To establish contact and trade with Westeros to the west, they built fortresses along the narrow sea...
Forty dragonlord families also rose during this momentous era,
and the Valyrian Freehold eventually evolved into a stronghold of the Valyrian Free Federation, composed of numerous dragonlord factions.
Yet during their long conquests, the Valyrians encountered all manner of magic and followers of powerful gods.
At first, fearing these gods' power, the Valyrians chose to yield and endure, even beginning to study and absorb the various forms of local magical knowledge,
as well as more sophisticated metallurgical techniques-the famed Valyrian steel was said to have been developed during this period.
But the greed of the gods' followers eventually crossed a line. One group, the followers of Tamos,
actually invoked their god's name to openly demand Dragonbinder-the very foundation of the Valyrians' control over dragons.
This undoubtedly struck at the Valyrians' fundamental interests and dignity.
How could they still concern themselves with whether the other side followed a god?
Faced with a threat to the very basis of their survival, the Valyrians chose war without hesitation,
entering into all-out conflict with the followers of Tamos and their allies, the Rhoynar, who wielded water magic. They even issued orders to kill them all.
With the dragons' terrifying, unmatched power, those so-called followers of gods and water mages
were almost all reduced to ashes beneath the all-enveloping Dragonfire. Even the god himself was no exception.
This bloody victory firmly established the Valyrians' dominance over Essos and made them more confident-arrogant, even.
Reading the account on the pages, Redd thought to himself, It seems great power often comes with equally great arrogance and ambition.
Lamenting the cruelty of war, Redd continued turning the pages.
The pages recorded that after the brutal battle in which they surrounded and slew the god Tamos,
the dragons of the forty dragonlord families collectively sounded Dragonbinder once more. This time, it was directed at all of Essos.
After the god Tamos was killed, the Valyrians tore off their masks of hypocrisy entirely and no longer showed any consideration for any god or power.
With overwhelming force, they completely conquered Essos, reducing all their former enemies to dust beneath their feet.
To maintain and expand this hegemony, the Valyrians began sparing no effort to raise dragons and increase their numbers.
To breed more and stronger dragons, the dragonlord families began using human labor to reshape the original fourteen Fire Peaks on a vast scale.
They employed powerful fire magic, attempting to draw more fire magic power up from deep underground,
thereby strengthening the dragons and greatly accelerating their growth.
At the same time, they kept searching for new volcanoes, establishing more Fire Peak fortresses and dragon lairs to accommodate the growing dragon population.
Yet as the number of dragons exploded, raising such a vast population gradually became a heavy burden on all the dragonlord families.
Food, space, magical power-each demanded enormous resources.
Eventually, this burden turned into an ambition for further expansion.
They set their sights on legendary Asshai, the most distant place in the known world, and decided to extend their conquests into those unknown waters and lands.
Reading the fervent accounts on the pages, Redd could not help shaking his head. The desire for conquest seemed all too capable of overpowering reason and practical considerations.
Redd was engrossed in his reading and wanted to discover what had happened to Asshai, only to find that the text ended abruptly here, with nothing but blank pages afterward.
The book left not a single word about whether the Valyrian dragonlord families had ultimately conquered Asshai, or how that expedition had ended.
Still, this was enough.
Redd finally understood the secret of the Fire Peaks-they were not naturally formed, perfect habitats,
but existing volcanoes that the Valyrians had reshaped and enhanced using powerful fire magic and enormous amounts of human labor.
But Redd still had no idea exactly how they had been altered. The book did not mention it at all.
Looking at the silent, extinguished Fire Peak in the distance, a wild thought flashed through Redd's mind:
Could those extinguished Fire Peaks be the products of failed alterations or excessive depletion?
He even began to wonder whether that devastating Doom had been caused not by some irresistible force at all,
but by the Valyrians themselves, who had excessively altered the crust and carried out reckless engineering projects at weak points beneath the volcanic chain, ultimately playing with fire and bringing about their own destruction?
But he soon shook his head again, dismissing the conjecture.
The strange black mist and fleshy creatures that now appeared at night in the Valyria Ruins were clearly different from that sort of large-scale geological disaster.
Since the book contained no more detailed records, Redd decided to investigate in person.
He found no further records of the Fire Peaks' internal structure, so he simply made up his mind
to find an extinguished Fire Peak and dig deep into its crater to see whether he could uncover any clues.
He also read through many books on magic. Although his talent was limited
and he could not learn those advanced spells, he still memorized quite a few basic magical runes.
Yet in all the ruins they had excavated, he had failed to find any trace of magical runes.
This made him even more certain that the most essential traces of the alterations could probably only be found inside the Fire Peaks' craters.
That was where the key to unraveling the Fire Peaks' secrets lay.
Redd was someone who acted as soon as he made up his mind.
He immediately gathered the three dragons, and together they searched the surrounding area for a suitable extinguished Fire Peak.
Before long, they discovered a sizable volcano with traces of a ruined fortress on it, one that had clearly cooled completely.
After choosing their target, Redd took King Ghidorah-mainly Kevin, who seemed to have an innate enthusiasm for digging-and began the hard labor.
The other two heads, Da Lang and Er Lang, had little interest in digging and slacked off whenever Redd was not watching.
Ehm and Aegon, meanwhile, were too large to maneuver inside the narrow crater,
and digging downward to accommodate their size would have taken forever,
so they could only stand by outside, occasionally breathing fire to light the way for Redd.
Redd and Kevin began digging directly inside the cooled crater.
During the first few days, all they unearthed were enormous iron pillars embedded deep in the rock, long since corroded and so thick that it would take several people to encircle one with their arms.
But there were no traces of magical runes on these iron pillars, so they could only keep digging deeper.
Whenever they encountered exceptionally hard masses of solidified lava, Kevin dealt with them using Gravity Beams.
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