Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

Chapter 445 The Corner of Shadows - Dr. Marwyn of the Citadel

Kui Lizard leaned against a black stone pillar carved with strange patterns at the entrance of the inn, his gaze beneath the mask fixed on the direction of the harbor.

Kui Lizard's voice drew Euron's attention away from the settlement matters, and he said calmly, "There's one more thing. Your fleet anchored outside the harbor needs to pay a protection fee."

Euron raised an eyebrow and sneered, "Protection money?"

“Yes,” the lizard’s green eyes gleamed in the shadows. “If you don’t want to wake up one day to find unexpected gifts on board, or something important missing, you’d better pay this fee to the Shadow Corner. They’ll guarantee it. For nearly a thousand years, all foreign ships have followed this rule.”

Her voice was low and solemn as she said, "My advice is to follow it. After all—" Her gaze seemed to pierce through the walls, seeing the longships laden with cargo in the harbor, seeing the scene inside the hold. "Your ships have quite a lot that are 'worth protecting.' Wildfires, dragons, dragon eggs, and mountains of supplies—countless eyes have seen them since the moment you docked."

Kui Lizard chuckled softly, a laugh tinged with a knowing mockery of human nature: "Given the strength and magic you just displayed, they certainly wouldn't dare to confront you directly. But that doesn't mean they won't covet the treasure on your ship." She paused, then said, word by word, "In this city, greed and desire are sometimes enough to overcome the fear of death."

Euron paused for a moment, then nodded and said, "You're right. What exactly is the amount of this 'fee'?"

The lizard lazily shrugged, its black robes rippling. "You'll have to ask the Shadow Horns yourself. But I doubt they'll dare set a price lightly. After all, this time they're facing the Lord of the Sea Beasts, renowned throughout the world."

Euron turned around decisively and said, "In that case, let's go and pay a visit to this 'Shadow Corner'."

He turned his head and said in a deep voice to Baron, who had been silently enduring beside him, "Brother, this place is no different from any other place we have fought in." His tone was unusually solemn. "Be careful in everything you do, and don't be reckless."

Baron Greyjoy's face, etched with the marks of the sea, twitched. He snorted heavily, yet still discerned the weight in his brother's words: "I know." He spat, suppressing his anger as he growled, "Damn it, we still have to pay protection money!"

"In all these years of my life, I've roamed the world with unparalleled arrogance, and this is the first time I've ever heard of such a humiliating thing!"

Euron chuckled softly, patting Baron's tense shoulder. "What's there to be ashamed of? Remember, this is someone else's territory. We're just a bunch of tourists who've just arrived. So, stop complaining, brother."

Having said that, he said no more, turned around and followed the lizard's steps, which seemed to blend into the shadows, toward the place deep in the city known as "Shadow Corner".

The Corner of Shadows.

It was not an isolated building, but a vast complex occupying a large part of the city, much larger than the three hotels they had just occupied combined.

The black towers of varying heights, like sprawling giant trees, are connected by countless archways and bridges covered in glowing moss, forming a vast and eerie three-dimensional labyrinth. The air is filled with dense arcane energy, and from time to time, deep chanting or brief elemental explosions can be heard coming from one of the towers.

This is the magical core of Assassin's Guild, a place where all mages, scholars, and warlocks who study, travel, and trade here must register.

Countless pieces of knowledge about shadows, elements, life, and even death converge, are traded, and are protected here.

Standing before the magnificent gate formed by two intertwined, colossal shadowy stone carvings, Euron looked up, his eyes revealing undisguised curiosity. He had conquered islands and burned cities, but an organization of such scale and so orderly concentration of the world's mystical forces was indeed a new and intriguing territory for him.

In the vast, labyrinthine entrance hall of "Shadow Corner," they were greeted by a maester.

He was short and stout, with a neck as thick as a bull's and a jaw as hard and broad as a slab of stone. Despite his round belly, his chest and shoulders were unusually thick, giving the illusion that he could smash through walls. Thick, upright white hair stubbornly protruded from his ears and nostrils. His forehead was broad and prominent, his nose was clearly broken more than once and appeared somewhat crooked, and his teeth were stained a mottled red by sour grass leaves.

Euron noticed the necklace around his neck, made of countless mysterious metal plates strung together. It was a necklace forged from Valyrian steel, and in the Citadel, this signified that the wearer possessed a recognized and extremely profound level of expertise in the fields of magic and mysticism.

What clashes most with his typical Citadel Doctor attire is his current location—not the Citadel of Old Town, but Assassin's Guild, far away at the ends of the earth.

"In the name of the Seven, this is indeed a rare guest." He spoke in a loud voice with a Westeros accent, his gaze sweeping with interest over the shrew before finally settling on Euron. He bowed and said, "I am Marwyn from the Citadel. I am overjoyed to see the waves of my homeland surge into the Shadowlands."

Dr. Marwin has been stationed here for eight years and is already accustomed to all the bizarre and wonderful things about Assassin. He is also familiar with the Kui Lizard. The fact that he is able to receive everyone at the front desk of "Shadow Corner" today is due to the Kui Lizard's prior arrangement.

While Marwyn turned to fetch something, Quel'Thuzad tilted his head slightly and whispered in a voice only Euron could hear: "He wants to hitch a ride back to Westeros on your ship. I suggest recruiting him as your maester. What's in his head is as valuable as the Valyrian steel around his neck—he's an extremely useful man to you."

Euron's gaze swept over Marwin's distinctive back again, and he responded in a low voice, "I'd be happy to take your suggestion." He smiled, "Even if you hadn't said anything, I would have thought the same thing the moment I saw that thing on his neck."

Euron's gaze was sharp as a knife, as if trying to pierce through the wooden mask and reach the depths of the lizard's soul. His voice was low as he said, "You seem to possess the abilities of a prophet."

"You've never set foot on my ship, yet you know its secrets—wildfire, dragons, dragon eggs. Evelyn isn't a gossip; she would never reveal these things to you."

Euron's pupils contracted slightly as he asked the question he wanted to know: "Tell me, in that fog of fate, what did you see of my future—?"

The lizard gazed back at him silently, her emerald eyes seeming to hold both a galaxy of stars and an endless abyss. She slowly and resolutely shook her head, her voice ethereal: "Iron and fire, blood and smoke—besides that, all is a blur, only the intertwining and surging of destruction and rebirth." She raised her hand, her fingertips lightly touching her mask, as if soothing her burning eyes beneath. "When I try to see more clearly, my eyes feel as if they are being scorched by lava. If I force myself to peer—I will die. And even death cannot allow me to see the truth behind that fog."

Her candor was more chilling than any concrete prophecy.