Deep in the dark subterranean depths, several hundred savage ghouls were frantically excavating sand and stone.
Their fangs and claws continually splintered under the sheer force of their labor, only to rapidly regenerate under the shrouding aura of vast dark magic.
With such a frenzied, tireless troupe of miners, the rubble and sand were swiftly cleared away to reveal a colossal passage.
An elegant ghoul dressed in formal attire stepped through his servants, making his way toward the deepest part of the tunnel.
A massive archway emerged at the tunnel’s end, framing a door of flesh and blood far tougher than steel.
The ghoul, Youjiaxi, reached out and tapped on it. The subtle motion produced a thunderous boom, sending vibrations reverberating through the earth and shaking loose a rain of sand and rock from the ceiling.
Only when the passage was half-buried once more did Youjiaxi sigh. "Still not awake? Just how soundly do you sleep, old friend?"
There was still no response from beyond the door. Youjiaxi let out a resigned sigh. "I really hate letting others see me like this."
The next instant, Youjiaxi's body ballooned like a blown-up balloon. His gentlemanly tailcoat ripped completely apart, and his swelling muscles bulged into monstrous sarcomas, each block of flesh wildly throbbing as though possessed of its own heart.
In this form, Youjiaxi slashed out with his claws.
Crimson light coated the talons. Back when the Elegy Poetry Society's members had been helpless before the corpse of Lolth the Spider Queen, unable even to leave a mark, Youjiaxi had disemboweled her remains and halted her automatic regeneration.
Now, facing flesh and blood harder than steel, Youjiaxi was similarly able to tear away massive chunks and stuff them into his mouth.
"Tsk, truly foul!" Youjiaxi complained.
This specially treated flesh was exceptionally tough and chewy. While it made fine nourishment for a ghoul, it only provided raw energy; the taste was dreadful, like chewing tasteless cured jerky that coated the mouth in a nauseating, greasy film.
Still, ghouls could not afford to be picky eaters. Maintaining this form consumed considerable strength, and Youjiaxi needed nourishment to replenish himself.
Before long, Youjiaxi had gouged a gaping hole through the gate.
The legendary ghoul drew in his power, shrinking back into his gaunt, emaciated state. Though his formal attire was reduced to tatters, he tidied himself slightly before stepping through the breach.
Once inside, Youjiaxi shouted into the darkness, "Old fellow! Just how long do you plan to sleep? Arthur Ryan has been resurrected! Don't you want to see your old comrade-in-arms?!"
Within the pitch-black void, two crimson lights flared to life, followed by a shockwave that made the very earth tremble.
Youjiaxi narrowed his eyes, shifting back into his sarcoma-ridden ghoul form and crossing his claws in front of him.
The moment he took his stance, a colossal fist smashed directly toward his face. That single fist alone was larger than Youjiaxi's entire body.
The tremendous kinetic impact hurled Youjiaxi back a dozen meters, plowing deep claw marks into the solid stone floor.
Having blocked the blow, Youjiaxi chuckled. "Old fellow, after all these years, you still wake up on the wrong side of the bed?!"
The giant fist withdrew, and the twin red lights gleamed brighter in the darkness as a deep, rumbling voice spoke: "Arthur Ryan? He is already dead!"
Youjiaxi returned to his humanoid form and brushed the dust from his rags.
"Old fellow, you have slumbered for too long. Arthur Ryan has indeed returned to life. Care for me to fill you in on recent events?"
The red glow in the darkness dimmed considerably, and the deep voice echoed, "By 'recent,' which year do you mean?"
"Well," Youjiaxi replied, "let's start with the last thousand years."
...
In the gloom, the two relics of antiquity—neither knowing just how many millennia the other had lived—chatted through the great events of the past thousand years. One recounted, and the other listened. An unknown amount of time passed before the conversation finally arrived at the present day.
"This lich is quite intriguing. He was the one who dug up Arthur Ryan. While I'm still unclear on the specifics, there is no question that Arthur is the genuine article."
The towering silhouette in the dark fell silent for a long while before speaking slowly: "I will make him die a second time! I will slay him with my own hands!"
"I thought you two were once brothers-in-arms?"
"Indeed. And that is precisely why I must kill him."
"Your reason?"
"You have no need to know."
"Splendid, then. I just so happen to need your assistance. Old fellow, you still remember why the Elegy Poetry Society was founded, don't you?"
"Mm... but that has nothing to do with me."
Youjiaxi let out a sharp chuckle.
"I know, which is why we can be friends. Aige has chosen another path; she won't be my competitor. Gareth is already bound by his shackles, so he has lost his qualification as well. Within the Elegy Poetry Society, I virtually had no rivals left. But this lich... the President seems to think very highly of him."
"I have no interest. Why tell me this? Members of the Elegy Poetry Society are forbidden from turning on one another. Even if you want to eliminate a competitor, what can you do? Do you dare violate the society's rules?!"
Youjiaxi tapped his knee gently with a clawed nail, his voice calm yet firm. "If necessary, of course I would dare. But the ultimate victor will be decided by our President. If I violate the rules he set, I lose. Therefore, I will resolve this through other means."
The giant in the dark fell quiet for a moment, then said, "Youjiaxi, have you ever considered this: you were the very first member to join the Elegy Poetry Society after the President and Vice President. Yet over all these centuries, the President has constantly recruited newcomers instead of simply bestowing the final reward upon you. Perhaps... it is because you never met the qualifications to begin with."
"That is a possibility." Youjiaxi's equanimity took the dark titan by surprise as the refined ghoul continued, "Yet the President has not declared my defeat, which means I still have a chance. And as long as a chance remains, I will never surrender. Those youngsters know nothing of the Elegy Poetry Society's true secret; they don't even know when they lose their right to compete. That is my advantage."
The dark titan went quiet once more, then let out a low sigh.
"I cannot fathom your thinking. Just speak plainly: what do you want me to do? As long as it does not violate the rules of the Elegy Poetry Society, I can aid you."
Youjiaxi beamed. "I knew I could rely on you. Naturally, I wouldn't ask you to break the rules. I merely want you to earnestly help this newcomer overcome his immediate crisis. I hope this lich ascends to godhood as quickly as possible. Once he does, he will lose the qualification to compete against me."
"How far is he from apotheosis?"
"I cannot say. He is quite bizarre. By all rights, as a mortal who incited a divine war and deceived numerous deities, he should have received Ao's acknowledgment long ago. Yet there has been no reaction whatsoever. I suspect the President hindered his ascension, or perhaps some other factor is at play. But that does not matter. If he continues his rampant antics, Ao will not sit idly by while deities meddle freely with mortals, nor will he permit a mortal to toy with the gods with impunity. Ascension or destruction—that is his inevitable end."
"Very well. I will help him. But I must kill Arthur Ryan."
"Handle that as you see fit. I don't doubt your resolve; I only doubt your ability. When you were alive, you were no match for Arthur Ryan. Now that you've become undead, the Holy Light has an even greater suppressing effect on you. Can you withstand Arthur Ryan's Divine Smite?"
"I do not know, but Arthur Ryan must die!"
"Then don't be reckless. Wait until you are entirely certain of victory. For now, please stretch your limbs. It is time for you to see this new world, old fellow."
When Youjiaxi emerged from the subterranean ruins, a five-meter-tall behemoth followed closely behind him.
Had Anbaixiu been present, he would have recognized it at a glance—was this not identical to the giant golem he had encountered in the Arena of the Storm?
Compared to that one, this giant was merely larger in stature and appeared far sturdier.
Basking under the open sky, the dark giant raised a hand to shield against the scorching sun. Although sunlight had little actual impact on him, it remained profoundly uncomfortable.
Gazing across the golden sea of sand, the giant could not help but let out a roar.
The tremendous shockwave kicked up clouds of sand and dust, whipping into a localized sandstorm.
After venting for a moment, the dark titan asked Youjiaxi, "Where to now?"
Youjiaxi pointed forward. "Since we talked about stretching your limbs, hunting comes first, of course. Old fellow, have you ever tasted the flesh of a paladin? At your size, they make the perfect bite-sized morsel."
"Paladins... I've forgotten."
"Then eat a few more, and the memory will return in no time."
A storm of bloody mist whipped up, and both mighty undead vanished, the sanguine tempest hurtling toward the nearest Ryan city.
Two hours later, the small town of several thousand fell. Dark magic enveloped the entire settlement, and by the time Ryan reinforcements arrived, the town had been reduced to ruins.
Several thousand residents had vanished without a trace. Beyond pools of blood covering the ground, not even a single corpse remained.
The incident shook the entirety of Ryan. Assuming the Dwarf Kingdom had launched a retaliatory strike, the already tense border situation deteriorated further.
Ryan's demand for weapons of war surged dramatically.
Over on Anbaixiu's side, urgent messages arrived daily from Ange Watson, pressing him to finalize their transaction as quickly as possible.
Anbaixiu had not expected the dwarves to suddenly stir up trouble either. He reached out to his dwarven contacts overnight to gather intelligence, only to discover that the dwarves were blameless; the destruction of Ryan's desert border town had nothing to do with them.
In the end, Anbaixiu could only marvel at how many enemies the Ryan Empire possessed.
Still, selling airships was completely out of the question. Anbaixiu had no intention of handing his most powerful instrument of war to a young emperor suspected of being the Demonic Dragon Tyrant.
Ultimately, Anbaixiu sold only a few jetpacks. The outcome was much the same: by equipping Ryan paladins with jetpacks to fly through the air carrying magic mirrors, they could carry out aerial reconnaissance across the battlefield just as well.
Naturally, the efficiency fell short of an airship. An airship boasted far greater endurance, capable of remaining aloft for hours without landing.
A jetpack, by contrast, had a maximum flight time of just thirty minutes before needing to land and recharge its mana.
However, jetpacks were cheap individual equipment with operational requirements far simpler than airships, making them sufficient to relieve Ryan's immediate emergency.
Once Ryan reclaimed its information advantage, the threat posed by the orcs diminished significantly. In several skirmishes, the two sides even fought to a standstill.
The orcs had the advantage of micromanagement, but they possessed only a single brilliant supreme commander. Ryan, on the other hand, had a vast pool of frontline officers who far outclassed the average orc chieftain.
If one person could not micromanage tens of thousands of troops, they could break the command structure down to two hundred per unit.
Ange Watson played to Ryan's strengths, breaking their forces into flexible smaller detachments. Using the magic mirrors in the sky to oversee the entire field, he relied on junior frontline officers to adapt dynamically to changing circumstances. The results were remarkably effective, repelling the orcs' probing attacks time and again.
The battleground between the orcs and Ryan finally settled into a grinding quagmire—a war of attrition. Both sides understood each other thoroughly, knowing full well that committing further troops offered no strategic gain, yet forced by circumstance to keep fighting.
Warfare was no longer a contest of tactics and courage; it had degenerated into pure endurance and attrition, a test of who would break first.
This kind of grinding war eroded morale and spirit above all else. After a month had passed, both sides tacitly paused hostilities.
No formal truce was declared, yet the orcs ceased attempting river crossings, and Ryan stopped sending warships to bombard the orc docks from afar.
The weather grew colder by the day, and both sides needed respite.
Perhaps only when the river froze over would they clash in full force once again.
It was during this lull that Anbaixiu finally received a reply. The orc commander had at last found time to meet with him. At Anbaixiu's request, the meeting was set to take place in the capital of the Orc Kingdom.
The geography of the Orc Kingdom was defined by rolling, jagged peaks, and its capital was no exception. Built entirely atop a mountain summit, the city had a modest population, yet in terms of grand scale, it rivaled any metropolis on the continent.
Half of the palace complex built against the mountain was veiled in clouds, endlessly struck by bolts of lightning. This thunder and lightning served as the magical power source for the entire orc capital, providing all manner of amenities for daily life.
This was not Anbaixiu's first visit, yet he still admired the architect's ingenuity. It not only resolved the hazard of lightning strikes but also supplied the city with an inexhaustible stream of mana. Rumor had it that this technology originated from a lost magical civilization, with mana conduits laid throughout the city, turning the entire capital into an immense magic array.
Unfortunately, the orcs' magical sophistication was mediocre at best. The mana converted from lightning was used only for water supply and heating, with whatever remained directed into city defense barriers.
To Anbaixiu, this was an utter waste. This was the innermost heart of the Orc Kingdom; if an enemy ever pushed this far, there would be no need for an assault—simply besieging the mountain for a few years would cause the orcs to collapse on their own.
Thus, Anbaixiu felt that building defensive magic barriers for war here was entirely unnecessary. If they channeled that mana into developing commerce and livelihood, the orc capital could easily become the wealthiest city on the continent.
"What a pity. These orcs understand nothing of economics,"
Anbaixiu mused as he entered the capital under the escort of a squad of orc warriors.
Gleaming spears and blades were raised high overhead, forming a shining canopy to mark Anbaixiu's path forward. This was the highest welcoming ceremony of the orcs: any warrior who could walk through this gauntlet of cold steel without flinching earned their deepest respect.
Remaining stone-faced was effortless for Anbaixiu. As an undead, he had no facial expressions unless he actively chose to make one. Nor did he suspect the orcs would drop a cup as a signal for the guards to hack him to pieces.
Consequently, Anbaixiu became perhaps the fastest guest in history to traverse the corridor of blades. When he arrived at his destination, the One-Eyed Inn, every orc along the way looked upon him with admiration.
This lich was truly formidable; every step had been so steady and sure, without the slightest hint of feigned composure.
Just as Anbaixiu was about to ask where he was to meet the orc commander, an odd sensation struck him.
He discreetly retrieved a gem from his private space. It was emitting a faint red glow, which condensed into an arrow pointing straight at the entrance of the inn.
The telepathy gem had activated now of all times?
The lead orc soldier bowed respectfully and said to Anbaixiu, "Master Ultraman, General Pacheco awaits you on the third floor."
Anbaixiu maintained his composure on the surface, but inwardly, he couldn't help cursing up a storm.
Have these orcs lost their minds? They hired a mind flayer to be their general?!
Chapter 479