"You're saying the elven pantheon told you to help me?" Anbaixiu felt as though he had just heard the greatest joke in the world.
He was a lich.
A ragged bag of bones had nothing in common with elves whatsoever—perhaps he shared more common ground with the driders of the Underdark.
"Catherine, have you been possessed by an evil god or something?" Anbaixiu asked.
By evil, he meant an evil deity. Anbaixiu genuinely wondered if some dark god had taken an interest in Catherine and started feeding her hallucinations. But illusions rarely worked well on elves, and Catherine didn't look like someone under a spell.
Catherine showed no sign of joking at all. She said in all seriousness, "I received a divine blessing. You should know that."
Mentioning this made Anbaixiu's soul darken with sheer envy.
At the time, his teeth had itched with bitter resentment. Pity him—in all his centuries of unlife, he had never seen such a reliable blessing, nor such generous gods.
The God of Alchemy was Anbaixiu's own teacher, yet using his blessing required throwing money at it like a pay-to-win game.
Catherine explained, "The blessing I received grants that I won't suffer any harm beneath moonlight. Don't you find that blessing strange? Even though it came from the Lady of the Moon and aligns with her divine domain, I can't shake the feeling it was meant to be used right here. Look at that moon in the sky. Even in a desert, you rarely see a moon that huge, almost as if it's terrified of leaving any part of the sands in shadow."
At her words, Anbaixiu couldn't resist looking up at the sky. Sure enough, the moon was absurdly massive, hanging so low it looked ready to plummet to the ground.
"Still, it makes no sense. Why would the elven gods want you to help me? If they truly wanted to do me a favor, couldn't they just tell me directly?"
Though Anbaixiu said that, in his heart he was already praying. What was the elven pantheon's prayer again?
After silently chanting hymns to Corellon several times, absolutely nothing happened. Anbaixiu could only say to Catherine, "I suspect you're overthinking things. If the elven pantheon wanted you to help me, they'd have said so directly rather than being so roundabout. Aren't you their most cherished chosen?"
Catherine shook her head and spoke with rare resolve: "I'm no longer the little girl I used to be. The gods must have recognized that, so they won't deliver oracles as straightforwardly and clearly as before. They are testing me, hoping I can make a mature decision."
"Straightforward and clear? How straightforward?" Anbaixiu asked.
Catherine recalled for a moment, then said, "Just... like chatting with a friend."
Listen to that. Was that something a sane person would say?
Divine oracles were never straightforward or clear. Ninety percent of them were riddles; only by forcing believers to guess could gods maintain their divine mystique. For a moment, Anbaixiu couldn't tell whether Catherine herself was extraordinary, or if the elven gods' attitude toward her was simply extraordinary.
"Never mind, let's not debate such meaningless questions. You say you want to help me—is that a mature decision? You are tied fast to the Silvermoon High Court. Not only are you the elven queen in this timeline, but even if you had abdicated the throne, your every word and deed would still reflect on the elven race."
Naturally, Anbaixiu wanted Catherine's help, but after spending time together, he had come to regard her as half a friend. He didn't want this naive elven girl to become a sinner of her people.
Yet Catherine replied, "In the past, I would have thought this harmed the Silvermoon High Court too. Ryan is, after all, an ally of the elves. But recently, I've thought about it a great deal. From the outbreak of mana addiction until now, the crisis of the elven race ultimately depends on you to solve. And what about our ally, Ryan? The elves didn't even want them to know about mana addiction, because we feared Ryan would seize the opportunity to swallow up the Silvermoon High Court as well.
"The people of Ryan are supposed to be believers in the Lord of the Dawn. Since when did the world come to associate Ryan with wanton invasion?"
Her words plunged Anbaixiu into deep thought. This wasn't merely a matter of Catherine's personal intuition; Anbaixiu vaguely sensed something amiss—deeply, terribly amiss.
Exactly. When had the followers of the Lord of the Dawn become the common enemy of the entire continent?
Not only did the elves have to stay guarded against them, but even the druids of the Emerald Dream Forest had been frightened into raising a barrier across their entire forest to prevent a Ryan invasion.
Ryan's reputation had shifted—and under the watchful eye of the Lord of the Dawn, they had become the public enemy of every race across the land?
That wasn't normal. It was abnormal in the extreme.
Recalling what the heroic spirit of Arthur Ryan had said, the man had slain the Demonic Dragon Tyrant fighting for all the races of the continent. How could the kingdom he founded turn into the shared enemy of everyone?
There was definitely something wrong here. Perhaps only the historian Heji Stone could give Anbaixiu the answers.
"So, because you think something is wrong with Ryan, you're ready to stand against them?" Anbaixiu asked.
"It's not that simple, but at the very least, I shouldn't stand unconditionally by Ryan's side." Catherine hesitated for a moment before continuing, "If possible, I'll still do my best to help you without exposing my identity. But even if there's a risk of exposure, I can make peace with it now."
Anbaixiu looked at Catherine. After a long silence, he said, "Thank you."
Deep down, he felt a twinge of regret. He shouldn't have woven that future of corporate drudgery for Catherine; in the destiny he had concocted, she had wept so pitifully.
When the time truly came, he would just give her some time off.
Just as Anbaixiu was about to share this good news with Catherine, both turned their heads simultaneously toward the far end of the desert.
The darkness of the night could not hinder their senses. The Ryan army had already appeared on the horizon.
Now was no time for chitchat. Anbaixiu opened his private space and said to Catherine, "Get inside first. If I need you, I'll call on your help."
Catherine nodded and stepped into Anbaixiu's private space.
Anbaixiu summoned Naomi in her time dragon form and took to the skies on the silver dragon's back.
To Anbaixiu's surprise, the Silvermoon Knight had not taken to the skies. Not a single Ryan soldier appeared airborne; they all seemed to remain on the ground, marching alongside the army. "Playing it like this? The dwarf iron guards are in for a rough time."
Just as Anbaixiu murmured that, a brilliant burst of Holy Light condensed above the Ryan forces.
Anbaixiu had thought the Silvermoon Knight was making his move, secretly plotting to bait out a sword strike, only to discover the Holy Light coalescing into the likeness of a warrior in silver armor.
Summoning a celestial warrior?
This giant of light stood nearly ten meters tall. Though formed of Holy Light, its body was lifelike, right down to the detailed expressions on the celestial warrior's face.
Back then, three hundred slaves trained for just two days had managed to summon a celestial warrior through sheer faith. These, however, were Ryan's regular troops; their piety was naturally on an entirely different level.
The celestial warrior woven from Holy Light charged toward the positions held by the dwarf iron guards.
Fortifications originally meant to hold back humans became utterly meaningless before a ten-meter-tall celestial warrior. Low walls, trenches, pitfalls, and barricades—the giant strode over them with effortless strides.
A greatsword formed of Holy Light dragged across the ground, carving out a deep furrow. Whether stone, sand, or steel, everything sliced apart like butter before the glowing blade.
The celestial warrior charged forward, poised to cleave the entire defensive line in two.
Yet the dwarves did not panic. Having fought for so long, the dwarf iron guards had seen this Ryan tactic many times before.
Dozens of iron hammers were hurled through the air, crashing against the celestial warrior with tremendous concussive force.
As if blessed by the earth, the hammers struck the energy-construct celestial warrior and detonated with power akin to sandstorms. Dozens of hammers sufficed to shatter its momentum, fracturing its body with wide, sprawling cracks.
The celestial warrior simply leaned low and swept its longsword across the battlefield, throwing the defensive positions into utter disarray.
Yet under a second volley of hammers, this warrior of light collapsed entirely, dissipating into Holy Light that scattered in the air.
Ryan had lost one celestial warrior, while most of the dwarven positions were ruined and a number of dwarf iron guards were wounded or slain; by all appearances, Ryan had come out ahead. The Ryan forces thought so as well, and their ranks surged forward in a charge.
What followed was brutal, close-quarters combat.
The dwarf iron guards held the front line, securing room for the spellcasters behind them.
The lights of various spells blended into a dazzling panorama, bright as fireworks in the desert night—except where those flashes fell, flesh and blood flew in horrific carnage.
Ryan possessed few such flashy spells; instead, their clerics of light mostly cast support magic on the vanguard warriors.
Guidance, Bless, Warding Bond, Shield of Faith, Aura of Vitality, and more... Pristine Holy Light formed an ocean, washing over every Ryan soldier until each was wrapped in radiance so blinding one could scarcely keep one's eyes open.
Anbaixiu glanced across the battlefield. Though an amateur in warfare, he could still tell the dwarves were steadily losing ground.
The dwarves defending the city were elites, but their numbers were far too small, and in terms of military combat power, they couldn't match Ryan.
Heavily armored paladins formed the vanguard like walking iron cans, their assorted divine buffs allowing them to shrug off most spell damage, while their Divine Smites could cleave clean through solid steel.
Possessing both offense and defense, paired with uniform discipline, their formations appeared far more professional than the dwarves'.
On Sweetdew City's side, only the dwarf iron guards maintained formation; the rest of the conscripted mercenaries had fallen into total disarray, pressed backward step by step by the Ryan legions.
Anbaixiu watched closely. This was his first time witnessing a large-scale army operation by Ryan on a real battlefield.
During the previous exercise, Anbaixiu had relied entirely on tricks and deceit to lure the paladins into a trap, never seeing them unleash their full might. Seeing it now made his scalp prickle. Ryan was just like the Silvermoon Knight: the Silvermoon Knight was overpowered beyond all reason among legends, and Ryan was overpowered beyond all reason among the Nine Kingdoms.
In a head-on clash, the dwarves could not hold out for long. The legends of the Dwarf Kingdom had no choice but to enter the fray, holding back the Ryan legion's advance.
Anbaixiu circled in the sky, searching for his sole opponent.
Before long, Anbaixiu felt a dangerous aura rising from below.
A streak of silver moonlight shot out from the Ryan legion, arcing straight up toward the sky.
Anbaixiu was stunned. That old man wasn't striking Sweetdew City—he was aiming first for the guy flying in the sky?!
Without a moment's hesitation, Anbaixiu steered Naomi to dodge, but to his shock, even Naomi's speed couldn't outrun the sword light. Worse, this moonlight slash seemed locked onto Anbaixiu's aura, swerving mid-flight to pursue him.
"Holy shit!"
Anbaixiu couldn't help cursing aloud. He hurriedly opened his private space and hauled Catherine out.
Before she could even register what was happening, Catherine was about to ask if he needed her help, only to find herself hurled through the air by Anbaixiu.
The moonlight sword strike slammed squarely into Catherine!
Chapter 225