Recaps

Redd and Douglas led the fleet from Volantis into the dangerous Smoking Sea, navigating around steam vents and submerged hazards. The fleet passed ruined Valyrian towers, while the drowned remnants of the land offered only fragments of its past.

• King Ghidorah guided the fleet as it sailed away from the city under reconstruction.
• After two days, the twenty warships entered the Smoking Sea, where the water and air grew discolored and sulfurous.
• Douglas widened the gaps between ships and ordered lookouts to watch for hazards as he steered the fleet around boiling waters and reefs.
• The fleet passed ruined Valyrian towers that protruded above the sea.
• Redd watched the towers recede, seeing them as traces of the land that lay beneath the water.

Redd and the Fleet crossed the Smoking Sea without incident and landed at a sheltered bay. He ordered King Ghidorah and the Demon Dragon Legion to clear the surrounding land of vegetation and creatures infected by Cursed Power.

• Redd recalled the disaster caused by the Red God during his previous passage through the Smoking Sea and remained wary of another attack.
• The Fleet sailed across the Smoking Sea smoothly, with no storms, eruptions, or other disruptions.
• The ships landed at a sheltered bay, and the slave army unloaded supplies while Redd surveyed the island's strange vegetation.
• Redd ordered King Ghidorah to clear the land around the camp, including most of what lay underground.
• King Ghidorah directed the Demon Dragon Legion to burn the terrain and use Gravity Beams on suspected caves and fissures, while the Cursed Power dissipated from the dead creatures.

Redd secured the camp behind a Dragonfire-scorched buffer zone and had King Ghidorah patrol its perimeter to deter the Cursed Power’s creatures. As night fell, Redd watched over the camp from a nearby hill with Dark Sister at his side.

• The slave army established a camp near the beach, storing supplies on raised platforms and marking the perimeter with stakes and ropes.
• Redd inspected the camp’s boundary and sent a message to King Ghidorah, who began circling overhead to patrol it.
• Creatures beyond the scorched clearing watched King Ghidorah and then retreated into the darkness.
• Redd observed the camp and surrounding land from a hill as night settled, holding Dark Sister beside him.

Redd watched the black mist spread across the Valyrian Peninsula as night fell, knowing the coming night would test whether they could establish a foothold there. King Ghidorah landed beside his hill and settled down, and Redd checked its system status before the chapter ended with its age still listed as seventeen.

• Redd observed the active Fire Peaks and the darkness spreading across the peninsula as the last twilight faded.
• Redd assessed how the black mist would rise from low ground and activate the cursed power within local creatures.
• King Ghidorah descended and landed beside Redd's hill, shaking the ground beneath him.
• King Ghidorah lay down with its three heads against the hill and settled into steady breathing.
• Redd checked King Ghidorah's system status and saw its age remained seventeen.

Redd watched the Doom’s black mist spread across the Valyrian Peninsula, changing its creatures and drawing them into clashes. As the mutated beings moved through the night, the camp’s fortifications and King Ghidorah’s coordinated Demon Dragon Legion stood ready for an attack.

• Redd recognized the peninsula’s residual magic and subterranean fire energy as essential to the growth of King Ghidorah and the Demon Dragon Legion.
• Black mist spread through the terrain, and snakes, wolves, tigers, lions, vultures, and humanoid creatures changed as they entered it.
• The mist-shrouded creatures moved across the land, converging, probing one another, and sometimes fighting.
• The camp relied on its earthen wall, ditch, fires, torches, watchtowers, and natural terrain for defense.
• King Ghidorah kept the Demon Dragons positioned across the hills, ready to take flight under his command.

Redd and Douglas inspected the camp’s defenses as the black mist spread, expecting creatures to grow more active around midnight. Redd rested lightly while Douglas continued assessing the walls and ditch, then headed to the logistics area.

• Redd checked the fires and patrol posts, briefed Douglas, and told him to wake him if danger appeared during the latter half of the night.
• Redd returned to his tent and lay down in armor, keeping a light sleep as he listened for unusual sounds.
• Douglas stayed on watch, circled the camp’s perimeter, and checked the sentries and the earthen wall.
• Douglas assessed the wall and ditch, recalling Redd’s warning about creatures that could burrow, move faster in the mist, or coordinate their attacks.
• Douglas turned toward the logistics area at the rear of the camp.

Douglas prepared fire oil and the camp’s defenses while an ancient altar in the abandoned mines awakened and began producing half-orcs. The half-orcs formed ranks facing the cavern entrance as the altar continued to stir.

• Douglas ordered the guards to move sealed fire oil into position and checked the containers before they took standby positions.
• The camp replenished its fuel, and watchtower archers fired flaming arrows into the black mist to monitor it.
• Deep in the Valyrian Peninsula, a black-armored figure appeared above an altar, tested an invisible barrier, and withdrew into the altar’s light.
• The altar’s runes shifted, and its surface began pushing aside bones and mineral powder to open a passage.
• Half-orcs emerged from the altar and formed ranks facing the cavern entrance.

Orc cavalry mounted giant wolves and climbed out of the buried mines, as the same emergence unfolded at altars across the shattered land. At the seaside camp, Douglas watched the black fog hold beyond the fires, then thicken until it began to push back their light.

• Orc cavalry rode giant wolves up the mine passages from the altar, while active beings emerged from other buried altars across the land.
• Douglas watched the black fog stop at the edge of the camp’s firelight and ordered his guards to add wood and fire oil to the bonfires.
• Douglas had the archers shoot flaming arrows into the fog, but their brief light revealed no movement before going out.
• Douglas kept watch and waited to consult Redd if needed as the night wind strengthened and the black fog grew darker and denser.
• The fog pressed the firelight back until it barely reached halfway across the trench’s inner area, making the flames appear feeble.

Douglas kept the black mist at bay by replenishing the camp’s fires with reserve fire oil. A sentry’s burning arrows revealed deformed creatures approaching through the mist, and they swarmed over the flames to extinguish them.

• Douglas ordered soldiers to pour reserve fire oil onto the fading woodpiles, driving the mist back with renewed flames.
• Douglas checked the fire oil supplies along the wall as the mist gave off a foul stench and faint sounds came from within it.
• A watchtower archer fired burning arrows into the mist and saw distorted shapes moving toward the camp.
• The archer’s arrows revealed mutilated, misshapen creatures that recoiled from the light before rushing together to smother it.

Redd joined Douglas at the wall as the camp mobilized against an advancing monster attack. The fire trench, siege weapons, and armored infantry were holding the line while the monsters continued to press forward.

• Watchtower archers sounded the alarm, and Douglas assigned the soldiers to their defensive positions.
• The 3,000 soldiers quickly assembled as Redd woke, listened to the attack, and followed Douglas’s guard toward the wall.
• Redd saw monsters approaching through the black mist and found that the fire-filled trench was burning or slowing many of them.
• Scorpions and catapults attacked the monsters with heavy bolts and fire-oil jars.
• More than a thousand heavily armored infantry formed a line outside the wall and killed monsters that crossed the trench.

Redd judged that the exhausted defenders and dwindling supplies could not hold the monster tide until dawn, so he ordered King Ghidorah to deploy the Demon Dragons. The dragons flew into the black mist and scorched the advancing monsters with Dragonfire.

• Redd saw the defenders slowing and supplies running low as monsters continued to pour out of the black mist.
• Redd sent an order to King Ghidorah through their mental link.
• King Ghidorah roared from the hill, and the Demon Dragons began gliding toward the battlefield.
• The Demon Dragons flew over the camp and breathed Dragonfire into the black mist, setting the monsters alight.
• King Ghidorah and Ehm were the last to leave the hill, with Ehm keeping pace beside King Ghidorah.

The Demon Dragon Legion reversed the battle by sweeping Dragonfire across the monsters massing in front of the camp. After the battlefield was cleared, the soldiers rested and the Demon Dragons returned to the hill as the night quieted.

• Ehm unleashed a concentrated pillar of Dragonfire that carbonized monsters and carved a scorched furrow through the battlefield.
• King Ghidorah fired Gravity Beams from all three heads, sweeping across the battlefield and erasing monsters in their paths.
• The Demon Dragon Legion scattered the monsters and cleared the area more than ten kilometers in front of the camp.
• Redd watched the battle quiet down as the soldiers lowered their weapons and rested inside the wall.
• King Ghidorah and the other Demon Dragons returned to the hill and settled down to rest.
• The soldiers put away their weapons as the fires faded and the sea breeze dispersed the smoke and stench.

After the battle, Redd sensed something enormous moving beneath the camp and recognized the signs of a dangerous underground creature. He ordered the Demon Dragons into the air and the soldiers to spread out, leaving the camp on alert as the men obeyed without knowing what was coming.

• Redd felt faint, rhythmic vibrations beneath his feet and realized they were growing stronger and closer together.
• Redd recalled a dangerous creature that traveled underground and could drag even large prey beneath the surface.
• Redd ordered King Ghidorah through their mental link to make every Demon Dragon take flight.
• Redd warned the camp to stay alert, spread out, and watch the ground.
• Douglas relayed Redd's order and hurried through the camp, moving soldiers away from one another as they obeyed.

Sandworms ambushed the camp and dragged several subadult Demon Dragons underground before King Ghidorah could stop them. Redd learned the dragons were lost, and his anger turned cold as King Ghidorah prepared to strike again.

• Redd watched the camp's soldiers disperse as Sandworms erupted from the ground near the wall.
• Sandworms seized low-flying Demon Dragons and began dragging them underground, their teeth piercing the dragons' scales.
• King Ghidorah swept in and fired Gravity Beams, cutting down several Sandworms and freeing some of their prey.
• Several Demon Dragons remained trapped underground, and Redd saw their system panels turn gray and disappear.
• Redd's fury grew cold, and King Ghidorah gathered golden light beneath his scales through their mental link.

King Ghidorah destroyed the Sandworms attacking the camp, while Redd listened to a deeper roar coming from far underground. As Douglas organized repairs and relit the fires, the camp recovered from the attack, but the source of the distant roar remained unknown.

• King Ghidorah swept the ground with its Gravity Beams, killing the Sandworms and scorching the battlefield.
• The camp’s fires went out, its perimeter walls collapsed, and soldiers regrouped amid the damage.
• Douglas ordered the fires relit and directed the camp’s recovery.
• Redd watched King Ghidorah and confirmed that Ehm and the Demon Dragons were unharmed.
• Redd heard a deep underground roar distinct from the Sandworms’ burrowing, and distant sounds grew clearer as the camp’s lights returned.

Douglas recognized the approaching footsteps as an army and organized the soldiers into a shield-and-spear formation. As Redd ordered King Ghidorah to attack the advancing half-orcs, the enemy kept filling the gaps and pressing forward, and the formation advanced to meet them.

• Douglas listened to the approaching footsteps, identified them as an army, and ordered the soldiers to form ranks with tower shields and spears.
• Redd saw a large, tightly organized force advancing through the darkness as horns sounded.
• Redd ordered King Ghidorah to attack, and King Ghidorah swept the front ranks with three Gravity Beams.
• The surviving half-orcs filled the cleared gap and began advancing along the flanks as another horn sounded closer.
• Redd ordered the shield-and-spear formation forward, and the soldiers advanced slowly over the uneven, scorched ground while intercepting the half-orcs.

Redd’s forces repelled repeated orc charges with the spear phalanx and aerial attacks from the Demon Dragon Legion, while King Ghidorah watched the darkness beyond the battlefield. The retreating orcs drew back as the ground split open, revealing an enormous wormlike creature with a broad, eyeless head.

• The spear phalanx held against dense waves of orcs while the Demon Dragon Legion and Ehm burned through their ranks and disrupted their reinforcements.
• King Ghidorah remained alert near the camp, watching the darkness beyond the battle line, and Redd noticed its vigilance.
• As the orcs’ horn calls grew irregular and they retreated without scattering, Redd ordered Douglas to advance cautiously and warned King Ghidorah not to follow them far from camp.
• A deep underground roar sounded again, and cracks spread across the ground beside the orcs’ retreat.
• The earth rose into a long ridge, opened into a broad hole, and an enormous wormlike creature emerged with a flat, broad head and dark, opening-and-closing eye sockets.

King Ghidorah grappled with a colossal subterranean worm, pinning it down and draining its energy through his bites. As the worm weakened and tried to escape, King Ghidorah tightened his hold.

• The enormous subterranean worm emerged from the ground, and King Ghidorah rushed to attack its flank.
• The worm slammed into King Ghidorah, but he braced himself and bit into its body with all three heads.
• King Ghidorah steadily absorbed the worm’s energy as it struggled to drag him underground and half-orcs watched from a distance.
• The worm weakened, lost the strength to release its bite on King Ghidorah’s wing, and was pinned against the ground.
• The worm tried to retract its body and escape, but King Ghidorah tightened his bites as its body visibly shriveled.

King Ghidorah killed the corrosive worm with point-blank Gravity Beams, though its attack wounded Ehm and harmed nearby Half-orcs. King Ghidorah then turned its beams on the retreating Half-orc formations, erasing those in their path.

• The worm sprayed corrosive liquid across King Ghidorah, Ehm, the ground, and nearby Half-orcs, but King Ghidorah's armored scales resisted most of the damage.
• King Ghidorah fired three Gravity Beams into the worm's open mouth, tearing its body apart and scattering its corrosive remains across the battlefield.
• Ehm retreated from the corrosive spray and landed farther from the battle with a wound near its right wing root.
• King Ghidorah shook corrosive residue from its body and wings, causing fresh casualties among the Half-orcs.
• King Ghidorah turned toward the Half-orc formations and swept them with Gravity Beams, erasing those caught in their path.

Trolls joined the Half-orcs’ attack, pelting King Ghidorah with stones until Redd authorized it to use wide-area abilities. Redd ordered the troops and Demon Dragon Legion to withdraw to the shore, healed Ehm’s neck wound, and watched the enemy lines falter under King Ghidorah’s aerial pressure.

• Trolls emerged behind the Half-orcs and threw large stones at King Ghidorah, whose response shifted as the impacts accumulated.
• Redd authorized King Ghidorah to use wide-area abilities and ordered Ehm to bring back the Demon Dragon Legion.
• Redd told Douglas to halt the spear formation and retreat, and Douglas led the soldiers backward while keeping their ranks intact.
• Ehm returned with a wound on its neck, and Redd healed it by channeling green light into the damaged tissue.
• King Ghidorah circled above the battlefield, disrupting the Trolls’ aim as the Half-orcs scattered and regrouped.
• Redd ordered everyone to fall back to the shore while soldiers and Demon Dragons withdrew along separate routes.

King Ghidorah drew on the surrounding energy and unleashed a vast golden thunderstorm that swept across the battlefield and far beyond. Redd and Douglas sheltered against a cliff as the storm’s expanding force battered the mountainside, waiting for it to stop.

• King Ghidorah climbed above the battlefield, spread its wings, and began drawing energy through its entire body.
• King Ghidorah roared and formed a growing storm, with golden lightning spreading through the clouds and striking the ground.
• The storm displaced and destroyed rocks, Half-orcs, and trolls as its energy field expanded across the battlefield and beyond.
• Redd and Douglas sheltered behind a cliff while the storm’s light, wind, and tremors swept over the mountainside.
• Douglas asked Redd about the storm, and Redd told him to wait until it stopped.

After King Ghidorah’s lightning storm annihilated the half-orc and troll army, Redd used their mental bond to confirm that nothing remained alive. King Ghidorah then began feeding on the corpses.

• King Ghidorah’s sustained lightning storm weakened and ended, leaving the battlefield scorched and still.
• Redd and the people sheltering nearby straightened up and surveyed the devastated camp as Demon Dragons landed at the edge of the scorched area.
• Redd linked his consciousness with King Ghidorah and examined the battlefield through the three heads’ overlapping vision.
• Redd confirmed that the half-orcs, trolls, and Uruk-hai were all dead and that nothing capable of moving remained.
• King Ghidorah bent down and began eating the troll corpses.

After King Ghidorah finished consuming the battlefield’s remains, Redd ended their mental link and ordered the troops back to camp for a personnel count and supply tally. The soldiers returned, rebuilt the fires, and Douglas began collecting unit reports.

• King Ghidorah tasted the troll, warg, and half-orc remains through their mental link, and Redd severed the connection after a few breaths.
• Redd ordered Douglas to bring everyone back to camp and count personnel, supplies, and losses.
• Douglas relayed the order as soldiers and Demon Dragons returned from the hillside, coastline, and skirmish positions.
• Redd confirmed that no half-orcs or trolls remained alive and walked back toward camp.
• Soldiers relit the campfires while Douglas gathered personnel counts from unit officers.

Redd assessed the camp’s losses and oversaw the cleanup after King Ghidorah’s thunderstorm destroyed the attacking forces. The black mist and cursed creatures remained still, while the surviving half-orcs fled underground.

• Douglas tallied the casualties and damaged supplies, and Redd ordered him to reorganize usable equipment and replenish the fire oil reserve.
• Redd watched King Ghidorah patrol the scorched battlefield and confirmed that it had recovered from the storm.
• Soldiers spent nearly two hours gathering salvage, sorting weapons and armor, and moving corpses while Redd checked the camp’s defenses.
• Redd observed that the black mist had stopped moving and that cursed creatures had withdrawn into their hiding places.
• The surviving half-orcs retreated underground, leaving footprints that led southeast toward a distant fracture zone.

Redd followed a trail of half-orc footprints away from camp with Douglas and King Ghidorah, which he had called away from its food. The trail led them to a vast, deep mine, where Redd surveyed the branching tunnels but could not determine where the footprints went.

• A soldier found footprints while moving an overturned tower shield, and Douglas inspected them and reported their direction and number to Redd.
• Redd ordered King Ghidorah to come with him, promising it could return to its food afterward.
• Douglas led Redd and King Ghidorah southeast along the footprints as the black mist thickened around them.
• They found a wide, circular fissure containing a worn staircase that spiraled down into a deep mine.
• Redd examined the mine’s many levels and tunnel entrances but could not see where the tunnels led or where the footprints continued.