Ice and Fire: Reign of the Dragon.

Chapter 460 The Battle of the Long Night (Part 4)

The golden bells of the Khao, which once terrified Pentos, have long been entangled in green cocoons by the ghost grass.

On the vast sea of ​​grass, towering ghost grass undulated like waves, its stems emitting chilling chewing sounds—the sounds of parasitized warhorses devouring their masters' bones, the ghost grass digesting corpses, and the dead consuming the living. The surviving khalasars huddled beneath the walls of Pentos, Dothraki cavalry standing shoulder to shoulder with merchants they once looked down upon, pouring oil onto the ghost grass that climbed the walls.

"Light the fire! Light the fire now!" Governor Pentos screamed as sparks burned charred holes in his silk robe.

A Dothraki girl with bell-shaped braids suddenly screamed. A ghostly grass had wrapped around her ankle, its tip burrowing into her skin along her blood vessels. Without a word, the surviving old woman swiftly chopped off the girl's leg.

“The grassland is dead.” The old woman pressed the burning grass stalks to her wound to stop the bleeding, her voice colder than the winter wind. “But we are still alive.”

Such scenes played out in every city that was eroded; the entire city of Siesos had become a hunting ground ravaged by the ghost grass.

Just like the Lazarin town, which was also destroyed by the ghost grass.

The shepherd knelt before his charred flock, clutching a vine bursting from a lamb's eye socket. The lambs, lively and energetic last night, were now bloated like balls, with grass stalks sprouting from their ears, nostrils, and anuses, their tiny, icy-blue flowers emitting the stench of rotting flesh.

“Seventh batch.” His wife poured precious oil onto the woodpile; now was not the time to be frugal. Their daughter was singing a popular nursery rhyme in her childish voice: “Burn, burn, burn the devil’s grass!”

As the flames engulfed the flock of sheep he had raised, the shepherd suddenly grabbed a machete and charged into the sea of ​​grass. His wife only managed to grab a corner of his clothing before her husband was swallowed by the surging, ghostly grass, the sound of it gnawing against her skin echoing through the undergrowth.

This was the last thing a shepherd could do for his wife; only then would their lord take his wife and children—for women and children who had lost their men were in Slave Bay.
That evening, the shepherd's wife, along with her daughter, joined the fleeing group heading towards Meereen. Behind her, the entire Lazarin Hills were ablaze.

Even more tragic than the Lazarin were the High People's kingdom. These Salorian kingdoms were destroyed by the Dothraki warhorses, their remnants barely surviving at the foot of the Bone Mountains, which became the main battleground for the rampaging Ghostweed. The High People's last fortress was breached by the Ghostweed, and the few survivors hid in the mines, using the scorching sulfurous gases to fend off the onslaught. But everyone knew that these people would only meet one fate.

At the summit of the Emerald Pyramid of Kayakaya, translucent worms emerge from the eye sockets of the queen who rules the city of Herkelon. This queen, who once sacrificed human hearts to the sun, is now a cocoon of something far more terrifying. Countless things writhe beneath her skin, and with each movement, black mucus oozes from the corners of her mouths.

On the street, faceless shadow figures were performing some kind of ritual. They pressed their captives to the altar, and the victims' screams solidified into crystals the moment they left their lips, then were tossed into their "mouths" like candy beans—if that writhing black mass could be called a mouth.

In the Sky Gardens of Samiliana, screaming mists reap life, flowers wither, and walls crumble. An infant, enveloped in the mist, ages into a desiccated corpse, which then rises and joins the wandering ranks.

Bayasabhad was simultaneously attacked by ghost grass and demons surging from the depths of the Bone Mountains, and the city-state was almost instantly destroyed—or at least spared from suffering.

Beyond the black walls of Valanthi, the resistance continues.

The Unsullied stood in silent ranks, their spiked helmets and heavy armor gleaming coldly in the blood-red sunset. Their spears were no longer the usual steel, but blood-black steel, a gift from the Vareses family. Behind them, the Tiger-Robed Army's flame chariots roared, thick oil flowing from their bronze beast-headed nozzles.

"Maintain formation!" The Tiger Robe Army commander stood on his chariot, wearily directing the battle.

On the distant horizon, the Kuroshio Current is surging.

Those were not ghouls, but something far more terrifying—shadow beings, demons, or something else entirely. They spread from the shadowy lands of Valyria, from the ruins that had already devoured the southern lands east of the Bone Mountains. Their forms were like smoke and mist, and wherever they passed, the eyeballs of the living would melt in their sockets, while the dead would rise from their graves to join the army that hunted the living and the dead.

The Valantis did not know what these creatures were, only that they would indiscriminately attack mortals, ghost grass, and the resurrected corpses of ghost grass.

"put!"

The fire mage's terracotta pot ripped through the sky and exploded in the endless shadows. The green flames of the wildfire, which should have devoured everything, dimmed abruptly when they touched the twisted forms, as if they had been "eaten" by something.

The resistance fighters saw the Valanthus war elephant that had once crushed an entire mercenary group, but now it was a monster. The commander could assure them that a single charge from it would shatter their lines. He remembered the sight of that war elephant being corrupted.

The beast didn't even have time to scream before the shadowy figures burrowed into its ears. Its skin began to writhe, its tusks bursting open, replaced by dozens of sticky black tentacles. The tower on its back was overturned, and three tiger-robed soldiers were swept into the air, their armor shattering like eggshells. As if by magic, just when the resisters had exhausted all other options, the shadows suddenly stopped.

While Valentis struggled to hold on, Yidi's fifth base had been holding firm for a long time.

The lords of Yidi temporarily set aside their differences and sent their cannon fodder, known as the "Convict Army" or "Soldiers Who Crash into the Grounds," to reinforce Fifth Base. Unlike those lords with ulterior motives, Kakosa's Heaven sent his elite troops. After all, Kakosa and Fifth Base were inextricably linked.

A biting wind, carrying ice crystals, lashed against the Black Stone City Gate, producing a muffled, bell-like sound. Grand Protector Chai Qian stood atop the city wall, his eyes beneath his black iron mask fixed on the surging, dark blue tide in the distance.

"Here it comes." He whispered.

On the horizon, the army of ghouls surged forward like a black avalanche, while ice spiders raced across the snow, their eight long legs scraping the frozen earth like blades. Behind them, the Night Lion coldly watched over the vast fortress complex that had once fallen during the long night.

"Pass on the order—" Chai Qian suddenly raised his hand, "Xuanlin Army, goose formation!"

The heavy sound of horns pierced through the wind and snow.

The most elite heavy infantry of Yidi surged out of the city gates like a black tide. Their steel lamellar armor was engraved with ancient runes, and their long halberds formed a forest, casting cold shadows on the snow. Their formation resembled a giant goose spreading its wings, with archers and crossbowmen on both flanks launching the first attack.

The rain of arrows poured down, but these were no ordinary arrows. Each shaft was wrapped with fire runes written by Kakosa's wizards; the moment they touched the army of the dead, these arrows would explode, unleashing crimson flames that engulfed the dead and the messengers of the long night. They twisted and screamed in the fire, turning into charred remains.

"Advance on the left flank!" Chai Qian waved his command flag incessantly. "Target: the enemy behemoth!"

Three rows of heavily armored infantry suddenly burst forth from the formation, their long-handled swords flashing in crescent-shaped arcs, catching the behemoth that was tearing apart the light cavalry lines of the five-fortress defenders off guard.

Just then, reinforcements arrived.

The shrike people of the Shrike Land, crowned with seven-colored feathers, charged with eerie roars, their emerald scales shimmering strangely in the snow. The obsidian serrated swords, coated with deadly poison, cracked and shattered the ghouls' icy armor with every strike.

These lizardmen are distant relatives of the ancient Sothros people. For thousands of years, these shrikemen have never interacted with humans, focusing instead on dealing with the strange creatures in places like Bone Town. Only the Fifth Regiment has maintained communication with them.

What was most terrifying were their mounts, those enormous lizards roaring as they tore at the behemoths that were entangled with the heavy infantry.
With their combined efforts, they managed to halt the Night Lion army's offensive.

at this time.

On the icy plains thousands of miles away, the Sothros lizardmen's expeditionary force is risking their lives to open a second front.

In the blizzard, more than half of the Ankylosaurus had frozen into ice sculptures, their bony armor adorned with icicles, resembling eerie tombstones. The fire-breathing Spinosaurus lay dead in the snow, its stark white skeleton exposed.

But the survivors eventually reached their destination, crossing the pole and circling around to the rear of the White Walker army.

The obese toad lord saw the altar of the ice mage lord, the hatchery of the White Walkers. It was a pyramid built of human bones and ice crystals, with countless ice cocoons the size of infants arranged around the altar, inside which were curled up White Walker embryos in the process of forming.

The toad lord, seated on his throne, raised his obsidian staff adorned with sunburst patterns. Its slippery scales, whitened by age and dried by the cold, did not diminish its power. The high priest of the ancient people began to chant the Song of the Earth, an ancient incantation lost even by the shrike, a song of earth and rivers that had ruled this land before the last long night.

As the syllables vibrated, the permafrost around the altar suddenly cracked. Fiery magma surged from the fissures, engulfing the ice cocoons. Blue-white Otherworldly embryos screamed and vaporized in the magma. A scene of impending doom.

"revenge."

(End of this chapter)