In his previous life, Lynd had seen the series, and in his mind, the Ancient Others were ugly, non-human monsters, but now, seeing the Ancient Other emerge from the forest with his own eyes, he knew how ridiculous the Ancient Other's image in the series was.
Beauty was his first impression after seeing the Ancient Other; this Ancient Other had an extremely beautiful face, so much so that even the Kingslayer's appearance paled greatly in comparison.
With skin as pale as snow, a head of silver-blue hair that floated in the air like flames, and silver-blue eyes, its pointed ears were somewhat similar to those of the Forest Children, making it look like an ice elf.
He was nearly as tall as Lynd, with a slender build, wearing an exquisite ice armor, and a thin, almost transparent ice cloak behind him. An ice crystal spear was held in his hand, and when snowflakes fell on the spear, it erupted with a flame-like silver-blue glow.
Clearly, the Ancient Other before him was not only different from the Ancient Others in the series, but also different from the Ancient Other that Samwell Tarly killed in the book. As for why this was, Lynd couldn't figure it out for the moment, nor did he have time to ponder it.
He looked at the approaching Ancient Other, placing his hand on the Lost Knight's Greatsword, but he seemed to have other thoughts, moving his hand from the hilt and walking towards the Ancient Other empty-handed instead.
Seeing Lynd walk towards him, the Ancient Other's face showed a very obvious expression of confusion and surprise. Clearly, this was a situation he had never encountered before, and it also indicated that he should possess emotions.
However, his emotions quickly vanished, returning to an ice-like state. His entire body instantly shifted from standing upright to charging forward, and the ice crystal spear in his hand thrust towards Lynd. His movements were extremely fast; an ordinary person would simply be unable to dodge such a swift thrust.
However, this kind of attack speed, which was difficult for ordinary people to handle, was quite ordinary for Lynd.
He easily dodged the direct thrust of the spear, while simultaneously empowering himself with the Storm Dragon Rune, increasing his movement speed several times over. Like the wind, he avoided the Ancient Other's subsequent sweep, instantly moving in front of the Ancient Other. He raised his hand and threw a punch, striking the Ancient Other's head squarely, sending him flying. Pale blue blood splattered onto the snow, instantly freezing the accumulated snow on the ground into ice.
Although, as he expected, he knocked down the Ancient Other with one punch and severely wounded it, he did not appear overly happy, because the Lost Country Knight's gauntlet he wore on his hand had completely shattered upon striking the Ancient Other, revealing his fingers, which were covered in a layer of ice that continuously permeated inwards like a bone-deep poison.
Clearly, the Ancient Other must possess some kind of magic. The moment the steel gauntlet made contact with this magic, the steel was destroyed by it. This might be why steel weapons are ineffective against Ancient Others. This method of destruction and power reminded Lynd of how Dragon Rune destroys the internal structure of steel.
At this moment, the Ancient Other, who had been knocked away, slowly got up from the ground and turned to look at Lynd.
Lynd had used his full strength in that punch. Although the steel gauntlet was destroyed by magic upon touching the Ancient Other, the power attached to the gauntlet and the inherent hardness of the steel were not diminished, striking the Ancient Other's head directly. As a result, half of the Ancient Other's beautiful face was shattered and caved in, with crystal-like skull fragments exposed, making it look particularly bizarre.
However, even with such severe injuries, the Ancient Other remained calm, as if feeling no pain. Only a look of surprise appeared in its remaining eye, as if astonished by Lynd's combat prowess.
Feeling that the Ancient Other's magic from his fist also had a strong damaging effect on him, and with one of his gauntlets shattered, Lynd felt there was no need to continue risking testing the Ancient Other's strength empty-handed, so he drew the Lost Knight's Greatsword.
Seeing the Lost Knight's Greatsword drawn by Lynd, the Ancient Other seemed to sense the power within the Lost Knight's Greatsword, or perhaps sensed that it was forged from Valyrian steel, and a hint of fear appeared on its face. It then slowly retreated, looking as if it feared Lynd and wanted to withdraw.
However, just as the Ancient Other retreated, a large number of grotesque wights also emerged from the forest. These wights included humans and animals, and what surprised Lynd even more was that among these wights, there were also three Ancient Others, though these three Ancient Others had clear differences from the other Ancient Other.
These three Ancient Others wore human leather armor, but with a layer of ice crystal on the outside. Although the longswords in their hands were also formed from ice crystals, the hilts were those of human longswords, and all three Ancient Others had human appearances, not the extremely beautiful ice elf appearance.
Although Lynd was filled with questions, he had no time to ponder them, because after the wights emerged from the forest, they charged towards him madly. Lynd immediately raised the Lost Knight's Greatsword, activating the Dragon Rune of storm and lightning. He transformed into a whirlwind, a bolt of lightning weaving through the wight horde. Any wight that touched him was cleaved into pieces, instantly losing the magic that sustained their activity and becoming true corpses.
And while the three human Ancient Others could see Lynd's attack trajectory and reacted, their movements appeared too slow in front of Lynd, who was fully boosted by two Dragon Runes. Almost as soon as they raised the ice crystal longswords in their hands, Lynd's Lost Knight's Greatsword had already cleaved them in half.
The Valyrian steel's restraint on their magic immediately became apparent. The moment the Lost Knight's Greatsword cleaved through their bodies, they shattered into countless tiny ice crystals like glass falling from a height, scattering on the ground, and then melted into a pool of cold liquid in the blink of an eye.
As these three human Ancient Others died at Lynd's hand, a large number of surrounding wights all fell to the ground, but some wights were still able to move and attack Lynd.
However, these wights' attacks were useless; in a moment, all these wights fell before Lynd.
Kraste, who had previously died at Glory's hand, had now been resurrected by the Ancient Other's magic. He was about to get up and attack Lynd along with the other Ancient Others when he was again attacked by Glory, who rushed out of the forest.
Glory instantly pounced Kraste to the ground, and then, under Lynd's command, tore off all of Kraste's limbs, leaving Kraste with only a body and a constantly shaking head.
After dealing with the wights and human Ancient Others, the previous Ancient Other had completely retreated into the forest and disappeared. In Lynd's special vision, no magic could be seen in the forest, so it seemed he had escaped.
Lynd looked around, then sheathed his Greatsword, and only then did he have time to ponder the questions in his mind.
Clearly, there are also ranks among the Ancient Others. That Ancient Other was much stronger than the human Ancient Others, both in physical strength and magical traces, and the human Ancient Others followed the Ancient Other's commands.
From this, it seems that the Ancient Others are probably not created by the curse of the Forest Children as stated in the series from his previous life, but rather a supernatural race living in extremely cold regions. This race not only controls ice magic, but also magic that can resurrect the dead into wights, and they also know how to turn humans into Ancient Others. It is quite clear that those human Ancient Others should have been transformed from sacrificed infants.
Moreover, he discovered that Valyrian steel was only effective against Ancient Others; when used on wights, it had no different effect from ordinary weapons. What truly caused these wights to lose their sustaining magic was actually the magic of the Dragon Rune, unlike what was seen in the series where even dragonglass could kill wights.
As Lynd was deep in thought, the infant on the altar let out a loud cry, pulling Lynd's consciousness back to reality.
Lynd walked to the altar, blew out the candles at its four corners, took out these special candles and put them in his pocket to give to Moroa for research along with the stone slab when he returned. Then, he picked up the infant, and at the same time, dismantled the stone slab from the altar's surface, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and turned to walk towards Kraste's fortress.
Glory also picked up the wight Kraste's clothes and followed behind Lynd, leaving this sacrificial ground filled with corpses.
Not long after Lynd and Glory left, the Ancient Other reappeared at the sacrificial ground. Its face had now returned to normal. It stood at the edge of the sacrificial ground, looked in the direction Lynd had left, and then retreated back into the forest, disappearing.
After Lynd returned to Kraste's fortress, he and Glory immediately entered the house.
At this time, Kraste's wives had not yet gone to sleep, and even the wife who had cried herself unconscious earlier was sitting among them. They sat together, heads bowed, muttering, as if praying to some unknown deity.
When the deerskin door curtain was lifted and the cold wind blew into the house, all the women instinctively looked up towards the person entering. However, when they saw that the person was not Kraste, but Lynd, carrying a stone slab and holding an infant, they all showed expressions of astonishment.
But then, the moment Glory, carrying the wight Kraste, entered the house, all the women simultaneously let out terrified screams. These screams were extremely piercing, directly penetrating the house walls and waking the Rangers outside.
Benjen and the others, thinking something had happened, immediately drew their weapons and rushed into the house. However, when they saw Lynd standing by the campfire and the enormous Glory beside him, they all breathed a sigh of relief, instinctively assuming that Glory had frightened the women.
"You don't need to be afraid!" Benjen put away his weapon and comforted the women, saying, "This is Lord Linde's pet; it won't harm you."
At this point, one woman pointed to Kraste, whom Glory held in his mouth, and said, "Kraste… Kraste…"
Following the woman's finger, everyone finally saw Kraste held by Glory, seeing Kraste with only a body remaining and no limbs.
"Lord Linde, what happened?" Everyone was immediately stunned, and Benjen and Mance simultaneously asked Lynd.
Lynd did not directly answer their question. Instead, he put down the stone slab, walked to the woman's side, and handed the infant in his arms to its mother.
Facing her recovered infant, the woman's fear instantly vanished. As she took the infant, she wept with joy, continuously speaking the same words to Lynd in a somewhat unfamiliar language, which were presumably words of gratitude.
Subsequently, Lynd gestured for Glory to drop the wight Kraste on the ground, and the surrounding life force caused the body-only Kraste to writhe continuously like an insect. To the Rangers, Kraste seemed to be struggling due to pain.
Just as one of the Rangers was about to step forward and help Kraste up, Lynd walked over and pushed the Ranger away.
Everyone was puzzled by Lynd's actions, but the observant Mance Rayder noticed that Lynd's steel gauntlet on his right hand was damaged, with shattered marks visible near his wrist. However, these marks did not look like damage from external force; instead, they resembled shattered ice.
Just as everyone was filled with doubt, Lynd suddenly took a Ranger's longsword, and then, with one thrust, plunged it into Kraste's back, piercing through his body and pinning him to the ground.
"Lord Linde, are you mad?" Benjen looked at Lynd's actions with disbelief. The knight he admired was so cruel, not even sparing a man whose limbs had been cut off.
However, the calm Mance Rayder reached out and grabbed Benjen's shoulder, pointing at Kraste and saying, "Calm down, look at Kraste."
At this moment, everyone stared dumbfounded at Kraste on the ground. In their eyes, Kraste should have been utterly dead by now, but Kraste, pinned to the ground, was still writhing, as if the longsword piercing his body didn't exist.
At this moment, Mance Rayder thought of some ancient Beyond the Wall legends and murmured, "Wight, Kraste has become a wight."
Everyone gasped and retreated repeatedly, as if the wights carried a plague that would infect anyone who came near.
"Lord Linde, what exactly is going on?" Benjen asked the same question again, but this time his face was filled with confusion.
Lynd no longer held back and recounted what had just happened, though he modified the reason for tracking, changing his original knowledge of Kraste's intentions to him finding Kraste suspiciously leaving the house with an infant and then tracking him.
Upon hearing Lynd say that Kraste had sacrificed his own son to the Ancient Others, everyone's eyes filled with rage, staring at the wight Kraste. Although there were many Rangers among them who had committed serious crimes like murder, in their eyes, Kraste's crime was thousands of times more severe than theirs. Kraste's actions not only betrayed humanity but also committed the unforgivable sin of kin-slaying in the eyes of the gods.
And afterwards, when Lynd spoke of his battle with several Ancient Others and a group of wights, everyone held their breath, and even Kraste's wives looked at Lynd with shock.
And when they heard Lynd say that he had killed three human Ancient Others, driven away an Ancient Other, and dealt with all the wights, everyone looked at Lynd as if he were a god.
They never doubted that what Lynd said was false, because Lynd had already demonstrated his power at Black Castle. Facing the siege of hundreds of Night's Watch members, he easily dealt with them, and everyone could tell that he hadn't exerted his full strength throughout, and this was without using those two magic swords, Lost Country.
So they believed that even if Lynd faced hundreds or thousands of wights, he could easily handle them, and they also saw the damage to Lynd's steel gauntlet, believing that only the legendary Ancient Others could damage Lynd's armor.
As for Kraste's wives, they clearly knew what their husband was doing, and the fact that Lynd could bring back the wight Kraste and also bring back the infant who was meant to be a sacrifice was the best proof that he had defeated the Ancient Others.
And over countless years, the Ancient Others were like gods in the eyes of these wildlings. Now that Lynd had defeated the Ancient Others, Lynd was undoubtedly equivalent to a god.
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