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SLW Chapter 16 : Aeron vs The Dead.
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 20:22:19 +0000 UTCThe Rangers ventured beyond the wall and the Haunted Forest stretched before them, an endless maze of twisting, skeletal trees draped in frost. The silence was eerie—too quiet, even for this place. The only sound was the crunch of snow beneath their boots and the distant howling of the wind. The men of the Night’s Watch moved cautiously, their hands gripping their weapons as their breath curled in the icy air.
Aeron felt it before he saw anything.
Aeron’s eyes narrowed, a chill creeping down his spine that wasn’t from the cold wind. He felt it before he even saw anything an oppressive, suffocating presence, like a dark cloud rolling over his senses, blotting out everything else.
The notification appeared in his mind, bright and impossible to ignore:
[Quest: Kill the Minions of the False Monarch of Death
Objective: Eliminate the wights under the control of the False Monarch.
Rewards: ???]
Aeron’s grip tightened around his sword hilt, his heart pounding. False Monarch of Death? ‘The Night king i assume’ Aeron thought to himself.
That creeping sensation of something watching them only kept growing. A presence hidden in the cold darkness, ancient and malevolent. His purple eyes scanned the trees, his instincts screaming that something was wrong.
"That’s gotta be him… or one of his walkers."
Beside him, Jon Snow noticed his unease. "You seem worried."
Aeron didn’t take his eyes off the darkness ahead. "You could say that… especially since there is something approaching us right now."
Jon’s hand went to his sword immediately. "What?"
Before Aeron could respond, the shadows shifted.
From the trees, figures emerged—pale, twisted, and wrong. Their movements were jerky, unnatural, as if they had long forgotten what it meant to be human. Their eyes glowed a deathly blue, empty yet filled with hunger.
"WIGHTS!" One of the rangers shouted, panic creeping into his voice.
Then, the dead charged.
The trees shook, branches snapping like brittle bones. Then, they appeared figures that should not be moving.
Wights.
Half-rotted, frost-bitten corpses, clad in the tattered remains of armor and furs. Hollow, glowing blue eyes locked onto the living with eerie purpose. They made no sound beyond the crunch of their stiff limbs against the frozen ground.
Then, they charged.
"FORM UP!" Jeor Mormont’s voice bellowed across the clearing.
The rangers barely had time to draw steel before the dead were upon them.
Aeron reacted instantly.
The first wight lunged for him, its skeletal fingers clawing at his throat. He twisted his body, dodging the attack by inches, and brought his sword down in a sharp, merciless arc. Steel met frozen flesh. The wight’s arm was severed, but it did not falter. It kept coming.
They don’t feel pain.
Aeron clicked his tongue. "Annoying."
He sent his boot crashing into its chest, kicking it backward.
To his left, a ranger screamed as a wight buried its jagged fingers into his stomach, tearing out steaming innards. Another Watchman swung his sword desperately, hacking wildly.
Jon, meanwhile, moved like a whirlwind.
Longclaw sang through the air, carving through two wights in rapid succession. One tried to tackle him from behind. Before Aeron could warn him, Ghost lunged, his massive white form slamming into the wight and tearing its throat out with a savage snarl.
Jon turned to Aeron, chest rising and falling. "We can’t let them overwhelm us!"
"Then let’s clear the field."
A wight, missing half its face, lurched toward Aeron. Its blackened teeth gnashed mindlessly.
He didn’t dodge. Instead, he caught the wight mid-air—not with his hands, but with his will.
The air pulsed.
The wight froze mid-lunge, its body suspended inches away from Aeron.
Ruler’s Authority.
Aeron twisted his fingers—the unseen force ripping the wight in half. Its spine cracked like a branch, and its body collapsed into the snow.
Several rangers stopped fighting just to stare at him.
Jon saw it, too. "What the hell was that?"
Aeron didn’t answer. He was already moving.
He grabbed his sword and slashed through another wight, its head flying into the air—only for the decapitated corpse to keep moving.
It clawed at him, fingers tightening around his wrist. Its severed head lay in the snow, jaw snapping open and shut as if still trying to bite him.
Aeron narrowed his eyes. "Looking at them closely like this is disturbing."
Then, a thought struck him, "Arise." He whispered.
His powers, stretching unnaturally toward the wight’s corpse. But instead of the familiar sensation of his power claiming the dead, a notification flashed before his eyes.
[Target has been dead for too long.]
[Target is under the influence of another power.]
Aeron’s grip on his sword tightened.
‘So, there is someone that can make my life difficult here after all’ Aeron thought to himself.
Jon hacked another wight in half and turned to him, breathing heavily. "What are these things?"
Aeron exhaled, watching the cold mist of his breath rise into the frozen air.
"Trouble," he muttered. "Serious trouble."
The battle raged on, but Aeron had learned something important today. His power had limits. And worse there was another force in this world capable of challenging it.
The fight raged on. The scent of decay and frozen blood filled the air, mixing with the heavy breath of exhausted men. The rangers fought with everything they had, hacking and slashing at the wights, but for every one that fell, another took its place.
Aeron gritted his teeth as he drove his blade into a wight’s chest, only for it to keep moving, its lifeless fingers clawing at his arm. He yanked his sword free and severed its head, but even then, the body twitched in the snow.
"Damn it."
He raised his voice over the chaos.
"You have to burn them! Valyrian steel works as well, and dragonglass other than that, we're just chopping them apart for no reason!"
Jon, struggling against a wight, barely had time to respond. Longclaw cleaved through the creature’s neck with ease, and this time, it stayed down. His breath was heavy, but his eyes flicked to Aeron.
"You're right! i don’t have a problem with them."
Aeron swung his blade again, sending a wight’s arm flying before stomping its skull into the ice. "Good. That means you’re the only one here who can cut them down properly. The rest of us have to set the bastards on fire."
Aeron exhaled sharply, glancing at the wights still twitching in the snow. Their severed limbs crawled like insects, fingers grasping for weapons, jaws snapping even as their heads lay separated from their bodies. The rangers were still catching their breath, their faces pale from exhaustion and horror. Some clutched their swords with white-knuckled grips, others exchanged uneasy glances, as if waiting for the next wave.
Aeron rolled his shoulders, flexing his fingers as he sighed. "Ah, fuck it."
Without another word, he raised his hand. The air around him pulsed. An invisible force seized the wights, their lifeless forms jerking unnaturally. Then, with a single motion of his fingers—he clenched his fist.
The wights exploded.
Rotted flesh, brittle bones, and frozen limbs shattered into smaller pieces, scattering across the snow like splintered wood. A silence followed, thick and suffocating, as every single man turned to stare at Aeron. Blood and ichor dripped from his face and armor, but he barely seemed to notice. He dusted off his hands and muttered, "There. Now we don’t have to do anything else."
The rangers stood frozen, jaws slack, eyes wide with disbelief.
"…What in the fuck was that?" one finally blurted out.
Another took a hesitant step back, gripping his sword tighter. "Gods above…"
Even Jon was staring, his expression unreadable. His sword hand twitched, as if unsure whether to sheathe Longclaw or keep it ready.
Aeron only smirked, rolling his shoulders. "What? It worked, didn’t it?"
The silence stretched for a moment longer before Jeor Mormont finally broke it. The Old Bear let out a low chuckle, shaking his head.
"Well, lad," he said gruffly. "We’ll have a long discussion."
