The sound didn't come from just one direction; it was as if the entire sky was wailing in agony.
Everyone instinctively covered their ears and hunched over in pain.
This sound transcended fear, reaching deep into the core of biological instinct.
Immediately after, a massive shadow plummeted from the heavens, accompanied by a terrifying whistle that tore through the air.
Leon jerked his head up, his pupils instantly shrinking to pinpoints.
One... no, a beast!
A monstrous bird, so massive it took one's breath away, tore through the leaden-gray clouds and dove straight toward them!
Its wingspan was a staggering hundred feet wide, blotting out the already dim daylight and instantly plunging the blood-soaked ground into deeper darkness.
Covering its enormous body were not ordinary feathers, but dense, long plumes shimmering with an eerie purplish-red metallic luster, snapping in the gale whipped up by its dive.
Most terrifying of all, it had three heads.
Each head was as large as a sturdy foal, covered in the same purplish-red horny scales.
Three pairs of eyes burned with an intense desire to kill in the gloom.
At that moment, its three massive beaks, filled with jagged fangs, opened simultaneously, letting out a deafening screech. A foul-smelling wind, laden with a heavy scent of sulfur, rushed toward them, as if it intended to swallow every living thing on the ground whole.
Run!
The instinct for survival overwhelmed all hatred.
How could Leon still care about entangling with Gillian?
Relying almost entirely on his dragon blood-enhanced reflexes, he kicked off the ground before the monstrous bird's devastating shadow could fully envelop him. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, he sprinted desperately toward the nearest patch of twisted and gnarled Withered Woods.
The gravel beneath his feet was mixed with thick blood, making every step exceptionally slippery.
In his ears were the terrified, despairing screams of the guards, the screeching of the bird's dive, the roar of wings cutting through the air, and the sound of flesh being torn from behind.
Leon didn't dare look back; he could imagine the horrific scene.
The half-plate armor the Lannister guards were so proud of was likely no stronger than paper beneath those giant claws.
Gillian Lannister—how long could his selfish, cold face hold up against such absolute power?
A flicker of satisfaction crossed Leon's heart, only to be immediately drowned by a stronger desire to survive.
He ran for his life, weaving through the tangled roots of the withered trees.
The thick, impenetrable white sulfur mist was everywhere, with visibility less than five paces. Every step was a tread upon unknown terror.
He didn't know how long he ran, only stopping when the terrifying screeches and human screams behind him were gradually swallowed by the thick mist and distance.
He glanced around; there was nothing but deathly silence.
Leon let out a breath of stale air; he was finally safe.
Just then, a bold thought occurred to him.
Was the sudden and orderly retreat of the scaled monsters from before precisely because they had sensed the arrival of this purple-winged beast?
Were they fleeing in fear from a higher-order predator?
At the thought, a cold sweat broke out on Leon's back. The intelligence of Valyria's monsters exceeded his imagination.
He didn't dare dwell on the question, and his thoughts turned back to that madman.
"Damn Gillian! Damn the Lannisters!"
Leon gritted his teeth, cursing silently.
He had only taken a dead man's sword to slay monsters for survival. In the eyes of that blonde noble, did he, a slave, not even have the right to struggle for life?
Was he supposed to just stretch out his neck like livestock waiting for slaughter?
What was even more hateful was that he hadn't hesitated to slaughter the guards who still possessed a shred of compassion.
In his eyes, aside from himself, even the house guards he swore to protect were probably nothing more than pawns to be discarded at any moment.
This coldness was more chilling than the monsters' claws.
Leon etched that iceberg-like face deep into his heart.
Then, he felt a sense of regret.
The main reason he had stalled for so long with Gillian was to recover his strength, but the arrival of the monstrous bird had disrupted his plan to silence him forever.
Although it seemed the bird would help him take Gillian's head, one could never be too sure; there was a chance Gillian might survive.
Leon's gaze darkened. If Gillian didn't die this time, he would make him pay in blood the next time they met, if given the chance.
Casting aside all distracting thoughts, just as Leon was considering how to survive in this cursed land and how to obtain more dragon spirits...
Splash... splash... the sound of flowing water suddenly came from deep within the thick mist, less than ten paces to his left.
Leon instantly gripped the stolen steel sword, the tip slightly raised and held across his chest, his muscles tensed and ready.
There was no one else here; if there was danger, he wouldn't hesitate to activate the system's power.
He moved his feet slowly, creeping toward the source of the sound like a ghost blending into the thick mist.
The mist was slightly parted by an invisible force, and the sight before him made Leon's breath catch in his throat.
A small pool of water, about ten meters square, lay quietly in the embrace of the Withered Woods.
The pool water was not clear but appeared as a slightly boiling milky white, with tiny bubbles constantly rising from the bottom.
The source of the sound was a young girl sitting by the pool, looking to be about twelve years old.
Her back was to Leon, and her long, silver-gold hair was like flowing moonlight, shimmering with a soft yet dazzling halo even under the gray sky.
Her skin was so white it was almost transparent, as if carved from the finest mutton-fat jade, emitting a hazy glow amidst the pervasive steam.
The girl's slender, graceful waist, rounded shoulders, and long legs were all exposed to the air without any cover, like a water nymph from myth descending upon the mortal world.
She was using her delicate, jade-like hands to gently splash the slightly scalding pool water. Her fingertips skimmed the surface, creating ripples, her expression serene.
Even through the thick mist, her breathtaking beauty was enough to make any man's heart race.
She exuded an aura of vibrant life, like a flower bud covered in morning dew, radiating a pure and enchanting charm that deeply captivated Leon's gaze, making him almost forget the dangers of this place.
However, when the girl seemed to notice something and turned her head slightly to reveal her face, Leon felt a chill rush from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, causing him to gasp.
It was a face where an angel and a demon had been forcibly sewn together.
The left half of her face was as exquisite as the most perfect masterpiece of the gods—her skin delicate and flawless, her nose pert, and her lips full. Most captivating of all was her deep purple eye, like the purest amethyst, deep and mysterious, swirling with starlike brilliance. It was breathtakingly beautiful, almost unreal.
The right half of her face, however, was a creation of hell, with dense, hard scales like ugly vines covering what should have been her skin.
Her other eye, though also deep purple, was the cold, vertical pupil of a reptilian creature.
Scales! Vertical pupils!
The appearance of the right side of her face was exactly like the group of humanoid monsters that had driven them into a corner not long ago.
But those monsters had cloudy, violent eyes and acted with bloodthirsty madness, having long since devolved into beasts that knew only how to kill and devour.
Yet the girl before him had an exquisite left face, a serene expression, and was even bathing in this strange boiling spring.
This was clearly the behavior and intellect of a human.
The vibrant aura of life about her was certainly not something those walking-dead monsters could possess.
Could this be a surviving resident of the legendary Doom of Valyria?
In Leon's mind, he immediately thought of some people who looked like this girl.
Shireen Baratheon, a sufferer of greyscale, and the Stone Men of The Sorrows.
Although he had never seen a real greyscale sufferer, the process described in his memory—skin hardening, keratinous growth, and eventually turning into a mindless stone statue—seemed somewhat similar to the symptoms on the girl's right face, yet essentially different.
The end point of greyscale was complete petrification and rigidity.
But those monsters—their wide-open mouths when attacking, the sharp, messy fangs inside, and the long, flexible tongues that licked at brains—all showed they hadn't petrified, but had undergone some even more terrifying mutation.
As he was immersed in this startling comparison and thought, an intense, foul stench unexpectedly entered his nostrils.
Something's there! Very close!
The hair on Leon's body stood on end. His combat instinct made him instantly look up to find the source of the smell.
The moment his gaze shifted upward, a drop of foul-smelling saliva fell with a "splat" onto the ashes by his feet.
His heart sank. Leon's eyes rapidly followed the trajectory of the falling saliva upward.
He saw a monster covered in earthy yellow scales, crouching like a giant gecko on a thick branch directly above his head.
Its ugly head hung low, and on its pitted, scaly face, a pair of crimson vertical pupils were locked onto Leon below. Its long tongue flicked in and out, and thick saliva dripped down.
Its limbs were tense with muscle, its sharp claws embedded deep into the withered wood, its entire body poised in a pouncing stance.
Its target was the top of Leon's head!