Aeolus recognized only Ariel's face, and the maiden before him—with the upper body of a human and the lower half of a lobster—bore a countenance identical to the Ariel of his memories.
Not only that, but her upper torso was clad in heavy armor resembling a carapace. Aeolus remembered that the Ariel he had seen also wore heavy plate; if she had held a warhammer in her hand, the resemblance would have been absolute.
Yet was this truly his Ariel?
The goddess of the kuo-toa extended a hand that was half-tentacle and stroked the lobster maiden's head. "Look," she said to Aeolus. "The Ariel you seek is right here. Who was it, then, that your so-called friend found for you?"
Aeolus furrowed his brows. Put that way, had that lich been deceiving him all along?
No, something was definitely wrong.
Aeolus's instincts told him that today's events were far too bizarre, yet for the moment, he could not fathom where the issue lay.
Blibdoolpoolp cared nothing for his doubts. Clamping down on Aeolus's arm with her pincer, she demanded, "This is your Ariel. Can you prove she isn't?"
Aeolus struggled desperately to break free from her grasp, only to discover that the water currents usually at his beck and call refused to obey him now. Nor was his physical strength great enough to contend with a goddess.
Agitated, Aeolus cried, "I will confirm this with the great Talos! Unhand me!"
"Struggle all you like! The only ocean-related portfolio Talos holds is over whirlpools. Powerful though he is, this is the ocean! I am the goddess of the sea!"
In a true clash of power, Blibdoolpoolp was certainly no match for Talos. Even so, she was an established sea deity; suppressing the divine blessings Talos had bestowed upon Aeolus posed little difficulty for her here.
Seeing that the situation had turned dire, Aeolus urgently called upon his father in his heart.
A demigod son's prayers could reach Talos's ears directly, and Talos could even witness the expression on Aeolus's face at this very moment.
Yet within his ruinous divine realm, Talos merely remarked with cold detachment, "What a useless wretch."
Talos had been watching Aeolus's actions all along, though not in the role of a father, but looking down upon mortal folly as the Lord of Storms.
Even though Aeolus carried his blood, he was ultimately just a plaything Talos had fashioned on a whim—much like when he had shared his divine power with the lich Velsharoon many years ago.
There was no deeper reason; it was purely for entertainment.
To Talos, such a sliver of power was beneath mention, yet it had yielded an amusing toy.
Unfortunately, Velsharoon had eventually broken under the strain and chosen to flee.
And now this Aeolus was an even greater disappointment, failing to provide him with any amusement whatsoever.
Talos looked on with utter indifference as Aeolus struggled incessantly. Yet this was already his greatest display of mercy; had Talos chosen to intervene himself, it would have been by tormenting this immortal son with endless lightning to teach him just how bitterly he had disappointed his father.
Talos truly viewed all living beings as ants. Had Ao permitted it, he would not have hesitated to turn all lightning into boiling water and flood the entire Prime Material Plane, just to see if some exceptionally sturdy "ant" could swim through the storm—at which point he would applaud and bestow a few boons upon the survivor.
Therefore, Talos simply watched Aeolus pray in mounting despair without offering the slightest response.
If the boy could not even resolve a minor trouble like this, he was destined never to become the kind of "hero" Talos desired, and any tale concerning Aeolus would become dreadfully dull.
As for the kuo-toa goddess's actions, Talos had no intention of stopping them either.
From the start, Talos had deliberately granted Aeolus power over the seas to lure out that pantheon of sea deities. He had wanted to see whether Aeolus could play the gods against one another like that lich, ideally tricking a goddess or two out of their divine portfolios. Had he done so, Talos would have roared with laughter, brought Aeolus back, and showered him with praise.
Judging by this, however... the lad had no such talent.
Because Talos did not answer his prayers, and because the kuo-toa goddess kept hammering home that the creature before him was indeed the Ariel he sought, Aeolus took Talos's silence for tacit assent.
Blibdoolpoolp had managed an uncharacteristic stroke of coherence, and confusion gradually crept into Aeolus's gaze. He was beginning to accept her claims. Looking back at the half-human, half-lobster "Ariel," his eyes softened considerably.
"Hah, if he can't even figure this out, he might as well remain useless for the rest of his days." Talos closed his eyes, severing his connection with Aeolus. When he opened them once more, the figure of Anbaixiu appeared before him.
Aside from Ao, the deities were neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Talos was able to locate Anbaixiu only because the lich carried the conch shell Aeolus had given him.
Aeolus's power derived from Talos, so the shell—imbued with divine power—served as an artifact of Talos. Though largely useless, tracking it was child's play.
At that moment, Anbaixiu was dispatching members of the Silent Night Pirates into the Volcanic Sea to scout the terrain, while maintaining close contact with the merfolk high priestess to track the movements of the various oceanic races.
Many factions coveted this new sea, by no means just the ixitxachitl. The numerous weaker tribes could be disregarded; minor clans incapable of fielding even a single legend were merely here to scavenge scraps, ready to submit to whoever emerged victorious once the dust settled.
Only five races had the true capacity to contest dominion over this sea: the merfolk, the ixitxachitl, the sahuagin, the kuo-toa, and the nagas.
The merfolk were already Anbaixiu's allies. They cared little about expanding their territory; their sole concern was preventing the ixitxachitl from multiplying. If the population of those demon-blooded horrors exploded, they would be able to summon a projection of Demogorgon.
Should the Prince of Demons manifest in the ocean, virtually no one would be able to withstand him.
Even if the sea deities intervened, they would have to pay a steep price. The end result would be Demogorgon reaping the slaughter and chaos he craved, while the sea deities suffered grievous losses driving his projection back.
Such an outcome would be a resounding victory for the demons, but a devastating loss for the other gods.
Thus, the moment Anbaixiu stated that he also held a grudge against the ixitxachitl, the merfolk high priestess had immediately treated him as an ally.
The sahuagin and kuo-toa were straightforward enough. The sahuagin worshipped Umberlee, the Sea Queen—also known as the Bitch Queen.
More crucially, despite proclaiming herself a goddess of the sea, Umberlee was not counted among the oceanic pantheon, having aligned herself with Talos's Gods of Fury as his nominal ally.
Yet relations among the members of that pantheon were far from harmonious. Umberlee shared no deep friendship with Talos; she was simply just as volatile and quick-tempered, prone to recurring urges to destroy the world.
Consequently, the sahuagin who worshipped her were a rabid, bloodthirsty breed. A new sea meant new hunting grounds, and the sahuagin would never relinquish it.
According to intelligence from the merfolk, tens of thousands of sahuagin elites had already entered the Volcanic Sea, searching for areas suitable for establishing settlements. Once successful, they would harness Umberlee's divine might to breed giant sharks, infusing the surrounding waters with a razor-sharp murderous aura.
As for the kuo-toa, they were foolish, clumsy, yet vast in number. It surprised no one when that pack of unreasonable lunatics did something unhinged, and Anbaixiu did not even bother trying to predict their actions—it was utterly pointless.
The ixitxachitl, meanwhile, exhibited classic traits of abyssal demons, possessing immense vitality. An individual ixitxachitl had a short lifespan, but their vitality was truly formidable; they reproduced prolifically, grew at an astonishing pace, and boasted powerful regenerative abilities when injured. Intelligence from the merfolk reported that the ixitxachitl had already seized several oceanic trenches in the Volcanic Sea and were laying vast quantities of eggs.
With no natural predators in the newly formed sea, they would hatch fresh broods at maximum speed. This threat had to be dealt with immediately; give them a few more days, and the Volcanic Sea would be entirely overrun.
As for the final race, the nagas, Anbaixiu found it genuinely difficult to make a call.
From what he knew, the nagas worshipped Shekinester, the Three-Faced Goddess. She was of the lawful good alignment, and worshippers naturally gravitated toward their deity's disposition and adhered to her tenets, making these nagas good in principle.
The sole complication lay in the fact that the Three-Faced Goddess held ties to the dragon race.
According to the Book of Creation, the first dragon across the multiverse was Asgorath, Creator of All Dragonkind, the Nine-Fold Dragon God, and shaper of many planes.
This chief deity of the draconic pantheon bore another name—Io.
The pronunciation was remarkably close to Ao, and his authority mirrored Ao's as well; on certain non-Prime Material planes, Io's jurisdiction was purportedly even broader than Ao's.
Of course, all of that was just the dragons' own boasting. Anbaixiu had no way of verifying its truth, for the Overgod Ao never cared whether anyone claimed to rival him.
Regardless of its veracity, the Nine-Fold Dragon God had created the dragon race, the draconic pantheon, and the scaled deities, who were his scions or avatars. Among them was the Queen of Nagas, the Three-Faced Goddess, whose entangled history with dragons was murky at best.
Based on current intelligence, the wager between the draconic gods and the Lord of the Dawn had not yet concluded, so the draconic deities would not intervene. Strictly speaking, the Queen of Nagas was not part of the draconic pantheon... so how did she view the dragons beyond the sea?
Anbaixiu had only just pummeled those overseas dragons into submission, virtually reducing them all to livestock under his care.
Would the Queen of Nagas take issue with that?
Lawful good though she was, even deities had their moments of wrath—and when that happened, they acted on whim rather than alignment.
Talos likewise grasped the dilemma Anbaixiu was turning over in his mind. The Lord of Storms was exceedingly curious to see what Anbaixiu would do.
Talos rubbed his hands together, lightning crackling from his palms. He thought with rising anticipation, *This lich commands formidable forces. Will he go to war directly with the nagas? Let them fight! It's high time this ocean grew lively!*
On a crude nautical chart, Anbaixiu sketched various lines and annotations, recording every shred of intelligence concerning the sea's major powers. Then, he activated a magic mirror and transmitted the chart's information to several "friends."
The retired Old Elven King of the Silvermoon High Court, the retired Supreme Arbiter of the Ryan Empire, the retired President of the Alchemists' Council exiled to the Lands of Chaos... Though all three were retired old fogies, the talent under their command included plenty of seasoned military minds.
Anbaixiu knew his own limits very well. When it came to waging war, he was an absolute amateur.
In that case, he would let the professionals draft the operational plans. Whoever's strategy was selected would simply be granted a small discount on business platform transaction fees down the line.
Chapter 423