The peace of the afternoon was shattered not by a roar, but by a sudden, unnatural drop in temperature. Near the edge of the Winterfell stables, a group of children had been playing in the snow, oblivious to the frost creeping over the stones.
From the shadows of the old granary, three shapes emerged—withered, blue-eyed Wights, their flesh frozen and grey. They hissed, raising rusted blades to strike at the smallest boy.
Before the children could even scream, three streaks of charcoal-black fur blurred across the yard. The Domesticated Hellhounds didn't bark; they unleashed a guttural, fiery growl that turned the falling snow to steam.
The largest hound, its eyes glowing like hearth-fires, leaped. It caught the lead Wight by the throat, its molten jaw snapping through frozen bone as if it were dry kindling. The other two hounds flanked the remaining undead, their paws trailing embers. In a matter of seconds, the "monsters" of the Abyss had reduced the White Walkers' scouts to piles of charred sticks.
To the surprise of the gathered guards, the hounds didn't remain in a bloodlust. As the danger passed, the largest hound—a beast that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a direwolf—turned back to the children. It gave a low, rumbling huff and licked the boy's face with a tongue that smelled of warm cedar and smoke.
"They're... they're just dogs," a young squire breathed, watching a toddler fearlessly grab the "demon dog's" smoldering ears.
Unlike the mangy, rabid wild demons that came through the rifts, these hounds were sleek, loyal, and strangely gentle with the smallfolk. They took up positions at the gates and by the nursery, acting as silent, glowing sentinels that the children quickly began to treat as oversized pets.
The moment of play was cut short. A horn blasted from the battlements—three long, low notes.
"Rangers! Wardens! To the walls!" Ned Stark's voice boomed, amplified by Beelzebub's resonance.
From the white haze of the North, an army appeared that made the previous rifts look like child's play. It wasn't just Wights; it was a legion of Liches—skeletal sorcerers draped in tattered robes—leading hundreds of Walking Skeletons. And running alongside them, like a pack of rabid wolves, were the Wild Hellhounds—twisted, bone-protruding versions of Philips's domesticated pets.
"This is it," Philips said, standing atop the gatehouse, his hand resting on the hilt of a Forbidden Ritual Dagger. "The debut of the Covenant."
"Wardens, engage!" Ned commanded.
Ned Stark leaped from the wall, landing in the snow with a thud that cracked the ground. He swung Ice, the blade now wreathed in the dark, crushing weight of his pact. Each swing didn't just cut; it sent out a shockwave that shattered skeletal ranks into dust.
Behind him, the Blight-Rangers moved like shadows. Benjen Stark loosed a volley of arrows coated in Baal's poison. When the arrows struck the Wild Hellhounds, the toxic green miasma didn't just kill them—it rotted their supernatural essence, causing the wild beasts to collapse in heaps of foul-smelling sludge.
"Maesters! Focus the Liches!" Philips yelled.
The Abyssal Sorcerers stepped forward, raising their Occult Staves of Bisith. They didn't chant; they simply drew the blue lightning of Leviathan from the air. A massive bolt of arcane frost struck the center of the skeletal legion, freezing the Liches solid before they could raise their staves to cast.
In the center of the fray, the Domesticated Hellhounds charged their wild counterparts. It was a clash of order against chaos. The loyal hounds fought with tactical precision, using their fire-breath to cauterize the skeletons' bones, preventing them from reassembling.
Philips watched the carnage with a grim satisfaction. The system pinged relentlessly:
------
[SYSTEM: 20 Skeletons Slain. +200 Essence.]
[SYSTEM: 2 Wild Hellhounds Slain. +100 Essence.]
[SYSTEM: 1 Lich Slain. +500 Essence.]
------
"The North isn't just defending anymore," Philips whispered, his eyes glowing violet. "They're hunting."
As the last skeleton fell to dust under the heavy boots of the Infernal Wardens, the people of Winterfell looked out from the walls. They saw their lords, their maesters, and their new 'monstrous' pets standing victorious. The fear was gone. The North was no longer a victim; it was a fortress.
The battle was over, leaving the snow outside Winterfell's gates littered with piles of splintered bone and the tattered, foul-smelling robes of the fallen Liches. While the soldiers began the grim task of clearing the field, Philips stood in the center of the carnage, his eyes scanning the remains with a clinical intensity that made the nearby men shiver.
"Listen to me!" Philips shouted, his voice cutting through the heavy breathing of the tired men. "Do not burn the remains yet. I need you to harvest them. Bring me the skulls of the Walking Skeletons and the desiccated rib-cages of the Liches. I need them intact. We shall call them... trophies."
The Northern soldiers stopped in their tracks. Silence fell over the yard as hardened warriors and weary rangers exchanged bewildered glances.
"Trophies?" a young Karstark soldier muttered, scratching his head with a blood-stained gauntlet. "Lad, we usually just toss 'em in a pit so they don't get back up. What do you want with a bag of rattling bones?"
Ned Stark walked over, his breath misting in the freezing air, his Infernal Warden armor still humming with Beelzebub's heavy resonance. He looked at a pile of shattered rib-cages and then back at Philips.
"Philips," Ned said, his voice low and cautious. "My men are soldiers, not bone-collectors. Why do you need the remains of these abominations? To keep them as macabre prizes?"
Philips looked at the Lord of Winterfell, a faint, weary smile on his face. "In the world of the Abyss—where the true war is fought—nothing is wasted, Lord Stark. We don't keep them for pride. We keep them for power."
He gestured toward the smithy where the Northern smiths were already waiting. "I need to craft the Trophy of Death. It's another of Bisith the Mage's designs. He discovered that the lingering essence of the 'Greater Undead' can be bound into a physical object. If we combine a Skeleton or Lich Trophy with Iron and Owl Bone, we create a relic of the Grave."
"What does a 'Trophy of Death' do?" Maester Luwin asked, clutching his Occult Staff of Bisith with newfound reverence.
"It acts as a siphon," Philips explained, his eyes glowing with a cold, violet light. "It grants the wielder a 'Life-on-Hit' enchantment. Every time a Warden strikes a demon with a weapon adorned with these trophies, a portion of the enemy's life-force is drained to heal the wielder's wounds. It makes the Legion nearly immortal in a long fight."
The confusion on the men's faces vanished, replaced by a grim, greedy understanding. In a world where a single scratch from a wild demon could mean a slow, agonizing death, the ability to heal through combat was more precious than gold.
"You heard the King!" Ned bellowed, turning to his men. "Bring the trophies! Every skull, every rib! We don't leave a single scrap of power on this field!"
Hours later, the forge was filled with the clatter of bones. Philips stood over the anvil, the air thick with the smell of ozone and ancient dust. The blacksmiths watched in awe as the boy worked with materials they would have considered filth.
------
[SYSTEM: BISITH'S FORMULA DETECTED]
[Ingredients: Skeleton/Lich Trophy + Iron + Owl Bone]
[Processing... Crafting: Trophy of Death]
------
Philips reached into the pile of bones. He took a silver-sheened Lich's skull and pressed it against a bar of cold iron. Using the Owl Bone as a needle, he "sewed" the iron into the calcium, weaving the physical and the supernatural together.
The forge erupted in a pale, ghostly green flame. When the light died down, a small, terrifyingly detailed relic sat on the anvil. It looked like a miniature skeletal hand clutching a black iron sphere, cold to the touch and whispering with a faint, hollow wind.
"This is the first Trophy of Death," Philips announced, handing it to Ned Stark. "Attach it to the pommel of Ice. As long as you draw blood from the enemy, you will never bleed out yourself."
Ned took the relic. He felt a cold shiver run up his arm, but beneath it, a sense of absolute stability. "Bisith was a dark man, Philips. But he knew how to survive."
"He knew that in a war for survival," Philips replied, looking out the window at the Hellhounds patrolling the walls, "there is no such thing as a 'clean' victory. Only those who stand at the end."
------
[SYSTEM: NEW RECIPE UNLOCKED – TROPHY OF DEATH]
[HELL-STEEL QUALITY INCREASED: +15%]