-Chapter 216-

-Chapter 216-

-POV Viserys Targaryen-

As soon as I arrived near Bloodstone Island, I was surprised to see the enemy fleet in flames, completely destroyed, while ours had already regained control of the island.

‘He is too powerful. Even with a fraction of his power, I couldn’t compare to him,’ I thought, unable to do anything but admire this destructive strength and the way he wielded it.

‘He’s on the ground,’ I thought upon seeing Rhaegal and Syrax resting on the beach in the distance, while keeping watch over the surviving enemy sailors, gathered on the sand and kneeling.

I tapped Viserion’s side, signaling him to change direction and land near the fort.

As we began our descent, even before we had fully landed, the fort’s gates opened.

I saw an escort of foot soldiers running toward me at full speed to meet us.

‘Legionnaires, my legionnaires,’ I thought, recognizing a few familiar faces among them.

Once I had set foot on the ground, the leading rider handed me the reins of a horse and said:

“Welcome to Bloodstone Island, your highness.”

“Where is the Emperor?” I asked, grabbing the reins and mounting the horse.

“The Emperor and the Admiral of the Third Fleet await you in the Great Hall,” said the rider, turning his horse to lead me back from where he had come.

I nodded, then spurred the black stallion forward.

‘He sent a cavalry with orders to await my arrival. That means he wants to speak to me quickly. This is far from over,’ I thought, knowing how much revenge meant to Aegon.

‘Since his rise, he has made everyone who wronged or betrayed him pay the price. I don’t see him stopping now,’ I mused, eager to push our conquest even further.

‘Although we must not forget the threat in the North; otherwise, we will lose everything,’ I added silently, thinking of my wife and my daughter.

‘My new family, the one I’ve built,’ I told myself.

---

-POV MC-

The doors opened, and I said to Viserys, who entered hastily, with a slightly mocking tone, without even looking up, still absorbed by the maps on the table:

“You’re too late. The battle is already over.”

“I had my share of trouble on the way here,” Viserys replied, explaining his… delay.

‘If you can call it that,’ I finished internally.

“What kind of trouble?” I asked, rolling my eyes upward.

“Two fleets guarding the passage between Tyrosh and the rest of the Narrow Sea,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow, surprised, lifting my gaze to look at him. I didn’t think they had that many ships left.

‘At least not enough to form two fleets,’ I thought.

“How many?” I asked, curious to know the number of ships.

“Two hundred each,” he said.

“Hmm, then we have no more obstacles,” I said. With this, we could be certain that we wouldn’t face any more opposition in the Stepstones.

Viserys nodded, so I added:

“Dorne will clean up the Narrow Sea while we turn our attention eastward.”

“And to the North,” added Viserys.

“This is not the time to think about it,” I said, though I had been increasingly plagued by nightmares lately.

“Don’t forget what those monsters are capable of,” said Viserys in a tone I didn’t appreciate.

“I forget nothing!” I snapped before adding calmly, “I’m the one who taught you what those creatures are capable of. But if we don’t seize our advantage now, then once we return from our battle against the Night King—if we return—we’ll have to start all over again because they will have reorganized their forces.”

‘And I don’t know if I will survive it,’ I thought.

‘If I fall, Daenerys will control our borders, but the Faceless Men and every assassin’s guild will be hired to kill my children, destabilizing the Empire and reclaiming their dominant position,’ I told myself.

‘I must break them before fighting the Night King,’ I thought silently, my determination to crush the enemy strengthening even further.

Viserys sighed, taking a small breath, but said nothing.

Seeing he had calmed down, I said:

“Don’t worry. Our families are in no danger. They are more than a thousand miles from the Wall. If something happens, we’ll have time to see the threat coming.”

“You don’t fear the Wall falling?” he asked, visibly very concerned.

‘All the time,’ I thought, saying nothing, keeping a neutral and unwavering façade.

I stared at him before calmly replying:

“I don’t have time to think about that now. They’re alone, and the faster we accomplish our mission, the sooner we can return to defend our borders against these monsters of flesh and ice.”

‘It’s my duty to be the beacon guiding them through the storm. We’re in the final stretch. Once we’ve subdued the Free Cities of Essos and destroyed the Night King, we will be the undisputed rulers of this entire world,’ I thought, already imagining the prosperous era my Empire would enjoy within a decade.

“Very well. So what’s the next step?” he asked me.

“I’ve changed our original plan. Everything is going far too well. I expected more resistance. I sent a message to Samwell, instructing him to stop staying on the defensive and to begin the counterattack. Ideally, I’d like him to have already lifted the siege as we speak, but that remains unlikely,” I said, fixing my gaze on Pentos on the map as if I could see what was happening there right now.

“You’re going there yourself?” Viserys asked, anticipating I might send a dragonrider.

‘But it won’t be me,’ I thought.

I shook my head and said:

“No. I have another mission. You will go.”

‘It’s better to entrust him with surprise attacks. He doesn’t yet master telekinesis. Sending him against walls filled with scorpions would be too dangerous,’ I thought, knowing he couldn’t yet protect himself and Viserion at the same time.

“When?” he asked.

“Now. As soon as we’re done here, you’ll leave for Pentos to assist him,” I said.

Viserys nodded, so I continued:

“You should arrive under cover of night. I’m counting on you to set their camp ablaze. Samwell will understand the signal and use it to turn the situation to our advantage. If you arrive during the day, stay in the clouds and attack when you feel the time is right.”

“I will do it,” he said.

“I’m counting on you,” I said seriously, as this victory would be crucial.

“I won’t disappoint you,” he replied.

I nodded, then said:

“Good. Don’t waste a second. We have no time to lose. We have them by the throat; now we must make sure they don’t catch their breath and finish them off cleanly.”

Viserys nodded, put back the helmet he had removed upon arriving, then exited through the door.

‘Pentos, Tyrosh, Lys, Myr… that’s practically the entire western coast of Essos under my control,’ I thought.

‘All that remains is to destroy the Purple Fleet heading for Gulltown, and we’ll have free access to Braavos.’

‘The entire western coast will be ours, along with the best trade routes in the world, not to mention the riches of the Iron Bank,’ I thought, eager for all of this to be over so I could enjoy the abundance of my future life in peace and prosperity.

---

-POV Robb Stark-

"Is it really that terrible?" I asked my uncle, feeling the temperature drop rapidly, the only sign of the army of the dead approaching.

‘For now, I see nothing,’ I thought, still harboring a slight skepticism toward my uncle’s tales, which sounded like nightmare stories.

I didn’t think he was lying, but it didn’t seem as terrifying as he had described to Lancel and me.

My cousin Lancel, however, still appeared utterly terrified by those tales.

‘Maybe it’s just some tribe of wildlings who have mastered ice and cold? Aegon can wield fire as though it were a part of him, so why not?’ I wondered.

My uncle, standing to the right of my father, chuckled softly, detecting my skepticism, then said:

"Open your eyes and stay close to us."

Before I could respond, I felt a pressure come out of nowhere, and suddenly, a blizzard descended upon us.

"What the hell is this?!" I shouted, raising my forearm to shield my eyes.

"ROBB!" my uncle yelled.

I didn’t even have time to turn toward him to understand what he wanted. I was frozen in fear.

Lowering my right forearm, which shielded my face, I found myself face-to-face with a massive spider, spectral white, as though made of ice.

Just as I thought my last hour had come, Ice slashed through the spider’s front legs that were about to impale me.

Two legionnaires thrust their spears into two of the creature’s eight eyes that were staring at me.

"Get a grip!" my father barked, slicing through the legs of another spider that was attempting to climb the Wall.

His words jolted me as though struck by lightning. Despite the lingering fear in my heart, I quickly raised my shield.

The spider’s massive leg collided with it, sending vibrations up my arm.

I lost my balance, rolling backward just in time to avoid another leg stabbing down at me.

A Lannister soldier approached to help me up.

But as I moved forward to attack the spider, I noticed something chilling—his eyes glowed an eerie blue, fixed on me.

‘A dead man,’ I realized, remembering everything Uncle Benjen had taught me.

That realization saved me. I barely avoided being impaled by his spear.

With a violent blow from my shield, I knocked him off balance and rammed my spear into his throat, wrenching it out in one swift motion.

I quickly raised my shield again, just as another spider leg smashed into it.

This time, the leg punctured the shield, not enough to hit me, but enough to get stuck.

‘Damn it,’ I thought, feeling the spider retract its leg, trying to drag me with it.

I let go of the shield and grabbed the one belonging to the fallen Lannister soldier, lying a couple of meters away.

This time, I raised the shield in time, and it held.

"Ahhh!" my father roared, leaping onto the spider and plunging Ice into the back of its head, killing it instantly.

"ROBB!" my uncle shouted again.

I squinted, spotting him about ten meters away, fighting alongside Lancel Lannister’s personal guard, who looked just as panicked as I had been.

‘Though he doesn’t seem to have gone through the same thing as me,’ I thought, incredulous that I was still alive.

Without thinking, I sprinted toward them, keeping a watchful eye on my surroundings.

"They’re just spiders for now. We can handle them as long as we stick together," Uncle Benjen said.

"I saw a dead man," I reported quickly.

Uncle Benjen’s brow furrowed, and he cursed, "Damn it."

"Is that bad?" I asked.

"There’s a Walker," he replied, scanning the area warily, clearly thinking of a way to get us out of this mess.

"Shit," I swore, remembering his tales. According to him, the only way to defeat a White Walker was to swarm it and pray that a blade would kill it.

"Which direction?" he asked.

I pointed back toward where I had come from, and Benjen said:

"Follow me. We need to find it quickly before that monster wreaks havoc on our troops. If we kill it, the blizzard will weaken, and the dead it raised will rest in peace."