Clang, clang, clang!
Before the East City Gate was breached, the urgent alarm bells had already echoed throughout all of Winterfell.
In this era, bells and horn calls conveyed information through sound and rhythm.
And these urgent, continuous alarm bells represented that Winterfell was facing a critical moment of life and death crisis.
After everyone in Winterfell woke from their dreams, they immediately put on their clothes, grabbed their weapons, and began rushing towards the direction of the East City Gate.
Baela, who had always been treated as a trump card, couldn't hold back even without hearing Duke Kregen's signal.
She headed directly towards the Winterfell kennels where Moondancer was located.
"Everyone quickly get off the city wall and go support at the city gate!"
The Commander on the east city wall saw the city gate breached and immediately knew that holding the wall was no longer meaningful.
So he loudly commanded all Northern Coalition Army soldiers to go support the city gate where Ghouls were constantly pouring in.
As the many Northern Coalition Army soldiers on the city wall reached the stairs, they saw the brutal battle below.
They saw the Warden of the North, Duke Kregen, leading his personal guards and the remaining gate guards to form a wall of flesh and blood.
Their pressure was immense; they were using transport wagons and other objects as obstacles to resist the Ghouls pouring in from the city gate.
At the same time, they had to deal with the vines and branches that were constantly spreading from within the city.
Fortunately, the East City Gate was too narrow for the White Walkers, which was like an ocean.
A large group of Ghouls, extremely excited at seeing living people, were piled up at the city gate, and fewer were able to squeeze in quickly.
But no matter how few, their numbers were still far greater than Duke Kregen and the others on the ground.
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
Ghouls that had squeezed through the East City Gate quickly rushed towards Duke Kregen and the others.
As long as a personal guard or Northern Coalition Army soldier made a mistake, they would be immediately tackled to the ground.
Then they would either tear at them directly with their mouths or use tattered weapons to end these humans' lives amidst their screams.
"Archers, fire! Quickly cover the Duke!"
After the Commander reacted, he immediately issued an attack order to his archers.
All the archers standing on the city wall stairs immediately skillfully lit a tinder, then drew special arrows, lit them, and began firing.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Arrows burning with flames shot directly into the White Walkers; a Ghoul that had just jumped up was pierced through the head by an arrow, its entire skeleton was struck down from the air by the arrow's force, and then it quickly began to burn.
With their help, Duke Kregen and the others' pressure was greatly reduced.
They, who had originally been barely defending, could now even take the initiative to attack.
Swish, swish!
Duke Kregen's Valyrian steel greatsword, Ice, sliced through a sword-wielding skeleton Ghoul, and its skeleton immediately collapsed to the ground as if it had lost its support.
After rushing a few meters towards the East City Gate, Duke Kregen felt as if he had fallen into a quagmire.
The further he tried to break through towards the city gate, the harder it was to move.
It seemed his idea of recapturing the East City Gate could only stop there.
But with the fierce battle, Duke Kregen also discovered the uniqueness of his ancestral greatsword.
Swish, swish!
The effect of using this Valyrian steel greatsword against Ghouls was completely different from ordinary weapons.
Ghouls cut in half by ordinary weapons could still continue to move.
But as long as they were struck or pierced by Ice, or even just grazed.
These Ghouls would immediately turn into piles of dry bones or rotting corpses that had lost their momentum.
It was only a pity that Valyrian steel weapons were too precious to be widely distributed.
Otherwise, just wanting to defend against these Ghouls at the city gate, whose fighting power wasn't too strong, shouldn't have been a big problem.
Since they couldn't advance, they could only retreat!
"Duke, the brothers are getting tired.
This place can't hold for too long, let's quickly retreat to the second line of defense!"
As soon as Duke Kregen retreated to the defense line, his personal guard captain used the flaming longsword in his hand to cut down a Ghoul, then turned and shouted loudly at him.
"Yes, we can't hold this place anymore, retreating is the right thing to do.
But, we must first deal with those troublesome vines and branches."
After nodding in agreement with his personal guard captain's judgment, Duke Kregen immediately pointed out the key to the retreat.
Although many Northern Coalition Army soldiers arriving from within the city had begun hacking at those vine branches that seemed alive.
But the effect was minimal, and the retreat path was still firmly blocked by them.
However, when the Northern Coalition Army soldiers on the city wall came down to support, the pressure on Duke Kregen and the others was greatly reduced.
After catching their breath for a moment, he immediately organized men to pick up torches and other items to burn the vine branches behind them.
Swish, swish!
But just then, a sudden change occurred.
They saw the ground covered with white snow in the area behind the East City Gate beginning to constantly bulge upwards.
Subsequently, pale white skeletal hands broke through the ground one by one.
Not far behind the East City Gate of Winterfell was the Stark Family crypts; if Jacaerys had been here, he would have definitely sent people to move all the bodies inside elsewhere in advance.
But Duke Kregen had not thought of this point, so he was caught completely off guard.
"Everyone listen up, those near the East City Gate resist the Ghouls, those near the inner city continue to burn those vines.
And those in the middle, bury these skeletons back in the earth with me!"
Duke Kregen knew that without dealing with the skeletons crawling up from within the formation, they could not safely burn the vines and retreat to the second line of defense.
So he immediately shouted orders to the guards around him.
"Yes!"
Duke Kregen's surrounding personal guards and Northern Coalition Army soldiers all answered loudly in unison.
Then they immediately split into three parts, dealing with their respective targets in an orderly manner according to his command.
It's interesting to note, these skeletons, like those reaching out hands in a horror movie, had just managed to crawl out their upper bodies with difficulty,
When Duke Kregen and his men, like playing a game of whack-a-mole in a previous life, easily cut them down with the weapons in their hands.
It's just that the land of Westeros often has a history of tens of thousands of years; before Winterfell was even built, this area had already been sleeping with countless skeletons.
Even without crypts, these reawakened bodies were not so easy to clear away.
Moreover, it wasn't just the area where Duke Kregen was located; the area where a large number of Northern Coalition Army soldiers had gathered behind them, and even the area of the second line of defense, all had various skeletons constantly drilling out.
This directly resulted in the reinforcements having to first deal with the skeletons in their respective areas, leaving Duke Kregen and the others completely isolated and without support.
Thump, thump, thump!
Just as Duke Kregen was anxiously thinking about how to resolve this increasingly unfavorable stalemate for his side,
From outside the East City Gate, suddenly came sounds of incredibly heavy footsteps.
Because the city gate was blocked by countless Ghouls, Duke Kregen and the others could not see the specific situation.
But the more unknown it was, the more this unidentified sound felt like a large rock, pressing heavily on the hearts of Duke Kregen and the others.
Bang!
Crash!
Accompanied by a dull impact sound.
A large group of Ghouls and the city gate, which were stuck at the East City Gate, suddenly scattered inwards like a celestial maiden scattering flowers.
That is...
And Duke Kregen seized this opportunity to see at a glance what had made the unknown sound before.
It was actually a Giant Ghoul, slightly taller than the East City Gate!!!
Duke Kregen's reaction to this Giant Ghoul wasn't too great.
After all, even the Others had appeared, so the addition of a legendary Giant Ghoul was completely acceptable.
This Giant Ghoul, with its extremely oppressive physique, crashed through the group of Ghouls blocking the gate and directly entered Winterfell.
However, it did not continue to move forward but stopped.
Then it directly grabbed a special Ghoul that was clinging tightly to its side and violently threw it forward.
Rip!
When that special Ghoul was thrown towards the sky, it actually pierced its own belly with its hand, and then pulled out round objects from its belly one by one and threw them down at the Northern defenders below.
A round fruit happened to fall not far from Duke Kregen, and seeing that familiar fruit,
He was immediately shocked and turned pale, hiding behind a transport wagon and shouting loudly: "It's Exploding Fruits, quickly hide behind obstacles!"
But it was too late! Not everyone had his reaction speed.
Boom, boom, boom!
Streaks of orange-red flames rose within the Northern defenders' formation.
If viewed from the sky, one could see that the Northern defenders' formation had been directly blown into several empty spaces.
Duke Kregen dodged very quickly, and there was only that one Exploding Fruit nearby, so he was not affected by the explosion.
Unlike the previous time at Last Hearth, this time the White Walkers had various new tactics emerging endlessly.
Duke Kregen's troops were both attacked from front and back and suffered such heavy losses.
If no miracle occurred, they should have been completely annihilated.
Whoosh, whoosh!
The sound of dragon wings cutting through the air came from the direction of the Winterfell main keep; a miracle had occurred.
Roar!
Baela, like a savior, controlled Moondancer to breathe out pale green Dracarys, directly igniting those vine branches that had blocked Duke Kregen for a long time.
Rustle, rustle!
These vine branches, which seemed to have life, actually stretched madly towards the sky after being ignited.
It looked as if they wanted to tie up Moondancer in the sky and pull it to the ground.
Baela naturally wouldn't let the other side succeed; although Moondancer's injuries hadn't completely healed, it had little impact on its flying speed.
They saw Moondancer turning and weaving left and right in the sky, dodging those burning vine branches.
And when those vine branches tried to tie up the Dragon in the sky, they naturally could no longer continue to block the retreat path of Duke Kregen and the others.
"Duke, the retreat path is open, let's quickly retreat!"
"Yes, but there's one more thing to do before leaving, which is to kill that Giant Ghoul.
If we let it throw those special Ghouls carrying Exploding Fruits, we won't be able to defend even if we retreat to the second city wall!"
Looking at the Giant Ghoul in front of him, who had once again grabbed a special Ghoul and was preparing to throw it, Duke Kregen's eyes flickered with fierce battle intent.
After saying this to his personal guard captain, he turned and quickly ran towards the city wall stairs.
Ordinary weapons or arrows had little effect on the Giant Ghoul, but on the city wall, there were large ballistae that hadn't been of much use before.
The personal guard captain saw this, turned to look at the other soldiers who had begun retreating towards the inner city, gritted his teeth, and followed Duke Kregen back up onto the city wall.
Click, click, click!
Arriving on the east city wall, Duke Kregen personally operated it, beginning to shake the adjustment lever to change the direction and angle of the large ballista.
And the personal guard captain saw this and immediately picked up a thick, long bolt from the side to load it.
Twang!
After adjusting the direction and angle of the large ballista, Duke Kregen pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The thick, long bolt pierced through the back of the Giant Ghoul's neck in the blink of an eye, and its massive body fell heavily to the ground.
But without fire, a thick, long bolt alone could not finish off that Giant Ghoul.
They saw it struggling with its huge body, trying to get up again.
"Damn it, I almost hit its head.
Quickly reload the bolt!"
Duke Kregen saw that the target was not dead and began urging his personal guard captain to reload the thick, long bolt.
And after that, both sides were almost simultaneously ready to attack each other.
Duke Kregen pulled the trigger again, while the Giant Ghoul threw a special Ghoul at them on the city wall.
"Duke, be careful!"
Seeing it fly over his head, the personal guard captain roared and lunged towards Duke Kregen on the large ballista's seat.
Boom, boom, boom!
A series of explosions rang out around the large ballista; the airwaves generated by these Exploding Fruits directly shattered the large ballista.
Crash!
Duke Kregen struggled to break free from the large ballista fragments pressing down on him, then dragged his personal guard captain out of the rubble.
At this moment, the personal guard captain's legs were gone, and his back was almost burned to charcoal by the high temperature.
In the final moments of the explosion just now, he used his body to firmly cover Duke Kregen.
"Du... Duke.
Are you... are you not hurt?
Hurry, quickly escape..."
The first words spoken by this dedicated personal guard captain were surprisingly still about caring for Duke Kregen and telling him to escape quickly.
"Barry, don't talk anymore.
I'll carry you to find a Scholar, don't worry, you'll be fine."
Duke Kregen's eyes immediately became wet upon hearing this; holding one of Barry's hands, he spoke to comfort him.
"Don't mind me, quickly escape, otherwise there won't be a chance to return to the second line of defense."
As if in a final burst of energy, Barry, who had been speaking intermittently just now, was now speaking very smoothly.
At the same time, Barry, lying on the ground facing upwards, suddenly stretched out his other charred hand and pointed to the sky, continuing to speak,
"Duke, what is that? It's so big!"
Upon hearing this, Duke Kregen immediately looked up at the sky, and just as he looked up, he felt Barry's hand in his own go limp and fall to the ground.
He knew in his heart that Barry, who had accompanied and protected him for many years, was dead, but Duke Kregen did not lower his head.
Instead, he looked up at the increasingly large ink-colored Dragon silhouette in the sky and murmured: "That is Womax, and on its back is our King Jia Kelisi."
The King of our Westeros has returned!"