NOVPUBAfter an entire day had passed, Asher stood atop the ramparts, his right gloved hand resting against the cold, rough-hewn stone. His gaze lingered on the distant camp along the horizon, where orange torchlight burned like smoldering stars against the dark canvas of night.
It was nightfall once again, yet the anticipated assault from Count Wyvern never came. Dawn had passed without a single horn's cry or the beat of war drums—only a thick, unsettling silence that seemed to grow heavier with each hour.
Mist curled from Asher's lips as he exhaled, but his eyes never wavered. "Not a single movement," he murmured. "It's like they're waiting for something."
General Clegane, standing beside him with arms folded across his chest, frowned. "If we strike now, we may be able to push them back. Your forces combined with mine could tip the scale."
"A fight in the open field may not be to our advantage," Alec interjected, his voice calm but firm. His hand gripped the shaft of his spear tightly. "The walls are our strongest allies right now. I say we wait."
"My lord…" Nero said slowly, his brows drawing together, "have you noticed how cold it's gotten? This is the sixth month of the year, yet it feels like frost season."
All three turned their attention toward him—and in that moment, they realized it. The chill wasn't just discomforting. It clung to their bones, numbing their fingers through thick leather gloves. The air itself felt like it had been wrung from winter's lungs.
Clegane's pupils trembled as memory struck. "The Abyss," he whispered.
Asher turned to him, puzzled. "The abyss? What does that have to do with this?"
"They say when the Abyss returns, the year turns to ice. Winter without end. I remember the tale from when I was a boy," Clegane said, voice low and grave. "The abyss ruined the most prosperous age known to all races. Strongholds crumbled. Millions perished. And the more the abyssal forces killed… the stronger they became."
Alec scowled, clearly unimpressed. "Are you sure it's not just some old campfire tale?"
Clegane gave a dark chuckle. "I pray it is. Because if it's not… there's no war to be won. Only survival—if we're lucky."
"How do you fight an army that only grows stronger with each kill?" Asher asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"With something they can't kill," Alec answered, his voice like steel.
Asher said nothing.
A strange unease twisted in his gut. Was this the endgame? The great final campaign that no lord or adventurer was ever meant to survive?
But none of this was in the game he had created—no mention of the Abyss, no myth of endless winter, and certainly no ogres, orcs, or creatures born of darkness and hunger.
He exhaled slowly, his breath misting before him. "We'll all be vulture shit by then if we don't deal with this battle first."
Just as he turned to descend the ramparts, a figure emerged from the gloom below.
Uriah's approach was silent, his black cloak trimmed with crow feathers making him nearly indistinguishable from the night. Only the flicker of nearby torchlight revealed him—an omen cloaked in feathers.
With graceful ease, he dropped to one knee before Asher, his fist pressed over his chest.
"My lord," he said, "twenty-five wyverns have just arrived in House Wyvern's camp. The army is preparing to march for the wall."
Asher's eyes flickered with sudden clarity. "So that's what they were waiting for…"
His gaze snapped left, then right, scanning the ramparts. Mounted at measured intervals were the Heavy Dragon Head ballistas—massive siege weapons forged to pierce wyvern hide and shatter bone.
He moved quickly to the wall's edge, peering down into the castle courtyard. There, just behind the wall, fifteen more ballistas were secured to the ground, their bases anchored in stone and iron to avoid recoil displacement.
"Everyone is to don their armor," Asher ordered, his voice loud and firm. Without hesitation, he turned and descended the stone steps, his cloak trailing behind him as he raced toward his chambers to prepare for war.
The thick wooden doors groaned under Asher's push, their iron hinges protesting with a deep creak. They were built to withstand siege rams—meant to be the last defense should the wall fall—yet they yielded easily to the man who now strode in with purpose.
Cynthia looked up from the table where she had been slicing fruit, her brow arching slightly. But as she saw where Asher was headed—toward the Leviathan Armour Set—her expression shifted. Her fingers paused mid-cut, her eyes narrowing with quiet resolve.
Before he could reach the stand, she was already there.
Asher removed his cloak and tossed it aside without a word. Cynthia caught the cuirass and stepped forward, pressing it against the thick, woolen gambeson he wore beneath. Her hands moved deftly, tying the ropes at his sides, securing the plated steel as if preparing a knight for the gods themselves.
Behind them, at the entrance, the BloodBlade stood silently. His gaze was fixed down the hallway, but Cynthia's eyes flicked to him briefly—his broad frame like a sentinel carved from iron—before returning to her task.
She moved efficiently, fitting each piece of the Leviathan set onto Asher: the vambraces, couters, gauntlets—each plate finding its rightful place over his form, transforming him from a man into a force of war.
By the time she fastened the final clasp, Asher stood resplendent. A Warfather reborn.
His snow-white hair brushed against the high collar of the deep gray armor, a haunting contrast that made him seem both regal and terrifying. With effortless grace, he took the wolf-hilted sword from its stand and secured it at his waist. Then, he strapped the round shield—dark as a moonless night—to his left arm.
Cynthia handed him his white cloak. She fixed it to his pauldrons with a brooch shaped like a snarling wolf's head. When she took a step back, she found herself unable to speak.
Her breath caught in her throat.
He was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful—commanding, violent, and unyielding.
Asher didn't look back. He glanced once at the obsidian-black surface of his shield and turned on his heel, striding out of the chamber.
Nero followed, lifting his great helm and placing it over his head with a low clink. The eye slit narrowed the world to a slit of war, and the old bloodstain across the helm marked him as a man well-acquainted with it.
___
Count Rimmon stood at the edge of his camp, watching thousands of soldiers with the flags of House Wyvern, House Intis, and House Nethaneel march toward Castle Black.
The earth thundered beneath their feet as the roars of wyverns soaring the sky echoed. About twenty wyverns flew above the troops, their black silhouettes darting across the moonlit clouds.
And behind them were two hundred Intis air cavalry riders, all mounted on Swiftwings—majestic, eagle-dragon hybrids with feathered wings that shimmered silver in the dark.
Each Swiftwing was a beast of impossible grace and fury, with lion-like limbs, elongated tails, and keen, intelligent eyes that glowed faintly in the night.
Their wings stretched wide like sails of light-reflecting silk, and their cries cut the sky like a cold blade.
Unlike wyverns, these creatures moved with deliberate poise, more bird than beast, and their riders sat in aerodynamic saddles, clutching javelins which were stacked behind and beside them.
Below, twenty-five thousand light infantry marched in disciplined columns, clad in chainmail and trained to wield their halberds with brutal efficiency. The banners of House Wyvern swayed among their ranks like whispers of fire in the wind. They marched behind a vanguard of three thousand Immortals—the Imperial elite.
The Immortals were a sight of dread and awe, each clad in dull golden armor that glinted dully in the starlight, their deep purple cloaks trailing behind them like banners.
Their helms were faceless—no eyes, no mouths—only cold, seamless steel with nail-sized vision holes punched into the front. It was said they needed no sight to kill.
Behind heavy kite shields and gripping longswords that hummed with enchantment, their posture was flawless, their silence absolute.
They moved not like men but like an unfeeling machine of war.
Count Wyvern climbed his own beast—a monstrous wyvern, easily twice the size of the others, its wings folding and unfolding with restless power. Its scales were matte obsidian, its eyes like twin pools of fire.
He turned his head toward the General of the army, who sat on his own wyvern beside him, and spat coldly, "Bring me his head."
The general nodded. Wordless. He pulled his helmet over his brow, the metal locking into place with a soft clink. With four long steps, his wyvern leapt forward and launched into the air with a thunderous beat of its wings, joining the others in the sky.
____
The moment the striking thuds of boots against stone echoed through the courtyard, the paladins reacted as one. In perfect unison, they slammed the hafts of their spears against the ground with a thunderous clang, the sound ringing out like a war drum.
Shields rose to their abdomens, and then—silence. Like statues carved from steel and discipline, they did not move, did not speak, did not even breathe too loudly.
From behind the great doors at the rear of the courtyard, shadows shifted.
Asher emerged.
Clad in his Leviathan Armour, the dim torchlight caught the grooves of his gunmetal cuirass.
Then came the sound from above—the shrill, chilling roars of wyverns and the piercing cries of Swiftwings slicing through the night sky.
Asher raised his head, his storm-colored eyes narrowing beneath the horned helm. A breeze swept his cloak to one side as he gazed into the moonlit clouds, where figures circled like vultures above a battlefield not yet bloodied.
His voice cut through the courtyard like a blade.
"Load the ballistas… immediately."
The silence broke. Soldiers rushed to obey. Iron groaned, gears turned, and the courtyard flared with urgent life.
