Ange Watson ended the transmission with a heavy expression, saying that arranging an audience with the emperor required higher approval.
Anbaixiu was in no hurry. The ones in a rush right now were the Ryanites.
"Why do you want to talk business with the Ryan Emperor?"
Heji Stone had already pulled out his little notebook once more, prepared to record Anbaixiu's answer.
"I'm a little worried that the Ryan Emperor might have been replaced."
Lately, Anbaixiu had been run off his feet with work and had found no time to properly look into the changes occurring in Ryan. It was only because he was about to do business with them that he had finally gotten around to sorting through the latest intelligence on the empire.
And that was when he noticed numerous suspicious points.
First and foremost was the complete downfall of the Ryan imperial clan. When Anbaixiu had heard bits of it earlier, he had assumed it was an exaggeration, thinking the Ryanites had merely rounded up a few royals for public beheading and called it a day. But after making some discreet inquiries later, he discovered that a great many had genuinely died.
Whether the bloodline was entirely wiped out remained uncertain, but the casualties were staggering.
This was simply mad, and completely baffling to Anbaixiu.
He had originally expected them to force the young emperor to abdicate in disgrace and replace him with another.
After all, Ryan had gone through emperors at a dizzying pace over recent years; changing rulers was hardly a big deal for the imperial family.
Yet the outcome was that the young emperor remained unharmed, while the rest of the imperial clan had been dragged out and sacrificed. That made no sense to Anbaixiu.
What truly confounded him was this: who had given that order?
As everyone knew, humans were creatures of ingrained self-interest—in short, selfish.
The Ryan imperial clan had long since forsaken the tenets of the Lord of the Dawn and would do anything to protect their own privileges. Under such circumstances, who would order the sacrifice of massive numbers of royals just to preserve a useless young puppet of an emperor?
The only explanation was that the young emperor had issued the order himself.
And that required a premise: the young emperor truly held actual power.
Yet that premise ought to have been impossible.
Anyone who observed the performance of Ryan emperors over recent years knew that they were puppets, scapegoats, and breeding machines meant solely to produce heirs.
Someone like that could not possibly hold real authority, let alone possess the clout to make a multitude of royals die as stepping stones beneath his feet.
Something must have happened during that process.
Now that Anbaixiu had some free time, he needed to study it thoroughly. After all, on this entire continent, Ryan was his only true mortal enemy.
The Holy Light and the undead were fundamentally incompatible. Even if Anbaixiu were to pray devoutly to the Lord of the Dawn, all he would receive in return was the excruciating torment of a thousand cuts.
Regardless of what Anbaixiu did or did not do, the very essence of the Holy Light was to eradicate the undead.
Perhaps some extraordinarily gifted undead could change their alignment, but that was merely another form of death.
I was living perfectly well as an undead—why on earth should I conform to your Holy Light's standards?
Cattle and sheep eat grass, humans eat cattle and sheep, and the undead eat humans; each was simply a link in the food chain. One could argue over who was stronger or weaker, but moralizing over superior virtue was utterly meaningless.
Yet the factions in this world were not governed by morality, but by the will of the gods.
The Holy Light was physically present, not some abstract war of public opinion. Even if Anbaixiu wished to withdraw and stay clear, the Holy Light would still rain down upon him.
That was why Ryan would forever be the enemy Anbaixiu cared about the most.
Ever since the incident where the young emperor crushed his own people, Ryan had undergone earth-shattering changes. Sacrificing his kin had stabilized the teetering empire and postponed an outright rupture.
Then, the young emperor actually proved willing to listen to Alan, initiating gradual reforms across Ryan in what appeared to be an attempt to pivot away from an extremist theocracy back toward orthodox faith.
Following that, when the orcs invaded, the emperor braved nationwide pressure to sacrifice twenty thousand commoners and refused to cooperate with the invaders.
One had to remember that the imperial family's prestige was already at an all-time low. To spare Ange Watson from bearing the brunt of public condemnation, the emperor used himself as a shield, directly maxing out Ange Watson's loyalty to the point where the general was willing to dedicate his entire life and die in service.
Retrieving the corpses and resurrecting them afterward was a stroke of absolute genius.
All the infamy endured before instantly transformed into overflowing praise.
Through this string of maneuvers, Ryan had lost a single city, yet re-forged itself into a unified whole, sending the emperor's renown soaring and front-line morale sky-high.
That city had likely been surrendered deliberately. Otherwise, if the young emperor could withstand the pressure of sacrificing twenty thousand lives for Ange Watson's sake, how could he have buckled under early pressure, replaced his general at the last minute, and lost a city?
Ruthless, venomous, executed with astonishing finesse, and yielding a flawless outcome... At such mastery in turning clouds into rain, even Anbaixiu had to offer words of praise.
Yet could such moves have come from that cowardly, death-fearing young emperor?
Anbaixiu felt it was impossible. Personal growth was a gradual process; experiencing life and death could alter a person's temperament, but wisdom would never skyrocket overnight.
The young emperor might have shed his arrogance on the battlefield, but the subsequent schemes were not a matter of personality. They required exceptionally intricate planning. Such things could not be achieved through sudden enlightenment; they required extensive time to accumulate, starting from a profound insight into human nature.
There had to be someone behind the curtain, and Anbaixiu wanted to know who it was.
A face-to-face meeting should reveal a great deal.
Only after Anbaixiu finished his analysis did Heji Stone come to a sudden realization. The dwarven vampire could not help sighing in admiration. Although this lich loved to scheme against people, he was truly dependable at critical moments. Being his friend was genuinely reassuring, as he calculated every single angle on your behalf.
"Well then, should we notify Rose? She'd probably be very interested in matters concerning the Ryan imperial family, wouldn't she?"
Anbaixiu nodded and said, "I'll contact her right now. Intelligence regarding Ryan should naturally be shared with her."
Reaching out to the Rose of Decay did not require complex arrangements; all it took was opening the magic mirror.
The Undead Queen looked just as she always had: flawless snow-white skin, with eyes and lips of an alluring, eerie crimson that left an indelible impression on anyone who caught a glimpse.
In a peculiar tone, the Rose of Decay remarked, "How do you have time to look for me? Weren't you just busy holding hands with Aige on the path to godhood?"
Heji Stone crouched in the corner, scribbling furiously in his notes. Anbaixiu noticed nothing and simply explained with composure, "Just a minor hitch, but it's already resolved thanks to the President's help."
"The President? He showed up just now?" the Rose of Decay asked in astonishment.
She had been a member of the Elegy Poetry Society far longer than Anbaixiu, yet she had never once laid eyes on that mysterious Mourner.
"I was very surprised too, because I couldn't sense his arrival or departure in the slightest. It was as though he had never existed at all. How mysterious—our leader is probably far from an ordinary deity."
The Rose of Decay pondered for a moment, then asked, "Did you manage to chat about anything with him? With your knack for things, you always manage to take some advantage whenever you get a chance to speak."
"How could I? I only take advantage of enemies. Everyone in the Elegy Poetry Society is on our side... Sadly, the President didn't give me the opportunity. From start to finish, he only greeted me before vanishing. Still, it wasn't without gain. Aige no longer needs my assistance, and there shouldn't be any further obstacles on her path to ascension. That means our plan to deal with Ryan will proceed much more smoothly."
The Rose of Decay paused, then asked, "Our plan to deal with Ryan?"
Anbaixiu replied as if it were obvious, "What else? Haven't we been aiming to destroy Ryan from the very beginning? My teacher, the God of Alchemy, alone is no match for the Lord of the Dawn. The plan to abduct the Kuo-toa Goddess this time was actually an experiment. I wanted to see how much divine power I could mobilize. If we can drag the Kuo-toa Goddess out of her divine realm, could that same power pose a threat to the Lord of the Dawn?"
The Rose of Decay felt a surge of emotion. So he had never forgotten about this matter after all.
Anbaixiu continued sharing his thoughts aloud.
"You see, now that Ryan faces a foreign enemy, it immediately broke free of its fractured state, uniting inside and out to fight the orcs. That's why I previously opposed using Arthur Ryan. Over a thousand years have deeply ingrained Ryan's cultural values; a massive external shock will only cement the cracks between them. But it's not without benefits either. Ryan has come to me to do business now. They are constantly lowering their bottom line, and collapse isn't far off..."
The Rose of Decay listened attentively, her gaze toward Anbaixiu growing increasingly gentle.
Watching this unfold, Heji Stone couldn't resist the urge to pen a panegyric for the lich. That this lich managed to deceive so many women was truly not a matter of luck. A question that could have cost a man his life had been resolved so 'sincerely' by him.
Yet was this truly sincerity?
Heji Stone realized that even as a bystander, he could no longer tell. Everything Anbaixiu claimed credit for was genuine, achieved through his own painstaking efforts.
That put him leagues ahead of scoundrels who only knew how to run their mouths.
Perhaps it was just as Anbaixiu had said before: sincerity was truly the ultimate trump card.
Once Anbaixiu briefly brought her up to speed, the moment he brought up the young emperor, the Rose of Decay seemed prepared and said directly to him, "That young emperor of Ryan is likely already finished."
"Finished? What do you mean by that?"
Anbaixiu knew the Rose of Decay possessed special intelligence sources within Ryan, but this phrasing sounded far too strange.
"It's merely my speculation, but one thing is certain: ever since he donned the Dragon Tyrant Armament last time, he hasn't taken that artifact off once. You should understand what that implies."
Anbaixiu gasped, "The Dragon Blood Curse in the Ryan bloodline! Did the Demonic Dragon finally succeed?"
Back then, the Demonic Dragon Tyrant had sacrificed himself to unleash the most vicious curse, lying dormant within the bloodline of the entire Ryan imperial clan.
Only with that power could they wield the Dragon Tyrant Armament, but that same power would relentlessly erode their souls. Just like Arthur Ryan in the past, who ultimately failed to endure it and perished at the hands of the Old Elven King.
The Dragon Blood Curse was bound to share an intimate connection with the Dragon Tyrant Armament. If the young emperor had never removed the armament, it was highly likely that he was already controlled by the Demonic Dragon's soul.
"Wait, something isn't right here." Anbaixiu pondered for a moment, then said, "If the Dragon Blood Curse has finally succeeded, does that mean the long-standing wager between the Lord of the Dawn and the draconic deities has reached a conclusion? Regardless of how they determine the victor, once the wager is settled, the rule forbidding deities from acting against one another becomes void."
Anbaixiu couldn't help feeling nervous. Rubbing his hands together, he muttered, "If the wager really is over, those deities will enter the next phase. Whichever side lost is either preparing to turn the tables—or flip the board entirely!"
Chapter 474