Chapter Summaries

Redd returned to Volantis with Ehm and surveyed the city’s slave-run construction and supply operations. The preparations for his future journey to the island’s abyss continued as Ehm rested in the Dragonpit.

• Redd flew with Ehm across the Narrow Sea toward Volantis, and Ehm responded to the journey with a deep roar.
• Ehm descended into the Dragonpit built for him in Volantis, and Redd landed outside its entrance.
• Redd saw enslaved former nobles, merchants, and their descendants laboring on the city walls, harbor, and Dragonpit.
• Redd noted that the expanded harbor and stockpiled supplies were being prepared for his planned expedition to the island.
• Redd left Ehm resting in the Dragonpit and walked toward the harbor as the enslaved guards cleared his way.

Redd went to Volantis’s harbor, where Douglas reported that grain shipments were falling far behind schedule and suffering unexplained losses. Seeing the delays as deliberate obstruction by the city-states’ Magistrates, Redd concluded that some of them no longer deserved their positions.

• Redd headed to the harbor, and Douglas joined him to report on the supply stockpile.
• Douglas said the weapons and armor had arrived, but only half the planned grain had reached the harbor and transit losses were higher than expected.
• Douglas warned that current supplies would cover the advance force and Dragon Legion through the third resupply cycle, but further delays could force reduced allocations or a change of course.
• Redd surveyed the docks and condemned the city-states’ slow grain deliveries and questionable loss reports.
• Redd decided that some Magistrates had forfeited their positions by delaying the requisitions.

Douglas and Redd reviewed grain losses and chose a sheltered bay on the Valyrian Peninsula as the fleet’s first outpost after crossing the Smoking Sea. As Redd prepared to leave the harbor, a raven arrived carrying a tiny iron cylinder.

• Douglas decided to send people to investigate the grain shortfall and remove groups that had failed their duties.
• Douglas showed Redd a map of possible landing sites and described the northeastern bay’s sheltered waters and stable ground.
• Redd selected the northeastern bay as the fleet’s first stop and planned to unload supplies, rest personnel, and advance inland in batches.
• Douglas said the first convoy carrying replacement grain would arrive within the next few days.
• A raven landed on the table before Redd and revealed an iron cylinder tied to its leg.

Redd learned that Rhaenyra had tried to take Jaehaerys and Visenya from Dragonstone to King's Landing without his consent. He ordered Mysaria to keep the children on Dragonstone and authorized the garrison to detain anyone who tried to remove them by force.

• Redd read Mysaria's letter reporting Rhaenyra's attempt to take command of the Dragonstone fleet and bring the children to King's Landing.
• Redd concluded that his detailed orders and Mysaria's vigilance had prevented Rhaenyra from taking the children.
• Redd wrote back that the children, fleet, and troops were not to leave Dragonstone at anyone's request.
• Redd authorized the fleet and garrison to stop and detain anyone who tried to take the children by force, leaving Rhaenyra's fate to herself.
• Redd sent his reply by raven and burned Mysaria's letter.

Douglas prepared the fleet for departure by turning two hundred warhorses into preserved meat, and Redd led twenty warships out of the harbor. King Ghidorah and three hundred subadult Demon Dragons then emerged from the Dragonpit and descended into formation above the fleet.

• Douglas ordered two hundred warhorses slaughtered and had their meat preserved to make up the fleet's food shortage.
• Douglas reported to Redd that the first twenty warships held enough provisions to last until their first stop off the Valyrian Peninsula.
• The warships raised their sails at sunrise and began leaving the harbor in a loose column.
• King Ghidorah crawled out of the Dragonpit and roared at the departing fleet.
• Ehm and three hundred subadult Demon Dragons followed King Ghidorah out of the Dragonpit and spread across the sky above the harbor.
• The Demon Dragons followed the fleet's course and descended into a loose aerial formation as Redd watched from the bow.

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.