The Claw Beast's talons scraped across his chest!
The iron rings of his mail burst apart and scattered.
Morgor twisted sideways and retreated sharply, cold sweat soaking his shirt-half a heartbeat slower, and his entrails would have spilled across the ground like those mercenaries'!
Just then, a piercing chill swept over everyone, cold enough to freeze their blood.
The monsters roared at the crowd, then reluctantly retreated into the fissures and vanished into the shadows below.
It was as though some force had driven them away!
Morgor looked warily toward the guards. The chaos had kept him from watching what happened over there.
But he could tell that the cold that had driven the monsters back had come from their direction!
And there was something else...!
Morgor watched the mercenary corpses lying at the guards' feet with suspicion.
Those wounds did not look like the monsters' work!
Looking at his now-notched blade, he instinctively reached for the object wrapped in black cloth at his waist.
It was his backup weapon, and his trump card.
A crossbow with a three-hundred-pound draw could pierce anything standing before him. He had also deliberately collected some of that tentacled sea monster's poisonous blood earlier, which he could smear on his bolts in an emergency.
A burst of screams in the distance interrupted Morgor's thoughts.
Some mercenaries who could no longer bear the terror had tried to mutiny again. This time, no one intervened.
Naturally, they were swiftly suppressed, and more than a dozen figures fell forever upon this Cursed Land.
Morgor watched indifferently. They were merely fools who failed to understand their situation.
But he could not quite understand why the guards were collecting the dead men's blood.
He silently observed, remaining vigilant. The silver-haired boy in the distance seemed to have noticed this unusual behavior too.
He had no desire to approach the boy, however. That silver hair disgusted him!
Expendable scouts! That was his guess.
Morgor had lost count of how many times he had regretted joining this expedition. But this was the only fleet heading for the Smoking Sea lately, and the only fleet that dared to go there.
The merchant's offer of an astronomical reward still echoed in his ears...
As long as he found Blueheart Grass in these Valyrian Ruins and delivered it to the wealthy merchant, he would receive a substantial sum of starting capital.
Then he could recruit men and head for the Stepstones.
He knew a hidden place there where a vast stockpile of weapons and armor lay concealed...
Some two hundred years ago, his homeland of Myr had joined two other Free Cities to establish a regime called the Triarchy, which had gone to war in the Stepstones against a dynasty from another continent!
"The Targaryen Dynasty!"
A dynasty founded by a surviving House Targaryen, and his family's enemy for generations! Though it had already fallen.
Against a power that possessed such terrifying weapons of war as dragons, they had naturally begun to lose ground. On the eve of the news of their defeat, the Triarchy had sent a large shipment of weapons and armor to reinforce the Stepstones.
But when news of the defeat in the Stepstones arrived, the Narrow Sea had also been blockaded by a dragonrider named Daemon Targaryen.
It was said that he had proclaimed himself King of the Narrow Sea and the Stepstones there, and any ship sailing those waters without his permission would be burned to ashes by dragonfire.
The ship carrying that shipment of weapons and armor could not return, and its crew had no wish to hand it over to the enemy dragonrider for nothing.
So they had hidden all the weapons and armor on a deserted island at the very edge of the waters surrounding the Stepstones.
That place was Morgor's destination, and his hope of rising in the world!
Once he obtained those weapons and armor and recruited enough men, he could establish a mercenary company.
He would no longer be a sellsword wandering from place to place.
He might even restore his family through it.
Returning his attention to the present, he found that the expedition had begun moving again. Morgor followed silently, keeping a constant watch on the guards.
Along the way, he also searched for that unusual plant, which supposedly grew deep within Valyria.
On the first day, some terrified mercenaries tried to flee. But running blindly through these perilous ruins was no different from seeking death. Some of the slower runners were recaptured, their hamstrings severed, and dragged along as they howled in agony. Those who ran faster sent back only a few heart-rending screams from the depths of the hellish ruins!
On the second day, they encountered another pack of monsters that looked like burning lizards. During the attack, he saw the silver-haired boy rescue some mercenaries with a fat man wielding a hammer. Morgor sneered in contempt. A fool overflowing with sympathy. Mercy would never survive the ruins!
On the third day, they traveled through a swamp. The blue-lipped man forced several mercenaries to wade ahead and clear the way. One unlucky man suddenly sank bodily into the swamp and never emerged again.
On the fourth day, just as they were about to leave the swamp, a pack of enormous monsters resembling crabs with stone shells crawled out of the mire. Ordinary swords could not scratch them. One came at him, but fortunately, it was not particularly fast. He kicked an unsuspecting mercenary toward the monster and escaped. He watched with his own eyes as its enormous pincer cut the mercenary in half. It stuffed the lower half into its hideous mouthparts and chewed while the upper half was still screaming madly. The sight reminded him of his ancestor's nickname, "the Crabfeeder."
On the eleventh day, after relentless attacks throughout their journey, he saw the blue-lipped man chop off half the black-robed sorcerer's hand among the guards, then feed it to the sorcerer himself. The silver-haired boy saved many more men, and the remaining mercenaries had begun to look to him as their leader. Yet for some inexplicable reason, Morgor felt that these monsters were coming for that silver-haired boy.
On the twelfth day, the blue-lipped man seemed to notice the silver-haired boy. Looks like there would be a good show! Morgor also noticed that their employer, whose hair was brown and silver, looked at the silver-haired boy in a very strange way. Was it jealousy? There seemed to be something else as well. Still, he would be delighted to see misfortune befall the boy. It was his own fault for having silver hair so much like their already-destroyed enemies.
Perhaps he did not know that echoes of history had already begun to collide quietly within these terrifying ruins.
On the thirteenth day, they reached... their destination!