Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

The night on Iron Smoke Island is stained a murky dark red by the tireless fire of the furnace.

The air was thick with the smell of sulfur, the acrid smell of burning metal, and coal ash particles that even the sea breeze could not completely dispel.

As night fell, amidst the heavy breathing of industry, Euron Greyjoy and the red priestess Gwendolyn were arranged to rest in the same small stone chamber. Space was limited on the island, so everything was kept simple, and no one objected, as if it were some unspoken arrangement.

Inside the stone chamber was only a simple stone couch and a flickering oil lamp. With the door closed, the outside noise became muffled, which only highlighted the confinement of the room and... a strange, gradually rising heat.

Gwendolyn remained composed as she removed her conspicuous red robe, revealing that she was completely naked underneath. In the dim light of the oil lamp, her body revealed a milky white silhouette and a youthful softness, with a sculpted quality that seemed to have been mysteriously refined.

She walked toward Euron and stood quietly before him, her eyes no longer reflecting a metaphorical flame, but a real, almost fanatical light burning within them.

Despite the scorching heat and thick smoke of Iron Smoke Island, her body remained completely free of sweat and the smell of rust.

A man can't back down; let her know how powerful it is to seduce him!

Euron traced lines of his fingers across her body, caressing her beautiful form, and asked, "Is this also the magic of the Lord of Light?"

"My lady," Gwendolyn avoided the topic, her voice soft yet unwavering, "you crave power, you yearn to see through the fog. What the Lord of Light can offer far surpasses anything that is made of iron... but it comes at a price, it requires... the most honest sacrifice."

"What price? What to sacrifice?" Euron's eyes narrowed. He didn't back down, nor was he impatient. He looked at her as if she were a strange weapon or a forbidden book waiting to be deciphered.

Gwendolyn confessed, "The price is me, the sacrifice is me. My lord, simply enjoy me to your heart's content..."

Refusing such a thing would seem unmanly of a man, so Euron acquiesced to her approach but made a request: "Take off the ruby ​​necklace around your neck; it gives me a false illusion!" The sight of the woman in the red robe without the ruby ​​necklace gave him goosebumps; he didn't want to be faced with an aged body.

Gwendolyn obediently unfastened the ruby ​​necklace that hung from her throat and gently placed it aside. Nothing had changed; her skin was still smooth, her figure graceful, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were as innocent and pure as a fawn in the forest, devoid of lust, only filled with a heart-stopping composure of being ready to give everything.

Gwendolyn's fingers were icy cold, and at first, their touch sent a shiver down his spine. But soon, the coldness was replaced by an astonishing heat emanating from the depths of her being. It was not the heat of lust, but a more primal, more savage energy, as if a miniature volcano were imprisoned within her slender body.

"At my current age, isn't that... a bit too early...?"

"No...we are merely responding to the Lord of Light's...call..."

When the two finally became entangled on the hard stone bed, Euron felt as if he were not embracing a woman, but a flame, a flame embracing him and throwing him into a burning ritual.

Gwendolyn's body temperature was frighteningly high; the sweat that seeped out immediately evaporated into a mist of heat that permeated the space between the two of them, carrying a strange scent that was a mixture of incense, sulfur, and the sweet fragrance of a young girl.

Just as his senses were overwhelmed by the extreme heat, the oil lamp flame suddenly leaped up, crackling and popping, its color turning an eerie, incandescent white. Euron felt his consciousness being abruptly pulled from his body!

No longer was it a cramped stone chamber, no longer was it the burning Gwendolyn beneath him. His soul seemed to have been thrown into a rushing river of light and shadow, speeding northward. A frigid wind howled past, an absolute chill capable of freezing the soul.

The scene suddenly became clear.

He "saw" an endless snowfield, with pale moonlight illuminating the glaciers, presenting an otherworldly, desolate beauty.

Then he saw them—countless figures, moving silently like shifting glaciers. Their bodies were crystal clear and a deep blue, their armor ancient and decaying ice, and they held longswords of ice crystals that gleamed with a deadly light. Their eyes were two cold stars, bluer than the deepest winter night, containing no emotion of life, only eternal death and destruction.

Others.

The legendary White Walkers. Their sheer number is like a moving ice age, silent yet carrying a terrifying aura capable of crushing all living beings.

Just then, a grand, fiery, and irresistible voice, like thousands of people roaring simultaneously in flames, exploded directly in the depths of his mind:

"Burn them all!"

"Purify the extreme cold of this world with sacred flames!!"

"Only the fervor of the Lord of Light can withstand the chill of eternal night!!!"

"Burn them all!"

"Burn them all!"

"Burn them all!"

…………

The voice repeated itself over and over, filled with a fanatical sense of mission and a resolute determination to destroy everything, almost tearing Euron's mind apart.

The extreme cold and the extreme heat represented by that voice clashed wildly in Euron's consciousness, bringing indescribable pain and... a twisted enlightenment.

Meanwhile, on the stone bed in reality, deep within the woman's body radiating astonishing heat, Euron Greyjoy's body tensed, emitting a suppressed, almost growling gasp. In that intertwined illusion and reality, he was simultaneously undergoing a violent transformation. In the illusion, a prophecy of destruction and rebirth unfolded; in reality, he too was engaged in a frenzied battle, brutally completing the primal ritual of transformation from boy to man on the red priestess's sacrificial body.

The flame of the oil lamp gradually dimmed, returning to its normal dim, flickering light.

The astonishing heat within Gwendolyn's body receded like the tide, leaving only cold sweat and her exhausted panting. Her pale face bore an almost suffocating satisfaction and an unfathomable mystery, while beneath them, on the rough surface of the stone bed, several incomparably beautiful red plum blossoms quietly bloomed, telling of the completion of the sacrifice.

Euron sat up, his eyes gleaming with an unprecedented light in the darkness, a light that was a mixture of lingering passion, the shock of the illusion, and the deep imprint of that fervent voice.

Was it the Green Prophet who showed me all this? Or Gwendolyn? Or perhaps the Lord of Light?

Euron asked uncertainly, "Did you see those sights? Did you hear those words?"

The red-robed priestess gasped, "I saw it all, I heard it all."

"But I don't think I saw it clearly, nor did I hear it clearly."

"Sometimes prophecies are like this; the Lord of Light will only let us see what he wants us to see..."

Euron said very devoutly, "No, the teachings of the Lord of Light are incredibly vivid... I feel I can watch and hear them again."

"..."

Springtime music soon filled the stone chamber once again.

The night on Iron Smoke Island remains bustling, but in this stone chamber, something has changed forever.