Dreams

Late at night.

Gary was woken from his sleep by a raven standing on his face.

A raven?

How did it escape from its cage?

Gary had no time to think and quickly grabbed it.

"Be gentle, you're hurting me!" The raven suddenly spoke in a human voice.

"Bingling? Why are you here again?"

Afraid of waking Snow nearby, Gary deliberately lowered his voice.

He released his grip, and the raven landed beside his pillow.

The raven straightened the feathers he had ruffled. "Didn't I tell you? I'd watch you while you slept to see whether mana leaked out."

Gary thought back. She did seem to have said that. But did she have to be in such a hurry? Coming tonight?

The raven continued, "Mana does indeed leak from your body when you sleep. And I've never seen mana this concentrated before. Luke, you might be a genius."

Mana leaks out when I sleep? Is that... good news?

Before Gary could react, the raven offered her advice. "Luke, I think you should set out for home as soon as possible. Only with the Greenseer's help can you learn to use your gift."

Go back to see the Three-Eyed Crow? No, no, no. If he saw my White Walker arm, wouldn't he execute me on the spot?

Gary hastily refused. "Bingling, I only came south a month ago. There are still so many places I haven't visited. Besides, don't you want to travel with me? To see the magnificent sights of the Seven Kingdoms?"

The raven fell silent for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, you have a point. We can go back later."

"Exactly. With you beside me to guide me, I can still improve quickly." Gary buttered her up, then continued coaxing her. "Also, you mustn't reveal my gift, or our teacher will definitely summon us back."

Bingling knew that, of course. She wasn't an idiot.

The raven added, "But your mana is so powerful that I can't enter your dreams at all. How am I supposed to teach you skinchanging possession? And I don't know Greensight, so I can't teach you that either."

Even now, she still believed Gary had awakened his First Men bloodline and gained the potential to become a Skinchanger, or even a Greenseer.

Gary said quietly, "There's no rush with Greensight. Let's discuss skinchanging possession first."

He still coveted that ability. If he really could learn it, it would give him another trump card.

This was Bingling's first time teaching, and she was inevitably a little nervous. "When a Skinchanger possesses another being, there are usually two steps. First, the consciousness leaves the body. This ability appears when the gift first awakens; afterward, it's just a matter of learning to control it proficiently."

"Only with the second step does the consciousness possess another being. With an experienced Skinchanger guiding them, novice Skinchangers can learn very quickly too."

"But you're strange, Luke. You clearly have such concentrated mana leaking out, yet your consciousness shows no sign of leaving your body."

Gary asked tentatively, "How about guiding my consciousness out of my body once?"

The raven was dumbfounded. "How?"

Gary voiced a bold conjecture. "Didn't you just say you wanted to enter my dreams? What if we reversed it? If you brought me into your dream, wouldn't that mean my consciousness had left my body?"

The raven was astonished. "Why didn't I think of that?"

She settled beside his pillow and stretched out her slender bird leg. "Hold my leg, then go to sleep."

Filled with anticipation, Gary held her leg and slowly closed his eyes.

Everything was quiet around him, and he gradually drifted off to sleep.

Within the dream.

For the first time in a long while, Gary saw Bingling's true appearance: a green-skinned, golden-eyed Child of the Forest.

"Did it work? Did I enter your dream?"

Bingling sensed around for a moment, then shook her head in disappointment. "It failed. Your consciousness hasn't left your body. You're only here in my dream because physical contact created a temporary passage."

Gary wasn't discouraged either. He knew full well that biting off more than he could chew would get him nowhere.

It was just like swordsmanship: he would learn it if he could, and forget it if he couldn't. That would leave him more time to devote to what he was good at.

Bingling sighed. "Let's try again another time. Maybe in a few days, your consciousness will be able to leave your body on its own."

Looking around the empty dream, she smiled. "Since you're already here, I can't let you come for nothing. I'll show you one of my memories."

The dreamscape changed in an instant, shifting from a quiet glacial woodland to the front line of a war.

The opposing sides were a scattering of White Walkers and an army of wights led by the Night's King, and the Children of the Forest alongside Wildlings... no, those people were the ancient First Men!

Was this the War for the Dawn from over eight thousand years ago?!

Over eight thousand years ago, cold swept across all of Westeros. Winter lasted for decades, and the world fell into darkness, a period known as the Long Night.

The White Walkers descended from the darkness. They rapidly grew in strength, slaughtering every living thing. The First Men were powerless to resist, and humanity teetered on the brink.

Amid that desperation, a hero stepped forward.

His name was Azor Ahai, and he founded the earliest incarnation of the Night's Watch. With the Children of the Forest's help, he forged weapons from dragonglass, determined to fight the White Walkers to the death.

At the cost of his wife's life, Azor Ahai forged Lightbringer, a divine sword that burned with flames. Later generations called him the "Savior."

This war was very famous, and Gary had heard the Three-Eyed Crow mention it too.

But because it had happened so long ago, he had considered it more of an ancient legend than a fact.

He had never expected Bingling to have witnessed it herself, much less to be able to "play it back" for him now.

In the darkness, Azor Ahai held his flaming sword like a beacon, illuminating humanity's last hope.

Under his leadership, people armed with dragonglass weapons fought shoulder to shoulder with the Children of the Forest and launched a counterattack against the White Walkers.

The fighting was fierce, and the sounds of battle rang endlessly through the darkness.

Gary simply stood where he was. Not only could he see everything as though he were truly there, but he could also smell the heavy stench of blood and rotting corpses.

"This is way too real!"

Then something even more miraculous happened.

A member of the First Men dressed in animal hides actually saw Gary. Seeing him unarmed, the man rattled off a few words.

Gary stood dumbfounded. He knew the man was speaking the ancient tongue, but he couldn't understand it...

No! This isn't about whether I understand the ancient tongue. How can this man see me?

Seeing Gary standing in a daze, the man's tone grew urgent. He thrust his dragonglass shortsword into Gary's hand, then picked up a fallen companion's dragonglass weapon from the ground for himself.

Gary stared blankly at the dragonglass shortsword in his hand. Pushed along by the First Men around him, he was forced to charge.

As for the dream's creator, Bingling, who knew where she had gone.

While Gary was still in a daze, a wight with only half a face lunged at him. Instinctively, he raised his hand and thrust the dragonglass shortsword forward.

Like Valyrian steel, dragonglass contained magic.

Once such a weapon pierced a wight's body, it erased the magic the White Walkers had cast on it, turning the wight back into a corpse. If it struck a White Walker, it immediately disrupted the stability of the mana within its body, shattering it into shards of ice in an instant.

Gary pulled out the dragonglass shortsword, and the wight, now a corpse again, slowly fell. Looking out, he saw a vast army of countless wights charging toward them, packed as densely as a swarm of locusts.

Far behind the army of wights, dozens of blue points of light kept flickering in pairs. Those were the White Walkers riding dead horses, their eyes giving off blue light.

"Ah!"

Azor Ahai raised Lightbringer high and let out a furious roar like a thunderclap.

The remaining First Men raised their arms and shouted with him, launching their final charge against the army of wights!

Gary was helpless. Since I can't fight it, I might as well enjoy the dream!

He stared at the blue lights behind the army of wights and grinned. "Old Night, I can't kill you in reality, but can't you at least let me have some fun in a dream?"

"Kill!"

He ran so fast that he even overtook Azor Ahai at the head of the charge.

Under the astonished gazes of the First Men, Gary plunged alone into the army of wights and began cutting them down like vegetables.

"What a valiant warrior! Which tribe is he from?"

Azor Ahai couldn't help asking those beside him, but everyone shook their heads, indicating they didn't know.

"Don't know him. That dwarf seems to have come with the Children of the Forest."

He didn't pursue the matter, instead shouting, "Stay close to this warrior! Let's fight our way through!"

"Kill!"

The First Men's morale soared, and their rising fervor spread to the Children of the Forest as well.

The Children of the Forest were at their peak then, with several thousand Skinchangers and more than a dozen Greenseers. They weren't skilled at close combat, mostly providing intelligence or throwing firebombs to support the First Men.

Gary advanced as though no one stood before him. The wights couldn't stop him at all; more often than not, he kicked them away before they could even act.

He sprinted onward, soon breaking through the defensive line formed by the wights and fighting his way to the White Walkers.

"Night's King, get the hell out here!"

Gary felt as though divine strength filled his entire body. He leaped into the air, raised the dragonglass shortsword high, and hacked at the nearest White Walker...

"Plop."

A blob of bird droppings landed on his forehead, waking him from the dream.

"Awake?"

The raven hopped down from his face and spoke without a trace of emotion.

Gary wiped the droppings off his forehead and flicked them under the bed. "Why did you wake me? I was just getting to the crucial part!"

Dawn was breaking by then. He reckoned he had slept for several hours.

The raven said irritably, "That's what I wanted to ask you! Why did you use mana to interfere with my dream? I'd only just created the dream for you when you squeezed me out. Hmph, I'm very angry!"

Bingling hadn't caused the dream to change? Then could it have been the Crystal's power?

Gary wiped the remaining bird droppings on his hand onto the raven. "I don't know what happened either. The dream just suddenly changed..."

"Aaah! My beautiful black feathers! I'll kill you!"

The raven flew furiously onto Gary's head and began beating his face with her wings.

The growing racket also woke Snow from his sleep. He looked over blearily. "Huh? Luke, how did your raven get out?"

With someone else present, the raven couldn't act too human. She gave a cold snort, flew back into the cage, then deftly shut the cage door herself.

Snow began to doubt his grasp on reality. "Luke, did your raven just sneer?"