Zariel had never imagined that she would one day be threatened by a mortal—and even more outrageously, that she couldn't simply ignore it.
A lich capable of fabricating souls... Zariel had tested the quality herself, and it was good enough to serve as hard currency in Hell. If word got out, the other hell lords would go mad over him.
Given Zariel's temperament, she would normally have cursed Anbaixiu fiercely and dispatched her Hellriders to hunt him to the ends of the earth.
Yet with their current scheme...
Zariel glared furiously at Anbaixiu and bit out, "Sooner or later, you will pay for your insolence. But this time, you win, lich!"
Anbaixiu let out a sigh of relief.
In truth, he had only been putting on a brave front.
If he had any choice, Anbaixiu would never have so crudely threatened an Archduke of Hell. Even if Zariel was not among the mightiest of deities, she was still an exalted divinity to any mortal.
Intercepting the souls of sinners would provoke all of Hell. There were plenty of hell lords in the Nine Hells far stronger than Zariel, to say nothing of that dreadful Lord of the Nine Hells, Asmodeus.
Anbaixiu had read descriptions of Asmodeus in books. Any sentient being harboring hostility toward the Lord of the Nine Hells would be subjected to relentless, potent mental hypnosis in his presence. If you couldn't withstand it, you would become Asmodeus's thrall. Moreover, that hypnotic power was unending—even if you could hold out for a minute or two, could you last an hour or two?
Fleeing was a viable option, but rumor had it Asmodeus's true form was so immense that pinching two fingers together created a gorge. How wide was the range of that hypnotic aura, then? Anbaixiu might fly at supersonic speeds and still get enthralled before he could escape.
Rumor also had it that Zariel had been mentally hypnotized by Asmodeus in just this way, corrupting her from a pristine angel into a devil of Hell.
Given a choice, Anbaixiu had no desire to offend the Lord of Hell.
Who knew whether those hell lords, upon having their soul coins stolen, would come to trade with him or send cultists and monsters to hunt him down?
If Zariel hadn't been such an obstinate brute who refused to listen to reason, Anbaixiu would never have been so reckless.
Now that Zariel had yielded, Anbaixiu hastily adopted a different tone.
"Oh, come now, I never said I wouldn't pay. The soul coins we agreed on earlier—I'm still willing to provide them. It's a win-win, so there's really no need for hard feelings between us, don't you agree?"
Zariel felt an urge to backhand him across the face; so long as it caused no conspicuous injury, it wouldn't count as violating Ao's rules.
However, she had already backed down just now. Flying into a rage now would be far too humiliating.
Zariel said coldly, "You want to know my plan with Tiamat? I can tell you. You guessed correctly—we need a divination wizard to help us complete a ritual."
"What kind of ritual?"
"Tiamat intends to construct an astral conduit. We need a divination wizard to calibrate the spatial interface for us."
"An astral conduit?"
Anbaixiu didn't grasp it at first, until lore regarding the Astral Plane surfaced in his mind.
The Astral Plane was an entirely different plane from this world.
Parallel planes were hardly a secret. Every divine realm was an independent world, and if one broadened the definition, even Anbaixiu's personal demiplane counted as another plane—albeit a rather small one, containing only what Anbaixiu had shoved inside it.
Each layer of the Nine Hells was an independent world as well, merely linked together in close succession.
There were numerous ways of categorizing these distinct worlds: Inner Planes, Outer Planes, Elemental Planes, the Prime Material Plane, and so forth.
There were also endless concepts like the Outlands and the Chaos Sea. Throughout history, countless wizards had studied different planes, giving their lives one after another to uncover the truth of the cosmos. However, their research lacked a unified system. Most planar descriptions in the books Anbaixiu had read offered different perspectives, at times even contradicting one another.
Some claimed the cosmos was a great tree, where each branch was a different world. Others claimed the cosmos was a pyramid, with the gods dwelling on the upper tiers, Hell resting on the lower levels, and Ao presiding at the apex. Beyond these two, there were also theories of the Great Wheel and the Cosmic Scroll. When it came to cosmology, even legendary wizards could glimpse only a tiny corner, never the full picture.
Yet one thing was beyond doubt: the world Anbaixiu inhabited was part of the Prime Material Plane, though not the entirety of it.
The Astral Plane, meanwhile, could be understood as a special expanse enveloping the Prime Material Plane. If one wished to depart the Prime Material Plane for the outer realms, one had to traverse the Astral Plane.
To establish a stable conduit, one had to locate a weak point in space. Yet calculating that weakness yielded numerous plausible but deceptive results; the slightest miscalculation would render the effort futile.
Anbaixiu surmised that from the start, these two hell lords had intended to use the millions of souls as fuel and raw materials to build the spatial conduit, erring heavily on the side of excess to account for several failures.
Yet, the Astral Plane... A strange name suddenly leapt into Anbaixiu's mind.
Astonished, Anbaixiu said to Zariel, "The Astral Plane... You want to bring a Githyanki army into this world?"
Zariel asked, "Of all the races in the Astral Plane, how did you guess the Githyanki?"
"Isn't it obvious? The Githyanki signed a pact with Tiamat, and their elites are red dragon knights! Tiamat opening an astral conduit is naturally to deliver them onto this plane."
"You even know about that? Lich, your erudition genuinely surprises me."
Zariel was truly astonished. The pact between the Githyanki and Tiamat was closely guarded lore. Records of it likely dated back thousands of years to the age when magical civilization flourished at its height.
Over so many years, such texts should have been lost to history.
Anbaixiu took no pleasure in Zariel's praise. Instead, he asked her in deadly earnest, "Are you trying to destroy this world?"
Not even the descent of the Lord of the Dawn had shocked Anbaixiu to this degree.
In every tome Anbaixiu had read, every account regarding the Githyanki was identical: hideous, brutal, militaristic, radically xenophobic, and utterly devoid of mercy or virtue.
According to what Anbaixiu knew, the Githyanki had once been an enslaved race who, upon winning their freedom, had plunged into racial extremism. They were notorious invaders who relished conquering other worlds to enslave and plunder.
The Githyanki had no civilians; every single one of them was a soldier, groomed from childhood to be part of the army. You could be a blacksmith, an archer, or a warrior charging at the front, but you could not be a civilian.
The concept of farming did not exist among them; their upkeep depended entirely on enslaving other races, much like the Kingdom of Sparta Anbaixiu had heard of in his past life.
Zariel sneered. "How could such words come from the mouth of a lich? The Ryan Empire, basking in the radiance of the Lord of the Dawn, ruling the continent—surely that is true ruin for you. Under the brutal and primitive rule of the Githyanki, you undead ought to thrive quite comfortably."
Anbaixiu retorted coldly, "If human lives become worthless, how am I supposed to make money selling Simulated Souls?!"
Human slaves were already cheaper than Simulated Souls right now. If the Githyanki ruled this plane, human lives would become utterly dirt-cheap, and Anbaixiu wouldn't make a copper! On top of that, the Githyanki had no interest in commerce whatsoever; all they cared about was plundering. They were precisely the sort of people Anbaixiu loathed most.
Zariel had not expected such an answer from Anbaixiu.
"You really are... Never mind. I am no scholar and lack the words to describe someone like you. In any case, you know the truth now, lich. How do you propose to conduct this trade?"
"I want to exchange for my senior brother's soul. As for the astral conduit... do as you please. After all, I'm not the one who needs to worry most. Just name your price in soul coins."
If the Githyanki invaded, Ryan was naturally the one who should be terrified.
If ten or twenty thousand Githyanki arrived, they could mount a fierce assault against Ryan. If a hundred thousand arrived, that would be enough to sway the outcome of this war of invasion.
If a million arrived, Ryan would have to throw everything into fighting back.
And if ten million arrived, there would be no need for words—the entire continent would have to scrape together every last copper and scrap of iron to fight a desperate war to the death against the Githyanki, and their chances of victory wouldn't be high.
No matter what, the ones who would have the biggest headache over these astral marauders would certainly be Ryan.
"I won't accept a single soul coin," Zariel said, "for I intend to remember this humiliation and repay it a hundredfold when the chance arises. As for the trade you speak of, let Tiamat speak with you herself. Lich, you had best not ascend to godhood too soon, or I will come looking for you with the flames of vengeance."
"Wait... millions of soul coins, and you turn them down just to hold a grudge?"
Anbaixiu felt a slight headache. If possible, he really didn't want to make an enemy of Zariel.
Zariel cast Anbaixiu a derisive glance, then dissolved into flames and vanished.
Anbaixiu could only sigh. "Well, when you owe too much, you stop worrying."
He had already offended enough deities; one more in Zariel hardly made a difference. At worst, he could have another chat with the Elven Gods to see if they could draw some of the aggro for him.
Anbaixiu reckoned Tiamat would come knocking soon enough. Now that he had gotten to the bottom of the matter, he couldn't wait to share the good news with Mister Misfortune.
If handled properly, not only could he save Mister Misfortune, but he might also resolve Ryan's invasion.
When the magic mirror connected to Mister Misfortune, Anbaixiu noticed that in just this short time, the old man seemed to have aged a bit more. Evidently, this ordeal had weighed heavily on him.
What every divination wizard feared most was foreseeing their own demise, and Mister Misfortune was no exception, left to watch helplessly as he took one step after another toward Hell.
Anbaixiu cut straight to the chase, not bothering to keep him in suspense. "Good news. I fished you back from Zariel. Not only that, but I can probably help you solve the problem of Ryan's invasion too."
Anbaixiu explained the details of the trade to Mister Misfortune.
The old man asked in confusion, "The Githyanki? What kind of race is that?"
"A hideous race that's brutal, savage, and cares for nothing but plunder. Let me tell you, their skin is like a toad's, and every last one of them has an upturned snout that looks down on people through their nostrils..."
Anbaixiu shared everything he knew with Mister Misfortune, yet the old man's furrowed brow did not relax.
"What's wrong? You're safe, and the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn is safe. Why aren't you happy?" Anbaixiu asked.
Mister Misfortune shook his head. "It's nothing. Perhaps I'm simply worrying too much. Thank you, Arthas. I owe you my life."
"Don't just pay me lip service. I bled heavily for this. You folks from the Unholy Hymn had better reimburse me promptly. A million soul coins requires a vast amount of materials. I'll write you a list, and you have them ready for me."
Anbaixiu decided to inflate the required materials fivefold to make a tidy profit.
Mister Misfortune nodded with a smile. "Alright. I'll be sure to prepare them for you."
Anbaixiu sent the list of materials to Mister Misfortune and ended the communication.
He should have felt relieved, but for some reason, an uneasy feeling still lingered within him. It didn't stem from Zariel or Tiamat, but rather from Mister Misfortune.
Anbaixiu tried rolling several Dice of Fate, wanting to pinpoint the exact source of this unease.
Unfortunately, before the Dice of Fate could stop spinning, they were severed by countless threads of fate. Mister Misfortune had walked much farther down the path of fate than Anbaixiu; attempting to divine anything related to him carried an extraordinarily high chance of failure.
Refusing to give up, Anbaixiu continued by invoking his Destiny Weaving ability.
"Senior Brother, you wouldn't mind going bald, would you?"
Anbaixiu tried weaving a distant future for Mister Misfortune, subjecting him to the fate of baldness.
Yet it failed once more.
The spell failed—he could not weave such a destiny, as if an entirely different fate had already been etched in stone.
Fate could not be altered; not even Destiny Weaving could change an already determined future.
Anbaixiu fell silent for a long time, finally remarking with a sigh, "Senior Brother, it seems the Goddess of Fate truly doesn't smile upon you."
Chapter 330