Chapter 160 – The Ritual Amid the Earthquake
Under the gray-white sky, the army camp halfway up the mountain buzzed with noise and activity.
Some soldiers wandered about the slopes, while others sparred with one another to keep warm against the bone-piercing cold.
But not everyone was doing that.
Some preferred to remain inside their tents, wrapped in layers of clothing and furs, unwilling to move more than necessary. Others had already grown too numb from the cold to move at all. And a few had simply resigned themselves to waiting for death.
At that moment, a small group of three men had set up a "campfire feast" in a secluded corner near the foot of the mountain.
A Night's Watchman named Edd sat crouched beside the fire, wrapped in a thick bearskin coat. A raven skewered on the tip of his sword slowly turned in his hands over the flames as the scent of roasted meat drifted into the air.
"If the envoy fails," he muttered, "I'd at least like to die with a full stomach."
As he spoke, he stared intently at the unfortunate messenger raven he had secretly stolen from the signal officer. His throat bobbed involuntarily.
"Do you really think one bird will fill you up?" Pyp asked, giving him an odd look before glancing up toward the hill on their left.
"Jon, do you think the envoy will succeed?"
"The envoy won't fail," the third man replied.
The answer came without much hesitation, but his tone sounded distracted.
"Still thinking about your wildling girl?" Edd sighed while turning the roasting bird. "Give it up, Jon. As a sworn brother of the Night's Watch, I doubt that relationship is going anywhere good."
Pyp nodded immediately.
"Exactly. We're not allowed wives or children. And she's a wildling on top of that."
"I know that," Jon said, frowning. "But the Old Gods…"
"What about them?"
Jon shook his head and said nothing.
Seeing this, Edd and Pyp exchanged a glance and quickly changed the subject.
"All I can say is that Samwell was lucky he didn't come along."
"No kidding. This might be the coldest place in the world. Cold enough to freeze a man's balls off."
"I kind of regret coming," Edd added. "Jon, why did you have to join this expedition? If you hadn't come, I wouldn't have come either. And if I hadn't come, I wouldn't be freezing to death right now."
"No one forced you to come, Edd," Pyp said. "Your legs work just fine—you chose this yourself. Besides, you're not dead yet."
Edd choked on the response, looking annoyed.
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but instead changed the subject again.
"Speaking of Sam… I suddenly remembered how he was hiding under his blankets crying a while back. Said the envoy's people stole his treasure."
Edd snorted.
"Funny, right? Why would the envoy bother stealing something from Sam?"
"Sam never lies," Pyp said immediately. "He doesn't even have the courage to lie. Everyone knows that."
"So…" Edd blinked. "You think the envoy really took his treasure?"
"If that's true," Jon suddenly said after a long silence, "then the envoy must have had his reasons."
Both of his companions looked at him.
"Come on, Jon. Sure, that lord saved your father—but Samwell is still our friend."
"I'm just making a rational judgment," Jon replied.
"Strange. Since when did our Lord Snow start thinking rationally?"
"Maybe after that wildling girl slapped him?"
"Too bad she slapped him too late. Would've been better if she did that before we left."
The two exchanged a glance—and burst into laughter.
The teasing from his companions left Jon feeling a little gloomy.
He sat beside the campfire, absentmindedly poking at the flames with a stick. After a while, he spoke.
"Everyone says I came here because of Ygritte. But the truth is, the envoy saved my father's life. I just wanted to repay him. Even though he doesn't need it… and even though I can't really help much… but…"
His words made the two friends who had been joking with him grow slightly more serious.
They adjusted their posture and began listening carefully.
But just as they did, Jon suddenly fell silent.
Pyp, sitting across from him, frowned in confusion.
"What's wrong? Our handsome Snow getting shy?"
Jon ignored the teasing.
His expression grew blank as he stared past them, his gaze fixed somewhere behind their backs.
Slowly, his face became grim.
Seeing his reaction, Edd and Pyp immediately sensed something was wrong.
They turned around at once.
And their faces changed drastically.
Across the vast white plain below the mountain, a black streak suddenly appeared on the distant horizon of the gray sky.
At first it was thin as a strand of hair—barely noticeable.
But within only a few breaths, it expanded rapidly, revealing its true form.
A massive black cloud.
A cloud so vast it swallowed the entire gray sky within sight.
The cloud was black as coal, like pure ink with no other color mixed into it.
It surged forward like a raging tide, spreading across the heavens with terrifying speed.
"What… is that?"
Pyp whispered, his eyes wide as saucers.
No one answered him.
Jon and Edd stood there with mouths slightly open, stunned speechless by the catastrophic sight before them.
The black clouds rolled closer.
They swallowed the light.
They brought darkness.
Across the plain beyond the abyssal barrier, the white snowfields were gradually devoured by shadow.
Then the darkness spread wildly—
and soon it reached the edge of the encircling chasm.
The black clouds swallowed the sky.
A violent wind followed.
Snow on the ground was whipped into the air like sand, scattering in every direction.
The trees—already thinned by the army's logging—began to sway violently.
The wind howled through the mountain ravines like a mournful wail.
Under such conditions, the small fire before the three men was blown out.
Even the roasted raven on Edd's sword was quickly buried beneath drifting snow.
But Edd, who had been starving moments earlier, no longer cared about his meal.
He stared at the terrifying scene, dumbfounded.
After a long moment, he suddenly felt something cold touch his forehead.
He looked up.
Snowflakes were falling.
Edd groaned weakly.
"Damn it… it's snowing again…"
---
While the storm gathered atop the mountain, deep below within the sealed domain, a series of low yet piercing chants echoed endlessly.
The strange incantations rose and fell in rhythm, their tone harsh and frenzied.
Just hearing them sounded like some dark cult performing a sacrifice.
Charles stood before the blood-drawn magic array.
His expression was solemn.
His lips moved continuously as the chants poured from his mouth and filled the surrounding space.
He held the still-beating heart high above his head with both hands.
The wide sleeves of his black robe had slipped down.
Under the glow of vibrant green life energy, fresh blood mysteriously flowed from the vessels of the heart.
The crimson liquid ran down Charles's pale arms, soaking into his sleeves and spreading across the black fabric into thick dark stains.
The damp, metallic smell of blood was unpleasant.
But Charles paid it no mind.
His focus remained absolute.
His chanting never stopped.
His gaze remained fixed on the magic array before him—and the strange meteorite trapped at its center.
The deep-blue meteorite merged seamlessly with the surrounding white space.
It remained an empty shell.
It showed no reaction to anything Charles was doing.
Yet as the chanting continued, the magic array surrounding it began to change.
Dim gray light slowly appeared upon the blood-drawn symbols on the ground.
The skulls and toe bones arranged around the array suddenly trembled violently when Charles's chant reached a certain syllable.
Gray mist began spreading through the white space.
Cold and oppressive.
The fog gathered around the magic array, eventually enveloping everything within—including Charles.
A vine that had extended from above recoiled under the encroaching mist.
But moments later it plunged back down again, forcing its way into the gray fog.
It finally stopped just behind Charles's neck.
The vine lightly brushed his skin.
"You must hurry," the old voice echoed in his mind.
"The Great Other has sensed what you are doing."
The Three-Eyed Raven's tone was grave—but beneath it lay unmistakable excitement.
He seemed delighted that Charles's actions might actually threaten the meteorite.
But Charles gave no reply.
His eyes remained fixed on the ritual before him, his expression utterly focused.
As the gray fog thickened, his chanting grew faster and more urgent.
The bones around the array shook more violently.
At first they merely trembled.
Now they seemed to leap.
Soon, one skull reacting most violently suddenly shot upward into the air.
Then a second.
A third.
All ten skulls rose from the ground.
Gray threads—thin as hair—stretched between them and the toe bones still embedded in the array below.
These strange strands linked the bones together, forming outlines like living shapes.
As the rough forms emerged, the surrounding mist condensed around them.
Wrapped and shaped by the fog—
they finally transformed into human-like figures.
Their bodies were entirely composed of swirling gray mist.
Within their hollow eye sockets burned two flickering points of crimson light.
The moment they formed, the figures stood silently around the arc of the magic array.
All ten of them stared directly at Charles.
The scene was deeply unsettling.
But Charles, who had already experienced similar events twice before, remained unmoved.
His hoarse chanting never ceased.
Inside his mind, he silently counted the seconds.
However, things did not proceed smoothly.
Not long after the ten mist-formed figures appeared—
a violent tremor suddenly shook the entire area.
The quake came without warning.
The ground beneath Charles's feet shook like an earthquake, nearly breaking his concentration and interrupting the chant.
Fortunately, his will was strong.
He forced himself to continue.
The shaking only grew worse.
The ground roared and trembled violently.
Above, cracks echoed through the white void like stones splitting apart.
Vines thrashed and scraped against unseen surfaces.
Something was clearly going wrong.
Soon, chunks of rock began falling from the ceiling of the sealed domain.
They struck the ground with sharp, echoing crashes.
One jagged stone struck Charles directly on the forehead, splitting the skin and drawing blood.
Yet he showed no sign of pain.
Instead, he let out a quiet breath of relief.
Amid the rumbling earthquake, he suddenly hurled the beating heart in his hands toward the meteorite at the center of the ritual.
With a wet splat, the heart burst upon impact.
The extreme cold instantly froze the scattered flesh and thick blood against the meteorite's surface.
And at the moment the heart shattered—
the ten strange beings that had been staring at Charles suddenly shifted their gaze.
A powerful pulling force erupted beneath his feet.
The ritual had begun its final phase.