Chapter 423

The Night King, though devoid of flesh, experienced something akin to "heartache" for the first time.

The armored undead giant had lasted mere seconds within the human fortress before its connection to him was severed. The time was so short that he hadn’t even been able to observe the structure’s interior through its eyes. From the fragmented message carried through their magical link at the last moment, he sensed a surge of powerful, fire-aspected magic pierce through the giant’s chest, instantly dispelling the frost magic he had imbued into its body.

It had to be some sort of enchanted weapon, but what baffled him was how such a remote outpost on the westernmost edge of the Wall possessed an artifact capable of countering his forces so effectively.

The Night King had more giants and mammoths in his army—over a dozen of each—but these were not disposable troops to be sent into battle thoughtlessly. Their strength lay in the surprise they brought when deployed at critical moments. Now that he knew the enemy had weapons capable of destroying such valuable assets, even he hesitated to squander them unnecessarily.

Of course, his reluctance wasn’t born of sentiment. As the prime servant of the Great Other, the Night King viewed his forces not as comrades but as expendable tools for a greater purpose. To him, every wight, every White Walker, and even his own existence was simply a resource to achieve his ultimate goal: to breach the Wall’s magical defenses and unleash the full power of the Long Night upon the realms of men.

Once the Wall’s magic was broken, an endless supply of living mortals awaited transformation into his undead legions. He would never lack soldiers. But until that time, every wight lost before the Wall’s defenses were compromised was a needless waste.
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No one understood the Wall’s impenetrable strength better than its primary adversary.

The Wall was more than an imposing mass of ice; its true power lay in the three layers of magic woven into its foundation.

The first was a widespread, consistent barrier of "severance magic." This invisible shield kept the Great Other’s power at bay, preventing his servants from slipping through the Wall unnoticed to wreak havoc in the south. It also disrupted their control over the dead: wights brought south of the Wall became unresponsive to commands, and corpses could not be reanimated within its magical boundary. The Night’s Watch had unwittingly proven this during past expeditions when they transported wights to Winterfell and King’s Landing.

The second layer was an enchantment designed to maintain the Wall’s structural integrity. The Wall was built of ice not because Bran the Builder found it aesthetically pleasing but because ice was uniquely suited to resist frost magic while remaining lightweight, abundant, and durable. The downside was that ice melted in the summer.

The insulation magic embedded within ensured that the Wall’s core remained below freezing, even during the hottest summers. Surface frost and snow might melt and flake away, but the Wall’s core was self-repairing and impervious to minor damage, enduring countless cycles of winter and summer.

The third, and most troublesome for the Great Other’s servants, was the "suppression field" radiating from the magical heart of the Wall, centered beneath Castle Black around the glowing weirwood heart tree.

This field weakened the power of frost magic the closer one approached its source. Wights suffered delayed commands and reduced effective range for their control, and in some cases, the connection was severed entirely. However, since wights relied on their physical form for strength, their combat effectiveness remained mostly unchanged.

White Walkers, on the other hand, were fundamentally different. Being composed almost entirely of magic, they were profoundly affected by the suppression field. Their spells weakened drastically near the Wall, and their magical recovery slowed to a crawl. By the time they crossed the Gorge, their abilities were halved. Near Castle Black, a White Walker’s magical prowess would be reduced to a mere fraction of its usual strength.

This suppression, maddeningly, only affected frost magic. Other forms of magic, if anything, thrived in its presence.
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The Wall’s combination of massive scale, intricate enchantments, and the disciplined ranks of the Night’s Watch made it a nearly insurmountable shield for humanity. If the Night’s Watch concentrated their forces at Castle Black for a decisive battle, even the Night King could not guarantee victory.

This was why, despite his ultimate goal being Castle Black, he chose not to bypass the smaller fortresses along the way. Instead, he opted for a methodical assault, breaching the Wall’s edges at its weakest points, exhausting the defenders, and capturing the stairways that led to the Wall’s summit. With control of the Wall’s heights, his army could march toward Castle Black from above and below, isolating it completely.

However, his carefully calculated strategy was now being undermined by the defenders’ unexpected preparations. The Gorge had fallen in less than an hour, but the cost was nearly twenty thousand wights. At the Shadow Tower, where he had hoped for a swift victory, the humans unleashed that bizarre green fuel, reducing thousands of wights to ash in mere moments.

Through his sharp eyes, the Night King observed the Shadow Tower closely. He spotted what appeared to be the source of the defenders’ endless firepower: teams of soldiers struggling to transport barrels of liquid fuel up the staircases from other fortresses along the Wall.

The Night King realized his plan to outlast the enemy’s supplies was doomed. He had to act decisively.

Turning to his White Walkers, he issued a sharp command in the ancient tongue. Three of his lieutenants nodded silently, spurring their undead steeds forward. As magic surged around them, icy armor formed on their bodies, protecting them from fire. Behind them, the wights surged, animalistic creatures like undead bears and wolves leading the charge, followed by the more agile humanoid wights.

Though the protective ice armor drained their magic, the Night King had decided the cost was worth it. He could not allow the human defenders to continue their relentless slaughter of his forces. It was time to escalate the battle and deploy more powerful methods, even if it meant revealing some of his ultimate strategies prematurely.