Anbaixiu did not linger in the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn. Even though Red River Town was the place he had lived the longest, he felt not the slightest attachment to a settlement that had altered beyond recognition.
Teleporting straight to the border fortress of Blackgate City, he cloaked himself in an illusion once outside its walls and took to the sky.
He wanted to inspect the region firsthand, to see the lay of the land and whether there was any chance of holding off Ryan's grand army.
Yet the moment he rose into the air, Anbaixiu was greeted by the sight of densely packed Gates of Hell.
When dormant, a Gate of Hell could remain concealed and entirely invisible. But because Unholy Hymn intended them as a deterrent against Ryan, phantasmal projections of the gates loomed high above the terrain.
Each gate towered a hundred meters tall. The one Anbaixiu had seen before had been a miniature version by comparison, utterly pale in contrast.
These gates were arrayed along the border between the two realms—a frontier stretching roughly two hundred kilometers, bounded on either end by rugged mountains and a multitude of active volcanoes.
Consequently, outside of this two-hundred-kilometer stretch, it was virtually impossible for Ryan to bypass the volcanic ranges and strike into the heart of Unholy Hymn.
Even so, the opening was vast enough, consisting almost entirely of open, sweeping plains. Aside from the Gates of Hell, there were numerous rivers of molten lava deliberately channeled down from the active volcanoes by the tieflings, forming a crisscrossing expanse of molten rock.
Dozens of Gates of Hell were spaced evenly along the frontier, one every two or three kilometers. The defensive line could be called exceptionally formidable.
Together, the border cities of both nations totaled twenty-three. Unholy Hymn held fewer, with only ten.
Blackgate City stood at the very front line, a purely militarized fortress. Its walls had turned pitch-black from years of volcanic ash, earning the bastion its name.
Ryan, on the other hand, held thirteen border cities. Liuyan City was the closest to the frontier and by far the largest, while the other twelve served as its satellites, dedicated to logistics and garrison defense.
Ryan's army would inevitably march out from Liuyan City. Once they crossed the border, they would find their path barred by the lava rivers and the Gates of Hell.
Under normal circumstances, those two obstacles alone were enough to turn back any force.
The tieflings would only need to wait inside Blackgate City, occasionally providing long-range magical artillery.
Even if the soldiers of Ryan proved invincible and fought their way across the expanse, the fiends pouring from the Gates of Hell would harry them from behind, driving them toward Blackgate City. Pinched from both sides, Ryan's army would be thoroughly annihilated.
As long as the forces of Ryan could not bypass that line, Unholy Hymn could rest easy.
Yet now that the line was reduced to an empty shell, Unholy Hymn's defenses appeared pathetically frail—like a wall of paper, ready to collapse at the slightest push from Ryan.
And if Blackgate City fell, Unholy Hymn's gates would be thrown wide open. Ryan could wage the war however it pleased, easily overrunning the entire kingdom once a supply line was secured.
"No wonder Vladimir was willing to set up this defense line. It really is brilliant—minimal cost, maximum impact, saving astronomical sums in military upkeep. No wonder the kingdom's prosperity kept growing. Pity that everything comes at a price."
The longer he lived in this world, the more Anbaixiu came to understand the weight of fate's designs.
He might seem to be thriving lately, but that success had been bought with centuries of wandering in exile. He had not merely missed an opportunity to ascend to godhood; he carried countless regrets that still made his soul tremble whenever he looked back.
Arthur Ryan had seemed almost blessed by a cheat, slaying the Demonic Dragon Tyrant with a mortal body to liberate the entire world, only to spend his final years battling the beast's lingering malice until his very soul was annihilated. The dragon race had met a similar fate: once rulers of the world, now driven beyond the seas, their newly hatched whelps reduced to surviving on fish—a testament to how far they had fallen.
Vladimir had enjoyed hundreds of years of smooth sailing. Now, the time had come to settle the bill.
Remaining high in the sky, Anbaixiu flew on toward Liuyan City to see what preparations Ryan was making and whether there was any opportunity to exploit.
He was daring enough to dispense with stealth, dropping out of concealment just outside Liuyan City and releasing his dark magic in full view.
Sensing the presence of undead magic, Liuyan City instantly flared with brilliant holy light, locking onto Anbaixiu.
Yet Anbaixiu was crafty enough to remain standing far outside the walls, well beyond the reach of the city's magical defense perimeter.
Before long, dozens of figures surged out through the gates—evidently paladins dispatched to scout.
Catching sight of a lich flaunting his dark magic without the slightest attempt to hide it, they promptly raised their longswords, shouting, "By the Holy Light, that evil is a worthy foe!"
More than a dozen paladins charged on horseback, Divine Smite already coalescing along their blades, fully intent on grinding Anbaixiu into fine bone dust.
Anbaixiu merely let out a chuckle. Magic surged from his fingertips, and a colossal stone wall erupted directly across the paladins' charge path.
Fortunately for them, some distance still separated the two sides. The paladins possessed superb horsemanship, violently wrenching their reins aside just in time to avoid slamming headlong into the barrier.
By then, Anbaixiu had already appeared atop the stone wall, casually tossing a parchment down toward them.
"Don't draw steel the second you see an undead. I am a lich pardoned by your Ryan Empire. Under your own laws, you aren't permitted to lay a hand on me. That would be a crime, you know."
His words nearly made the paladins fume with rage. A pardoned lich? Who had ever heard of—wait. Actually, they had.
Back when Anbaixiu halted the war and was granted an imperial pardon by Ryan, the incident had caused a massive uproar. Many argued that an undead was still an undead, and doing good deeds did not warrant a pardon.
Yet many others had supported it, for a simple reason: the sacred texts explicitly stated that saving humanity from catastrophe was a deed worthy of commendation.
By halting the war, Anbaixiu had spared over a million human lives. If even a lich like that went unrewarded, how could the clerics receive their honors with a clear conscience? All the lives they had saved across their entire careers did not amount to a fraction of Anbaixiu's total.
For the sake of internal stability, the dissenters had been forced to swallow the outcome. Otherwise, at every medal ceremony, someone would inevitably remark sourly, "Compared to that lich, what does this little scrap of merit even amount to?"
The pardon had also been issued for that very reason: no one could stomach the consequences of a collective mutiny by the clerics of light.
Recalling that rather unpleasant piece of history, the paladins deflated on the spot. For the first time in their lives, they faced an undead against whom they could not draw their swords—not because they lacked courage, but because the lich held special immunity.
It was infuriating beyond words.
Suppressing the urge to swear, the paladins barked, "What are you doing here at Liuyan City? You aren't welcome!"
Anbaixiu smiled. "No need to be hasty. I have critical intelligence concerning the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn. As Ryan's only undead friend, shouldn't I deliver it to your commanding officer?"
Chapter 322