Looking at the empty, uninhabited, avoided space created by the light of his Daylight, and how the Drowneds began to fight with caution, constantly looking upward for another ball of light that could also kill them in a second, Alaric analyzed where he should cast his second Daylight.
He could cast it above the Drowneds facing the knights of the Reach, taking a necessary weight off their shoulders. Normally, he would not consider saving the lives of people from other kingdoms if he gained nothing in return, since any non-northerner is a potential enemy, but as they were in this war together, saving the lives of a few dozen elite knights might prove useful in the short term.
Another option was to cast it over those fighting the Northmen again to save more lives, preventing the weakening of the North.
The third option was to cast it over those inside the encirclement, speeding up its conclusion and the time the North would have to spend protecting them, as the shrinking of the circle would free many to join them.
Each option showed benefits in the medium, short, or long term.
Alaric decided to choose the long-term one.
The psychological pressure that another ball of light could fall upon them at any moment was already enough to give the North the advantage.
Turning toward the rear of the circle, Alaric pushed his way through his rank as he began to perform the same somatic and verbal components from before, drawing several looks of fear and confusion.
When he was about to cast, his hand already leaking beams of light between his fingers and his arm pulled back, he saw three lights igniting over the Drowneds like an explosion. But unlike an explosion or fireworks, they remained, illuminating a radius of 36 meters (118 feet), to the point of making those inside think it was day.
'The Faceless Men. They followed my lead just as they said they would.'
Lowering the hand that still held the spell while listening to the chaotic screams of pain and panic from the Drowneds, Alaric analyzed the domes of light, mesmerized that they not only knew how to use the same magic as him but also had it prepared.
'Three Daylights cast at the same time mean three Faceless Men. And three Faceless Men prepared with the most effective magic for the situation cannot be a coincidence. They did not come here to fulfill a contract.'
When Alaric discovered Arryk's identity, he had initially deduced that the Faceless Man had come to the war with the objective of killing his target and ended up caught in a much larger problem. That was why he exposed his knowledge of the man's true identity and approached him with a proposal for collaboration between the only two with magical capacity there.
In Alaric's head, it was obvious that the Faceless Men, already capable of performing great magical feats even before the passage of the red comet, would know how to do much more after the green one, which brought much more magic than in canon. Assuming this, he proposed that he, 'Arryk,' use whatever magical abilities were available to increase the chance of them all getting out alive.
As a guarantee that this was not a trap and that he only wanted to expose him, Alaric said he would expose himself first through a great 'flash,' and that this would be the cue for Arryk to give his best with his own magic.
When Arryk accepted his proposal and said that 'we' would be waiting for the signal, Alaric had already begun to doubt if his assumption about the man's presence on the Iron Islands was correct, but now, seeing them all using a magic that was perfect against the Drowneds, it was clear to him that he was wrong.
The coincidence was too strong.
But knowing he could not keep rambling about his new assumption that there were three Faceless Men in the middle of this holy war, Alaric headed back to the wall of men protecting the rear of the circle and threw the ball of light over the Drowneds fighting the northmen once more, reaping hundreds more lives and generating more panels notifying him of the gains of various thirty, twenty, and ten experience points thanks to his minimal participation in their deaths.
Because he threw the second ball of light far enough that its radius of light did not touch the first, the size of the illuminated field was 144 meters (472 feet), lighting an area larger than a football field and almost covering all the Drowneds the Northmen were fighting.
[System Notification] X31 Level 4 Enemy Eliminated.
Participation Reward: +20 Exp. X31
[System Notification] X35 Level 2 Enemy Eliminated.
Participation Reward: +5 Exp. X35
[System Notification] X42 Level 3 Enemy Eliminated.
Participation Reward: +10 Exp. X42
[System Notification] X25 Level 5 Enemy Eliminated.
Participation Reward: +30 Exp. X25
...
With the Drowneds losing hundreds more heads and becoming much more fearful than before, fighting them became much easier.
And behind the human wall, what they were trying to protect, something similar was repeating, only much worse.
With three balls of light exploding over the heads of the Drowneds, covering an area much larger than a football field, many more people died, freeing up space for the circle to occupy and decrease its circumference, which, in turn, decreased the number of people needed to maintain it.
Those left behind, the excess, joined the wall protecting it as the circumference shrank.
As if it were not enough, the Drowneds inside the circle, terrified by the regaining of their mortality, did everything to get out of the illuminated area.
And since running against the Greenlanders would only result in them dying impaled, they ran in the opposite direction, toward the center of the circle where the light did not touch.
But as two bodies cannot occupy the same space at once, they fought one another to occupy the little unlit space, helping the continental forces squeeze them against each other.
Over the next hour, the circle closed tighter and tighter, and with every loss of circumference, more people left it and joined the protective human wall.
Slowly, the initial three thousand forming the wall became four thousand five hundred, while the four thousand Drowneds fell to two thousand seven hundred. And Alaric, being responsible for creating the condition that allowed them to die, gained dozens of experience points for each death as a participation reward.
The initial twelve thousand men forming the circle fell, both through casualties and voluntary exits, to ten thousand, while those trapped inside fell from six thousand to three thousand two hundred.
If the Drowneds in the center, far from the artificial sunlight, could die, or even faint, from lack of air while being squeezed, that fight would have already ended.
But that did not matter because, with the five Daylights not only still active but capable of lasting at least another hour, the remaining ones inside the circle would die or be incapacitated shortly.
And they all knew it.
At the wall, at the human shield, Alaric, still behind Maege, could feel the fear and desire to flee coming from the Drowneds.
But as if it were not enough, as if the situation were not tragic enough, a shout from one of the Drowneds announced the breaking point for them.
"The castle! The castle!" he repeated. "The castle is being taken."
Attracting the attention of many, several heads turned to the forgotten Redhall and found the scene of Drowneds fighting against dark-skinned humans wearing yellow.
Those were the Dornish.
Led by Steffon Baratheon, they gathered more than forty siege ladders from all the forces and set off even before the main force, deciding to take the long way around to approach Redhall from behind.
Finally managing to reach Redhall twenty minutes ago, the two thousand Dornish spears 'decorated' the rear walls with their dozens of ladders.
And the Drowneds inside the castle, distracted by observing the battle ongoing in front of them, left the back walls unoccupied and did not see the Dornish flooding the castle with their numbers until it was too late, and they had their heads, arms, and legs severed.
Twenty minutes later, the Dornish not only subdued the Drowneds occupying the castle but also freed the prisoners, who, putting their hands on their captors' weapons, joined the cause and helped them take the castle.
Seeing the castle being taken, the Drowned Priest leading the Drowneds knew it was only a matter of time before a furious crowd of more than ten thousand ironborn came out of the castle and advanced against them.
"Retreat!" the Drowned Priest shouted. "To Nagga's Hill!"
Seeing the Drowneds running to the west, shouts of celebration echoed across the field.
Alaric, who believed he would have to fly away at the start of the day, was not immune to the wave of excitement and also gave shouts of victory. Until he heard a deep, raspy voice echo in his mind.
'Is it really you?'
It was strange. Dragged out. It was as if something was in the voice's mouth while it spoke.
Looking around, Alaric tried to find the source of the voice, but everyone seemed to still be taken by the excitement of victory, totally ignorant of the voice. As if only he had heard it.
'When I felt the familiar magic of the Old Ones, I thought it was one of their envoys interfering again.'
Continuing to look around, trying to find the voice but failing, Alaric accepted that its origin was not natural.
The owner of the voice seemed to constantly suck saliva back in, as if they had not yet grown accustomed to having a tongue, as if it were something new to them.
'But no. You actually came to me.'
Accepting the supernatural origin of the voice in his head, Alaric did not need to wonder who it belonged to.
'Accompanied by the followers of the Many Faced One.'
What he did wonder was how He could be speaking to him.
'Don't gods live on other planes? Is it really that easy to speak to people on the mortal plane? If so, why don't the Seven or the Old Gods speak and organize their followers?'
'But it does not matter. Now that you are here, nothing will stop me.'
"Why the long face, boy? We won!" Maege, noticing how Alaric was silent and staring into nothing, spoke with a smile spreading across her face.
Alaric ignored her, paying attention to the entity's next words as a bad premonition grew within him.
'The error and incompetence of these fools no longer matter. Dispel.'
And with that final word, all five Daylights vanished. With all the natural beams of light having disappeared long ago, the field was consumed by darkness.
With the unexpected disappearance of the lights, which not only weakened the Drowneds but also allowed the men to see, the shouts of victory were slowly replaced by confused murmurs.
The bad feeling inside Alaric grew to the point that he felt it materialize in his throat.
"What happened? Why did the lights disappear?" Maege asked, her smile gone.
"They were broken," Alaric replied with wide eyes, hardly believing his own words.
Maege, accustomed to his calm face, almost indifferent to everything around him, recognized that something was wrong.
"How? Who did that?"
"The Drowned God."
Hearing no doubt in his words, Maege froze for a moment.
When she finally composed herself and was about to ask how he could know that, a comment interrupted her.
"Look, they are coming back!"
They really were. And she wondered why. 'They wouldn't be stupid enough to think they had a chance just because the lights went out, right?' she thought.
It simply made no sense to her. Even with the loss of the lights, the reinforcements of the thousands coming from Redhall would be enough to create another circle around them.
"Are they stupid?" she commented, incredulous.
Shifting her focus to Redhall and seeing hundreds of armed men coming out of it, Maege couldn't help but think they really were.
But then she heard another comment.
"What is that behind them? It's huge."
Turning back to the Drowneds, she also noticed the black 'tower' moving right behind them.
Being far away, it was a bit difficult to distinguish what it was completely, but the two arms swinging on both sides as it moved made it clear to her that it was a person, even if not human, and incredibly tall and strange.
"They have a giant on their side and didn't use it until now? That thing is massive!"
While confused, she was pushed aside by Alaric, who wanted to get a better view of this giant.
Squinting his eyes, Alaric saw not only the swinging arms but also octopus tentacles hanging from its chin and a belly that extended more than forty centimeters (15 inches) forward.
Using his GM Eyes on that creature that reminded him of a certain fictional cosmic entity from his previous life, he froze at what was written on the green panel that appeared in front of him.
"It's him," he spoke incredulously, drawing his aunt's attention. "The Drowned God."
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Name: Imperfect Avatar of the Drowned God
HP: 615
Race: Deity (Race bonus: Immune to any non-magical attack)
------------------------------Ability Score -----------------------------------
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 30
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 20
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