Chapter 433: The Final Battle? (Part III)
The White Walkers could have racked their brains for an eternity and never guessed that the fire-attribute mana within the fallen defenders was neither a miracle of R'hllor nor the sorcery of a Greenseer. It was merely the result of an operation implemented in Queenscrown only that day—a plan of unknown feasibility and born purely of last-minute desperation.
After receiving battle reports from across the front lines in the small hours of the morning, the command center utilized the new information to make a series of decisions. Once the meeting to revise and expand the defense protocols concluded, Maester Qyburn—who was neither a commander nor a formal clerk—suddenly raised a peculiar topic during the discussion. Since dragonglass could kill wights, could placing the substance inside the body beforehand achieve a self-kill? That is—after dying and being resurrected as a wight, could the dragonglass within directly slay the other self?
Undoubtedly, such a fantastical brainstorm was better suited for post-dinner chatter than the tense atmosphere of a supreme command room during a decisive battle. However, this idea, which touched upon a mental blind spot, immediately piqued Egger's interest.
Facing an enemy that defied common logic with a host of inconceivable methods within the Night's Watch's meticulously prepared fortifications, one could not afford to be bound by conventional thinking.
It was impossible to perform surgeries or force-feed dragonglass to the entire military and civilian population, but there was a simpler way to get obsidian into the human body: swallowing it.
The only functioning forge in the industrial zone, having finished the production of "Dragonsteel Bombs," immediately swapped shifts and went full throttle. They cast a massive quantity of obsidian into glass beads no larger than pearls. By dinner time, these were distributed to every soldier and civilian—including the giants—with a mandatory order to swallow them before the fight.
These smooth, rounded objects would pass through the esophagus without causing harm and would eventually be excreted in their original form after a cycle of digestion. The inability to fix them permanently within the body was the plan's only flaw. However, given the White Walkers' lightning-fast pace—rarely taking more than an hour to seize a fortress—it was unlikely that anyone with a healthy digestive tract would pass them before the battle ended.
Contrary to the proposer's initial theory, the actual effect of swallowing the dragonglass was not to kill the resurrected wight, but rather to directly obstruct the functioning of cold magic. Countering this move was actually quite simple—one either had to waste time disemboweling the fallen to pluck the obsidian beads from their stomachs one by one, or expend significantly more energy to neutralize the fire-attribute mana within the obsidian before proceeding with the necromantic spell.
However, with the Wall yet to fall and dragons rushing toward the battlefield, both time and mana were precious resources the White Walkers lacked!
The White Walker shocked the Night King by reporting the bizarre situation it had encountered. Meanwhile, the footsteps of the human hunting parties—armed with dragonsteel arrows and dragonglass bombs, radiating a murderous aura after receiving word from the fleeing soldiers—already echoed from a street away.
The Night King had initially thought Queenscrown would be a piece of low-hanging fruit. Only after the fighting began did he realize it was an armored, agile warrior—the fruit was there, but reaching it was proving difficult.
Even with the Cold Magic trump card played at the start, wight casualties were climbing by the hundreds. They quickly surpassed a thousand and headed toward two thousand, a rate of attrition far exceeding the Night King's initial estimates.
Still, despite the heavy losses, as long as they did not exceed the total number of living souls in the town available for conversion, the battle would not be a loss. Considering the fair number of giants hiding behind the walls, it could even be considered a gain.
As an intelligent being, the Night King's purpose was not merely to be the strongest White Walker, but to find ways to counter and suppress the living when they resisted.
He played a role nearly identical to Egger's in the Night's Watch—the decision-maker and the guide!
The Great Gorge defense line, the de-icing of Eastwatch, the day-and-night patrols atop the Wall, wildfire, bombs, and various dragonglass weapons... the preparations mankind had made for this Great War were incredibly thorough, but the Night King had fulfilled his duty, devising solutions for each in turn. Only the dragonsteel arrows—this never-before-seen artifact, both indestructible and brimming with magic—left him with only one foolproof countermeasure: hide himself and stay out of their range.
Strictly adhering to this strategy, even when Melisandre had earlier enchanted Egger's dragonsteel arrow with a powerful Light spell to expose his position, the Night King remained unmoved. He continued to hide silently within the sea of wights far from the walls, watching with a cold sneer as the enemy in the distance racked their brains to lure him out.
The first shining Lightbringer streaked across the sky, falling into a cluster of wights not far from him.
To be honest, a Red Priestess was a heavyweight bait, and the thought of eliminating the world's last Greenseer was delightful... After sensing carefully, the Night King even discovered that the person who had fired the arrow was no nobody. He carried a familiar and rare aura—the mark of the Cold God's arch-enemy!
It was a small world indeed; that was the crow who had caused their side's first casualty in the Haunted Forest years ago!
Even with all these temptations bundled together before him... for the sake of the Cold God's greater cause, the Night King maintained his restraint.
However, as the second brilliantly glowing dragonsteel arrow landed and his White Walker subordinates began reporting the inconceivable situation they faced inside the town, the purpose of the battle was instantly thrown into question. Taking Queenscrown with low casualties was only possible through magic; finishing the battle quickly was the only way to seize the Nightfort and destroy the Wall's magic before the dragons returned... But if, after breaching the wall, they had to spend massive amounts of time or mana just to convert the enchanted defenders into wights, what was the point of deviating from the original plan to attack this town?
Suddenly, the Night King understood why the opponent continued to fire dragonsteel arrows pointlessly in his direction.
In addition to trying to lure him out for a decapitation strike, this move was a demonstration of power—a boast. The enemy wanted to convey a message by wasting these magical weapons: they had as many as they wanted, and the priests he had sent into the town had walked into a trap, like lambs to the slaughter, doomed to fail!
Abandoning the Wall to attack this human town had been a massive strategic error. While wight casualties were not yet catastrophic, the best choice would be to abort the assault immediately and pivot to more valuable targets. However, the eight priests already inside the walls had become the greatest obstacle to a retreat.
Every Priest of the Cold God was a precious resource. The number of wights the Night King could control alone was finite. He could not simply abandon two-thirds of his lieutenants; otherwise, even if he won on the Gift's battlefield, the subsequent push south against the rest of the human world would be fraught with difficulty.
He had to find a way to cover them, allowing the eight priests to break out from within Queenscrown's walls!
Failing time and again by a single move, the Night King's murderous intent finally flared in his rage. He raised his ice spear, aiming it at the wall, but after a moment of hesitation, he gritted his teeth and lowered it. If he were forced to face dragons in the future, this magical weapon condensed from his own essence remained his only option. Now was not the time to waste his final trump card on a mere mortal out of anger.
He handed the ice spear back to the priest beside him and instead picked up a fist-sized stone from beneath his feet.
At such a great distance, throwing a non-aerodynamic weapon lacked any semblance of precision. But the advantage was clear: even if it exposed his position, he did not fear the threat of the humans' magical arrows.
Aiming at the spot where the Red Priestess and the first priest-slayer stood, the Night King gathered his full strength and hurled the stone... and simultaneously issued the command for a total offensive.
Throwing a stone was not, in any sense, a spell. However, as lifeforms sustained entirely by magic, both the White Walkers and the Night King—whose very muscles were woven from mana—inevitably leaked magic during violent movements. It was this tiny ripple of energy that allowed Melisandre to sense the enemy's action instantly.
"Get down!"
Last time she encountered the Night King, she had only survived because Egger pushed her out of the way. The witch would not make the same mistake twice. She grabbed the man beside her, who was cooperative enough to know the gravity of the situation, and yanked him down behind the crenellations and a row of shield-bearing soldiers. Then... with a bone-shaking thud, the enemy's attack struck the battlement. The impact shattered a stone block dozens of centimeters thick right off the wall, knocking down the nearest shield-bearer. Flying stone shards peppered the surrounding shields with a frantic clatter.
The scene looked as if they had been struck by a small-caliber artillery shell. Had the crenellation not taken the blow, Egger had no doubt the attack would have punched through the shield-bearer and his shield with enough force left to kill him. But there was no time to marvel at the enemy's power or investigate whether the attack had been aimed at Melisandre or himself. He immediately shouted, "Where!?"
"A little north of your second arrow, but... damn it, it's over a thousand feet away!" Melisandre shouted back in despair.
Over a thousand feet—more than three hundred meters—was indeed far beyond the range of any wooden bow of this era. But hadn't Egger invested massive resources into purchasing and replicating high-performance catapults? Hadn't he ordered operators to prioritize precision over range in their training and even held skill competitions to test them? Was it not all for this exact moment—when arrow range was insufficient and a long-distance sniping of the enemy was required?
The failure of dragonglass to kill the enemy had nearly rendered these arrangements moot, but now, the two "Dragonsteel Bombs" were the final opportunity for Queenscrown's elite artillerymen to shine and make history. After getting the Night King's location from Bran, the groups Egger had brought to this section of the wall—besides the marksmen Anguy and Theon—were the two best catapult crews in the entire Gift!
"Catapults, Dragonsteel Bombs ready! Distance one thousand one hundred feet, shorten the fuses!"
"In position, ready!"
Without time to explain to Melisandre, Egger drew a third Lightbringer and thrust it before her again: "Enchant it!"
His tone brooked no argument, and the Red Woman instinctively obeyed. Another sphere of piercing light flared atop the wall. Aiming in the direction Melisandre had reported, Egger released the shot without a second's delay.
The magical flare once again illuminated the enemy host outside the northwest wall. One could clearly see the tide of wights, previously standing still outside the fire, now surging toward Queenscrown like a swarm of ants at the same moment the Night King attacked the wall.
"Is it this direction?!"
In this moment, Melisandre was so tense she nearly stammered: "Close... close enough!"
"Aim for the landing point of that arrow! Light them and fire!"
Thousands of drills had made the catapult operators' movements as fluid as water. Two fuses, shortened for an airburst, were lit by torches. With two synchronized thuds of the throwing arms that sounded almost like one, two limited-edition spherical weapons—identical in appearance to dragonglass bombs but with very different contents—soared into the air, chasing the landing Lightbringer.
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