Chapter 319: The Arrival of the White Walkers

In the distant city of Pentos, a long-accumulated dissatisfaction was on the brink of sparking a rebellion.

However, due to a leak of information, the Beggar Prince was uncertain about how much his enemies knew about his plans. Fearing that he might alert his enemies, he was forced to indefinitely postpone his plans.

After Hunter's death, the Beggar Prince used it as an excuse to flee Pentos. However, he didn't go too far, instead, he hid just outside the city.

He claimed to the public that he was tired of life in the palace and wanted to live in a manor outside the city for a while to clear his mind.

This cautious decision saved his life. Otherwise, Jon Connington would have almost sent soldiers to arrest him.

At that time, unless the Beggar Prince jumped into the sea, he wouldn't have been able to escape the pursuit of the Targaryen soldiers, no matter where he hid.

After his agent died, Ramsay, as expected, investigated the Prince's palace.

The chief steward of the Prince's palace was actually a man he had bribed.

However, the Beggar Prince was experienced and had done a thorough job of covering his tracks. Ramsay didn't find anything from his investigation, only learning that the Beggar Prince seemed to have invited a mysterious person to the palace for a secret talk.

Without concrete evidence, Ramsay could only investigate secretly due to the special status of the other party. He couldn't directly confront them.

Soon after Hunter's death, his body was cremated, and all his belongings in his room were cleared away, leaving no clues.

Ramsay couldn't even find the body, so he concluded that Hunter had been exposed and killed by the Beggar Prince.

But based on the most malicious guess, Hunter must have discovered some secret of the Beggar Prince before his death, otherwise, the other party wouldn't have killed him to silence him.

The Beggar Prince's hasty escape from Pentos further confirmed his suspicion.

Ramsay was almost certain that there was a problem with the Beggar Prince.

His escape to the outskirts of Pentos was due to fear of exposing something and needing to flee immediately, but Ramsay couldn't find any evidence.

He didn't have any law enforcement powers and couldn't directly act against the Beggar Prince, who was nominally a high-ranking official.

So, Ramsay went to his old superior, Jon Connington, hoping that the Master of Justice would dispatch the three thousand city guards of Pentos to arrest the Beggar Prince.

However, Jon was not an impulsive person. He was thoughtful and mature.

He listened to Ramsay's speculation and thought it was possible, but he also knew that although the Beggar Prince had no power, he was not easy to deal with, especially without evidence.

Jon promised Ramsay that if the Beggar Prince tried to flee far away, he would immediately send soldiers to arrest him.

But if the Beggar Prince just hid in a manor outside the city and didn't make any moves, then there was no way to act against him for the time being.

There was a bit of turbulence in the skies of Pentos after Viserys left, but it didn't cause too much trouble.

Meanwhile, at the distant Wall.

Robert had organized an alliance of the Seven Kingdoms. Except for the Iron Islands, which didn't send anyone, all the major nobles sent troops, gathering more than sixty thousand soldiers, ready to resist the invasion of the White Walkers.

The Wildling uprising had been quelled, at least it wasn't as rampant as a few months ago.

Robert had even heard recently that a

group of Wildlings had launched a suicidal attack on King's Landing, but unfortunately, their actions were suppressed without causing much of a stir.

"The Wildling uprising is but a minor ailment," said the rotund King Robert Baratheon, seated on the throne in Winterfell.

The master of the place, instead, sat to the side, playing a supporting role. But Eddard Stark, being a straightforward man, bore no grudges.

"Winter has come."

"The greatest threat, Your Grace, is still the White Walkers," Eddard Stark said gravely.

"Recent events..."

The collapse of the Wall, the influx of Wildlings into the Seven Kingdoms, and the knights of the Seven Kingdoms now having easier access to patrol beyond the Wall.

Not long ago, a patrol of knights from the Vale, while venturing deep into the Fist of the First Men, suddenly encountered an attack from the army of the dead.

The knights fought bravely, but they didn't expect these enemies to be unkillable.

Even if their heads were cut off, they could still stand up. The severed hands struggled on the ground, and it took a lot of effort to 'deal' with them.

The knights of the Vale, without any intelligence support, suffered heavy losses. Many knights were overwhelmed by the dead and devoured alive.

Many of the knights who broke out of the encirclement watched their comrades being eaten alive in the snowstorm, listening to their horrific screams.

Even after returning to the camp, they couldn't forget the horrifying scene, which left a deep psychological shadow on them. In simple terms, they were traumatized and needed time to recover from this unprecedented fear.

This was the first time since the Night's Watch that the allied forces of the Seven Kingdoms had truly encountered an attack from the dead.

This made those in the allied forces who were still skeptical about this matter completely dispel their doubts.

Because a knight's armor was hung with a severed hand of the dead.

At the time, the dead had grabbed onto his armor, and he cut it off with a sword. The hand was firmly stuck in the gap of his armor.

However, when he returned to the camp, the hand of the dead was still struggling. Many soldiers of the allied forces witnessed this scene.

Even King Robert, Stannis, Eddard Stark, and other nobles came to see this moving hand of the dead.

Swords couldn't kill these dead, but because of this hand of the dead, the observant Duke Stannis discovered that fire could completely burn them.

In fact, the Night's Watch had suggested long ago that fire could counter these dead, and that dead bodies must be burned. But their words were not widely accepted.

However, finding the weakness of the dead also boosted the morale of the allied soldiers who had been frightened by the dead.

It was okay if these monsters could be killed. If they were really like what the knights from the Vale said, that these monsters could still move freely even when cut in half.

Then they really wouldn't have the courage to resist.

However, the 'good mood' of the allied soldiers was only temporary.

Then another explosive news quickly spread in the camp of the allied forces.

That was, another patrol team from the Westerlands was suspected to have encountered an attack from the White Walkers, and almost the entire army was wiped out.

Only one person managed to escape in a panic, but he seemed to have been scared out of his wits, constantly repeating a phrase.

After the high-ranking officials of the allied forces, the king, the dukes, and others arrived, the soldier who had escaped finally said something.

As expected, they had encountered an attack from the army of the dead,

but this time, an unusual creature appeared among the dead.

He stood out among the army of the dead, and unlike the mindless dead, he was different.

He was tall, gaunt, his skin as white as milk, his eyes burning like ice, and he rode a skeletal horse.

When the knights of the Westerlands looked at him, he looked back at them.

"He was like the commander of the army of the dead!"