Chapter 113: Chapter 113 - Winterfell
In the Winterfell hall, all the houses and wildlings who came to aid Jon sat waiting for the announcement of casualties.
At that moment, a soldier responsible for tallying the losses finally entered the hall.
Upon seeing him, John immediately spoke, "Fran, speak."
"Yes, my lord. We captured 1200 Bolton soldiers, the rest... are dead. There isn't a single heavily wounded soldier who will survive this night," Fran reported.
Jon was dismayed by this number. 6000 - 1200 = 4800. 4800 people had perished in the battle...
"How many enemy bodies remain?" Jon inquired, seeking to better understand the power demonstrated by Grindelwald.
"400..." Fran replied.
Silence fell in the hall.
400 corpses meant that aside from the wizard, they had only killed 400 people. Everyone already knew that after the wizard's flames, not even ashes remained.
Someone in the front seats near John whispered quietly, "4400 killed by one man..."
Although the man whispered, it didn't mean no one heard him. On the contrary, the hall was so quiet that almost everyone heard his words.
Jon sighed, thinking, 'If only Robb had such an assistant back then...'
"What about our losses?" John asked.
"....50 men dead. 100 severely wounded, but thanks to Lord Dumbledore, 100 heavily wounded are now recovering," Fran replied.
Some applauded.
John had already told them the names of the two wizards and explained why the arrows hadn't hit Rickon Stark when he fled.
Losing 50 people in a war of 3000 against 6000 was simply unprecedented! Therefore, the Snow supporters were very pleased and wanted to thank Gellert and Albus again, but to no avail. Looking around, no one found Dumbledore or Grindelwald.
"Lord Snow, where are the heroes of this battle? I don't see them in the hall," someone from the crowd asked.
John shook his head. Dumbledore had told him he would be absent for a couple of hours, and Grindelwald... He had asked for a room where he could conduct what he called an experiment on Ramsay...
"I'm sorry, but they are currently occupied. Let's think about our next steps. What should we do about the White Walkers?"
As Snow and the others discussed their next actions, Dumbledore spoke with Asmodeus on the phone, recounting the results of the battle.
As for Grindelwald...
Somewhere in the Winterfell dungeons, a bound man lay on a table.
It was Ramsay Bolton.
At the moment, his eyes were filled with fear, and there was a foul smell in the room...
Ramsay was so terrified that he wet himself because Grindelwald stood before him, explaining something.
"You know, I don't like torture, and I only conduct experiments on humans as a last resort. You're unlucky; you fall into the category of people I'm willing to sacrifice for the sake of progress in magic research. So, what was I saying... Ah, do you see this red gem in my hand?" Grindelwald asked, tossing the philosopher's stone up and down.
"Oh, there is no need for you to answer, although you won't be able to anyway... I almost forgot that I cast a silence spell on you. Well then....., this gem is an invention of my friend... Well, more like a friend and once he was my enemy. What's the function of this stone? It allows people to create a certain type of potion that binds the soul to the body and rejuvenates the body, within reasonable limits, of course. So, today, you will serve as experimental material for me to see if it's possible to replace a person's heart with the philosopher's stone to achieve a better effect of immortality than the elixir of life.
Oh, for a more detailed examination, I'll have to remove your skin, don't worry, I'll be careful and won't take the arteries, I just need to see if your blood changes when I replace your heart with the philosopher's stone. I chose you because I heard that you enjoy flaying enemies, so I thought you'd always been curious about what it's like? Oh, don't thank me, I'm just a scientist. As I said, you won't be able to scream, but you'll feel the pain, I can only dull it so you don't die from shock. Shall we begin?"
Ramsay's eyes were already filled with tears, and he wanted to scream, but his mouth seemed sealed shut, and all that came out of his throat was some struggling sounds.
Grindelwald set the stone aside and produced the blue flame at the tip of his wand.
"You know, after Asmodeus showed his mana reserve, I've been improving my control over magic in every way, now I can do something like... what's it called among Muggles... Ah, a scalpel. I compress the fire and it will instantly burn the fibers of your skin without affecting the muscles. This way, I can minimize bleeding and the likelihood of artery damage."
As Grindelwald spoke, he already made his move.
Ramsay felt layers of his skin peeling off his body, without any need for brute force or effort. Grindelwald held and pulled the skin with his left hand while smoothly cutting it off the body with his right hand.
At first, Ramsay didn't feel much pain, as Grindelwald had administered a hefty dose of the draught of the living death - a potent sedative. In reality, it was only thanks to adrenaline that Ramsay hadn't fallen asleep yet. But the potion's effect wasn't endless; gradually, the pain pierced through his nerves.
Ramsay began to breathe rapidly and sob, but Grindelwald was just getting started. He had only finished removing the skin from Ramsay's left arm, and Ramsay was already barely holding on.
"Oh, here's another vial, I'm quite generous... But don't worry, I won't stop giving you painkillers until I'm done with the transplant procedure. But then... if all goes well, you'll beg for death but be immortal!"
Grindelwald continued to peel Ramsay's skin until there was nothing left on the table but a body without a single patch of skin. Ramsay wasn't even growling anymore; he didn't understand why he couldn't even bite his own tongue. He just wanted to die as soon as possible.
But that was not to be.
Grindelwald, having finished his preparations, approached Ramsay again with the philosopher's stone in his hand.
"So, don't be scared, I'll start by removing your lungs, but magic won't let you die."
Ramsay simply stared blankly as Grindelwald sliced through his ribcage and removed organs one by one...
"Oh, here's the heart... Prepare yourself; we're at the final stage of our experiment!"
With a swift motion of his wand, the heart flew out of Ramsay's body and fell somewhere to the left of the table. Ramsay could only watch as his heart made its final beats.
"At last, I'll die..." he thought.
Meanwhile, Grindelwald was applying all kinds of healing magic to Ramsay while simultaneously inscribing additional runes on the philosopher's stone and carving runes on Ramsay's chest.
When he decided everything was ready, he said, "Well, your new heart seems to be ready..."
Having said that, he began to secure the philosopher's stone in the place where Ramsay's heart used to be. Thanks to magic, the blood vessels and veins attached themselves to the philosopher's stone, albeit with difficulty...
"Well, let's start!" Grindelwald muttered something, and the stone lit up brightly with a red light. Gradually, waves of white energy emanated from it and spread throughout Ramsay's body.
Ramsay's veins whitened and took on an unnatural color for a human, but to Grindelwald's delight and Ramsay's horror, he continued to live!
"Ha-ha-ha, now you resemble the liches that the ents spoke of!! Excellent, now let's turn black to your lungs and remove the painkillers."
Ramsay thought the pain couldn't get any worse, but when Grindelwald forcibly poured some potion into his mouth, he realized how wrong he was.
"AAAAAAA, KILL ME!!!!"
A scream of agony echoed throughout Winterfell.
Why could Ramsay scream this time? Because Grindelwald had lifted the silence spell from Ramsay so he could drink the potion.
"YOU DEVIL!!! KILL ME!!!! AAAAHHH!"
Ramsay screamed in agony; he had never felt such pain. It was as if ants were eating him alive, as if he were being sliced in every part of his body simultaneously while being burned.
The worst part was that he clearly felt he was about to die, but every ten seconds, a wave of strange rejuvenating sensation passed through his body, bringing him back to life!
Ramsay was screaming so loudly that despite the room being in the dungeon and Grindelwald having cast a spell to limit the spread of sound, Ramsay's cries could be heard throughout the castle.
At that moment, John Snow sat in the hall, with Sansa by his side. At first, nobody heard over the din of conversation, but then Sansa stood up and said, "Quiet. Do you hear that too?"
The hall fell silent, and people listened carefully. They barely heard the cries, "Kill me, please..."
Sansa didn't hesitate and ran in the direction of the screams. She vividly remembered Ramsay's voice, and although she had never heard him scream in agony before, she could recognize his voice.
She didn't run to save Ramsay, of course not. She ran to see what could make that bastard beg for death.
John, seeing Sansa rush out of the hall, followed her. Some of their companions also stood up and headed towards the source of the sound.
Eventually, John caught up with Sansa and understood where the sound was coming from. It was the chamber in the dungeon he had allocated to Grindelwald for his experiment.
The closer they got, the louder the screams became.
At one moment, they stopped in front of the door. Besides John and Sansa, there was also Duncan Seaworth and Tormund. The others either weren't as good at hearing or simply hadn't reached them yet.
Sansa wanted to open the door, but John shook his head and approached, knocking gently.
"Knock, knock."
Instantly, the screams behind the door ceased. "Come in, the door is unlocked," a voice called from within.
John swallowed and opened the door. What he saw, he would never forget. On the table lay a body... or rather, a pile of flesh. But it was alive; through the eyes, Jon could recognize Ramsay, writhing and desperately trying to escape.
"Disgusting," Sansa couldn't contain herself as soon as she saw the sight. The men present, though horrified, had killed scores of people and thus held themselves together relatively well. Sansa, however, upon seeing the skin lying separately from the body and a mass of living flesh resembling a person, simply vomited on the floor.
John wanted to say that this was too much, but Grindelwald beat him to it.
"You might think this is too much, but I've read his memories and can tell you that he did the same thing to his victims, they just died much sooner. This specimen can live like this for at least... well, a month, maybe a year. I'm not sure how reliable the connection between the Philosopher's Stone and the body is..."
At that moment, Dumbledore appeared behind the group. Seeing such a scene before him, he didn't even glance around. He waved his wand to clean the room of vomit on the floor and blood on the walls and said,
"Grindelwald, you're scaring our friends. Especially the girl shouldn't see such things."
Grindelwald didn't argue. With a wave of his hand, he escorted everyone out of the room and left, closing the door behind him.
Once the hellish scene was out of sight, people calmed down somewhat, but now, alongside the hero in their hearts, they pinned another descriptor to him - the Punisher!
Such torture they had never seen before. The ability to keep a person alive in such a state... They had seen Ramsay's exposed chest, and one of his lungs was clearly misplaced, not to mention that Grindelwald had removed all of Ramsay's skin, not even leaving an eyelid behind!
Dumbledore, although he roughly understood how Grindelwald achieved this, still asked, "Did you use one of Nicolas's stones? Isn't it a waste of one of the two?"
"Heh, don't speak ill of Nicolas, but he's too careless with them, leaving three full chests in his office. He's practically begging someone to snatch a couple of stones from him..." Grindelwald smirked as he reached into his pocket and partially opened a bag for storage.
Dumbledore was speechless when he saw dozens of brightly colored Philosopher's Stones inside.
"If he finds out, he'll beat you up..."
Grindelwald looked offended. In battle with magic or in a wizard duel, he was confident in himself. But damn it, Nicolas! Last time, he went straight into combat mode and gave him a black eye. Since then, Grindelwald doesn't let Nicolas get closer than two meters when they have training duels.
"Don't tell him, please."
Dumbledore held up four fingers.
"You! You, you, you!!! This is robbery!!!"
"Ah, Nicolas recently called me and said he thinks he's having memory problems..."
"Alright, alright!! Bloodsucker!!!"
Grindelwald waved his hand, and four Philosopher's Stones flew into Dumbledore's hand.
Dumbledore nodded in satisfaction and thought to himself, 'Well, I guess I have to save up for retirement... I need to propose a bill to expand the pension fund for magical school retired headmasters...'
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