"Help! Holy Mother, have mercy!"
"Dragon Queen, save me! Where is the Dragon Queen?"
"Dragon, save me! Great Protector of the Light, save me!"
In the parts of Winterfell not yet stained white, soldiers, servants, and civilians could no longer maintain order. Some wept as they shoved forward, some randomly picked a room to hide in, and others, before the white frost could crawl over them, leapt straight from the city walls.
Even more people fled while shouting the names of the Holy Mother, the Dragon Queen, the King in the North, and even the dead Stannis.
"Boom—crack—"
The Dragon Queen and the others gave no response, yet the gigantic vortex in the sky seemed to answer their cries.
Thick bolts of lightning rolled within the black clouds, as if a god were brandishing a whip of thunder in battle. At the center of the vortex, bursts of crimson light pierced through the dense darkness.
The trailing white frost ribbons lost their former lightness and grace. Like a butcher's whip wielded in a frenzy, they no longer specifically targeted the densest crowds. They lashed at the castle, the stables, the broad training yard, and even the wight horde fighting the soldiers outside the walls.
The wights were already cold enough, and their arrival had made the weather even colder. Yet before the white frost, they froze just like humans, turning into ice sculptures that toppled to the ground and shattered into icy fragments.
"Seven gods, what is that thing?" Old Bar muttered as he fled from the frost spreading in all directions across the ground, glancing back at the thousands of wights frozen solid.
The White Knights had strictly followed the Dragon Queen's orders. While others still hesitated about whether to leave the city and clash with the wight army, they had not wavered in the slightest.
The knights already waiting at the gates mounted their horses immediately if they had them. Those without mounts raised their shields and followed behind the cavalry, forming a wedge formation as they charged out together.
They fled south along the Kingsroad, away from Winterfell.
Old Bar, Big Bear, and the other Dragon Queen followers had come on dragonback, so they naturally had no warhorses and could only run on their own two legs.
Just moments earlier, one ribbon of white frost had twisted wildly, shifted sideways by one or two kilometers, and dropped to Old Bar's left, instantly freezing the earth.
Had the old knight not been lucky, standing a bit farther from the impact point and wearing Valyrian steel armor that resisted part of the frost's power, he would have died a glorious death.
The white ribbons that had once tracked the breath of the living in orderly pursuit had now become whips of frost out of control, bringing disaster upon those outside the city. But for those lining up to enter the crypts of Winterfell, this proved to be a chance to escape.
With the frost withdrawn, they once again had time to enter the crypts.
"Quick, make way! This is Queen Sansa, this is Sansa Stark! She's with child!" Theon held the dazed Sansa in his arms, roaring as he forced his way forward.
"We should have left on a wyvern. Daenerys has already run. It's all too late now. I sent Lady away. There's no time." Sansa sobbed in Theon's arms.
"It's not too late. We can hide in the crypts. That whip of frost can't possibly freeze the entire land into ice. There are still hot springs beneath Winterfell!" Theon reassured her.
Fortunately, though the title of queen held little sway, the name "Stark" in the North, in Winterfell, was a banner harder than Valyrian steel.
Even as the whip of frost ravaged Winterfell and death loomed overhead, many wildlings, northern smallfolk, and even noble knights made way for Theon.
"BOOOOOM~~~" At the very instant Theon carried Sansa onto the underground steps, a muffled explosion thundered from the center of the black vortex in the sky, shaking the castle slightly.
Then red light tore through the dark vortex, dyeing heaven and earth in brilliant crimson.
The darkened world suddenly blazed as if a great sun had just risen, rays of light streaming everywhere.
Those who looked up at the sky could feel the warmth of the red light falling upon their cheeks.
It was hot.
"What's happening?" Theon halted, staring upward in confusion along with everyone else.
"Boom boom boom, rumble..."
The sky tore open.
The red light gradually dimmed and vanished, replaced by a white luminescence.
Those gazing at the heavens could feel the temperature of the white light landing on their faces.
It was cold.
A bone-piercing cold that filled everyone with fear.
The viscous white light leaking from the hole in the sky shared the same color and temperature as the whip of frost.
But its quantity…
It was as if a soot-blackened iron pot covered the earth, and now a hole had opened in its bottom, letting the white porridge inside spill down.
Like the long, icy snot running from a child's nose in winter after being startled indoors from play outside, sliding past the lips, over the chin, and then with a slurp being sucked back up, cool and refreshing.
Unfortunately, the gigantic black vortex only let the white snot drip; it had no intention of sucking it back. Now that thin mucus was falling toward Winterfell.
"Quick, into the crypts!" Sansa clutched Theon's cloak, her face twisted as she screamed.
"Crash—"
Before the snot could land, hail arrived first.
Another wave of wailing spread across Winterfell.
The white frost streamed down from the sky like mucus, encircled by a dense ring of icy mist.
That was the moisture in the air, frozen into tiny ice particles.
The small ice crystals clasped together, solidifying into larger chunks of ice. Hail was born.
Fortunately, this wave of hail had not been directly manipulated by a god, or what would have fallen would not have been mere egg-sized or fist-sized lumps.
At last, the flowing "mucus" poured down upon Winterfell. In an instant, a white flash swept across the sky above it, and the entire castle, training yard, city walls, and every person on the ground were frozen solid.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Beneath the dripping flow, an icicle formed. The flow continued, and the icicle expanded and rose higher. All the moisture of the North was drawn toward it, forming a ring of storming air currents around the pillar of ice.
The storm was like a god's hand, ceaselessly kneading the air above Winterfell, shaping a glacier one kilometer in radius and two thousand meters high.
Within the glacier, one could see a lifelike castle: walls, towers, courtyards, figures, forests, everything intact.
It was like a Disney crystal-ball castle magnified countless times.
"Seven gods above, we're only fighting the Others. Why has such a terrifying power appeared?" On the Kingsroad, Jaime, glancing back, was on the verge of collapse.
"Thud!" Jon's legs gave way and he fell to his knees, wailing in heartbreak. "No, Sansa, little sister~~~~~~~"
"Caw, caw, caw~~~" A flock of large black ravens descended from the sky. One landed on Jon's shoulder, while the others circled above the heads of the humans and the wights.
Yes, this group was being hunted by tens of thousands of wights. The battle had never ceased.
"Jon, pull yourself together! Sansa hid in the crypt. The crypt has a hot spring pool. Arya isn't even in Winterfell. They're not dead."
Hearing that his two sisters were safe, Jon felt much better. Turning his head to look at the big black raven on his shoulder, he asked sorrowfully, "What exactly happened? Winterfell has been frozen over."
"Sigh, this is already the best possible outcome. The white frost's icy power was vented into the air, which means the Cold God's forbidden spell misfired. The Dragon Queen broke the Cold God's full-powered strike," Bran sighed.
"The best outcome? We were on the verge of victory, and suddenly we were wiped out. How is that a good ending?" The Hound hacked down a wight and roared without turning his head.
"Didn't you see the phenomenon in the sky? That was a true god casting a large-scale forbidden spell. If it hadn't been interrupted, there wouldn't be a single living soul within ten kilometers. Now you're all alive."
"A true god? Fuck, what's that? Where's our god-king R'hllor?" The Hound asked blankly.
"It should be the Cold God. According to the prophecy of Asshai, even the Night King is merely the Cold God's servant. The deity sacrificed to in Qohor was also the Cold God."
Though Jaime paid attention to the conversation among the few people and the bird, his own defensive line did not falter.
With a round shield strapped to his right arm protecting his waist and abdomen, his left-hand sword flashed like lightning. Widow's Wail pierced into a wight's eye socket and then slashed sideways, splitting half of that wight's skull while also severing the neck of another that had been trying to flank old Barristan.
"That's right. The dark vortex in the sky is the Cold God's magic. R'hllor is no match for Him and has already retreated."
"The Lord of Light ran away? What about the Seven? Why didn't the Warrior and the Mother come?" Jaime asked.
"The Seven…" The big black raven's gaze turned somewhat strange. "The Seven came. It was the Seven and Daenerys who stopped the Cold God's forbidden spell."
There was nothing wrong with that statement.
Dany did not run.
She usually cherished her life and feared death, but at the critical moment when crisis struck, she possessed a kind of reckless courage she herself had never noticed.
In fact, she had been trying all along to stop the descending white frost.
The first time, she hovered directly in the path of the falling ribbon of frost. Three giant dragons circled around her, condensing three enormous dragonflame fireballs.
After the dragons withdrew, she held the fireballs aloft by herself, waiting for the thumb-thick ribbon of white frost to probe toward her body.
Three dragonflame fireballs the size of carriages, one of them the most powerful "Blacksmith" fireball, were hurled together.
Not even a splash appeared.
There was no explosion, no expansion, no sizzling sound like red-hot iron plunged into water.
The white frost was like a greedy demon. It stretched its tendrils into the dragonflame fireballs and, as if sucking watermelon juice, drained them within a few breaths. The fireballs shriveled, shrank, and finally vanished.
In truth, the white frost had not absorbed the fiery power within the dragonflame fireballs. Rather, an overwhelming force of ice had annihilated the dragonflame.
It was like using a fire hose to extinguish a lit candle.
Her second attempt was the spatial gate.
From a distance, Big Black spat out a mosaic-blurred fireball dozens of meters forward, cutting off the drifting ribbon of white frost.
Then the bright red spatial gate solidified into a crystalline mirror of ice and shattered with a crack.
"As expected, the spatial gate is not very effective against the Cold God, or even against the Night King," Bran sighed helplessly. "The Mother Goddess's gift of spacetime talent to you can actually be divided into two talents: time and space. Time is the innate talent of the Gate God, while space comes from the ultimate meaning of wind."
To put it plainly, the spatial gate was merely a witchcraft derived from the Song of Wind. The Gate God could use it, and the Cold God once could as well.
It was just that the Song of Wind eventually belonged entirely to the Gate God, while the roots of the weirwood retained the Song of Darkness and could no longer use wind-based spatial arts.
After two failed attempts, Dany gritted her teeth and thought: Since she could not block the frost, she would deal with its source.
Riding Big Black, she opened a spatial gate and, in an instant, crossed eight kilometers into the sky, more than eight thousand meters above the ground.
She and Big Black arrived above the dark vortex. Only the two of them came; Little White and Little Green flew toward the mountains along the White Knife, far from Winterfell.
Above the dark vortex, Dany lifted her head and saw the stars and moon she had not seen for many days.
They still shone, but their light was dimmed by more than tenfold.
She had no mood to lament the darkened moon and sparse stars. Beneath her, within that massive vortex of ice and darkness, a terrifying will filled with malice was staring at her unblinkingly.
That was the Cold God.
Dany vs. the Cold God, round one.
(PS: The limited effect of the spatial gate on the Night King is not a sudden patch. Interested readers can check Chapter 746, where the Gate God explained his talent to Dany.
The art of space is an acquired witchcraft. Since the Gate God could comprehend it, the tree roots that shared His body naturally could as well.
However, later the Gate God and the roots split apart. The Song of Wind belonged entirely to the trunk, that is, the Gate God. The Song of Darkness belonged to the roots, which merged with the Other God to become the Cold God.
Therefore, the Cold God also understands spatial techniques, but He lacks the innate talent to manifest them.
This situation is similar to R'hllor and Goat Egg. Goat Egg took away R'hllor's Song of Fire, but that does not mean R'hllor's fire sorcery skills are inferior.
For example, the Red Woman can use the third stage of fire control, "Lord of the Flame Demon." Dany has comprehended the Song of Fire, yet she cannot perform that witchcraft.
One is skill; the other is cultivation.)
(End of chapter)
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