It should have been simple.

  Another weirwood. Another prisoner.

  But something was wrong.

  Gojo stood in the snow-drenched grove, one hand resting on the cold bark of the tree, the other twitching with restrained irritation.

  The man inside the tree was still alive—his chest moving in shallow, endless breaths, his eyes wide open in madness. But there was no glass candle in his heart. No ethereal flicker. No cursed anchor to destroy.

  Yet the tree still spawned white walker shikigami.

  Gojo clenched his teeth. “What the hell…”

  He tore apart the ground around the tree with cursed strikes, digging beneath the roots. Nothing. No buried candles. No cursed seals. Just ice, stone, and silence.

  Gojo straightened, white breath misting before his face.

  Was there a range to the candle’s effect? he wondered. Could it be further away? Or maybe the ritual has evolved... become decentralized.

  The thought annoyed him. The whole world was built on cursed logic now, and even that logic was cheating him.

  Behind him, another shikigami lunged from the trees—its body a brittle sculpture of ice and rot. Gojo didn’t even look. His hand snapped backward and obliterated it mid-air with a pulse of raw cursed energy.

  He sighed as the pieces clattered to the snow.

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  “This one’ll have to wait,” he muttered.

  But as he moved deeper into the north, the pattern worsened.

  More weirwood trees.

  More prisoners.

  Fewer glass candles.

  And more shikigami. Always more.

  Gojo’s mood darkened.

  “This is bullshit.”

  He couldn’t free the trapped souls without the candles. Couldn't destroy the root of the magic. The whole system was unraveling, slipping beyond his understanding—and that meant more innocents would suffer in limbo.

  He kicked at the snow in frustration.

  Then something shifted.

  A rumble in the cursed energy. A ripple in the frozen air.

  Gojo turned sharply, his Eyes narrowing.

  Something was coming.

  At first, it was a low growl. Then the tremor of heavy steps. Then a shape.

  A bear—massive, rabid, frothing with cursed energy, eyes glowing with a dim green fire—charged at him from the treeline.

  Gojo raised his arm lazily and punched forward.

  The bear exploded into ice shards and steaming blood, scattering into the wind.

  But the cursed energy didn't stop.

  It was multiplying.

  Gojo looked to the horizon and saw it: an army of animals, dozens of them—wolves, crows, elk, even foxes—infused with writhing, manipulated cursed energy. Something—or someone—was controlling them.

  Was it the flock of crows that had been tailing him?

  Or the cursed puppet master he’d only half-sensed days ago?

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t subtle anymore.

  Then came the shouting.

  From the south: horns, war cries, and the thunder of feet across snow.

  A ragged army of wildlings surged toward him—shouting curses, waving spears, slinging stones.

  At their head, a man in mismatched armor, crowned in scavenged fur: Mance Rayder.

  From the opposite side: a disciplined wave of black-clad soldiers. Blades out. Crossbows primed.

  The Night’s Watch.

  At their front rode the Lord Commander, sword drawn, face hardened.

  Gojo stood between them.

  He heard the words echo across the valley:

  “THERE HE IS!”

  “THE WHITE WALKER!”

  “THE NIGHT’S KING!”

  “BURN THE DEMON!”

  “AVENGE THE TREES!”

  Gojo blinked. His expression flat. Unimpressed.

  “Night’s King? Really?” he muttered.

  He cracked his knuckles, one by one.

  “Looks like someone’s getting a little desperate.”

  They thought he was a monster.

  They thought he was the enemy.

  Gojo looked at them—thousands of bodies, wild with fury, screaming for blood.

  And all he saw as needless violence.