The Scale-Clawed Monster's sharp claws grazed his chest!
Chainmail rings burst and scattered.
Mogol retreated sharply, cold sweat soaking his shirt—half a breath slower, and his insides would have been spilled all over the ground like those Mercenaries!
Just then, a bone-chilling coldness, as if freezing blood, swept across the entire area.
The monsters roared at the crowd, reluctantly retreating into the cracks and disappearing into the shadows deep within.
As if driven away by some force!
Mogol vigilantly looked at the guards, although they hadn't noticed that side due to the chaos.
But he could feel it; the coldness that forced the monsters back had come from that direction!
And...!
Mogol vigilantly watched the Mercenary corpses lying at the guards' feet.
Those wounds didn't look like they were caused by the monsters!
Looking at his long saber, which already had a gap, he subconsciously reached for the object wrapped in black cloth at his waist.
That was his backup weapon, and his trump card.
A three-hundred-pound crossbow was enough to pierce through anything in its path, and he had specifically collected some of the venomous blood from that tentacled sea monster earlier, which he could smear on the crossbow bolts in an emergency.
A scream in the distance interrupted Mogol's thoughts.
Some Mercenaries, unable to bear the fright, tried to mutiny again, but this time no one stopped them.
The result, naturally, was that they were quickly suppressed, and more than a dozen figures fell forever in this cursed land.
Mogol watched indifferently, just a bunch of fools who couldn't see the situation clearly.
However, the guards' actions of collecting the blood of the dead made him somewhat confused.
He silently observed, remaining vigilant, and the silver-haired boy in the distance also seemed to have noticed this unusual behavior.
But he had no desire to interact with that boy; that silver hair annoyed him!
Scouting cannon fodder! That was his guess.
Mogol had lost count of how many times he regretted joining this team, but this was the only fleet recently heading to the Smoke Sea, and the only one daring to go to the Smoke Sea.
The exorbitant reward offered by the wealthy merchant still echoed in his ears... as long as he found the Blueheart Grass in the Valyrian Ruins and handed it over to the wealthy merchant, he would receive a large sum of start-up capital.
Then he could recruit people and go to the Stepstones.
There, he knew a secret place where a large cache of weapons and armor was hidden... About two hundred years ago, his hometown of Myr, along with two other Free Cities, established a regime called the Triarchy and waged war against a dynasty from another continent in the Stepstones!
"The Targaryen Dynasty!"
A dynasty founded by a surviving Dragonlord family, and their generational enemy! Although it had already perished.
Engaging in battle with a power possessing 'Dragons,' terrifying weapons of war, naturally led to a gradual decline. On the eve of the news of their defeat, the Triarchy had sent a large shipment of weapons and armor to the Stepstones.
However, with the news of the Stepstones' defeat, the Narrow Sea was also blockaded by a Dragonrider named Daemon Targaryen.
It was said that he proclaimed himself King of the Narrow Sea and the Stepstones there, and any ship that sailed in that sea without his permission would be incinerated by dragonfire.
The ships transporting that batch of weapons and armor could not return, and they didn't want to hand them over to the hostile Dragonrider for free.
So, they hid all those weapons and armor on a deserted island at the very edge of the sea area where the Stepstones were located.
And that was Mogol's destination, and the hope for his rise!
As long as he obtained that batch of weapons and armor and recruited enough people, he could form a Mercenary company.
No longer just a wandering Mercenary.
He could even use this to revive his family.
Collecting his thoughts, the team had already started moving forward. Mogol silently followed, constantly vigilant of the guards.
And he was secretly searching for that special plant, which was said to grow deep within Valyria.
Day one, some terrified Mercenaries tried to escape, but running around in this perilous ruin was tantamount to suicide. Some slower ones were recaptured, had their Achilles tendons severed, and were dragged away screaming. The faster ones only sent back a few heartbreaking screams from the depths of the hellish ruins!
Day two, while on the move, they encountered another group of monsters that looked like lizards on fire. During the attack, he saw the silver-haired boy, accompanied by a fat man with a hammer, save some Mercenaries. Mogol sneered disdainfully, 'Fools overflowing with sympathy, mercy doesn't survive the ruins!'
Day three, they traversed a swamp. Several Mercenaries were forced by the blue-lipped fellow to wade ahead and clear the path. One unlucky soul suddenly sank entirely into the swamp and never reappeared.
Day four, just as they were about to leave the swamp, a group of huge, crab-like monsters with stony shells crawled out of the mud. Ordinary swords could not harm them in the slightest. One attacked him; fortunately, it wasn't too fast. He kicked an unsuspecting Mercenary towards the monster and successfully escaped. He personally watched as the Mercenary was clamped in half by the monster's giant pincers, his lower body stuffed into its grotesque maw and chewed, while his upper body was still screaming frantically. This scene reminded him of his ancestor's nickname, 'Crab Feeder'... Day eleven, attacks were constant along the way. He saw the black-robed wizard in the guards' team have half his palm chopped off by the blue-lipped man, who then fed it to himself. The silver-haired boy saved many more people, and the remaining Mercenaries implicitly regarded him as their leader, but Mogol inexplicably felt that these monsters were specifically targeting the silver-haired boy.
Day twelve, the blue-lipped fellow seemed to have noticed the silver-haired boy; it looked like a good show was about to begin! Moreover, he noticed that his brown-silver-haired employer's gaze towards the silver-haired boy was also very strange, seeming to be jealousy? And something else. However, he was very happy to see the silver-haired boy suffer, because that silver hair was so much like their vanquished enemies.
And he might not know that the echoes of history had quietly collided in this terrifying ruin.
Day thirteen, their destination... arrived!
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