The Moon Shard stirred—after five thousand years of silence, it awoke.

  Deep within the Land of Always Winter, buried under frost and blood, it had waited patiently. Quiet. Dormant. And now, it pulsed with cursed energy, the cursed tool reborn.

  It was not satisfied.

  “Not enough.”

  The Moon Shard, sentient and cruel, reached with ancient awareness into the earth. Its original worshipers—the ones who once etched their rituals into ice and bone—were long dead, their names forgotten. Yet the Shard remembered. It never forgot. It never would.

  Its purpose was eternal:

  Prevent mankind from taking Westeros.

  Cull them.

  Bleed them.

  Reset the world with silence and snow.

  It required sacrifice.

  And thanks to the blood-dripping weirwood roots—the last gifts from the faithful descendants of its worshipers—it had enough to awaken. Their loyalty, carved into trees and rituals, had sustained it. Fed it. Strengthened it.

  The Moon Shard would be generous to those who remembered. It would leave them last. Let them watch as it buried the rest of the world in ice. Leaving behind a grateful world for these worshiper.

  And now, the Wall was broken too.

  With its cursed energy surging, the Moon Shard moved the Winter Moon, dragging it inch by inch across the sky of Westeros. The light dimmed. The winds howled. The temperature dropped. Another Long Night was coming.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  It was time to begin the culling.

  But then—

  A man appeared.

  No mortal. Not truly.

  The Moon Shard observed him with curiosity as he marched through a blizzard so cold it froze the very breath of the gods. Even oxygen had turned to liquid, yet this man walked through it—defiant, with cursed energy wrapped around his body like a cloak.

  And then—blasphemy.

  The man fired red light, a cursed technique that ruptured the weirwood trees, snapping their roots and severing their lifeline to the Moon Shard.

  He had interfered.

  He had wounded it.

  The Moon Shard seethed with ancient rage. Man had always been a destructive species. Never understanding. Always conquering. Always killing.

  It would teach him.

  It shaped a vessel—a body made of flesh, ice, and diamond. Forged in the coldest parts of the moonlight, no blade could shatter it. It imbued itself. A third eye. A weapon.

  But then—the man punched it.

  A single strike. A ripple in its soul.

  Cursed energy. Foreign. Corrupting. Terrifying.

  The Moon Shard retreated, retreating for the first time in millennia.

  And it learned.

  From this man’s energy, from his violence, from his defiance, the Moon Shard drew knowledge. It stretched its cursed capabilities and cracked open the veil between planes. A domain expansion bloomed, vast and merciless, engulfing the north in its shimmering frost.

  And then, it shattered him.

  The man was frozen.

  Crushed.

  Reduced to a million shards of flesh and soul.

  The Moon Shard stared down at the remnants. No name. No memory.

  Just impact.

  And for the first time in its long existence, the Moon Shard felt… unsettled.

  “I will not forget this man.”

  Even if it never learned his name, it had felt him. The blow would echo in its being for centuries.

  It withdrew the domain, its task unfinished.

  The moon dragged lower across the sky.

  And then it paused.

  Because there, floating naked in the sky, framed against the very Winter Moon it controlled—was the man.

  Alive. Glowing. Resurrected. His silhouette, naked and divine, blocked the moonlight itself.

  The Moon Shard froze.

  Its cursed eye thudded.

  It stared into the face of something it did not understand.

  The man had returned. Again. What had the moon shard killed just now?