147: Chapter 147 The Ice Dragon's Weakness

Dragonstone. Nightfire Altar. Before dawn.

Melisandre stands before the Nightfire, arms spread, red robes fluttering in the morning wind. She holds the new Glass Candle—the one Marwyn sent from The Citadel—burning with blue-green holy fire. The light illuminates her intensely focused face.

Drogon, in his dragon-man form, walks to the edge of the altar. His vertical pupils reflect the light of the Nightfire.

Melisandre opens her red eyes, turning to Drogon. Her voice is lower than usual, carrying the penetrating power characteristic of prophecy.

"The Night King's Ice Dragon is not a dragon. Its skeleton is condensed from ten thousand years of cold ice, and its Meridians are White Walker frost runes. The core is in its throat—a mass of primitive Ice Element compressed to the extreme, wrapped in a rune shield woven by the Night King himself with eight thousand years of will."

She dips her fingers into the Nightfire, staining them with a trace of holy fire. The flames dance on her fingertips, blue-green tongues licking her knuckles without burning them. She gently presses her finger against the newly grown reverse scale on Drogon's left chest. The holy fire sears the reverse scale, and the dark gold vein patterns flash for an instant under the firelight.

"Ice Fire can weaken it, but it cannot shatter the runes. Only one attack can simultaneously crack both the runes and the core—Fusion Dragon Breath. Ice Fire first cracks the outer layer of the runes, and Dragon Flame pours into the core through the crack before the runes heal. The speed must be extremely fast; you must complete the two Dragon Breath switches before the runes heal. You need to pour the Dragon Breath directly into its throat the moment the Ice Dragon opens its throat to spew Ice Fire."

"The moment it opens its throat. That means I'll be trading blasts with it. Whoever's Dragon Breath gives out first dies."

"The flames will bless you."

Melisandre withdraws her fingers. The firelight in her red eyes dims for a moment. She looks to the north, toward the ice-blue dragon shadow circling above the ruins of The Wall in the flames.

"But please remember—the Night King himself is on top of the Ice Dragon. He will not fall after the Ice Dragon is shattered. He will stand on the ruins and wait for you. He has waited for you for eight thousand years; he will not give up just because he lost a mount."

Dragonstone Castle. Missandei's temporary office. Before dawn.

Missandei is hunched over her desk. Her notebook, already written to the twentieth chapter, lies open before her, and her quill moves rapidly across the paper. She is spending the night organizing a "Northbound Data Pack"—the cover marked in both very neat common tongue and dothraki language: The Nights Watch Battle · Dragon Clan Tactical Reference Materials.

The content is what she deduced over the past three days from Melisandre's prophecy, the summary of the Sara Old Gods observation records, and the battle reports returned by raven.

The Night King's Ice Dragon anatomical structure deduction—not an actual dissection, but an internal structure diagram reverse-engineered based on the energy distribution of the rune shield described by Melisandre. Ice crystal core material speculation—a mixture of high-density White Walker frost and frozen weirwood roots; the physical properties of the two Materials are completely different, but they are forcibly fused under the action of the White Walker runes.

Distribution map of the fractured weirwood roots in the foundation of The Wall—inferred from The Old Gods root records in Sara's final summary, the fracture locations are concentrated in the Eastwatch section, which perfectly coincides with the impact point of the Ice Dragon's battering ram. Fusion Dragon Breath dual-element output ratio suggestion—Ice Fire first at 70%, Dragon Flame second at 30%, with the switching window not exceeding two heartbeats.

When Drogon pushes the door open, she is using her quill to add a tiny appendix to the footer of the last page. The font is smaller and denser than the main text, requiring a magnifying glass to see clearly, but every word is written with extreme seriousness.

"If the Fusion Dragon Breath fails, alternative plan: use dragon form to ram the Ice Dragon into the ice layer under the breach of The Wall—the Ice Dragon may slow its rune healing speed due to environmental assimilation in extremely low-temperature deep water."

She looks up. Beneath her large amber eyes are faint shadows left by staying up all night. Her speaking speed is still very fast, as if afraid the data would expire in her brain.

"Lord Drogon. The Northbound Data Pack is ready. The alternative plan in the appendix was a temporary thought; I don't have enough data to calculate the success probability, but if you need it—I can continue to update the data with ravens while the fleet travels north."

She takes a piece of dragon-skin parchment from her desk drawer and spreads it out—embedded inside is a miniature starlight fragment, emitting a very faint silver-white light.

"Also—regarding the communication rune from Arya Star. On the dragon-skin parchment she left for you last time, I detected weak energy fluctuations recently. She may be trying to contact you. If you need to contact her while on The Wall—inject your Bloodline into the rune, and she should be able to receive it."

Drogon takes the data pack. He uses his tail to place a small bag of newly produced dragon glass fragments from the Dragonstone mines on her desk—this is his fixed supply for her before every expedition. The dragon glass fragments make a very fine jingling sound in the bag.

"Little translator, I've read your alternative plan. Ramming the Ice Dragon into the ice layer—that's a mutual destruction tactic. I will try not to use it. But if I do—help me tell my mother, the chain is on the reverse scale."

Missandei's quill stops in her hand. She looks up, her amber eyes uncharacteristically not flickering—that rapid blinking that usually happens when she is nervous, this time it is absent. She just nods very seriously.

"I will. But I would rather you return and tell her yourself."

Drogon turns around. As he reaches the door, he hears the sound of the quill landing on the paper again. She adds a line of text after the appendix—he doesn't look back to see what it is.

But the System later pops up a very brief note in the consciousness space: "Missandei added a seventeenth line to the footer of the appendix: All the above tactical success rates are based on the premise that the host survives. If the host fails to return—this data pack will be automatically archived into 'Dragon Clan Legacy · Battle Records · Last Will Volume'."

The Wall. Eastwatch ruins. Noon.

The blizzard has temporarily stopped. Gray-white sunlight spills down from gaps in the clouds, shining on the shocking giant crack in the eastern section of The Wall—from the base straight through the battlements, the black fibers left by frozen weirwood roots densely covering the ice walls on both sides of the cross-section.

Those roots were planted by the Children of the Forest eight thousand years ago, spreading in the ice for thousands of years, and now they have been frozen and cracked from the inside by the Ice Dragon's battering ram. The black fibers on the cross-section are like fossils of The Old Gods' blood vessels.

Below the ruins of The Wall, most of the wooden fort of Eastwatch fortress has collapsed. The stone walls are covered in frost left by the passing of White Walkers, reflecting blinding white light in the noon sun. Over a dozen black-clad The Nights Watch are digging the last few bundles of dragon glass arrows not soaked by frost from the collapsed armory, and some are using frostbitten fingers to reconnect broken bowstrings.

A low roar of dragon wings breaking the wind comes from the air.

A dark gold dragon shadow descends from the clouds in the south. When its wingspan is fully spread, it covers half the sky, and the wind pressure stirred by the flapping of its dragon wings rolls the accumulated snow on the ruins of The Wall into white mist. The Nights Watch look up at the dragon shadow, hands pressing on their dragon glass daggers—but no one draws their blades.

Drogon lands on the ruins of Eastwatch. His dragon claws grip the rubble of the broken battlements, and he folds his wings. His vertical pupils sweep over the surviving black-clad brothers in the ruins—their faces are dyed black by frostbite and gunpowder smoke, ice beads are frozen on their beards, but there is no fear in their eyes. These people have seen an Ice Dragon. People who have seen an Ice Dragon are not afraid of any dragon.

A middle-aged black-clad man with frostbite scars all over his face walks forward, supported by two Nights Watch brothers. His left hand is missing three fingers, his right hand has only a thumb and index finger remaining, and he holds a half-broken longsword. His voice is hoarse and tired, but still carries the cold hardness characteristic of The Nights Watch.

"Black dragon. The Mother of Dragons' dragon. Commander Martin asked us to pass on a message before he died—the Ice Dragon is not afraid of ordinary Dragon Flame. Its Ice Fire can cancel out Dragon Breath. There is light in its throat. He told me to tell you—don't spray fire directly at it. Hit it from the side. There are fewer runes on the side than in the throat."

Drogon lowers his head, his vertical pupils level with the black-clad man.

"I have remembered Commander Martin's words. How much further is the North Allied Forces?"

"The Young Wolf's main force has just passed the Fist of the First Men. The cavalry will arrive by dawn tomorrow at the earliest. The infantry won't arrive until tomorrow evening. You are the first dragon to come."

The acting commander of The Nights Watch points with his frostbitten fingers to the depths of the crack in The Wall.

Deep in the crack, traces of frost left by the Ice Dragon when it broke the city remain on the ice wall—ghostly blue cold light shines out from the depths of the crack, and the extreme cold causes the air deep in the crack to still be condensing into fine ice crystals and falling. In the deepest part of the crack, in the direction of the Ice Cliff, a mass of ice-blue light halo, brighter than the surroundings, is pulsing slowly.

"The Night King and his Ice Dragon are on the Ice Cliff on the other side of the crack. They didn't advance after breaking the city last night—they are waiting here. It seems they are waiting for something."

"Waiting for me. He has waited for eight thousand years—a few hours won't make a difference."

Drogon switches from dragon form to dragon-man form. His tail swings slowly over the rubble of the ruins. He takes the data pack from Missandei from his waist pouch, flips to the last page of the alternative plan, and reads it again—Fusion Dragon Breath dual-element output ratio, 70% Ice Fire, 30% Dragon Flame, switching window not exceeding two heartbeats. He stuffs the data pack back into his pouch.

"Do one thing for me. Light the beacon on the city wall. Not a warning beacon—a signal beacon. Let the Young Wolf know that the dragon has arrived. Let the Night King know that the dragon has arrived."

The acting commander of The Nights Watch nods. He turns and roars at the black-clad brothers behind him—his voice is hoarse but extremely penetrating.

"Light the beacon! The highest tower on the ruins of The Wall! Three piles! Not a warning—a signal! Tell them—the dragon has arrived!"