This was enemy territory, and Wright dared not let his guard down. Holding the severed head in his left hand, his right hand slowly moved behind his back, his thumb pressing against the dagger tucked into the metal belt, ready to strike at any moment.
Raising the head to chest level so it had to look up at him, Wright spoke slowly, "Night King?"
The eyes of the severed head began to glow with an icy blue soul-fire. It was clear that the Night King had strengthened his magical connection to it, allowing it to speak more fluently: "The Lord of Coldharbour greatly admires you. If you are willing to join his ranks, he promises that I shall rule this continent, while the rest of the world will belong to you."
"Is that so?" Wright's voice rose in pitch. Even a child wouldn't believe such nonsense.
Hidden behind his helmet, Wright made sure the Night King couldn't see his expression. "It seems he has told you everything. But I have yet to meet him in person. For such an important matter, we should discuss it face to face."
The head remained silent. The Others could store energy for bursts of action, but their thoughts were unbearably slow. The soul-fire flickered, and after half a minute, the Night King finally spoke: "If you agree now, I will arrange a meeting. If you refuse, then when we meet, I will take your corpse and add it to our ranks."
"Heh." Wright let out a cold chuckle, leaning closer to the head, his eyes locked onto the Night King's. "I once knew another undead king. He was far stronger than you, backed by forces that your Lord of Coldharbour could never hope to match. He even had something you never will—a full head of long hair! Like you, he dreamed of conquering the world. And in the end, do you know what became of him?"
The Night King's voice was flat: "He conquered the world?"
"His fate was tragic. Those who opposed him slaughtered his followers, stripped him of his armor, and stole his weapon! His soul was cast into an endless cycle of torment, trampled over and over again by the very mortals he once looked down upon, never to find peace!"
As soon as Wright finished speaking, he released his greatsword, drew his dagger, and with a swift turn, plunged it deep into the left eye socket of the severed head.
"AAAHH! HISS—"
A piercing scream erupted, but soon it turned into a hoarse growl as the Night King severed the connection. Within seconds, the head hardened into a block of ice.
The Night King had been controlling the wight's head remotely through magic. The dagger was an enchanted artifact, not a god-slaying weapon—at most, it had just turned the Night King into a one-eyed specter. It wasn't enough to end him.
"I used to be too focused on killing them to notice how different their ice was." Wright examined the frozen head in his hand. Unlike natural ice or magically conjured frost, this material had a strange blue hue and faintly pulsed with magical energy.
The ground trembled continuously beneath him—Odahviing was still locked in battle, but the dragon seemed to be in no danger.
Glancing at the severed head, Wright decided to bring it back for further study. He tore a strip of cloth from the dead human's clothing, wrapped the head securely, and fastened it tightly to his belt. Then, he turned his attention to the metal structure.
Unfolding his own detection array beneath the metal framework, he studied it closely for a while before concluding, "Just as I thought—this is a signal-amplifying antenna!"
The Others could already control wights from great distances. With these metal constructs and blood magic rituals, they could amplify their power exponentially. By sacrificing just one Other, they could extend their influence over an area of dozens of miles, allowing a small number of Others to coordinate massive undead assaults along the thousand-mile span of the Wall.
Another tremor rumbled through the ground. Disrupting the blood magic array at the base would take days—time Wright didn't have. Tightening his grip on his greatsword, he dispelled the ice barrier.
The wight inside the metal tower was already dead. Outside, all the wights lay motionless on the ground. Wright leapt out of the pit, extending his mage hand to grab onto the dragon's leg. With a few quick movements, he climbed onto Odahviing's back.
"Take off! No need to waste time on these low-level vampires!"
Odahviing abandoned the battle, surging forward with powerful wingbeats. As the thunderous stomping of wights faded below, the dragon soared into the sky.
Wright released red sword energy across Odahviing's back, sweeping away the last of the vampires clinging to its scales. Then, tapping the dragon's horn with his blade, he said, "We're heading further north. I'll explain everything along the way."
The White Walkers controlled their wights from an extremely long distance, forming a battlefront stretching along the Wall. Wright had slain one in the center, yet as he ascended into the sky, he saw that the assaults on either side remained relentless. The Night King lacked the power to directly command all White Walkers at once, leading Wright to speculate that they were arranged in a pyramid-like structure, with additional metal towers to the north extending their control.
"I've never seen this kind of magic before," Odahviing finally responded after listening to Wright's explanation. Dragons possessed highly specialized forms of magic, devoid of unnecessary complexity.
"This is an opportunity to deal with the Night King directly. Even if it's a deliberate trap meant to lure me in, I have to go. Right now, I'm the only one capable of investigating this." This journey could be fruitless, or it might strike directly at the heart of the enemy. Either way, Wright had to seize this chance at a decisive victory.
Odahviing rumbled, "There are too many undead. The men on the Wall won't be enough."
"Two days! Whether we find something or not, we'll return in two days. The undead don't dare scale the Wall directly—I trust they can hold for two days." Given the White Walkers' offensive and their unknown magic, Wright was certain the Wall would eventually fall. Two days were enough for most people to evacuate.
No matter how powerful the magic woven into the Wall, it was still a man-made construct. And no construct was eternal. After standing for thousands of years, the Wall had drained the magical essence from the North's land beneath it. Now, it was like an aging warrior—imposing on the outside, yet frail within. If even a single breach was made, the spellwork inside could be utterly destroyed.
With a reference point and a rough search radius, Wright and Odahviing scoured the landscape, uncovering several more metal towers. They dismantled each one before pressing farther north.
Meanwhile, Black Castle burned. Flames roared across the battlefield, with fireballs soaring over the Wall and crashing into the stronghold beyond.
The men atop the Wall fought the fires while launching counterattacks with catapults and magic. Below, others struggled to extinguish the flames as the siege machinery slowed.
Sauron ascended the Wall at last, clad in a smaller set of armor. Firelight flickered against his face, illuminating the chaos—soldiers running in all directions, the wounded writhing in agony, and the din of battle echoing in the night. Yet among them all, he saw no familiar faces.
"Quaithe, my father says I'm too young for the battlefield, but look at them!" Sauron gestured at the wounded being lowered down the siege machinery. "They're barely older than me, yet they're fighting and dying for humanity. Why should I be forbidden from the battlefield?"
Quaithe leaned in and spoke softly, "They are Night's Watchmen. You should know what they were before they took the black. You are not like them."
"What makes me different? My mother is missing, my father is off saving the world, and I—who am stronger than any of them—am supposed to just stand here and watch?"
As soon as Sauron spoke, two young Night's Watchmen stepped forward.
The older one addressed him, "Mage Sauron, please don't make this difficult for us."
"My father ordered you to watch over me. I won't make things hard for you," Sauron said, his gaze shifting to the battlefield below. The defenders were barely holding on. He turned back to Quaithe, took a single step forward—then leaped over the edge of the Wall.
"No!" The two Night's Watchmen were too slow to react. They had relied entirely on Wright's command to keep Sauron in check. By the time they reached the battlements, a vast shadow had erupted into the sky.
"Don't look at me—I'm not the Lord's subordinate," Quaithe remarked before dissolving into shadow and streaking toward Sauron.
A dragon's roar thundered across Black Castle.
It lacked Odahviing's crushing bulk, but the young black dragon, Shulvokun, was still over thirty meters long—more than enough to be called a true dragon.
Agile in the air, it dodged incoming attacks with ease before releasing a torrent of golden-red dragonfire upon the Haunted Forest.
With Quaithe and Shulvokun at his side, Sauron joined the battle.
"Shulvokun and Sauron! Get him back here!" Benjen, the commander on the Wall, bellowed in frustration.