The moment the eight-foot giant turned the corner, the battlefield seemed to shrink around him.
Karl Stone, who had been gripping his longsword and preparing to charge toward the Red Keep as the vanguard, was forced to halt.
He had just leapt across Eagle's Sorrow Gorge and smashed through the city gate in a brutal assault. The breach had cost blood and momentum, but it had been successful.
And now—
A wall stood in his path.
The giant was not alone.
Behind him, ranks of Lannister soldiers poured into the street in tight formation, their crimson cloaks snapping as they surged forward to reinforce the gate defenders. They collided with the tribal wildlings who had forced entry beside Karl, and steel rang against steel as the street descended into chaos.
Karl cut down two Lannister soldiers who rushed him blindly, their attacks clumsy in their haste. Their heads fell in quick succession, rolling across cobblestones slick with blood.
These reinforcements had clearly been dispatched the moment the gate fell.
The Lannisters were reacting fast.
Karl's eyes flicked back to the giant who was carving a path through men as if harvesting wheat. Then he pivoted and kicked away a blade aimed at Jon Snow's throat.
"Fall back!" Karl barked, pointing toward the archway corner near the breached gate. "Secure that angle and clear the flank."
He did not look at them as he spoke.
"Leave this one to me."
Jon hesitated only a heartbeat before nodding. He and the others shouted orders, cut down two more enemies in coordinated strikes, and withdrew toward the stone corner to establish a defensive pocket.
They understood immediately: if they failed to stabilize this position, not only would they be unable to advance, but the city gate itself would be reclaimed.
More troubling still—the soldiers flooding in were disciplined. These were not conscripts. They were Lannister elites.
Meanwhile, the giant advanced.
A mountain of iron and muscle.
A Mountain Clans wildling, intoxicated by blood and victory, rushed recklessly past him after slaying a Lannister soldier. The giant responded without even turning fully—his greatsword flicked sideways.
The wildling split cleanly in two.
Silence rippled outward.
Two spaces formed on the battlefield—twin voids where no one dared tread.
Men on both sides continued fighting, but their movements slowed. Eyes drifted. Attention shifted.
All gazes centered on the tall armored colossus… and the antler-helmed warrior standing before him.
Karl watched through the narrow slit of his helm.
The giant's helmet stared back.
Recognition dawned.
"Gregor Clegane," Karl said evenly. "The Mountain."
There was no one else in Westeros built like this.
The flat-topped greathelm bore a stone fist crest. Breathing holes punctured the steel. In his right hand, he held a massive greatsword darkened by blood. In his left, a thick oak shield bound in black iron, painted with three black dogs on a yellow field—the sigil of House Clegane.
The Mountain tilted his head downward.
He had noticed the antlered helm. The gilded longsword.
And the height.
"Karl Stone," came the voice from within the helm—low, grating, like boulders grinding. "Robert Baratheon's bastard."
He lifted the blade slightly.
"That sword doesn't belong to you. But don't worry. I'll crush your skull and that ridiculous helm together."
Karl's gaze dropped briefly over the Mountain's armor—plate so thick it was said ordinary men could not lift it. Beneath it lay mail and boiled leather. A walking fortress.
Karl gave a short laugh.
"I hear a dog barking," he replied. "But all I see is a mouse hiding inside a steel barrel."
He tilted his head.
"A fat mouse."
For a moment, Gregor Clegane stilled.
"Mouse?" he repeated, incredulous.
The surrounding soldiers had grown quieter during their exchange, as if instinctively shrinking from what was about to happen.
Rage ignited.
"I am no mouse," the Mountain growled. "Not even for three hundred thousand gold dragons will I grant you a quick death."
Then he moved.
Shield angled.
Greatsword leveled.
His boot slammed into the cobblestones, cracking stone, and he charged.
The crowd parted instinctively. Most men reached no higher than his elbow. In full armor, he resembled a siege tower rolling forward under its own power.
At five meters, he raised the blade.
The greatsword fell with a thunderous whistle.
No man in Westeros could endure that strike.
Even if blocked, the force would shatter bone and steel alike.
Gregor Clegane—elder brother of Sandor Clegane—was a giant among men, towering even over Karl by nearly a head.
Yet Karl did not step aside.
He did not retreat.
As the blade descended toward the antlered helm, Karl's gilded sword flashed upward.
His wrist turned—an almost elegant flourish.
Sunlight flickered along polished steel.
CLANG!
Metal screamed.
The Mountain's blade stopped.
Blocked.
Karl had met the strike head-on.
A tremor ran through the cobbles—but not through Karl.
He looked up slightly.
"That's it?"
His tone held genuine curiosity.
Gregor Clegane's full-powered charge had landed—and done little more than jar Karl's arm.
It was as if a grasshopper had landed on a reed.
The Mountain's eyes widened inside the helm.
Karl's voice came calm and cold.
"You need more practice."
Then his sword-hand shifted.
A pulse of force erupted along the locked blades.
Gregor Clegane staggered.
His grip nearly failed. The shock reverberated through his arms, up his shoulders, into his spine.
He stumbled back three full steps before regaining balance.
Shock rippled across the battlefield.
Lannister soldiers froze.
Wildlings stared.
The Mountain—knocked backward.
"Seven gods…" someone whispered.
The worldview of dozens shattered at once.
But Karl did not hesitate.
He advanced.
The gilded blade—once wielded by Jaime Lannister—cut forward in a blinding arc.
Gregor raised his shield.
SCREECH!
The reinforced oak split like parchment.
The shield fell in halves.
Sunlight pierced through.
Gregor's left arm felt suddenly… light.
Too light.
It took his mind half a second to comprehend.
His shield arm had been severed at the elbow.
Blood sprayed.
He misstepped.
Behind him lay the corpse of the wildling he had cleaved earlier—still twitching, not yet dead. In his final act, the dying man grabbed the Mountain's heel.
Gregor fell.
The ground shook beneath his weight.
Before he could recover—
A silver arc flashed across his throat.
The greathelm flew.
The body crashed down, crushing the dying wildling beneath its bulk.
Gregor Clegane's head spun once in the air.
Twice.
Then landed cleanly upon the tip of Karl's sword.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Blood dripped along the gilded edge.
The Mountain—unbeatable, unstoppable—lay headless in the street.
Karl held the sword steady, the helmeted head balanced upon its point.
"Your head," he said quietly, "is the best gift you could give me."
Then he flicked the blade.
The head fell, clanging against stone.
The spell broke.
Wildlings roared.
Lannister soldiers faltered.
The impossible had occurred.
And the Red Keep suddenly seemed much closer.
Advance Chapters avilable on patreon (Obito_uchiha)