In the sky, fireballs flew across in alternating arcs, and the battlefield was a blend of gold and green.
On the ground, ice spears and blood-red magical orbs shot into the crowd, along with obsidian arrows that wiped out entire groups of wights, while lightning and fire rained down on the white walkers hidden in the wight horde.
The low thrum of war drums, the explosions of fireballs, the booming of magic, and the wailing of the wights mixed together, with only the loudest officers barely able to make themselves heard.
Closer now, the wights had reached the first trench, and archers loosed a volley of fire arrows that shattered the shallowly buried wildfire jars. The violent explosions reduced the wights in the lead to rubble, and a long green fire wall shot up into the sky.
Closer still, more fire arrows rained down, and the second and third fire walls sprang up in quick succession, dismembered limbs raining down like a storm.
Peytvahaaz flew low in front of the army, dragonfire bursting forth and creating another golden-red fire wall on the ground.
When the dragon finished its breath, it flew in a half-circle to prepare for another attack, but dozens of ice spears shot from the wight horde. Thankfully, Renly reacted quickly, urging the dragon higher. The ice spears exploded in a burst of ice flowers when they hit, and even with Renly's magical shield, Peytvahaaz howled in pain.
The battlefield was a sea of corpses, with the wights relentlessly pressing forward. Neither wildfire nor dragonfire could halt their charge.
"Raise shields!" The officers shouted in unison.
The damaged corpses, the eerie blue eyes, and the thunderous sound of their steps—like a thousand hooves pounding the earth—made the soldiers of the Riverlands, who were facing the wights for the first time, incredibly nervous.
The soldiers' legs trembled as they watched the white walkers occasionally peek from within the wight horde. With obsidian-tipped spears in hand, they were unsure where to aim.
The pikes braced on the three-tier shield formation shook constantly, and when the officers noticed the soldiers' unease, they shouted again.
"Don't worry about the white walkers or vampires, leave them to the mages. Our task is to hold the wights!"
Blue and white magical auras began to flicker around the shield bearers and pikemen as the mages cast various enhancement spells at the last moment.
Boom~~ The wight horde crashed into the shields.
"Hold firm! The shields cannot fall!"
The overwhelming horde of wights pressed against the shields. The shield-bearers couldn't hold, and the soldiers behind quickly rushed forward to prop up the shields with their weapons. Once the shields fell, the wight horde would flood over the humans like a tidal wave.
Whoosh~~
The pikes stabbed into the foul-smelling creatures. The flame magic in the obsidian-tipped spears could reduce the humanoid wights to nothing in just three seconds.
"Pull back, stab again!"
"Roar!"
The pikemen, seeing their comrades gritting their teeth as they held the shields, continued to thrust their pikes out and pull them back, relieving the pressure on the shield-bearers. Not only that, they kept a wary eye out for the powerful white walkers among the wights.
Fortunately, as the officers had said, the white walkers had no interest in regular human soldiers in such a large-scale battle. Their targets were the human mages.
A fuse-lit ceramic jar was thrown from behind the human lines, arcing over the shields and pikemen towards the wight horde. Suddenly, a giant ice spider the size of a warhorse leaped from the wight horde. On its back, an ice-armored white walker swung a sword and severed the fuse with a single strike.
The ice spider moved with extraordinary agility, its eight spiked legs expertly landing on the pikes, easily crossing the first line of defense.
The white walker, slanted to the side, decapitated a knight who was preparing to throw a jar and then used ice magic to freeze the wildfire jars in the wooden crates into massive ice blocks.
The white walkers completely ignored the pikes and longswords aimed at them, relying on their swift ice spiders to weave through the crowd, targeting every place where wildfire jars were stored.
A normal knight couldn't even last two moves against it. The white walker's ice sword would shatter any metal it touched, and the second strike in the same spot would directly break the armor.
Boom!
A green fireball exploded in the distance, and an ice-armored white walker surrounded by flashing gold was thrown into the air. The golden light caused its ice armor to shatter piece by piece, and by the time it hit the ground, it was quickly hacked into a pile of ice shards by the surrounding knights.
The white walkers were killing knights, and the mages were killing white walkers.
But facing the endless tide of wights, the shield-bearers were soon overwhelmed and buried beneath them, followed by the pikemen, knights, and mages.
The human shouts gradually faded from the battlefield, and the colorful flags had fallen. All that remained were the wights' growls and the sound of running feet.
"Prepare to defend!"
The first defensive line fell, but humans still had a second and third line.
Willas, holding a sword in one hand and the golden rose flag in the other, galloped across the battlefield: "We have no retreat. We swear to protect the land of the living—no step back!"
"No step back!"
Another wave of the undead surged forward. The soldiers of the Riverlands, clad in golden helmets, became entangled with the black tide of the undead, and the battlefield was filled with the sounds of battle.
The usual perception of the Riverlanders as weak and inept, instilled by Duke Mace, was shattered as countless people began to respect the Riverlander soldiers fighting beside them.
Behind the military formation, under the walls of Harrenhal, over forty Skinchanger mages mounted their warhorses.
"Go."
On the ruined walls, Bran's tone was calm as ever.
"Humanity will win. The North will win!"
The Skinchanger mages shouted their battle cry, with warhorses, brown bears, shadowcats, and eagles—an entire host of wild beasts—rushing toward the battlefield.
Watching the mages charge into battle with the Others, Bran, sitting in a wheelchair, showed no change in his expression.
He knew their pasts and their futures. The mage who had led the charge would not last half an hour, yet Bran still sent them to their deaths. He believed it was their fate, one that could not be changed.
The undead and the humans were both making their final stand. Both sides had mobilized all of their forces, and from Bran's position, he could only see a small portion of the battlefield, where the humans and undead clashed in every direction.
The shapeshifters from the North joined the fight with their beasts, while the mage academy's mages either fell in battle or drank potions to prepare for the next round.
The dragon, Peytvahaaz, flew overhead, observing every change on the battlefield. King Renly, using magic to share the dragon's vision, rode his skeletal horse through the formation, moving from one area of intense combat to another, casting golden healing spells.
Bran, the green seer, gazed across the battlefield, able to see into the past and future of every soul.
"Wright, Sauron. What are you waiting for?"
Bran looked up at the sky, noting that these two were the only ones absent from his green sight.
---
On the frontlines, it took the sacrifice of several elite knights to barely kill one of the Others. This was when the Others were overconfident, held in place by several knights who were able to kill the creature with their obsidian weapons.
If the Others deliberately maintained their distance, the knights would be unable to close the gap in such a crowded battlefield, leaving only mages able to fight the Others.
Ordinary humans faced a tremendous challenge in fighting the Others. When Robb and Jon were at full strength, wielding their Valyrian steel swords, they slaughtered the Others as though they were chopping vegetables.
Facing the undead, the Others, and now the bloodthirsty vampires following behind, Robb and Jon led the cavalry into a charge.
The cavalry slammed into the undead from the sides, like two sharp spikes piercing through the black tide. Robb and Jon led two groups of heavy cavalry, cutting through the undead temporarily, halting their advance.
As the cavalry's momentum began to wane, Robb and Jon, now in the rear, worked to buy time for the knights to withdraw from the undead swarm.
However, they underestimated the madness of the Others. Dozens of Others seemed to target them specifically, abandoning their attacks on the knights and quickly gathering toward the two.
The warhorses beneath Robb and Jon were trapped by the pressing mass of undead, unable to move. Magic balls shot from behind exploded upon contact with the undead, but the red magic had no effect on the creatures, while the blood from the horses seeped through their skin, quickly turning them into dried corpses.
Jon, with his speed, was able to escape after losing his horse, quickly running over the heads of the undead.
Looking back as he emerged from the swarm of undead, Jon saw that Robb had been trapped.
The fiery explosions from the black undead swarmed the battlefield, but more undead pressed in, stepping over the burned corpses, quickly surrounding Robb.
Ordinary wights couldn't stop Robb's advance, but it was the dozens of Others and vampires, waiting for the right moment, that trapped him. They surrounded him.
"Robb!"
Jon shouted, handing over command of the cavalry to his lieutenant. He gripped his longsword tightly, turning into a streak of purple light as he charged toward Robb.
With his left hand raised and clenched into a fist, magic flames erupted from his body. He then drew another longsword from his back. Facing the oncoming Others, Robb, enveloped in flames, switched to a two-handed sword style that was both offensive and defensive.
Robb didn't signal for the cavalry to break through the enemy lines to rescue him. Once the cavalry's charge had lost its momentum, they couldn't afford to fall into the wights' encirclement. A knight on horseback, once dragged off by the undead, had no chance of survival. The only option was to pull out an obsidian dagger and take their own life. Robb knew he had to break through on his own.
He drew a vial of glowing blue potion from his belt. This was made by Robb in Winterfell according to the recipe Geralt gave him when he left.
Everyone could see that Geralt was interested in Sansa. Robb believed that his future brother-in-law wouldn't use a fake formula to poison him.
Robb downed the entire vial of the special alchemical potion, which was potent enough to kill a horse with a single drop. Instantly, the muscles in his face contorted as he grimaced.
"This tastes worse than piss mixed with shit! Next time, add some honey!"
The glass vial shattered as it fell to the ground, and Robb's gentle magical energy turned into a wild surge. His heartbeat quickened, veins bulged, and his eyes became completely black. His swollen muscles stretched his armor to the limit.
With a furious roar, Robb plunged both swords into the ground, and a blast of cold air erupted from him in all directions, instantly freezing all the wights within a hundred-meter radius.
He immediately charged westward, dodging the ice spears thrown by the Others, while his swords rapidly sliced through the frozen wights, carving a path for himself. He had to break through before the effects of the potion wore off.