Chapter 326: The Path of the Dragon

The daytime exploration began.

Apart from a small number of people left to guard the camp, and those who were on night watch duty yesterday who could rest during the day, the remaining people formed a massive team that left the beachside camp and began to march into the interior of the Valyrian continent.

Wilder rode on a warhorse, his confidants also rode on warhorses, clustering to his left and right.

"Let's move!"

It was clear that he did not trust these mercenaries hired with money.

Therefore, he and his confidants fell to the back of the team, letting the mercenaries and slaves scout ahead, ready to turn tail and run at the slightest sign of danger.

The breeze blew, the shadows of the trees swayed.

The air was filled with a strong smell of decay, making one want to vomit.

"Be careful—"

"Watch out over there."

Splash—

The exploration team composed of slaves and mercenaries was trekking through the wild grass and trees, clearing the thorns on the ground, and carefully exploring in one direction.

Valyria had been destroyed for hundreds of years, and few people had set foot on this continent during this time.

Therefore, many traces of once glorious civilizations had disappeared, regressing to the primitive era, and people were struggling to find the traces left behind.

But the exploration team was prepared.

Among the accompanying team, there were even several scholars who were proficient in Valyrian history.

Three of the scholars came from Volantis, and one came from the Citadel in Oldtown.

This was a short and stout old man who looked extremely robust, with a heavy maester's chain around his neck.

The other scholars, who were not in good health, sat in palanquins carried by slaves, while only this old man from the Citadel walked on the ground with the soldiers, occasionally squatting down to study carefully.

He believed that since he had come to Valyria, he should look and learn more from the perspective of the locals.

Viserys didn't know what this 'fellow countryman' from Westeros was called.

After all, he was afraid of being recognized, so he did not take the initiative to interact with this person.

But Viserys was a bit curious about this old man.

"This old man must be quite formidable in a fight—"

Viserys didn't know why such a thought suddenly popped into his mind.

He remembered hearing from someone that the old scholars in the Citadel would sometimes get into a fight over a problem they couldn't explain.

So this short and stout old man with a neck as thick as a bull's, was definitely a war god-level scholar.

Viserys, who was hiding in the crowd, looked very low-key and unnoticeable.

He looked at the old man not far away again, who was squatting down at the moment, his fingers rubbing the soil on the ground, and then finally withdrew his gaze.

Last night, when he was looking through the materials brought by Wilder, he saw a complete map of Valyria and a comparison map after it was shattered.

Some scholars had inferred the specific location here and made a mark.

Now, the place where Viserys landed seemed to be a place called the Blood Plain, and there was an abandoned city nearby called Furnace City.

Furnace City was once controlled by a noble Valyrian dragon king family, but now that illustrious family has been obliterated in the long river of history, disappearing without a trace.

The Blood Plain used to be part of the inland of the Valyrian Peninsula and did not border the sea, but in that doomsday crisis, the continent was shattered, the plates became

fragmented, and this place became a coastal area.

After the Valyrian Peninsula was shattered, it mainly divided into three large islands, and the exploration team landed on the largest island in the center.

Because their target was the capital of the Valyrian Freehold Empire—Valyria City.

It is said to be a city that made the gods marvel, the dragon kings of Valyria plundered the wealth of the world to build this magnificent capital.

The ambitious Volantis exploration team spent such a huge price for higher rewards.

They wanted dragon eggs, black stone craftsmanship, Valyrian steel casting techniques, etc. If these things do not appear elsewhere, they will definitely appear in this capital.

The Targaryen family also started in Valyria City, initially a common noble family in the capital.

Later, under the prophecy of 'Prophet' Daenys Targaryen, they sensed danger, and they voluntarily left the capital and came to Dragonstone Island to avoid disaster.

"What is this? A stone?"

"No."

"We've found a road—"

At this time, there was suddenly a clamor at the front of the team, obviously, there was an unexpected discovery.

"What?"

The stout maester who was walking on the ground hurried over, and the three Volantis scholars sitting in the palanquin also signaled to be carried over.

It turned out that the mercenaries and slaves walking at the front had an unexpected discovery. They found a wide and ancient Valyrian road. This road was wide enough for several carriages to run side by side, allowing a large army to march together.

Unfortunately, this road has been shattered, overgrown with weeds, and trees have extended onto the road.

"This is an ancient Valyrian road!"

"Great!"

"We're on the right path!"

The maester and scholars who came to the front quickly judged that this was the ancient road they were looking for that could lead directly to the capital of Valyria.

"We follow this ancient road all the way, cross a river, and then we will reach the capital of Valyria."

With a positive discovery, the morale of the exploration team naturally became very high, and Viserys was also much happier.

Because Balerion had successfully flown across the Smoking Sea and arrived on the Valyrian continent, landing not far from the camp.

The Smoking Sea didn't have too strong a hallucinogenic effect on Balerion who flew over it from the sky. And from the emotions Balerion fed back to him, it seemed that it had just killed a monster and swallowed it alive, and the monsters on the outskirts could not pose a threat to a giant dragon for the time being.

The discovery of the Valyrian ancient road made him happy, and the successful arrival of Balerion naturally made Viserys very happy.

Because this means that he now has no worries.

"I wonder how the fight between the White Walkers and the allied forces is going at the Wall?"

Viserys thought slightly.

He had been away from Pentos for a while now, this time was not long, but not short either.

But before he left, the White Walkers had not appeared, there were only some traces of the dead.

The reason he took this opportunity to explore the ruins of Valyria was actually for several reasons.

First, because of the turmoil in the Smoking Sea, things related to the ruins of Valyria appeared to have unusual changes that caught his attention.

Second, he knew that the battle between the allied forces and the White Walkers would not be decided quickly.

If he held a large army on the other side of the Narrow Sea and watched people die without helping, waiting to reap the benefits, it would inevitably leave a bad

impression on the nobles and common people of the Seven Kingdoms.

A king who watches people die without helping, watches the people being slaughtered by White Walkers, and then, in the future, when the living and the dead are both weakened from the fight, leads a large number of foreigners to backstab his own country and slaughter his own soldiers...

How much trust and support can he gain from the people?