Chapter 413

Chapter 413

2021-01-06

Chapter 413 Frozen Bay of Seals

The northernmost days of the Seven Kingdoms are always very short, At about three or four in the afternoon, the sky was already dark. In the easternmost section of Wall, at the edge of Haunted Forest, which is separated from Eastwatch's Night's Watch port by a wall, the light is weakened by dense tree trunks and branches and leaves, and when it reaches the ground, it is extremely dim, and only the faint rays of light that are left shine on many trees. On the crooked and twisted side branches, like the ghosts of baring fangs and brandishing claws, as the cold wind blows, they sway back and forth and even screech, like a ferocious living creature, making the situation more terrifying than the completely dark night.

In this forest of ghost shadows, a snowdrift on the ground suddenly burst open, and a dry silhouette emerges from the ground from the top of the ground - he, or it Not alone, because in a breath of time, the second...third...tenth...that followed closely from behind also appeared quickly.

Thousands of army ghouls have been hiding motionless under the snow for the past few months, saving magic power consumption and avoiding human detection. But now, as the weak magic power signal blew through, they instantly recovered from the standby state, and like grass sprouts and fungi that sprout after a warm rain, they emerged from the snow cover piece by piece and shook off. The snow and ice ridges began to sway, sway, and take steps toward the eastern seaside.

Corpse ghosts, corpse wolves, corpse bears... all living things that can be seen beyond the wall have been transformed into controlled puppets. , The corpse group merged into a corpse tide... In the end, grandiose's corpse mountain and corpse sea, forming a black cloud-like death army, in a place far away from the Wall, outside the edge of the sentinel's field of vision on the ice wall, slowly towards the seaside surged past.

And on the coast they are facing in the direction, the two Others led by the dead army East Road, "East Line Lord Commander" and "Eastern Line Deputy Lord Commander"... have arrived a moment earlier and stood by the sea. On a huge reef, waiting for the last minute to come.

……

The concentration of cold magic power between Heaven and Earth has not yet reached the pinnacle, the temperature has not dropped to the lowest point, and even the Bay of Seals has not been completely frozen. The best time to attack is still at least half a month. But... since that aloof and remote mysterious existence has sent out an offensive signal, there must be his reasoning.

As the most loyal servant in existence, the Others don't question, just follow orders!
Now, the ghouls who have broken through the snow shells and drilled to the ground from the hiding places in all directions are gradually gathering on the seashore, waiting for the mysterious existence to show the Divine Vestige, for the East Route Army to build on the ocean of the Bay of Seals Find a way to bypass Wall.

The ocean is so wide and deep, containing innumerable amounts of liquid, and water has a notoriously large specific heat capacity, and generally speaking, freezing it by unnatural forces is an impossible mission—even if To completely reduce the water temperature in the Bay of Seals by even one degree, the energy required is far beyond the ability of even that "mysterious being".

But...at present, the temperature of seawater has actually reached a state of supercooling below freezing point, but due to many reasons such as convection, waves, tides and the persistent deicing of human defenders, it is still far from freezing. Just the last step. In this case, exerting external influence and pushing the last one, although there is no natural freezing and then launching an attack will be beneficial, but in order to seize the best opportunity to fight, it is acceptable to pay some price to forcibly advance this battle... .

The wet and cold water vapor kept condensing on the surface of the extremely cold bodies of the two Others, and they had to occasionally move their bodies to shake off the "snow skin" to avoid turning into a lump, but such stupidity would not be for nothing. The restrictions continued, the time turned from dusk to night, and the sky gradually turned dark... When the last ghoul swayed and joined the waiting sea of corpses, the two leading Others finally stopped staring at the turbulent ocean. He turned his head and looked towards the northern sky.

In the direction of the sacred Lands of Always Winter, there was a faint rumbling sound, and an incomparably huge energy completed the final convergence, and began to move towards the Wall at an alarming speed ... to be precise. The ocean at the Bay of Seals came.

＊＊＊

On the ocean surface of the Bay of Seals, the five Night's Watch ships, which were unaware of the fluctuations in magic power, were still illuminated by the lights. busy at work.

Although the Others have yet to strike, the Eastwatch de-icing team has become the first in the Night's Watch Legion and the entire human world to "fight" with the Cold God.

As the weather is getting colder and colder, the ice near the shallower waters is getting faster and faster. Often it can form a foot thick overnight. The surface stretches rapidly and will eventually be completely frozen against the Bay of Seals at the end of the Wall.

Although it was getting late, they had to work overtime, because—as long as one day was lazy and thought "rest early today and continue tomorrow", under the action of a vicious circle, the ice will accumulate more and more. The thicker the freeze, the more efforts you have achieved in the end.

They sprinkled cinders along the entire coastline, extending several meters into the water. In this way, every day at dawn, the dark cinder absorbs heat, which will thin and break the part of the sea ice that sticks to the shore. Next, each ship needs to send people to split the sea ice that has broken off and floated on the water. The large pieces are connected to the boat with ropes and iron stakes, and the small pieces are towed away with nets. If you stay there, and then try to haul it to a natural harbor a few miles to the south and pile it up so as not to float back, you will be considered to have completed a round of mission...

As long as you keep going back and forth like this, the enemy can bypass the Wall The ice channel will never form.

Although the weather was cold enough to freeze people's ears off, the soldiers involved in de-icing were doing a frenzy. Although the work is tiring, fortunately Eastwatch commander Cotter Pyke can understand the hard work of the brothers. The personnel who carry out this mission have the highest allowances in all departments, and can work one day off for one day shift. Many people are eager to join, and even go through the back door for it.

However, Yohn Royce, the former Runestone count and now the de-icing Captain, did not enjoy the job at all: although he was appointed as the de-icing commander, he did not have to disembark himself to work. However, they cannot enjoy a vacation and must go out to sea with the boat every day. Since being put together by Igor and threatened with death, Cotter Pyke seems to have changed his sex. Not only does he refuse to discuss any plans with oneself to deal with the kid, but even oneself sometimes is really tired and doesn't want to go to sea. Approved, and even sent someone to supervise the work - making it as if oneself will kill itself if he is not stared at for a day.

Although I knew that Cotter wanted to protect oneself, no one would like this extreme way.

Exasperated, Yohn continued to stand on the bow of the battleship Mermaid, overseeing the work of several ships and soldiers. There is no way, people have to bow their heads under the eaves. If the job entrusted to oneself can't be done well, then if Igor tries to settle accounts against oneself, no one can protect oneself.

Today's mission has been nearly 80% completed. As long as one more round of hauling is required to remove the last piece of ice that is several acres, you can return to Eastwatch and hand over the boat to the night patrol.

Thinking of this, everyone is also full of energy, but they are roaring their horns and digging into the ice, but the shouting suddenly weakened, and more and more soldiers stopped working and began to point to the north. The sky was talking about something, Yohn was about to scold them for being lazy, but when he turned his head, even oneself was stunned.

By the last light of the sky before nightfall, the northern horizon is showing a strange scene: at the end of the field of vision, there is a gray and white fog that should not exist across the east and west, and it is impossible to see where the sea and the sky meet. It's big, but it stands out against the dark forest, like an infinitely high, infinitely wide, infinitely thick white curtain hanging between Heaven and Earth...

What is this? stuff?
Yohn Royce stared wide-eyed suspiciously, but suddenly came back to his senses the next second: It doesn't matter what that thing is, what matters is that it's moving, and it's jumping in Wall's direction Come!

The moving speed of such a huge object is so high that you can tell "fast" with naked eyes with a dozen or more li apart, how much is the true speed of this thing?

Looking at the color and texture, it should be an unprecedented ice storm! A chill rolled up his neck from the back of his waist - Yohn didn't think a gust of wind could knock Wall down, but, goddamn it, he was on a boat right now, a boat deck floating on the icy waters of the Bay of Seals!
"Don't look at all! All - back to the boat!" He yelled hoarsely at the de-icing team soldiers who were still standing on the ice floe, holding the boat gang, and then turned to the oneself regardless of their reaction. Sailors of the flagship Mermaid: "Get all the sails down! Adjust the boat so she faces north, a gust of wind is coming soon! Order the Blackbird and the rest of the rowing boats to make them all the same! Nothing to do! Man, go back to the oneself cabin to hide under the bed, put the quilt over your head, and turn off the lights!"

The soldiers on the ice also realized that something was wrong at this moment, and they threw them away in a panic. Get off the tool and run to the nearest ship, someone slipped and fell to the ground in a hurry, but luckily did not break the ice and fell into the water... The powerful ice storm visible to the naked eye was so fast that people heard it after a while. The roar, the sound seemed to have thousands of Demon Dragons roaring towards everyone in the distance. It's so fast that it took just over a minute from the time people saw it to the time it hit everyone, and when the distance was only a few hundred meters, Yohn Royce stopped urging the slow ones who still didn't hide in the cabin. , rushed into the cabin without the slightest hesitation, closed the wooden door, and slid under the table.

After all, Yohn has a certain amount of judgment due to his age, and the experience accumulated in his daily life and leading troops for several decades. He made the right decision in a split second: if he had ordered the sail back to Eastwatch, the boat would have been overturned if it didn't last three seconds in this wind... He entered the cabin and hid, but the situation was still not much better.

“Boom—”

No one can imagine that the wind can make such a magnificent sound on a boat. Accompanying this loud contact sound, the wind blows. The debris hits the hull of the hull and the sound of peng peng, but soon no one will care about the sound... Although hiding in the cabin, in front of such a mighty force, everyone is like a trivial installed in a front-loading washing machine ant was thrown around in the cabin at will, and his body made intimate contact with the two walls and four walls, including the ceiling, one by one.

After about half a minute of agony and panic, Yohn woke up from a brief dizziness. The cabin was already in a mess, with furniture, items, and people piling up in a pile. Fortunately, the oil lamp was turned off first, so that everyone did not turn into a barbecue.

He was quite sure that oneself felt that the boat had rolled over at least once just now, but for some reason it returned to its normal upward attitude at this moment, and it was stable and motionless, not even rocking with the normal waves at sea, it seemed It was blown to the shore and stranded.

(This shouldn’t be the case. Such a medium-sized ship with no cargo and at least one mile from shore, how could it be stranded when the wind blows?)

Confused, Yohn struggled to open his eyes, and then unexpectedly found that the burning pain on his body quickly disappeared... Originally thought it was because the impact was not severe, but after a while, the stiff numbness on his face and the stretch out his hand A little bit of ice on the beard made Yohn came back to his senses: it was freezing.

Reluctantly standing up against the wall, Yohn ignored the other people in the cabin who were still moaning and groaning. on the deck.

"Old Gods are up!"

With the last glimpse of the sky in the sky before nightfall, he saw the scene outside the cabin and finally understood: why the ship didn't Shaking again, all around is as cold as Hell.

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(end of this chapter)