The letter crow from Shimen Village delivered the latest news: the army of ghouls did not attack the fortress, but bypassed it from a distance.

Initially, everyone, including Egg, thought the enemy had skipped this last stronghold and attacked the Night's Keep, but it was a very different story than when they were outside the Wall—this time, the Wraiths didn't use any magic to harm the shapeshifter-possessed birds, preventing them from observing. Aerial reconnaissance that began on a large scale after dawn soon proved the people wrong: after noon, traces of a sea of corpses were found in the northwest direction of Houguan Town.

Maybe it's because you know that you can't hide your whereabouts, or maybe it's because you're happy to start terrifying the living from miles away...... In the slightly dim sunlight shining through the clouds, the overwhelming tide of corpses looked so shocking.

With a 100% refuge rate for civilians, the ghouls passed through countless villages along the way, but their numbers did not increase except for the thousands of soldiers killed and wounded in the storming of the fortress last night. However, due to the different speeds of movement among the different types and states of ghouls, and the fact that the Night King did not want to separate his troops, the sea of ghouls, which looked down from the air and moved towards Houguan Town as if he were taking a leisurely walk in the snowfield, pulled from end to end into a narrow strip that was unevenly spaced and densely spaced, and was connected for several miles due to the occasional pause of the tail in front of him.

The dead on the march rather than in battle were not as dense, turbulent and frantic as they were in the storming of the fortresses, but when they were slightly dispersed for the convenience of movement, the increase in land occupied from a distance made them as unsightly as the migratory herbivores of the East African savannah, and in another overwhelming manner, one that made people feel desperate.

The alarm bell of the town rang frantically, and the already tense atmosphere was stretched to the extreme in an instant, and the walls and buildings were full of soldiers and residents running around...... However, after arriving outside Houguan Town, the ghouls did not attack directly, but slowly spread their left and right wings to both sides, engulfing Houguan Town like a bloody mouth, and finally turned into a huge black ring, completely surrounding the town. After being elongated and dispersed in this way, the original black tide of corpses was only a narrow black line, but the majestic momentum that extended to the south and north to the end of the field of vision still made everyone on the city wall who could see this scene frightened.

......

The Night King is waiting for dark - this battle is different from the attack on the Shadow Tower and Sentinel Tower: the tactical goal is not to quickly capture a specific target, but to kill all the inhabitants of Houguan Town, including hundreds of giants, and turn them into puppets with as few casualties as possible, so as to increase their strength, strengthen their strength and solve the troubles, and then go north to attack the Long Night Fortress, and still take the Great Wall in one fell swoop without using magic!

And if you want to reduce your own casualties, there is no better condition than fighting at night: the cover and fear bonuses brought by darkness can at least double the ratio of dead to living battles.

The good news for the human race is that while the sky is still bright, Houguan Town still has time to convey the new version of the defense plan that was changed overnight to the ears of every grassroots officer and relevant military and civilian and make relevant arrangements, and the bad news is that it is only two hours before it gets dark.

＊＊＊

After Egger's questioning, persuasion, and demands of supreme authority, Bran Stark, who had become a Night's Watch in black, finally confided a new message: he could manipulate the crows and find the approximate location of the Night King and the Wraiths even if they didn't cast spells, provided the enemy didn't cast spells against the ravens, of course.

Fortunately, with the protection of the Great Wall, this condition is barely met.

So, under the cover of the different birds controlled by the changelings of the various tribes, there were many large crows flying over the army of ghouls in Houguan Town, which were not tamed but were about the same size as ordinary messenger ravens, blinking their seemingly godless white eyes, scanning the enemy's position over and over again.

"Haven't you found it yet?" In the inner fort of Houguan Town, after watching Bran close his eyes and control the crows for dozens of minutes, Egger couldn't help but ask.

"The Night King has already found it, to our northwest, but I noticed something else that is not so good, so I probed a little longer. Bran opened his eyes, "The Night King didn't gather with his men, but seemed to divide the wraiths evenly in all directions of Houguan Town. ”

"This is bad news. Egg took a deep breath, "So, after the big battle, the pressure on the other directions of Houguan Town may not be inferior to the direction of the Night King, and may even be exceeded?"

"That's right. ”

"Understood. Egg nodded solemnly, fortunately this has been considered in the new plan, "But after all, people can't be separated, and this battle can only be won by killing the Night King, I have no choice, I have to face this damn king of strange spirits." I led them out of the inner castle and guided me with a raven—to the wall closest to the Night King. ”

......

The snow gradually became heavier, and the temperature seemed to drop by a few degrees with the arrival of the ghosts. The sun, which had been hiding behind the clouds all day and had never overlooked it, barely lit up the world for less than ten hours, and then began to sink helplessly into the horizon. As the sky darkened, so did the smoke of cooking in the town—anticipating that the battle would break out after dark, Iger ordered the meal to be served an hour earlier than usual, with the defenders taking turns to eat in order to avoid a hungry battle.

Finally, the night was lifted by the gods from the east to the west, covering the sky above everyone's heads, and the army of ghouls waiting a mile away also merged with the dark sky in the distance. When the invisible murderous aura and chill gradually diffuse, in order to strengthen the courage...... There were even soldiers who pretended to be calm and chatted with each other about when the ghouls would attack.

Then, the answer was immediately revealed on the other side.

After the last rays of the sunset, refracted by the atmosphere, disappeared into the western sky, the army of ghouls wasted not even a minute and immediately began a general attack.

......

With the sound of a terrible trumpet, under the walls of this town, which gathered nearly one-third of the population of the donated land, a war of intensity and scale between people and ghosts that had never been seen before or after began.

Since Houguan Town was not connected to other fortresses by an ice wall, it was impossible to obtain support after the start of the war, so it directly stockpiled war reserves equal to or even more than the proportion of the population. The abundance of wildfires allowed them to use flames more generously for defense. As soon as the tide of corpses began to move towards the wall, two walls of fire were ignited by rockets and formed a waiting for visitors - but this time, the enemy's decisiveness was also beyond the expectations of the defenders: there was no foreplay, and the wraiths, who had become familiar with human tactics after a few battles, used their cards at the very first moment of the battle.

Anyway, it would be difficult for magic to take effect when attacking the Long Night Fort, and there was no point in saving mana, so the Night King simply made a bold and correct decision: let all the priests who still have enough mana power go into battle in the attack on Houguan Town, replace casualties with mana loss, and reduce the consumption of ghouls as much as possible!

As a result, the defenders around the wall were shocked to find that the entire line of defense was facing the three directions of the three gates, and the fire could not be lit from the beginning!

This situation was indeed mentioned in the new supplementary plan, but even the writers only used it as an addendum, and no one could have imagined that the worst would happen in the first minute of the war.

"I've ordered it a few times, but I can't get it!"

"Don't beep, we can all hear you! Do what the plan says, explode the bombs! Get all the bombs here!"

No more ghouls rushed to their deaths in the fire, and the tide of dead armies all poured in from the gaps in the walls of fire opened by magic with a clear purpose, and the corpse elephants and corpse giants who were fighting the vanguards slammed into the gate solidly.

Thundered!

It took the middle of the night and a new fortification built during the day to stand the test. In the sound of a crash that seemed to make the earth tremble, although the door panel was quickly smashed and knocked off, the solid support of the mud stone barrier behind the door and the watering and freezing ice firmly carried the door panel that was skewed inward. The corpse elephants and corpse giants smashed all the bones of their heads and shoulders and failed to make a gap, and finally changed their approach under the command of the Night King...... They crouched on the spot and set up a ladder of flesh and blood, helping the rest of the ghouls quickly create a passage to the top of the wall!

The fire could not be ignited, and the ghouls killed by the dragon crystal arrows only rolled down and fell to the foot of the wall, instead of being burned to slag and burned to ashes to reduce their size—the corpses they fell into the corner reinforced the slope passage, and the wall was less than ten meters high, even if the defenders immediately put in explosives to block it according to the plan, it only slowed down the speed of "building the slope...... In just a few minutes, the walls of the three city gate sections were flattened by the ghouls' bloody slopes, and the fast troops such as corpse wolves, corpses, and bears, who had been waiting in the rear, immediately rushed up the slope and poured to the top of the wall.

With a huge advantage in numbers, it quickly ...... The defenders on the front line facing the gap in the wall of fire roared and were overwhelmed by the ghouls.

If it is next to the desperate Great Wall, the defenders should withdraw their troops at this time, abandon the wall and retreat to the stairs of the city, and flee to the top of the ice wall. But Houguan Town was built in the middle of the wilderness in the middle of the land grant, although the inner fort wall in the center was slightly higher and thicker than the outer wall...... But in front of the sea of ghouls is only a fragile small reef, and the defenders have no choice but to go forward and kill the enemy one after another, hoping that the reserves that will immediately enter the battle and the reinforcements who have arrived along the unfallen part of the wall will recapture the gap through a bloody battle, and continue to hold out until the enemy is no longer able to suppress the wildfire!

Houguan Town is a town, its scale is far greater than any purely military stronghold along the Great Wall, because of the huge area of land, if only the commander has all the reserves, it is easy to have a situation where "the wall has been breached for half a day, and the reserves cannot rush to the designated place to support". Therefore, Iger established three subordinate headquarters in the city that were distributed in an equilateral triangle with each other, each holding a reserve team with considerable numbers and combat effectiveness, including giants, and two ~ three marksmen who were qualified to use the "Light Messenger", respectively responsible for one-third of the long wall, and formed a solid and reliable second and third insurance with the inner fort of the core Houguan Town.

No one expected that the second line of insurance would be triggered less than ten minutes after the battle began, but Egger's carefully selected commanders faithfully fulfilled their duty, and they responded correctly at the first moment of the fall of the wall: they sent a large force of reinforcements to the point where the wall was climbed, and together with the frontline defenders who came from both sides, they launched a siege on the ghouls who had climbed the wall from three directions, vowing to drive the ghosts off the high walls of Houguan Town.

The defense plan works as correctly and perfectly as a new and sophisticated mechanical watch, and every move of the enemy is bound to be ...... by Option 1, Option 2 or Option 3 All the way to the response of option n. There will only be "unexpected" situations on the battlefield, and there will never be "unplanned" situations...... But only Iger himself knows: in the face of selective failure to deal with the wildfire, the biggest reliance on the Ghoul Sea, even if the defense plan can work perfectly from beginning to end, all the way to the final chapter of the "Inner Fort Defensive Battle" and "Command Hall Fight", even if every Dragon Crystal Bomb in the entire Houguan Town can kill a hundred ghouls, this war will eventually end with the ghouls completely drowning themselves.

Egger hates personal heroism and the bloody story of the Jedi counterattack and winning in danger, and is nurtured and impregnated by the familiar culture, he prefers to bully people with dignity and crush attitude, and does not give the enemy any illusions and opportunities. But the cold magic that the enemy had shown only after the war shattered his good wishes, and the stranger finally drove him to the point where he had to resort to one last plan.

The only hope of victory at the moment is to kill the Night King with the two "Dragon Steel Bombs" in his hand, which consumed an average of ten "Lightbringers" each, and end the war with his own hands like a true child of prophecy.

At this point, however, the fulfillment of the prophecy runs into a problem:

At the moment when the enemy began to attack the city, Melisandre instantly sensed the precise location of the eight spellcasting enemies, but according to her, none of these eight spellcasting sources were particularly different from or more powerful than the other seven, and most of them were just ordinary ghosts...... And none of these eight strange ghosts are outside the northwest wall where they are sitting at the moment.

Did the Green Prophet Bran deceive everyone or gave the wrong information because of his limited abilities?

Or is it because he is the child of prophecy, he doesn't need to know the precise location of the Night King to hit the target?

Or is it most likely that the enemy has hidden in a sea of ghouls outside the walls for their own safety, leaving them with nowhere to find them?

——

Wonderful Book House