, and the Winter Wolf's Howl was unleashed without hesitation.
The soul attack that struck the greenseer's mark was like waves crashing against a reef.
Spray flew everywhere, achieving nothing.
"Not enough, far from enough!" Jon roared savagely. "Sansa, Rickon, help me!"
"What?" Sansa asked blankly, then her body tilted and she collapsed to the ground.
At this moment, Jon was not fighting alone. Reflected in his gray eyes were a pair of sky-blue, enchanting pupils and another set of bright, childlike eyes.
At last, this time it was no longer waves crashing against rock, but a wooden boat.
Splinters flew, the boat was destroyed and its occupants perished, while the reef remained.
"Not enough, still not enough. Little sister, little sister, where are you? Ah, Arya!"
Arya was far stronger than Sansa. She clutched her head, her expression ferocious, resisting the pulling force of Bran's soul power.
That's right, it was Bran.On the surface, it looked as though Jon was dragging his younger siblings into a group fight. Unfortunately, he had the will but not the strength, while Bran had both.
"Ah, Jon?!" Arya burst into tears and gave up resisting.
A cold soul merged into the "Stark family bundle."
An ironclad ship slammed into a jagged reef.
The reef trembled, and the ironclad ship became another Titanic.
"Still not enough," Jon despaired.
But the very next moment, another will arrived without warning, a hundred times colder and a hundred times stronger than Arya's. Following the thread of Arya's soul, it forcibly merged into the "greater Stark family."
"No!" Bran screamed in terror. He tried to struggle, to tear apart the fused "Stark family," but it was already too late.
Boom.
Crack.
The greenseer's mark, passed down for millions of years, shattered like a glass window smashed by a hammer.
"Ah!" The Stark family returned to their places, their wills snapping back into their original bodies.
"What happened?" Panting, Sansa and Jon spoke at the same time, then looked at each other in confusion.
"I think I saw Bran, Rickon, and Arya," Jon murmured. "My little sister has changed. She's become so cold, like an icicle hanging from the eaves of Winterfell's towers, cold and sharp."
"And there was something even colder," Sansa said as her face went pale. "Colder than winter itself, like the Long Night!"
Jon's pupils contracted as he exclaimed in horror, "The Night King! That was the Night King. He's hunting Bran and trying to seize something. But he followed Arya in. Why? Was it a coincidence, or was it Arya…"
He dared not think further.
Indeed, the Citadel had kept its word. After eliminating "Ser Aes," it sent the information it had gathered about the "subhuman Others" to the various lords.
Other nobles still harbored doubts, but combining this with the information about the Night King in the Night's Watch library, Jon immediately confirmed that the Night King was real.
"If… if that really was the Night King, then we've caused a huge disaster," Jon sighed, covering his face.
"Hallucinations can't fool me. They were all hallucinations!" Sansa shook her head hard and tried to comfort her brother. "Don't be afraid, Jon. Those were all hallucinations. It must have been Melisandre. She's cursing us with blood magic."
"What on earth did those Starks do?!" Melisandre, unfairly blamed by Sansa, also sensed the abnormal change coming from beyond the Wall.
As she stood by the hearth, staring into the flames in search of answers, a pair of eyes shimmering with icy blue light looked back at her. Her scalp tingled, and she staggered back three steps in shock.
"The Long Night has come!"
(End of chapter)
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