Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

Huang Zhengdao's last memory was of that black wall in the South China Sea that stretched from the sky to the sea.

One moment, only muffled thunder rolled deep within the leaden clouds, the sea breeze, carrying a salty, damp scent, caressed his skin, and the water rippled gently, supporting his athletic, muscular body. The next moment, the sky seemed to be torn apart by an invisible giant hand, and an inky curtain of rain poured down, icy and bone-chilling, instantly blurring the world. The gale was no longer just wind; it was countless invisible, violent whips lashing the sea, whipping up ferocious waves. The once familiar and comforting seawater had now transformed into a churning, roaring beast, each wave carrying immense force, crashing down and greedily dragging him into the abyss.

The will to survive burned in his bones and blood, squeezing out the strength of every muscle fiber. Huang Zhengdao struggled to kick the water, but each swing of his arm felt like struggling in viscous asphalt. The icy seawater filled his mouth and nose, the salty and fishy smell assaulting his brain, almost suffocating him. With all his strength, he finally managed to break through the surface, only to be met by an even more terrifying wave that crashed down on him, shoving him back underwater.

Huang Zhengdao's ears were filled with a dull roar, and before his eyes was a murky darkness filled with countless bubbling bubbles. His lungs felt like they were being tightly gripped by iron clamps, burning with pain. He instinctively paddled upwards, breaking through the heavy curtain of water, but just as he touched a bit of thin air, he was seized by another, even more insidious force.

Less than a hundred meters from the golden beach, ripped apart by the fierce winds, the sea suddenly collapsed. A gigantic whirlpool silently opened its dark maw. The seawater swirled and plunged wildly, forming a bottomless funnel. The suction force surpassed the limits of physics, carrying a soul-chilling greed. Huang Zhengdao felt his body lighten instantly; all his struggles became futile and laughable. He was violently dragged down by that irresistible force, like a helpless leaf falling into the abyss.

The icy, bone-chilling seawater pressed in from all directions, making my bones seem to groan. The last bit of air in my lungs was mercilessly squeezed out, turning into a string of desperate bubbles that quickly disappeared into the distant, ever-dimming light overhead.

Absolute darkness embraced him, so heavy it was suffocating.

At the edge of utter extinguished consciousness, in that depths of all-consuming cold and deathly silence, a voice, or rather a thought, as ancient as layers of rock deposited on the seabed for millions of years, carrying the salty, rusty smell of the sea and a kind of inhuman grandeur, was directly imprinted on the core of his collapsing consciousness:

"The deceased...are not dead..."

"It will surely rise again..."

"Its momentum...is even stronger..."

That sound was not heard by the ears, but rather etched into the soul. It had no direction, no source, only an indifferent, timeless declaration.

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At the same instant, at the other end of the world, in the heart of the Iron Islands—beneath the Greyjoy family's rocky fortress on Pike Island—a biting sea wind howled across the jagged black rocks, whipping up icy spray that lashed the faces of the people standing on the shore. The air was thick with the pungent smell of sea salt and fish, and an almost frozen, chilling atmosphere.

At the heart of the crowd stood Corren Greyjoy, patriarch of House Greyjoy. Tall and imposing, his face etched with the deep marks of sea winds and the passage of time, his eyes hard as a rock, yet carrying a hint of the nervous anticipation of a new father. Beside him stood his eldest son, Baron Greyjoy. Baron was only twelve, his slender frame already displaying the distinctive sharp angles of the Greyjoy family. His thin lips were tightly pressed together, his sharp eyes, inherited from his father, fixed intently ahead, striving to mimic his father's composed demeanor. But his slightly clenched fists and somewhat rapid breathing betrayed his inner turmoil. This was the moment his younger brother was about to be born and face his test.

There were only a few people around: two solemn-looking drowned priests, and Harrag, Koren's most trusted captain's assistant.

The altar is a naturally formed, smooth groove in a huge reef. At this moment, it is filled with icy, frothy seawater.

The high priest, an old man with white hair and beard, soaking wet, but with eyes burning with fanatical fire, stood barefoot in waist-deep water. In his rough, bark-like hands, he cradled an infant wrapped in a dark gray, rough seaweed cloth—Coron's second son, Euron Greyjoy, who had just been born.

"Drowning God!" The old priest's voice was hoarse and high-pitched, piercing through the howling sea wind. "Have pity on your humble creation! Grant him the hardness of the Iron People! Grant him the breath of the sea! Let him undergo your baptism, return from death, stronger! Harder!"

The chanting reached its climax. The old priest took a deep breath and suddenly lowered his arms!

The icy, death-laden seawater instantly swallowed the tiny swaddling clothes, submerging the newborn's tender rosy face. There were no cries, only a few weak, submerged bubbles struggling to rise from the gaps in the swaddling cloth, only to burst shortly after.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

Time seemed to stand still amidst the howling wind and crashing waves. Chieftain Koren involuntarily held his breath, his broad shoulders hunched slightly forward, his gaze fixed on the churning water, his tension written all over his furrowed brow and clenched fists. Twelve-year-old Baron didn't dare blink, his small body as stiff as a stone, his nails digging almost into his palms. Captain Harrag's expression was grave, his hand resting on the hilt of the dagger at his waist. Another younger priest nervously swallowed.

Fine beads of sweat trickled down the old priest's forehead, mingling with the cold seawater. He felt the small body in his arms completely stop struggling, becoming cold and limp, like a dead fish pulled from the deep sea. A heavy despair began to permeate his fanatical eyes.

Cold, dark, suffocating… Huang Zhengdao felt himself being crushed, dissolved, his consciousness like a wisp of smoke about to dissipate. Just as his consciousness was about to completely vanish into nothingness, the suction force from the abyss that had dragged him into the vortex suddenly reversed!

It was as if an invisible giant hand reached into the cold abyss, precisely seized his remnant soul, and then, with an irresistible, all-tearing force, yanked it outward!

boom!

It wasn't sound; it was an indescribable, violent collision and compression at the level of the soul.

He felt as if he had been forcibly shoved into an extremely narrow, cold, rigid container that was rapidly losing its last vestiges of life. A violent sense of rejection, like a million red-hot steel needles, pierced through the cracks of his soul. Strange nerve endings transmitted a suffocating, deathly sensation, a chilling feeling, and a faint yet fiercely resentful, primal, and violent remnant of consciousness tearing and resisting his intrusion.

"Uh... gulp..."

Just as the infant's body in the old priest's arms became completely cold and stiff, and the light of hope in Coron's eyes was about to be extinguished, and Baron subconsciously took a half step back, an extremely faint and extremely strange sound came from the seawater-soaked swaddling clothes.

The old priest's arm trembled violently!

Immediately afterwards, the small, bluish-purple body convulsed violently!

"Pfft—cough cough! Whoa—!"

The gray seaweed cloth covering the baby was suddenly torn open, and a stream of murky seawater mixed with mucus shot out from the baby's mouth and nose like a small fountain! It sprayed the unsuspecting old priest's face.

Immediately, a loud and piercing cry, truly belonging to a baby, ripped through the howling sea wind and exploded in everyone's ears!

"Whoa—!!"

The cries were filled with terror, pain, and an indescribable bewilderment of someone who had survived a catastrophe.

The deathly silence surrounding the altar was shattered completely.

Chieftain Koren gasped sharply, his tall frame swaying. His face drained of color, replaced by overwhelming elation and disbelief. He instinctively took a step forward. Twelve-year-old Baron, on the other hand, seemed stunned by the sudden cry. His face was deathly pale, his eyes wide, his body frozen in place. All his imitation and composure vanished, leaving only the terror of a child facing something beyond comprehension. Captain Harrag let out a low gasp, and the young priest trembled with excitement.

The despair on the old priest's face was instantly replaced by a near-mad crimson; he trembled violently with excitement. He suddenly lifted the infant high above his head, roaring with all his might, his voice distorted by extreme excitement and awe, echoing through the wind and waves:

"Look! People of the Ironlands! Look! The Drowning Goddess has appeared! She has bestowed a miracle!"

The icy seawater flowed down his raised arm, dripping onto the baby's violently heaving, mucus-covered chest. The baby's cries gradually weakened, leaving only rapid, relieved breaths. His newly opened eyes, under the astonished gazes of the crowd, displayed a chillingly strange color—his left eye was a deep, dark black, as if it could absorb all light; his right eye was a cold, azure blue, like the purest surface of the sea before a storm.

"The Drowned God has chosen this child!" The old priest's voice was like a blood-soaked horn, fanatical and hoarse. "Grant my Lord rebirth! This is the Drowned God's incarnation among mortals! He is the hope for the Iron Islands' future! He is proof that the dead are not truly dead and will surely rise again!"

"The dead are not truly dead; they will rise again, and with even greater force!" the old priest himself shouted again.

Captain Harrag and the young priest knelt down in fervor, their foreheads striking the cold, slippery rocks, repeating the sacred prayer: "The dead are not dead; they will rise again, with even greater force!"

Chieftain Koren did not kneel immediately. He strode forward and almost snatched the infant, whose cries were growing weaker and whose chest was heaving violently, from the old priest's hands. His rough fingers carefully brushed away the sticky seawater and mucus from the infant's face, his fingertips trembling almost imperceptibly as they touched the cold, slippery little body. His gaze, like that of the most experienced captain examining a surviving chart after a storm, swept heavily and sharply over the infant's heterochromatic eyes—the left eye as black as an abyss that swallowed all light, the right eye as blue as the most frigid sea before a storm. There was no fatherly tenderness in them, only a heavy, complex scrutiny, as if instantly bearing the future of the entire Iron Islands.

Corren Greyjoy's deep voice drowned out the priest's fervor as he lifted the wailing, flailing infant high above his head, proclaiming with unquestionable authority and the exhilaration of surviving a close call: "This is my son, the Ironblood of House Greyjoy, Euron Greyjoy!"

"Euron Greyjoy!" The others joined in chanting his name, celebrating the birth of the Iron Islands' second son.

Corren turned and handed Euron to Baron, instructing him, "Take your brother back to the castle, wrap him in a warm lambskin, and then give him to your mother."

Twelve-year-old Baron stared at his heterochromatic-eyed younger brother in his arms, like a small reef frozen by the sea breeze. He watched as his father received his resurrected brother from the priest, seeing in his father's eyes a complex light he had never seen before, a mixture of ecstasy and heavy worry. He looked at his brother's strange, unsettling heterochromatic eyes, and a cold, unfamiliar feeling, like an undercurrent in the deep sea, quietly washed over young Baron's heart for the first time. His emotions were complicated: the excitement of a blood relative being born, the excitement of becoming a big brother for the first time, coupled with a vague sense of wariness and rejection, as if his territory had been invaded and his attention taken away.

The cold waves crashed against the rocky altar, and the murky seawater swayed in the trough, reflecting the kneeling priest and captain, the solemn chieftain Koren holding his baby, and the eldest son Baron, who stood alone on the shore with a complex and ever-changing gaze.

Deep within that small body, which had just experienced the cycle of life and death, two completely different souls—Huang Zhengdao from another world and Euron Greyjoy, who died at birth—were slowly and irreversibly merging in this cold, salty hell in a painful and eerie way. Their fates, from the very first moment of their arrival, were deeply embedded in the future of the Greyjoy family, hanging over the heart of their father, Corren, who sought reform yet clung to "miracles," and also casting the first shadow upon the still-childish yet beginning-hardening heart of their elder brother, Baron Greyjoy.