From within the black vortex, an evil and icy consciousness locked onto Dany. She immediately sensed something unusual from Him.
She was no longer the ignorant girl who had just crossed over, clueless about the powers of this world.
She had fought Goat Egg, dealt with the Gate God, crossed hands with the Lord of Light R'hllor, and beaten the Cold God's servant, the Otherworld King, into a dead dog.
A simple comparison of strength was not easy to judge, because neither Goat Egg nor R'hllor had faced her in their true forms or with their full power.
But at first glance, Dany sensed the difference between the Cold God and the other deities: He was incompatible with this world, completely out of place.
Or rather, the Cold God was rejected by this world.
Perhaps others, even other gods, might overlook this detail. But the Cold God's estrangement from the world stood in stark contrast to Dany's own intimacy with it.
When she entered the state of the Song of Wind, she almost merged with the world itself. The origin of the world, like a patient and instructive teacher, conveyed the secrets of its laws to her through the wind.
Without relying on any external cheat, if given a thousand years of cultivation, Dany was confident she could sing both the Song of Wind and the Song of Fire.
Compared to her, the Cold God was like the son secretly born to the World Will's wife and the neighbor next door.
Previously, Dany had assumed that what controlled the ten-kilometer-wide black vortex was merely an avatar of the Cold God.
If His true body had been here, there would have been no reason not to act personally, just as the bull-headed, serpent-bodied shadow demon had done at East Sea Watch.
Now she was certain. The Cold God's true body had arrived and was within the black vortex below.
But the world did not like Him and had bound Him with a layer of law-based restraints.
If He truly manifested before her and engaged Dany and the dragons in close combat, perhaps He would not be her match?
Dany was not entirely sure.
But clearly, compared to physical combat, forbidden spells carried greater prestige and produced better results.
The facts had already proven that even someone as powerful as the Otherworld King had performed rather awkwardly in close combat.
Seeing the Cold God hiding within the dark vortex, Dany naturally had no intention of foolishly charging in to seek a one-on-one duel of swordsmanship.
Her goal was not to defeat the Cold God, but to interrupt the casting of the forbidden spell "White Frost."
The dragon skimmed along the surface of the black vortex at high speed, spewing divine dragonfire.
Like a nimble fly constantly harassing a clumsy writer typing at a computer.
The facts proved that even if the Cold God was clumsy, the purple-red lightning and black shadow tentacles failed to catch Big Black despite several attempts. But just as a fly could not inflict much harm on a typist, the harassment achieved little.
From time to time, Big Black swept across the surface of the dark vortex, leaving trails of dragonfire. Apart from scorching up plumes of white steam and black smoke, it could not halt the progress of White Frost's erosion of Winterfell.
Still, burning the vortex with dragonfire did have some effect on White Frost.
It could be said that Dany indirectly saved Sansa's life. Because of the dragonfire's scorching, the balance between the ice power and the dark power within the vortex was disrupted, causing the frost above Winterfell to lash down like a whip in chaotic, random strikes.
Before that, the ribbon-like White Frost had resembled demonic tentacles, precisely tracking the aura of the living. It had followed the city gates inward and nearly frozen solid all those lining up at the entrance to the crypts.
"I also have a forbidden spell. Cooperate with me and let's try it once." In the end, Dany decided to use her killing move.
All her divine power and soul power fused into the bodies of ten fire sprites, transforming them into ten crows that blended into the Three-Eyed Raven's army of three thousand crows.
While the Three-Eyed Raven clashed wills with the Cold God, the ten crows broke away from the flock and plunged straight into the center of the black vortex.
"Explosion may not be art, but it is definitely the simplest and most brutal solution!"
Boom!
At the center of the black vortex, amid endless ice power, the ten crows abruptly reverted into ten fire sprites.
"For Dany, for all humanity, charge!" Little Mist shouted the slogan, leading the nine other fire sprites as they rapidly expanded, and then BOOM!
That was the reason for the countless rays of glowing light filling heaven and earth.
What exploded was not only the magic power of the ten fire sprites, but also all of the Dragon Queen's divine power and the power of her soul.
Simply put, the ten fire sprites and Dany self-detonated together.
A complete self-destruction.
The result…
was somewhat awkward.
The self-destruction blasted a hole straight through the dark vortex. The accumulated ice power poured outward. Whether the Cold God suffered heavy damage was unknown, but Winterfell was sealed in ice beneath a two-thousand-meter ice pillar.
Kill a thousand enemies, lose twelve hundred of your own.
But Bran believed it was entirely worth it.
No matter how great Winterfell's losses were, one fact could not be erased: without the help of a true god, humanity had resisted the Cold God by its own strength.
For the first time in history.
"It was elemental annihilation. How did you manage that?" Bran asked, his expression shaken.
"It's a characteristic of fire sprites. They are elemental beings of fire to begin with."
"R'hllor can no longer force humanity to 'consider the bigger picture.' You have broken free from your original fate. We can cast Him aside and act independently." Bran's tone was complicated.
"This is only the beginning. Now that elemental explosions have proven effective, let's go bigger."
Dany's condition was extremely poor. Her face was pale, her soul felt as if it were cracking with pain, and she had not a trace of strength or magic left in her body. Yet in her exhausted eyes flickered a brilliance of excitement at its peak.
The last time, in the world of death, when she blew up the Pale Moon Maiden, she had only paid the price of a single thought. This time, her entire divine power had been drained, and her soul had fully participated in the self-destruction. Like the little sprites, she was gravely weakened, on the verge of falling into dormancy.
But she still had one final trump card: Overfrequency Fusion.
Previously, she had only fused in overfrequency with Big Black. Now that all five dragons had mastered the Nine-Colored Vortex meditation foundation, she could merge with all five of them at once.
However, Little Red and Little Gold were too far away. The aftereffects of overfrequency fusion were too severe. She would not be able to rush to treat them immediately, and Big Black was currently carrying her high in the sky. Afterward, he would still need to protect her, Little White, and Little Green. He could not afford to collapse.
Dual overclocking should be enough.
Three kilometers south of Winterfell, on the Kingsroad.
More than five hundred warriors formed a circular shield wall, surrounded at the center by thousands upon thousands of wights.
"Benjen, you broken wreck of a man, come out and fight me!" the crippled Jaime shouted in challenge.
Jon looked embarrassed.
"Uncle Benjen, I am now the Lord of Winterfell, and you once left Winterfell as well. You were once the man I admired most, and I received much of your affection.
Now Winterfell has been destroyed, and I am destined to die on the battlefield.
Please grant me my final wish. Come out and fight me fairly, so that before I die, I may sever the last bond between us."
The great raven leapt from Jon's shoulder. Its voice, carried by soul transmission, rang in the ears of every living person: "Found it! All units, outer shield-bearers crouch down, wounded in the inner circle lie flat on the ground."
"Caw, caw, caw!" Before Jaime and the others could react, the great raven shot into the sky, leading a flock of ravens at top speed toward an inconspicuous corner of the wight army.
Two hundred meters from the living shield wall, in the snow, amidst a group of wights, stood a White Walker carrying an umbrella-hilt sword on its back and wearing a horned crown upon its head.
The Night King.
Amid the chaos, it had been pulled out of a pile of rubble by a wight giant.
Previously, it had hidden among the wight army, so well concealed that even the Three-Eyed Raven could not find it.
Thus Jaime provoked it with insults, and Jon appealed to it emotionally. The moment it experienced a violent emotional fluctuation, Bran detected it immediately.
Then Bran led a flock of ravens toward it.
"Bran Stark!" Seeing the incoming flock, the Night King inexplicably felt a crisis of life and death.
It was not that only the red sword could kill the Night King, but that in the mortal world, only the red sword's magical energy had reached the highest "true god" level, capable of easily breaking through the Night King's defenses.
Without another word, the Night King turned and retreated in a flash.
Its speed was not slow, but its running posture was especially awkward, hunched over, backside sticking out, limping along like a severe hemorrhoid sufferer.
Perhaps even the Night King realized its running posture lacked elegance and dominance, so it hurriedly called for its warhorse.
Soon, the corpse horse with frost frozen over its body came galloping toward it.
But before the Night King could climb onto the horse's back, eight ravens had already surrounded it.
Before it could draw its sword to slash, "bang, bang, bang!"
The eight great ravens transformed into eight small suns with human faces.
Hand in hand, they encircled the Night King and shouted in unison, "Greetings from the Dragon Queen. Long live the explosion!"
At the same time, above the dark vortex, the remaining forty great ravens dove headfirst into its center and with a series of "bang, bang, bang" transformed into forty fire sprites.
The forty fire sprites crowded together and cried out in unison, "Greetings from the Dragon Queen. Long live the explosion!"
Forty fire sprites in the sky and eight on the ground, forty-eight in total, divided between them all the divine souls and magical power of Little White and Little Green.
Especially the magical power. A dragon's magic was almost inexhaustible, yet at this moment it detonated all at once.
"BOOOOOM!"
The explosion was not deafening, but the entire sky seemed set ablaze. The dark vortex burst open like a dung heap pierced by a firecracker, instantly blown into a hole a kilometer wide.
Then the entire dark vortex deflated like a punctured balloon, spewing out large amounts of white dust and black smoke. Before the dust and smoke could settle, they transformed into a surging storm and hailstones the size of eggs.
However, the moisture in the northern sky was nearly exhausted, so the hail appeared unusually sparse.
Visible to the naked eye, the dark vortex vanished, the black clouds in the sky dispersed, and the heavens gradually brightened.
It was like moving from a heavy black night into a gloomy evening. The sky was a clean, dim gray.
As the sky cleared, the warriors who climbed up from the ground could see their surroundings clearly.
Two hundred meters ahead, there was a crater the size of a basketball court.
At the edge of the snow pit lay wights toppled like flattened wheat. Most of them were still alive, struggling to get back on their feet.
Even around the shield wall, dense clusters of wights were rising from the ground.
They were barely injured. They had simply lost their footing under the shockwave and fallen.
"The vortex is gone. The black clouds in the sky are gone too. Is the Cold God dead? Is the Night King dead? Has the Long Night ended?" Jaime shook his head, still ringing with tinnitus, and looked around blankly.
"None of them are dead. The wights are still moving." Jon snapped his fingers, and a small flame rose from his fingertip. Just as joy appeared on his face, something occurred to him, and his expression suddenly turned anxious.
He gazed into the distance and said quickly, "The anti-fire field has been broken. Even firewood can be ignited now. The Night King must be in terrible condition. We should seize the opportunity to finish it off."
"The wights aren't attacking us. They're retreating. The Night King must truly be in serious trouble," Barristan said, both delighted and anxious. "Where is the Three-Eyed Raven? Quickly, help us lock onto the Night King!"
After fighting bitterly through the night, the five hundred warriors were already exhausted, yet now they seemed as if fueled by stimulants. Reforming into a wedge formation, they charged toward the center of the explosion.
As soon as they approached the edge of the snow pit, they froze in place.
Someone had beaten them to it.
(End of chapter)
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