The time had come to settle accounts. Anbaixiu's victory was equivalent to occupying all of Sandshadow City.
Alan had no way to refute this. Without the Silvermoon Knight stepping in, Anbaixiu would only need to sustain the Darkness spell for the city's populace to descend into total panic.
Once the power of faith collapsed, Sandshadow City would completely fall.
"So, everyone in Sandshadow City is my prisoner. There's nothing wrong with that calculation, right?" Anbaixiu said.
The Silvermoon Knight snorted coldly. "I've already prepared three million gold coins for you. That's already rounding up in your favor."
Under a hundred paladins and around two thousand soldiers didn't add up to three million, but the Silvermoon Knight had decided to be generous to avoid any complaints from this money-grubbing lich.
He simply lacked the energy to haggle over numbers with Anbaixiu right now.
Yet Anbaixiu sneered. "Three million gold coins? What, are you tipping a beggar? That wasn't the price we agreed upon."
The Silvermoon Knight fumed, "Are you telling me a lich can't even do math? How on earth did you calculate anything above three million?!"
Anbaixiu shot back immediately, "Our agreement stated that militia count as regular soldiers—one thousand gold coins each. And just how many militiamen do you have in Sandshadow City?!"
"One hundred and eighty-seven!" the Silvermoon Knight declared unequivocally.
He had once been garrisoned in this city; he knew these numbers better than anyone.
"Heh, you people from Ryan sure know how to haggle. Your registered count might be a hundred-odd, but when the battle started, the number of people participating in the city's defense was far higher than that. Don't the people who charged the Holy Light magic array count as militia?! They took part in the war, and you're telling me they count as civilians?!
"Sandshadow City has a population of nearly fifty thousand. At one thousand gold coins per head, that's at least fifty million. Add the original three million, and it comes to fifty-three million gold coins!"
Hearing this, the Silvermoon Knight nearly choked.
Wracked by violent coughs, the Silvermoon Knight could only glare furiously at Anbaixiu, unable to utter a single rebuttal.
By the unwritten rules of warfare across the continent, that was indeed how it was calculated.
The basic premise for sparing civilians from war was that civilians could not take part in combat. If you merely paid taxes or helped transport some supplies, you could arguably still count as a civilian. But once you picked up weapons and took to the ramparts to hold the line, claiming you were just a civilian after the city fell was nothing but sophistry.
The same logic applied to the Holy Light magic array. It was a comprehensive city-defense system shielding the entire city; thus, any believer who funneled energy into it could no longer be considered a civilian.
Still, settling the bill this way was a catastrophic loss for the Ryan Empire. In normal warfare, the elderly and children weren't counted as militia. Having recently endured war, Sandshadow City had twenty thousand able-bodied youths at best, yet the lich shamelessly tallied using the maximum total population.
The Silvermoon Knight badly wanted to argue the point, but he simply lacked the energy.
Alan stood by, completely dumbfounded. So his cautious call for the entire city to aid in defense had amounted to handing free money to the lich?!
The young man's head buzzed. What useful move had he even made over the course of the day? He had been led around by the nose by this lich from start to finish. Every single one of his countermeasures had fallen right into the lich's calculations; he had become the lich's greatest accomplice in swindling the empire...
Guilt far more suffocating than before welled up in his chest. Alan lost the ability to think, his fear of Anbaixiu branding itself deep into his soul.
This lich was simply too terrifying.
Lacking any remaining energy to haggle, the Silvermoon Knight could only tell him, "The Empire will dispatch professional negotiators to settle this account with you."
Anbaixiu replied firmly, "Delaying will incur late penalties! Remember, you swore on the Holy Light. Look at where we are—this is the temple of the Lord of the Dawn. Your deity is watching!"
Just as Anbaixiu finished speaking, the statue of the Lord of the Dawn inside the temple blazed with brilliance, as if answering the lich's challenge.
Seeing this divine phenomenon, everyone hastily dropped to their knees, and even the Silvermoon Knight was no exception.
Anbaixiu: "..."
Was the Lord of the Dawn really this petty?
It was just fifty million gold coins—barely a drop in the bucket for Ryan—yet the god had manifested on the spot? Talk about narrow-minded!
Anbaixiu said to the Silvermoon Knight, "Well... a discount isn't out of the question."
One still had to give face to a deity; after all, this was the god's turf. But a discount was the absolute limit. Forget the Lord of the Dawn—even if Ao showed up in person, he'd only get a discount.
When it came to his life's obsession, a lich possessed no reason whatsoever.
The Silvermoon Knight no longer wished to speak with Anbaixiu and directly asked him to leave the Temple of Light.
The Lord of the Dawn's sudden manifestation of a miracle surely meant something of utmost importance had occurred.
To emerge unscathed from a Temple of Light after paladins had knelt in his presence certainly made Anbaixiu one of a kind among the undead.
Who knew what the paladins had discussed inside the temple, but Alan soon reappeared before Anbaixiu. Gone was his mortified, shame-stricken demeanor, replaced by a calm, composed stillness.
"Master Ultraman, regarding the fifty-three million gold coins you requested, we shall pay immediately. Please wait a moment."
There was no resentment in Alan's tone, nor any self-pity. Instead, the young man seemed to have matured entirely, carrying a faint aura of light about him.
Anbaixiu couldn't help but frown. No way—did this kid just score an unexpected boon?
Could the Lord of the Dawn have granted him some divine favor? "Kid, did you receive divine favor?" Anbaixiu asked.
Alan merely offered a polite smile. "Fate is the gods' gift, whether for good or ill. If you wish to ask whether the Lord of the Dawn blessed me, I can tell you that he did not. I received no divine power..."
Anbaixiu raised a hand at once. "All right, say no more. I get it."
The kid had experienced an epiphany.
History was replete with such records: when pious believers finally beheld the true visage of their god, some would suffer a crisis of faith, while others would gain an even deeper comprehension of the dogma.
Whatever the Lord of the Dawn had told him, Alan had clearly entered a whole new state of mind.
What specific improvements he had gained Anbaixiu couldn't tell, but the kid had likely been noted in the Lord of the Dawn's little black book.
Holy Light, open your eyes and see who the winner actually was! Where was the logic in rewarding the loser?!
Anbaixiu felt somewhat annoyed. He had racked his brain scheming and plotting, only for Alan to walk away with a major windfall. Having a god looking out for you really was nice.
Sigh. Why didn't the undead have a god who could genuinely watch their backs? What was Velsharoon even good for?
Few dark deities were dependable. Anbaixiu still preferred a powerful god whose portfolio aligned with his talents, like Oghma, the Lord of Knowledge. But Oghma didn't care much about worship, showing far more fondness for bards strumming lutes and piping flutes all day long.
Anbaixiu possessed immense talent for learning magic, but when it came to singing, dancing, songwriting, and composing, he had none whatsoever.
And forget about using songs from his past life to dupe Oghma. Before any creative idea came into existence, Oghma had the right to examine it. Deceiving the Lord of Knowledge was impossible.
Among the remaining deities, very few could compare to a greater deity like the Lord of the Dawn.
The deities Anbaixiu looked up to looked down on him, while those extending olive branches his way were oddities like the Goddess of Night and the Goddess of Pain. It was just like matchmaking blind dates.
Lamenting the hardships of undead life, Anbaixiu could only sigh as he swept the miniature mountain of gold coins into his personal storage space.
Say what you will, the Ryan Empire was truly loaded; Anbaixiu had waited a mere half-hour before receiving the payment.
With the money collected and the Silvermoon Knight's letter of introduction in hand, his next destination was the Emerald Dream Forest.
Before the teleportation array, Anbaixiu warmly shook hands with the grim-faced Silvermoon Knight and urged him, "Take care of your health! If you ever need another exercise, call on me again. I'll give you five percent off!"
The Silvermoon Knight replied in the most sincere tone he could muster, "You had best never return."
Driving a paladin to abandon all basic hospitality and courtesy showed just how deep a shadow Anbaixiu had cast over the Silvermoon Knight.
The light of the teleportation array flared, and Anbaixiu and Catherine arrived in another city brimming with sacred radiance.
The moment Anbaixiu appeared, power of Holy Light gathered above his head like a cascading waterfall. This Holy Light was on an entirely different level from Sandshadow City's.
For this was the Ryan Imperial Capital—the City of Dawn.
Even the slightest sliver of faith power accumulated over a thousand years would suffice to obliterate Anbaixiu's physical form.
Legendary lich or Golden Throne, neither could withstand power bordering on the divine.
Fortunately, the Silvermoon Knight had arranged everything in advance. Just as the power of Holy Light flared to life, the paladins outside the array worked together to dispel the lock-on targeting Anbaixiu. The colossal burst of Holy Light dispersed into magnificent ribbons of luminescence above the city, setting Anbaixiu's soul wildly thumping.
A hair slower, and he would have been forced to regenerate from his phylactery.
A paladin clad head to toe in silvery-white heavy plate addressed them: "Please remain where you are and do not move. The second teleportation will commence shortly."
This was the Ryan Imperial Capital. Regardless of the pretext, a lich like Anbaixiu could never be permitted to roam freely through the city. Thus, he had to wait right at the teleportation array until the second transfer was prepped to send him away immediately.
Anbaixiu silently lamented the missed opportunity. He had originally intended to look around and leave a little souvenir for this City of Dawn, only to find he couldn't even step out of the teleportation array.
Not only that, several dozen fully armed paladins were glaring at him like hawks. Should he dare make the slightest twitch, they would likely invoke the Holy Light and let him taste the wrath of Divine Smite.
Anbaixiu complained to the paladin before him, "A bit excessive, isn't it? I'm a friend of Ryan, not a wanted criminal."
The paladin remained completely unmoved. Every one of them had been strictly instructed: speak not a single word to this lich unless strictly necessary.
Do not answer, do not answer, absolutely do not answer!
This was an undead creature whose lips dripped with poison; anything uttered from his mouth was blasphemous filth.
Anbaixiu tried a few more remarks, only to embarrass himself against their silence. The paladins had seemingly applied some effect to their armor, ignoring even Catherine standing beside him.
After a moment's thought, Anbaixiu took out the Necrotic Codex and typed a line into the group chat: [Currently in the Ryan Imperial Capital, fresh out of the teleportation array, blocked at the gate by a bunch of paladins. Friends, I want to take a stroll around the city. Any suggestions?]
Chapter 164