The Long Night was torn by iceflame.
Wherever it passed, warriors instantly became rigid, their skin covered with blue veins, their pupils dilating and then freezing into ice.
They remained frozen in place, still in a running posture, like desperate statues.
The air condensed into pale ice crystals, like a reverse-rising snow.
"A dragon! The dragon has been stolen!!!"
Someone screamed in collapse.
His voice seemed to get stuck in his throat and instantly froze into ice shards, indistinct.
At this, the resisting forces instantly crumbled.
Soldiers threw down their spears and fled in disarray.
They had once been the warriors of the North, building a wall of flesh and blood before the fortress of Karhold, but now all their courage had turned to dust under the shadow of those skeletal wings of death.
"Bran Stark!"
Meera Reed shrieked.
The Night King didn't even look at the humans scattering in all directions; his gaze remained fixed on the boy with the Three-Eyed Raven's sight.
Bran Stark looked up, his pale face devoid of any fear, only deep weariness.
He knew this moment would eventually come.
He had seen human deaths countless times in the green visions, but none were as real and cold as this one.
The Ice Dragon began its dive, this time opening its mouth, and a pale blue iceflame condensed in its throat.
That was the extreme of cold, absolute zero that could freeze even the soul.
Meera Reed knew it was futile, but she still threw herself over Bran, shielding him with her slender body.
Just then, the sky suddenly ignited.
From a rift in the clouds, another dragon swooped down, its golden scales burning brightly in the darkness, as if forged from the last rays of the setting sun.
Its wings stirred the oppressive air, and with each beat, it sprinkled golden dust.
Unlike the deathly stillness of the Ice Dragon, this dragon brought a violent, almost eye-searing aura of power.
"Another dragon!"
Survivors covered their eyes, peeking at the anomaly in the sky through their fingers.
Viserys Targaryen rode on the dragon's back, his silver-gold hair fluttering like a banner in the gale.
At this moment, everyone felt that a true king should appear as this savior.
He descended from the sky with wrath and destruction, much like a deity from myths punishing the world.
In this flash of lightning, Sunfyre grabbed Bran Stark and turned to leave.
"This child,"
Viserys Targaryen's voice was not loud, yet it clearly penetrated the wind and wails, entering everyone's minds: "I am taking him."
He didn't even look at Meera, nor did he look at the false king Robert Baratheon, who had just painstakingly climbed out of a snow pit.
Viserys Targaryen's gaze pierced the void, meeting the Night King's directly.
The air instantly solidified.
In this deadly silence, only the breaths of the two dragons continued, one cold and one hot, colliding in the middle to create hissing mist.
This was the first clash between the King of Winter and the Dragon King!
Facing Viserys Targaryen's declaration, the Night King remained expressionless.
The next moment, the Night King slowly raised his hand.
"Left wing down, pull up against the wind."
Viserys Targaryen murmured in High Valyrian language.
Sunfyre sharply banked, its dragon wings cutting a sharp shriek through the air.
At that moment, a pale blue iceflame grazed past their previous position, the chill instantly frosting Viserys Targaryen's eyebrows white.
The Night King stood on the spine of the Hatchling Dragon, like an eternal ice sculpture.
His mount was a monster forged from death and ice, and the flapping of its skeletal wings brought a soul-shivering low temperature.
The two dragons circled and probed in the clouds, like destined arch-rivals from ancient times.
The clouds were torn open by sharp claws like a broken grey curtain, and the two dragons traced paths of death under the leaden sky.
Viserys Targaryen clung tightly to the scales on Sunfyre's neck, feeling the muscles below tense like steel cables.
Each beat of the golden dragon's wings stirred hot air currents, its scales still gleaming with unyielding light in the gloom, like a sun that never sets.
The Ice Dragon suddenly burst from a dark cloud, attacking from below, and a pale blue iceflame had already condensed into solid death in its throat.
But Viserys Targaryen was waiting for this moment.
"Now!"
Just a second before the Ice Dragon was about to breathe, Sunfyre abruptly folded its wings, plummeting several zhang at a near freefall speed.
The Night King's iceflame grazed over Sunfyre's head, shattering the clouds above.
At this moment, Sunfyre was directly below the Ice Dragon—this was the Night King's blind spot, and a fatal blind zone difficult for the skeletal wings to reach.
"Dragonflame!"
Viserys Targaryen roared.
The long-accumulated flames erupted from Sunfyre's mouth, not a scattered spray, but a golden beam of light condensed like a solid.
This was the oldest technique of the dragons, concentrating all power into a single point, like a knight's precise thrust.
The golden flame directly hit the Ice Hatchling Dragon's breastbone, where the ice armor instantly vaporized under the extreme heat, revealing the dark bones beneath.
The Night King's mount began to tumble out of control, but the Night King remained steadily standing.
He raised his hand, and the moisture in the air began to condense into a spiral ice spear.
But Viserys Targaryen did not give him any chance to retaliate.
"Dive!"
Viserys Targaryen shouted.
Immediately, Sunfyre plunged downwards.
This was not a beast's brawl; this was the art of the hunt.
The Ice Dragon completely lost its balance, beginning to fall like a large bird that had been shot.
"Dragonflame!"
Viserys Targaryen roared.
The next moment, Dragonflame poured down, completely incinerating one of the Ice Hatchling Dragon's skeletal wings into dust.
"Thud!"
Facing Viserys Targaryen's tempestuous attack, the Night King had no choice but to fall from the dragon's back, crashing heavily to the ground like a meteor, raising plumes of icy mist.
The Ice Dragon struggled, wanting to pursue, but the wounds on its wings made it unable to maintain flight, so it could only glide obliquely northward.
Watching the direction of the Night King's fall, Viserys Targaryen circled high in the sky on Sunfyre, not pressing his advantage.
He knew that the victory in this aerial battle did not come from overwhelming power, but from a contest of dragon-riding skill and wisdom.
He used the oldest aerial combat techniques of the dragons to gradually widen the gap between them, which allowed him to achieve such a dominant display.
But he knew this was far from over.
The Night King would never simply fall to his death so easily.
In that misty grey storm, he must be waiting with an ice spear for Viserys Targaryen's dragon to approach.
"Sunfyre, let's go!"
Viserys Targaryen's lips curved slightly.
He wasn't here to eliminate the Night King!
Hearing Viserys Targaryen's command, Sunfyre let out a victorious long cry, grabbed Bran Stark, and turned to leave.
The dragon's roar echoed in the sky, announcing the temporary end of this aerial battle.
In the blizzard, the Night King stood still, and for the first time, there was a flicker in his ice-blue eyes.
Just as the Night King was confident that Viserys Targaryen would pursue him at low altitude on his dragon, Viserys Targaryen actually turned and left on Sunfyre.
Just as Viserys Targaryen had previously declared, he came here to capture Bran Stark, and it had nothing to do with anyone else!
Thinking of this, a rare look of anger appeared on the Night King's placid face, a humiliation of being ignored by a mortal when he was a god.
Viserys Targaryen dared to treat him as nothing!