Anbaixiu slightly regretted letting his old friend Fring get away.
Very few people knew the truth behind the incident in the City of Alchemy. If that old rascal spread rumors, Anbaixiu would find it nearly impossible to produce evidence to clear his name. After all, he was a lich. Given the stereotypes pervasive across the Nine Kingdoms, when someone made up rumors about a lich committing evil deeds, nobody called it slander—they called it a prophecy.
Still, this elven chick was much better than that male elf, Cicero; she was willing to talk.
Cicero was a hardened veteran who had weathered countless storms and ventured through decades of danger. Anbaixiu's "mind reading" worked poorly on him.
Much like someone watching horror films, they would grimace in terror at first, but with enough exposure over time, their reaction to fear would gradually go numb. Anbaixiu's method of verbally provoking an opponent and reading their facial expressions to pry out intelligence grew less effective against Cicero as he built up a resistance—and the guy had adapted remarkably fast.
The elves captured alongside him were all the same: seasoned, disciplined, constantly readjusting their mental state to conceal their true thoughts.
The elven chick before him, however, was a different story.
Anbaixiu immobilized her with Hold Person, inspected her carefully, and asked, "Little girl, are you of age yet? Looking at you, I bet you haven't even hit a hundred and twenty."
Seven years for an elf roughly equaled one year for a human, so elven adulthood came around the age of one hundred and twenty. In the supplementary issues of *Legendary Spells*, the one writing about an eighty-year-old loli elven wife had been a biographical author whose serialized column ran for many years. The only trouble was that as the column dragged on, before his wife had even reached adulthood, the author was already scouring the world for doctors and medicine to prolong his own life.
Interspecies romance never ended well.
Faced with Anbaixiu's questioning, the girl scoffed disdainfully. "None of your business whether I'm of age! I won't breathe a single word to an evil lich like you!"
Anbaixiu praised her, "Truly admirable. You're the bravest elf I've ever seen."
"Flattery won't work on me. I'm not falling for it. But seeing as you have decent taste, if you let me go, I can grant you an opportunity to sign a contract. As long as you agree to sign and leave these lands, our elven race won't hunt you down to the bitter end."
Though her words sounded resolute, a faintly smug expression betrayed her satisfaction.
Perhaps because Anbaixiu was branded "the most evil being in the Nine Kingdoms," receiving a compliment from someone of that stature had a uniquely potent effect.
It was like a street vendor calling you pretty—most people wouldn't care. But if a world-renowned fashion designer praised your beauty and figure, you would want to tell the entire world, preferably on the front page of the news.
"A contract? Aren't you worried I might renege after signing?" Anbaixiu played along.
"Heh, you wouldn't want to know what happens if you break it," she replied smugly.
Anbaixiu's tone grew agitated as he pressed, "How could that be? A friend of mine—someone I'd trade my life for—once signed a contract with the elves, and now he wants to back out. Could it be that the elven pantheon will smite him with divine retribution?!"
"How is that even possible? Are you a lich with zero common sense? Under normal circumstances, deities cannot directly interfere with mortals; Ao the Overgod would never allow it," she mocked.
Anbaixiu patted his chest. "Ah, I was so worried about my friend that I forgot. So it isn't divine wrath from the elven gods. In that case, there's nothing to fear. At worst, you attack us, and we fight back."
"Hmph, once the armies of the Silvermoon High Court arrive, you'll learn the meaning of unstoppable."
"Hilarious. You just said I lacked common sense, but what does a contract have to do with war? At most, the backlash of a magical contract affects an individual. Could it possibly affect an entire territory?"
"Just because you can't do it doesn't mean we can't. Elven magic isn't something you undead can fathom."
Anbaixiu's tone suddenly shifted. "A magical contract that acts upon an entire territory... so it's a spell effect that alters the overall environment?"
Hearing the abrupt change in his voice, the elven girl realized something was wrong and gasped, "You're tricking me into talking?"
Anbaixiu chuckled. This girl was astonishingly naive. Inducting minors into the Twilight Guard was truly a foolish decision by the elves.
"Violating the magical contract alters the territory's environment? No, your expression tells me that's not it... But the contract's effect is cast upon the territory... I see. It targets the people living in the territory."
Anbaixiu stared intently at her, and the shift in her eyes confirmed his deduction.
"Indeed, it targets the people on the land. When the lord breaches the contract, the effect spreads to all their subjects, providing an advantage when your armies march in. But what specific effect is it?
"Let me think further. This magical contract must have been designed by a legend among your elves..."
Anbaixiu feigned a look of sudden realization and said to her, "I know what it is. Brilliant, truly brilliant. To pull off a move like that... quite an eye-opener. As expected of the elven race, favored by the gods."
"Y-You... what did you guess?!" she stammered in agitation.
Anbaixiu twisted the knife. "That's none of your concern. But thank you for providing enough clues; otherwise, I wouldn't have thought to look in that direction."
"No, I didn't say anything! What on earth did you guess?!" Seeing how panicked she had become, Anbaixiu said nothing more. He tossed her into the prison cell within his private demiplane and dispelled the time-stop effect binding the cell.
Cicero and the other elves regained their freedom, thoroughly bewildered, only to see a female elf thrown in beside them.
Cicero gasped, "Naya? How did... were you captured by that lich too?"
"Cicero! It's you, you're still alive!" Seeing so many of her kin, the elven youth named Naya could not hold back the tears welling in her eyes.
In the Twilight Guard's casualty reports, the elves captured by Anbaixiu had already been marked as dead.
Yet Cicero felt no joy upon seeing Naya. She was the captain of another Twilight Guard squad. If even she had been captured, did that mean her entire unit had been wiped out as well?
"Naya, what happened? Did your squad run into that lich too?!" Remembering how the lich had interrogated him by feeling the pulse in his neck, Cicero urgently pressed, "Tell me, did that lich interrogate you? You didn't say anything, did you?!"
Naya had already begun suspecting she had inadvertently leaked something. Hearing Cicero's frantic questioning, she grew even more terrified that she had exposed the secret.
She stammered hesitantly, "I... I don't know. I shouldn't have said anything, but then all of a sudden, that lich knew everything."
"What did you say?!" Cicero's expression turned grim.
"I really didn't say anything! But somehow he guessed that the contract targets the people of the territory, and he even deduced that it relies on Her Majesty the Queen's power! He just stood there talking to himself, and then he knew everything!" Tears spilled down Naya's cheeks as she verged on breaking down.
"He even guessed that the contract stems from Her Majesty's power?"
Despair gripped Cicero. This lich was utterly terrifying—unquestionably the greatest threat facing the Silvermoon High Court. If the secret behind the contract was unraveled, the fallout would be far graver than the loss of every Twilight Guard. The elven race's strategic plans would suffer a devastating blow, perhaps even total collapse.
Outside the demiplane, Anbaixiu watched everything unfolding in the cell through scrying magic, listening to their conversation with crystal clarity. Earlier, he had merely been bluffing to spook the little elf. The Silvermoon High Court had countless legends, many of whom were completely obscure; guessing the correct one on his own would have been impossible.
Yet the girl had misunderstood his bluff. In her panic, she had revealed the true mastermind right in front of Cicero—and Cicero now firmly believed Anbaixiu had deduced it all along.
"The Elven Queen? If I recall, she's a multiclass ranger and wizard. Ranger... wizard... magical contract... penalty for breach... the people on the territory..."
Anbaixiu felt a thread connecting the fragmented clues. He was on the verge of uncovering the truth behind the magical contract. All his hypothesis needed now was some concrete evidence to verify it.
He couldn't help but sigh, "Having to match wits against legendary figures again. Life really isn't easy."
Every legend was legendary in the truest sense of the word—not just because of the sheer power they wielded, but because they were genuine geniuses capable of leaving their mark upon the world.
Gary Watts, who pursued godhood; James Watson, who could draw the gaze of the Lord of the Dawn; the Rose of Decay, who dominated the Underdark—all of them were geniuses who stood far above mortal limits. Anbaixiu much preferred picking on the weak over risking his life against such powerhouses.
Yet once one reached this tier, whether one liked it or not, one's opponents could only ever be peers of the same caliber.
With a flick of his finger, Anbaixiu froze time inside the cell once more.
He would let those elves linger in their shock a little longer. Their current state of mind might soon prove useful again.
Casting Fly, Anbaixiu soared toward his castle. Now that the elven sniper had been captured, he had no reason to keep traveling on foot.
Behind him, the female knight clad in heavy thorn armor remained standing rigid as wood until Anbaixiu had departed, only then collapsing with a violent shudder.
Her helmet tumbled off, revealing long scarlet hair and a face horribly disfigured with scars.
Anbaixiu's Thunderwave had inflicted grave injuries on her, but thanks to the blessing of Loviatar, the Goddess of Pain, she could sustain a faint sliver of vitality even on the brink of death, barely managing to hold herself together.
She looked in the direction Anbaixiu had vanished, the corners of her mouth curling into a grotesque sneer.
From start to finish, the lich disguised as a human hadn't spared her a single glance. Perhaps her life force had faded beyond detection, leading him to assume she was dead. Or perhaps the lich regarded her and her soldiers as mere ants—and for roadside ants, a single stomp was enough; there was no need to waste time crushing each one beneath a fingernail.
That contempt, woven together with the agony coursing through her flesh, branded itself deeply into her soul.
This pain was sacred. A fanatical, twisted grin spread across the knight's face.
"I will find you... and return this agony a hundredfold!"
Chapter 101