For Kidora, the magic in the stolen ice spear had been exquisite—a frozen delicacy, a shard of power that melted like sugar on its tongue. It crunched down with relish, three heads narrowing their eyes in pleasure. One even turned toward the Night King with a provocative stare, as if mocking him.
The insult was clear.
The Night King's expression, normally carved from ice, darkened. Rage flared in his ancient gaze. This foe was not merely a nuisance. To break Rayder and his beasts, he would need more than force. He would need the sky itself.
Rayder watched him closely, heart pounding. He knew his strength lay in the air. To land was suicide. To linger above was safety—until he saw it.
Frost spread across Black Im's wings, fine white crystals crawling like veins. Yigen struggled as well, the weight of ice dragging at its flight. The storm had worsened; the very air fought against them.
Rayder's gut clenched. "Damn him… he's changing the battlefield."
On the ground below, the Night King stood with arms wide, eyes closed, as though embracing the heavens. Cold surged outward in waves. The temperature plummeted. The world itself seemed to shudder.
Rayder's thoughts flashed to tales of the Hammer of the Waters, when the greenseers had shattered continents with a single ritual. The Night King's power was no less—and if it finished, the mountains themselves might collapse.
He could not allow it.
"Attack now!" Rayder's voice thundered through the bond.
The dragons roared as one. They folded their wings and dove like falling stars. Im and Yigen vomited fire, torrents of black and red flame merging into a storm that scorched the sky. Kidora's three mouths cracked with golden lightning, bolts splitting the clouds with deafening thunder.
The world lit up.
Fire and lightning crashed down on the Night King's position, a cataclysm of heat and light. The wights in their thousands vanished in an instant, their bodies torn apart, incinerated, erased. White Walkers too were caught in the blast, their ice bodies shattering into mist.
For a hundred meters, the snow and ice that had endured millennia melted in seconds, boiled into a choking cloud of steam. The very ground split and groaned under the sudden heat.
Rayder leaned low in the saddle, eyes fixed, every muscle tense. The attack had been absolute. Nothing could have survived.
Yet when the smoke thinned, he saw him.
The Night King still stood. His armor was cracked, his cloak torn, the earth around him devastated—but his form was unbroken. His icy eyes lifted, meeting Rayder's, colder than death. Fury blazed there, endless and implacable.
Rayder's chest tightened. Even this had not been enough.
Before he could order another strike, the sky dimmed.
Clouds churned, black and heavy, swallowing the horizon. And then—snow.
Not flakes. Not a storm. Sheets of it, whole slabs pouring down as if the vault of heaven had cracked open. White death fell in curtains so thick the dragons staggered midair.
"Climb! Burn it!" Rayder shouted, desperate.
The beasts exhaled fire, but their flames were swallowed in the deluge. The snow smothered it, endless, unyielding. Weight pressed onto their wings, dragging them lower, lower.
With a final crash, the dragons hit the ground. Snow cushioned their fall, but the impact rattled bone and scale alike. Rayder gripped the saddle hard, heart pounding.
They had been grounded.
All around, the wights surged anew, pouring through the storm like shadows come alive. The Night King remained still at their head, his gaze gleaming with the certainty of a predator who had finally cornered its prey.
Rayder's breath steamed in the cold. His sword was heavy in his hand. The three dragons rumbled, shaking snow from their wings, readying for the next clash.
This battle was no longer sky against ground.
It was man and beast, face to face with the storm's true master.
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Ãdvåñçé çhàptêr àvàilàble óñ pàtreøn (Gk31)