"You are merely shirking your duty! You're dragging the kingdom into the abyss just for your own career! Tell me, with the meager strength we have now, could we even win?" Ariel demanded in fury.
Not one to back down, Mengge Grayriver retorted, "How can we know without fighting? The gods granted us strength and courage—are we supposed to hide it away, cowering inside a shell like a lump of soft flesh?!"
Unfiltered roars echoed from within the chamber, frightening the guards stationed outside into quietly shifting their steps away.
This was an altercation between a kingdom general and a princess; keeping their distance was far safer.
Every nation had its own troubles, and every trouble had different solutions.
In Ariel's view, pirates were nothing more than a superficial ailment. They were few in number and made few demands. Like natural disasters, there was no reason to pour resources into them day in and day out.
After every tsunami and storm, the people of the Raging Tide Kingdom carried on with their lives just the same.
If all their time was spent fighting natural disasters, who would fish, who would farm, who would build ships, and who would work the forge?
Yet Mengge saw it entirely differently. To a soldier like him, the enemy was right there—how could they pretend not to see them? How could they pay tribute to the other side?
Such was not the dogma of the Lord of the Storm; they were supposed to annihilate everything with thunder and tempest.
With completely opposite stances, the two argued incessantly.
Realizing she had no way to persuade him, Ariel finally drew her storm warhammer and slammed it violently onto the desk.
Violent lightning blasted the massive desk into splinters, sending charred ashes scattering in every direction.
Startled, Mengge Grayriver shouted agitatedly, "What are you doing?! Your Highness, are you intending to murder a general of the kingdom?!"
Ariel scoffed in disdain. "Didn't you say the gods granted us courage and strength to defeat mighty foes? Now, I challenge you: whoever wins calls the shots! If you lose, go kneel before my royal father, confess your faults, and make him revoke the order for nationwide mobilization!"
"Are you insane?!" Mengge Grayriver snapped in outrage. "Can major state affairs be decided by a duel?!"
Was she out of her mind? He was merely a commander of troops, whereas Ariel was a storm priest of the legendary rank. If they fought, wouldn't he be as good as dead?!
"That wasn't what you just said! Courage and strength—you kept harping on about them, as if possessing those two things guaranteed success. Why are you cowering now? Where is your courage? If you dare not even accept a challenge from a woman, do you still have the right to serve as a general of the Raging Tide Kingdom?!"
Ariel gave him no chance to rebut, throwing down her gauntlet right before him.
It was the formal summons to a duel. If Mengge Grayriver refused, word would spread and make him a laughingstock.
Of course, mockery alone could not shake his post, but in the Raging Tide Kingdom, once labeled a coward, many things would become dreadfully troublesome.
Princess Ariel had truly hit his sore spot.
Duels were completely out of the question; Mengge Grayriver had no desire to be crushed to death by Ariel's warhammer. He could only compromise: "Just what do you want?!"
"Make my father revoke his decree! Nationwide mobilization will only plunge us into deeper poverty. Do you have any idea how many people will starve if this continues?"
Ariel had come for this very reason. Militaristic warmongering was ill-suited for the Raging Tide Kingdom; what they needed most was respite and recuperation. In all the centuries since its founding, the kingdom's population had barely grown—this was the greatest failure of successive Kings of Raging Tide.
Without a large population, where would national strength come from? And without national strength, where would military power come from?
The overseas archipelagos were naturally harsh environments, plagued by endless natural disasters—tsunamis, earthquakes, storms. To make matters worse, the Raging Tide Kingdom had few policies that benefited the populace, relying entirely on force to subjugate them. Continuing like this would bring about their ruin sooner or later.
Ariel had no desire to inherit a kingdom on the brink of ruin. She believed they ought to learn from Ryan's policies, treating the common folk better so that they could overcome these hardships.
Although Ariel's thinking differed from that of past kings, her methods were just as crude and direct.
If someone didn't comply with her wishes, then duel it out—the winner called the shots.
Backed into a corner, Mengge Grayriver could only negotiate: "It's impossible to scrap the plan entirely. The Raging Tide Legion has already begun preparing their magic. Even if we halt now, they'll still need more than half a year to recover."
"I don't care about the legion, but the martial law order must be lifted! Allow the fishermen to come and go freely! Are you afraid the undead will disguise themselves as humans and sneak in?! That pirate crew has been around for so many years—have you ever seen them use subterfuge? They always fight face-to-face! What is the point of blockading the fishing ports?!"
"Fine, I will advise the King to lift the blockade. Everything as you wish, Your Highness—can you let me off the hook now?"
Mengge Grayriver was utterly resigned, but in the Raging Tide Kingdom, might made right. Hadn't Her Highness been chosen as heir precisely because she was a legendary powerhouse?
Besides, the request wasn't unreasonable. Those undead truly had never used deceit, so martial law served little real purpose. It was just as well to simply wait for them to attack.
With Mengge Grayriver's cooperation, Ariel smoothly got the King to rescind the order for martial law.
The military, however, remained on war footing, ready at any moment to fight the undead to the bitter end.
Little did Ariel expect, however, that shortly after the martial law decree was lifted, a disguised Anbaixiu brought the demigod Aige just outside the royal capital of the Raging Tide Kingdom.
"This is the capital of the Raging Tide Kingdom, Seven Seas City,"
said Aige, disguised as an elderly fisherwoman, pointing at the great city ahead to Anbaixiu beside her.
Anbaixiu had also polymorphed into a doddering, weathered old fisherman. As the two walked along the bustling docks, they looked no different from the grubby fishermen around them.
Fishermen who lived off the sea were weathered by relentless sea winds, soaked in brine, and baked by sun and rain, aging rapidly as a rule. The two looked indistinguishable from the rest, save for one detail: they seemed a bit too leisurely. Everyone else hurried along, busy setting out to sea, docking, mending nets, or sorting catches.
Anbaixiu and Aige strolled slowly through the crowd, appearing entirely too unhurried.
Yet no one paid them any mind. With the King constantly changing his orders—first closing the ports, then reopening them in the blink of an eye—so much time had been lost that everyone was scrambling to make it up, lest someone at home go hungry.
Passing through the filthy, reeking harbor, Anbaixiu and Aige blended into the throng and walked toward Seven Seas City.
When they reached the city gates, the guards didn't even bother inspecting the foul-smelling fishermen and waved everyone straight through.
Once past the gates, the two found a secluded corner and reverted to their true appearances.
"Once I leave my true form, I can't exert my full power. I really don't understand why you insisted on sneaking in," Aige asked curiously.
Aige's original plan had been to lead her pirates directly against Seven Seas City, entering the city's inland sea through an underwater passage, storming the royal palace, and—once the palace was subdued—taking their time to search for the artifact Anbaixiu needed.
Anbaixiu, however, had proposed an alternative: infiltrating without making a sound.
Anbaixiu explained, "Captain Aige, your true form is a ghost ship; you can only unleash your greatest power upon the sea. Even if we reach the inland sea, as long as they dig in on land, they can still restrict your strength. Rather than engaging in a brutal war of attrition, it's better to spend a little time stealing the artifact. Meaningless casualties are pure waste."
Even though undead lives were cheap, Anbaixiu didn't want Aige's pirate crew to suffer heavy losses here.
Numerous signs indicated that major events were brewing. As a member of the Elegy Poetry Society, Aige was Anbaixiu's natural ally, so he naturally had to look out for her.
He had come for an artifact, not for a war.
If they could quietly get their hands on the artifact, why clash head-on with the Raging Tide Kingdom?
No matter how weak a kingdom might be, it was still a behemoth made of millions of people; it was bound to have a few hidden trump cards.
Anbaixiu was a businessman, and a businessman never made a losing trade.
"So what do you plan to do next? Let me be clear first: too much time has passed, and the location provided by the elves is very vague. We only know it's roughly near the palace's inner sea. If we want to sneak in there, disguising ourselves as fishermen won't cut it."
"No matter. I have a way."
Anbaixiu had brought Aige along primarily in hopes that the demigod could bail him out in a pinch and break them out if the Raging Tide Kingdom discovered them. When it came to tracking down an object, he didn't need to trouble her.
Anbaixiu walked over to a wall, plucked a withered yellow leaf from the creeping vines, and tossed it into the air.
The Dice of Fate materialized around him, tumbling against the withered leaf one after another.
Intangible fate could not physically nudge a withered leaf, yet it could stir a gentle breeze to carry it into the distance.
Anbaixiu said to Aige, "Follow along. This leaf can lead us to where the artifact lies."
"Is this the power of divination? Mages truly have a bag of tricks."
Aige looked on with envy. Even though, as a demigod, she could easily defeat Anbaixiu, when it came to versatile magical applications, she fell far short of this legendary mage.
"Tricks are useless in the end. Sometimes I wish I'd been more specialized."
These words came straight from his heart. If he had focused on alchemy back then, the divine seat of the God of Alchemy might have been his, and he wouldn't have spent so long as a substandard counterfeit.
Now that his path had strayed off the beaten track, he could only see it through.
The withered leaf floated forward, and disguised as elderly fishermen, the two followed behind, strolling along main streets and winding through alleys until they soon arrived at a bustling area.
It looked like an open square where many people were toiling under the crack of leather whips.
Carrying heavy stone blocks on their shoulders, they set them down in designated spots as instructed, suffering a lash of the whip if they were even slightly too slow.
"This is where the artifact is?" Aige asked, puzzled.
"I don't know, but fate shouldn't play me for a fool."
Anbaixiu was still watching the withered leaf. It had not yet touched the ground, continuing to drift forward until it finally hovered toward the center of the square.
Yet the leaf did not land on the ground; instead, it settled upon a heavily bearded, burly man.
Aige chuckled and asked Anbaixiu, "So now, is fate pointing to this man, or the spot where he's standing?"
Anbaixiu hesitated for a moment, then replied, "Let's tie him up first and figure it out later."
Chapter 178