Euron Greyjoy's life followed a rhythm as precise as the tides.
Every morning, he rowed across the sea to Pyke to learn the administration of the Iron Islands alongside King Quellon in the Great Hall. In the afternoon, he practiced swordsmanship without fail. As the sun dipped west, he would appear on the white sands of Iron Horse Island, honing his horsemanship and mounted combat skills with his steed, Falulu. The whistling of his heavy lance piercing the air became the footnote of the dusk.
After nightfall, he returned to his lonely, private island. Sometimes he discussed the secrets of fire with the Red Priestess Gwendolyn, sometimes he studied the nature of shadows with the Shadowbinder Evelyn, and occasionally he stepped into Maester Qyburn's strange-smelling laboratory to examine research that skirted the edge of the forbidden.
However, this evening, as he stepped onto the dock of his island, though the salty breeze and the familiar silhouette of the tower remained unchanged in the twilight, an indescribable sense of wrongness, like a cold spiderweb, quietly wrapped around the back of his neck.
It was the feeling of being watched.
It wasn't the island's residents—he knew Lisa's footsteps, Dagmer's rough voice, and even the unique energy fluctuations of the two sorceresses intimately.
This was an external, unfamiliar, and extremely concealed gaze. It seemed ubiquitous yet untraceable, like a sea snake hiding in the cracks of a reef, waiting coldly and patiently.
Euron didn't pause in his stride, his expression remaining calm, but his senses tightened instantly. His eyes seemingly swept casually over the mottled stone walls of the Ghost Tower, the swaying bushes, and the sea gradually swallowed by night. Euron's consciousness sank into that strange vision only he could see—the [One Piece System]'s holographic map slowly unfolded. The outline of the Iron Islands shimmered in the void—and a red dot representing an intruder was stubbornly pinned to his island.
Something had infiltrated. It was hiding in an unknown corner, silently staring at his every move.
Euron's mind sharpened, but on the surface, he remained unruffled, not even changing the rhythm of his breathing.
Like the most seasoned hunter, he instantly concealed his aura, acting as if completely unaware of this sudden intrusion.
He continued with his tasks—reading scrolls, polishing his blade—but all his senses were heightened to the extreme, spreading out silently like an invisible web.
A casual turn, a glance out the window under false pretenses... he finally caught the anomaly.
In the deep shadows cast by the courtyard colonnades, in the darkness of an abandoned window in a distant tower, there seemed to be a gaze always sticking to his back like a maggot in bone. The gaze wasn't constant; it appeared and disappeared, extremely cautious, but unable to fool Euron's intuition forged by countless crises.
He could even faintly sense that the gaze held not just killing intent, but a cold, probing surveillance, as if trying to dissect all his secrets.
This eerie peeping also alerted another resident. Shadowbinder Evelyn, a woman who lived with shadows and dark magic day and night, appeared silently like a ghost not far from Euron. Still shrouded in her heavy black robe and hood, her voice was so low it almost blended into the background sea wind, carrying a cold echo from the abyss.
"My Lord," she whispered, her gaze not on Euron but scanning the corners where light and shadow met. "The shadows... are restless. Something... something that doesn't belong here, is watching. It is very careful, almost merging with the darkness."
Her warning confirmed the System map's alert and his own senses. An invisible crisis had quietly arrived.
Euron nodded. "Yes, it should be a killer! A highly skilled one!" A Faceless Man? he wondered silently.
But it doesn't seem like one. Faceless Men usually use their magical skin masks to infiltrate close to the target. This feels more like the style of a certain former companion of ours... Observe, hide, wait, strike once, and finally say to the corpse: 'I am so sorry...'
A Sorrowful Man!
He lowered his head and smiled at the green-eyed Shadowbinder Evelyn. "He's probably here for me. But it doesn't matter. Pretend he doesn't exist for now. We carry on as normal. He will reveal himself..."
Shadowbinder Evelyn looked into Euron's confident eyes, nodded slightly, and silently vanished back into the shadows.
For the next two days, the assassin maintained his observation, never making a move, presumably waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Just as Euron was about to lose patience and have Evelyn drag him out, the assassin finally acted.
The sun dipped low, dyeing the sea in a tapestry of molten gold and dark purple. Like every dusk after training, Euron stripped off his clothes stained with sweat and sand and walked alone into the cool seawater. This was his daily ritual—washing away exhaustion in the cold waves, letting his thoughts settle in the boundless tide.
Like a fish returning to its source, he dove smoothly underwater, feeling the familiar embrace of the sea.
However, today, a discordant impurity had mixed into his domain. The moment he went under, his superhuman underwater perception caught the anomaly: a patch of seaweed that should have drifted with the current had a trace of unnatural stiffness in its movement.
A blurry shadow, concealing itself with a large sheepskin bladder, clung to the reef like poison, holding its breath in the deeper water. In the assassin's hand was a short blade with a blood groove, perfect for underwater assassination.
He thought he had chosen the optimal ambush spot, exploiting the moment of human instinctual relaxation.
But he made a fatal mistake—he had absolutely no idea what he was facing.
For Euron, who carried the blood of the Grey King, the sea was not a barrier but a source of power. Underwater, his strength and agility far exceeded what he possessed on land. The current was his ally, not an obstacle. And the one thing he didn't lack was time—he could breathe freely underwater.
The assassin's ambush appeared clumsy and slow underwater. The trajectory of the deadly short blade was as clear as a slow dance to Euron's senses.
Stab, stab, stab...
Euron didn't even need to use [Kami-e] (Paper Art). Relying solely on his unparalleled aquatic nature, he dodged effortlessly.
The assassin dove deeper to pursue, relying on his weapon, while Euron had nothing—no weapon, no breathing aid.
Euron leaned back leisurely, smiling with ease, showing not a hint of panic. He sidestepped elegantly, the water seemingly pushing him out of the way of the fatal blow. Then, he punched out. The water formed a vortex in front of his fist, spiraling toward the assassin.
[Skill: Fish-Man Karate Lv3]
Fish-Man Karate Lv3: Condenses water elements to form a hard shockwave, dealing piercing physical damage to a single target, with a 1-second knockback and a 3-second water vortex control effect.
The assassin's eyes widened in horror. His body spun uncontrollably, air bubbles gushing from his mouth in panic.
He tried to struggle, adjusting his posture to attack again, but it was too late. Euron's arm shot out like a sea python, precisely seizing the assassin's wrist. With a slight exertion of force, the faint sound of bone dislocation was swallowed by the sea. The short blade slipped silently from his grip, sinking into the deep darkness.
The assassin panicked completely. The sheepskin bladder he relied on for stealth was ripped away, and freezing brine instantly flooded his nose and mouth. He struggled desperately, but felt as if he were fighting the entire ocean. Euron's other hand clamped onto him like iron pincers, controlling him firmly and dragging him coldly toward the surface—neither letting him escape nor letting him drown immediately.
Splash—
Euron broke the surface, his other hand dragging the assassin, who was coughing violently and choking like a fish out of water. Moonlight illuminated Euron's expressionless face and the assassin's features, twisted by suffocation and terror.
Euron threw the semi-conscious assassin onto the cold pebble beach, seawater streaming off their bodies.
The assassin's fate had been sealed the moment he chose Euron as a target in the water. Now, what awaited him would be an interrogation far harsher than drowning.