The mist in Ariel's eyes quickly cleared; in the end, no tears fell. Hearing Anbaixiu's words, she recounted the final words Mengge Grayriver had left behind back then.
This was something that should never have been shared with an outsider, but because of the "resemblance" between the two, Ariel hadn't been able to stop herself from speaking. Perhaps she also hoped to receive advice from this erudite master.
"Master Ultraman, do you know what those words mean?" Ariel asked.
Anbaixiu nodded and said, "Evidently, this hero caught the favor of some deity who could not wait to guide him into their divine realm, which was why he died so abruptly. As for which deity it was, I have no way of guessing. Still, this is a good thing—after all, Your Highness, as the chosen of Talos, you are destined to enter His divine realm.
"In the near future, you will have eternity to search for this hero. Given the fame of the Lord of the Storm, asking around on your behalf will be no trouble at all. So, focus first on doing what you must. As long as you keep Talos satisfied, your wish will naturally be fulfilled."
Ariel looked up, however, and sighed. "I have considered seeking the help of the Lord of the Storm as well, but sadly, He has never given me any response."
"Then that merely means the time has not yet come, Your Highness. Deities are omniscient and omnipotent; there is always a reason when they do not respond. That is all the more reason to do everything you ought to do and patiently await destiny's arrival."
Anbaixiu's words seemed to lend Ariel strength, and the sparkle finally returned to the princess's eyes.
"You're right, Master Ultraman. As a follower of the Lord of the Storm, serving my deity should come first. I must trust that Talos has long made arrangements."
Anbaixiu breathed a sigh of relief. He had successfully cleared this hurdle at last.
As long as Ariel didn't let her imagination run wild, their cooperation wouldn't run into trouble.
At that very moment, Heji Stone, skulking in a corner, cast an intensely disgusted grimace toward Anbaixiu, before adding another line to his notes: "This lich perpetually wears a fake smile, yet his eyes carry not an ounce of warmth. His words are sweet and pleasant to the ear, but behind them lurk endless apathy and scheming. His heart never lingers on anyone; he cares only for his own profit..."
Watching Heji Stone scribbling away furiously, Anbaixiu couldn't resist asking, "What on earth are you writing? You're taking notes even on a casual chat between the princess and me? What does that have to do with my great cause?"
Heji Stone wagged his head. "Shows how little you understand. Historical materials require details. Only with details can things corroborate one another and prove their authenticity. Don't mind me—you chat your chat, I'll write my notes."
Anbaixiu badly wanted to kick this dwarf vampire. A divination wizard's intuition told him that this fellow's drafts were riddled with quotes taken out of context, preconceived biases, and slanderous fabrications. Unfortunately, he had no proof.
Still, Anbaixiu didn't take such a trivial matter to heart for now. After all, the dwarf was only writing about Ultraman Tiga—what did that have to do with Anbaixiu?
At worst, he could simply switch to another persona when the time came.
The Grey River took to the skies, echoing Ariel's state of mind. Having spoken what was in her heart to Anbaixiu, she felt refreshed and invigorated.
Some burdens weren't truly insurmountable; what was unbearable was having no one to share them with.
Now, Ariel felt as though a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and smiles appeared on her face far more frequently.
Upon returning from the Sea of Thunder to the Raging Tide Kingdom, Ariel resumed her busy work on the alchemy workshops, while Anbaixiu pulled all-nighters to thoroughly study the blueprints provided by the Githyanki.
Mind flayers were exceptionally adept at lurking in hiding, making them very difficult to locate by ordinary means. However, their ability to remain hidden was rooted in their powerful psionic mind-control capabilities.
And so long as psionic mind-control abilities were used, they would be detected by the Githyanki's "gem."
Anbaixiu was also astonished by the design of this "gem"—it could sense fluctuations in psionic energy with extreme sensitivity and boasted a tremendous detection radius.
They truly lived up to their reputation as the archenemies of mind flayers; the Githyanki had racked their brains to hunt down their former masters.
The manufacturing cost of this psionic-energy detection gem was somewhat high. Anbaixiu failed twice, burning through over ten thousand gold coins' worth of materials before successfully crafting one.
Anbaixiu inlaid the fist-sized transparent gem into the head of a staff. The moment it detected someone casting a mind-control spell, the transparent gem would turn red, and an arrow-shaped marker would form within it.
The closer one got to the target, the deeper the red became.
The gem's detection range was roughly five kilometers. If one swept across the sky aboard an aircraft, a vast swath of land could be scanned in no time.
Yet the mind flayers were not in the Prime Material Plane; they might have been banished to the Lands of Chaos.
In a place like the Lands of Chaos, space and time were utterly chaotic and fractured, so it was hard to say how useful this gem would actually be.
Anbaixiu could only teleport the completed staff along with the crafting schematics over, hoping that those in the Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn might help resolve this dilemma.
However, after waiting several days, rather than receiving good news from the Unholy Hymn, Anbaixiu received an unwelcome piece of news that made his brow furrow.
From the Volcanic Sea, Aige sent an urgent signal—she was on the verge of ascending to godhood.
The news stunned Anbaixiu for a moment. According to his calculations, it would take Aige at least several decades to convert the power of faith into the embryonic form of a divine realm, allowing her to possess her own divine realm the very instant she ascended.
It had only been a few days—how could she suddenly be about to achieve godhood?
Without the slightest hesitation, Anbaixiu dropped his current work and rushed to the Volcanic Sea.
By now, the majority of the Volcanic Sea had fallen under the control of the Silent Night Pirates. Unfortunately, there were only so many merfolk "criminals," leaving this expansive stretch of ocean sparsely populated.
But this also had its advantages: resources were abundant, and these "non-celibate" merfolk would reproduce swiftly. Give them two generations, and their population would grow exponentially.
And that was precisely where the problem lay. The merfolk's faith in Aige was only in its infancy; where could the power have come from to push Aige into the realm of deities?
This question was answered the moment Anbaixiu laid eyes on Aige.
Aige's ghost ship had transformed. Ugly seashells were irregularly encrusted across the hull, devoid of any aesthetic appeal and making it look swollen and grotesque.
Bizarre coral formations grew along the masts, and even the prow had begun mutating into the shape of a lobster's head.
Aige's avatar was barely maintaining her original appearance, yet unsightly gills had already sprouted on her neck.
Seeing Anbaixiu arrive, Aige said agitatedly, "You came just in time. You must have guessed what happened, right?"
Anbaixiu nodded. This was undeniably the corruption of faith.
The only ones capable of doing this were the kuo-toa.
A massive number of kuo-toa had switched their worship, and a torrent of the power of faith had surged into Aige's body, beginning to warp her form.
Kuo-toa could supply vast amounts of the power of faith; the faith provided by any random kuo-toa rivaled that of a zealot. Yet no deity wanted such worshippers, and the reason was the corrupting effect of kuo-toa belief.
Their minds were far too deranged; they would revere delusions cooked up by their own fevered imaginations as deities, and then reshape those deities into the forms they envisioned.
The Kuo-toa Goddess bore an unsightly lobster head primarily because a lobster head suited the kuo-toa sense of aesthetics.
And now, Aige was starting to turn into a lobster head too, which meant an enormous swarm of kuo-toa was funneling the power of faith to her.
"That psychotic goddess is truly ruthless," Anbaixiu remarked. "Voluntarily making her own worshippers switch their faith—isn't she afraid of taking a loss?"
This was undoubtedly the Kuo-toa Goddess's retaliation, executed with surgical precision. The true crisis was not the cosmetic alteration, but that Aige's progression toward godhood had been thrown into disarray.
If she ascended to godhood now, Aige's divine realm wouldn't be ready. The very moment she became a deity, she would become prey in a hunting pack.
Hell lords, abyss demons, evil deities of every stripe... they would all be itching to tear Aige to shreds. Furthermore, Aige's identity as an undead inevitably placed her at odds with many factions; perhaps even the Lord of the Dawn would strike.
And that was exactly what the Kuo-toa Goddess wanted to see. She sought to destroy Aige, exacting vengeance upon Anbaixiu in the process.
Anbaixiu asked, "Can't the President's ring convert this power of faith? Wouldn't this power of faith accelerate the creation of your divine realm?"
Aige said helplessly, "There isn't enough time. This power of faith is surging toward me like a tsunami, while the ring acts merely as a narrow ditch—it cannot possibly divert and convert such a colossal flood of faith."
Artifacts had their limits too. This ring was formidable, but compared against the vengeance of an entire race and a deity, a solitary artifact simply didn't cut it.
Moreover, the Kuo-toa Goddess's move was an open scheme. Unless Aige abandoned ascension to godhood and completely severed all influence of the power of faith upon herself, she could not stop the kuo-toa from "worshipping" her.
Faith was part of the world's fundamental laws. If you wished to harness the power of faith, you had to accept its influence. There was no such thing as reaping the benefits without bearing the backlash—not even for the Lord of the Dawn.
Seen this way, the Kuo-toa Goddess's gambit seemed invincible, capable of corrupting any deity at will.
In reality, however, that was not the case. Other deities possessed vast swathes of worshippers, so the corrupting effects of a contingent of kuo-toa would swiftly be cleansed by their existing flock, turning into pure energy. Alternatively, some deities simply wouldn't care. What did altering their image matter? Deities could manifest avatars at will, molding themselves into whatever form they pleased. No matter how hideous the true form might be, could it be uglier than a demon? Free power of faith—only a fool would turn it down.
Only Aige found herself in an awkward bind: she could not reject it, yet she could not afford to be prematurely forced into ascension either.
"Even if the power of faith is sufficient, it won't work without Ao's nod," Anbaixiu consoled her. "Let's stay calm. Perhaps Ao won't sanction the Kuo-toa Goddess's actions?"
Aige shook her head again and said with resignation, "No, I have already sensed it. The moment I lose control, Ao will grant my ascension. The Overgod is impartial; He will not disrupt the Kuo-toa Goddess's plot just to aid me. And this... is also a trial Ao has set for me."
"Then that's troublesome..."
Never had Anbaixiu imagined that this matter had escalated into a trial from Ao.
As common knowledge dictated, the most fundamental prerequisite for godhood was Ao's nod. As long as He gave His approval, whether you were willing or not, even if you were nothing more than a lump of mud, you could become the God of Mud.
Take the God of Alchemy as an example: Anbaixiu's unification of weights and measures in alchemy was a great achievement that merely drew Ao's attention to his teacher. In the end, Old Pete was able to become the true God of Alchemy, taking the concept of alchemy as his divine portfolio, only because he passed Ao's trial.
The exact details were unknown to Anbaixiu, but he knew the trial was definitely not easy.
Just like Aige's current predicament: Ao's trial had already begun. Giving up meant total failure, and she would likely never get another chance.
For anyone else, surviving was more important; giving up was just giving up.
Yet Aige could not abandon this. Her wish was for Ao to help her resurrect the old shipwright—something only Ao could do. Abandoning this was no different from suicide to her.
"I still underestimated deities after all; this move is vicious enough. However, it's not entirely without a solution."
Anbaixiu said to Aige, "You said the kuo-toa's power of faith is like a tsunami, and the artifact ring alone can't divert it. In that case, we can simply open a few more floodgates. Senior Aige, perhaps you can take on a few subordinate deities in advance to help divert and share this power of faith for you."
Chapter 470