Chapter 142: The Land of Catastrophe
Inside Jon's room, Melisandre stood before Jon Snow, her clothes loose, her posture full of temptation.
Jon raised his hand slightly—but then thought of Ygritte, who would soon arrive at Castle Black. He quickly lowered it and turned his head away.
Melisandre hadn't expected him to resist.
She reached out, turning his head back so he would face her—but Jon simply stood up and walked out of the room.
Watching his back as he left, she couldn't help but feel a rare sense of frustration.
She had never failed like this before when drawing power from others.
Yet this young Lord Commander had endured.
Still, for the sake of Stannis Baratheon and his claim to the Iron Throne, she had no intention of giving up.
If one method didn't work—
She would find another.
---
In the Gulf of Grief, two days after the Meereen fleet set sail, the ships suddenly changed course, turning south.
Daenerys, who had been resting on deck, noticed the movement. With Drogon on her shoulder, she headed toward the helm.
"What's going on? Why are we changing course?"
The older helmsman adjusted the direction and replied, "Your Grace, to the right lies the Smoking Sea—the Demon Lands. We must sail around it."
"Valyria…"
Hearing that, Daenerys stepped back out onto the deck.
Looking north, she saw the dark, churning mass in the sky.
It might have looked like clouds—
But she knew it was the smoke that had hung over the Smoking Sea for years without dispersing.
The Valyrian Freehold had once stood on the Valyrian Peninsula, connected to the Lands of the Long Summer.
After the Doom, the peninsula was shattered into scattered islands. Volcanoes erupted, fire burst from the earth, and the Freehold was swallowed entirely.
Flame and ash filled the sky—
Even dragons could not escape.
Dragonlords, their bloodlines, their eggs—
Most were destroyed in that catastrophe.
The surviving Valyrian nobles then fought brutal wars for a century against the Free Cities, Slaver's Bay, and the Gulf of Grief—lands they had once ruled.
In the end, the Freehold vanished completely into history.
---
Perched on Daenerys's shoulder, Drogon stared at the distant gray sky and rolling smoke.
Even from this far away, he could feel it—
A chaotic, mixed, and unfamiliar aura.
He had already planned to visit the ruins of Valyria.
Now—
He had even more reason to go.
Just as he lifted off from Daenerys's shoulder—
"Drogon! Where are you going? You can't go there!"
Her voice rang out behind him, urgent and sharp.
Drogon knew the Smoking Sea was a forbidden zone for explorers—almost no one who entered ever returned alive. Euron claiming he found the dragon horn there… was very likely true.
And that strange aura on him might also have come from this place.
He glanced back at Daenerys, waved a claw to reassure her, then flew straight toward the distant smoke.
Seeing him ignore her warning and head into the Smoking Sea anyway, Daenerys could only stand on the deck, anxious and helpless. She knew Drogon had his own will—once he decided something, she couldn't stop him.
The sailors were equally horrified.
They had heard countless stories about the horrors of that place. Almost no one survived entering it. The few who did either went mad or died from strange illnesses soon after.
Even the most daring explorers had long since given up the idea of going there.
Standing beside Daenerys, Shireen and Tyrion Lannister didn't fully understand how terrifying the ruins of Valyria were—but seeing the fear on the sailors' faces, they could guess enough.
They couldn't help but worry for Drogon.
As he approached the smoke-covered sea, Drogon saw more than just the heavy gray haze above.
There were massive whirlwinds connecting sea and sky, lightning flashing constantly within them.
Sea tornadoes?
He hesitated.
If they were just tornadoes, then why did the smoke in the sky never disperse?
Faced with the lightning, he didn't dare take risks. Though his body was strong, he wasn't at the level of ignoring lightning strikes. He quickly lowered his altitude.
As he drew closer, a powerful pulling force began dragging him toward the center of one of the whirlwinds.
His small form might be light, but his strength was immense. The pull didn't concern him. Beating his wings faster, he held his position just outside the vortex.
So it really was a sea tornado.
Looking up at the massive black funnel connecting sea and sky, he briefly felt the urge to dive in and investigate.
But he suppressed it.
Without understanding the situation in Valyria, rushing in blindly was no different from seeking death.
Avoiding several moving whirlwinds, Drogon finally entered the Smoking Sea—the so-called Demon Lands.
Under the dim gray sky, the sea below was boiling. Small volcanic vents and jagged reefs were scattered everywhere, constantly releasing smoke.
Only now did he understand why even those massive tornadoes couldn't clear the smoke here.
This wasn't just dangerous—
It was nearly impossible to survive.
Hidden reefs beneath the surface made navigation deadly, even for the most experienced helmsman. The thick smoke in the air made breathing difficult. Even Drogon wasn't sure if inhaling too much would poison or incapacitate him.
He had never seen hell—
But this place was very close to what he imagined it would be.
As he flew deeper, he focused on the strange aura he had sensed earlier.
The more he felt it, the more confused he became.
He could distinguish the aura from Euron and the one from the shell—but here, the energy was chaotic and mixed, impossible to separate cleanly.
All he could tell was that among these overlapping presences were traces similar to both Euron and the shell.
And beyond that—
Several other unfamiliar auras.
Yet they all shared one trait.
Ancient. Vast. Sacred.
The kind of presence that would make ordinary people instinctively feel reverence—something not to be defiled.
It didn't affect Drogon much, but he could clearly sense it.
He knew this kind of aura came from gods.
And now, feeling several of them at once—
Were these… remnants left behind by different gods?
Looking at the larger landmasses in the Smoking Sea—collapsed structures, broken ruins, and fragments of cities sinking into the ocean and turning into reefs—
Drogon recalled what he had read with Daenerys in Valyrian histories.
On the day of the Doom, volcanoes across an eight-hundred-kilometer radius erupted almost simultaneously. The fire they spewed burned even dragons in the sky.
Smoke and ash filled the heavens.
The eruptions triggered massive earthquakes and tsunamis.
The once-glorious Valyrian cities—its towers, palaces, everything—were shattered and swallowed.
The waves even reached distant islands hundreds of kilometers away, destroying entire settlements along with their inhabitants.