The mind flayer's candid confession brought Anbaixiu unexpected rewards. Between the mind flayer's humble deference and Anbaixiu's "polite" demeanor, the negotiation proceeded with remarkable smoothness.
Perhaps this was simply the fruit of his past endeavors. Once your status and standing reached a certain height, many cumbersome procedures were naturally bypassed. People worried about offending you and took the initiative to smooth away those minor hassles on your behalf.
With the intelligence regarding the enslavement of the kuo-toa secured, Anbaixiu had also gotten a fairly clear read on the orcs' stance.
He then put forward a proposal for the two nations to sue for peace.
"Winter is right around the corner, and fighting will only become harder. Can you orcs make peace with Ryan?"
"Make peace?"
The mind flayer general first wore an expression of surprise and pleasant shock, but ultimately shook his head with a sigh.
"I'm afraid it won't be that simple."
Anbaixiu countered, "What's so hard about it? World peace is my forte. I mediated the war between the dwarves and elves, I stopped an invasion by the Githyanki, and I successfully helped the undersea merfolk drive back the minions of Demogorgon."
Spreading his hands, Anbaixiu declared with absolute confidence, "No one understands world peace better than me!"
Urbano Pacheco felt a surreal sensation wash over him. It was absurd enough that a mind flayer had been dragged out to serve as an army general, but now even liches were championing world peace? The world was changing far too quickly; a short-lived species like a mind flayer simply couldn't make sense of it.
"I would like nothing more than a ceasefire, but unfortunately, it's out of the question."
Urbano Pacheco could only explain that the orcs had suffered far too terribly at Ryan's hands. Slaves in Ryan were almost entirely either dwarves or orcs, treated virtually as beasts of burden. When the Ryan forces had previously breached the orc cities, they hadn't bothered with basic decency; anyone capable of labor was dragged off into slavery, and anyone who wasn't was slaughtered on the spot. That was the very reason Alan had experienced his epiphany behind the city wall.
When every member of an orc's family had been butchered, how could anyone ask them to lay down their hatred?
It was only because their current commander was a mind flayer—unburdened by that reckless, bone-deep hatred toward Ryan—that the war was being handled with any degree of rationality. Any ordinary orc commander wouldn't care how wide the Emerald River was; they would swim across if they had to just to tear the Ryan soldiers limb from limb.
Urbano Pacheco said helplessly, "Master Ultraman, I understand your angle. Dragging out the fighting, maintaining the status quo—that is ideal for an arms dealer like you. But unfortunately, peace talks have virtually no chance of succeeding. You don't grasp the current state of the orcs. Most of the time, my telepathy isn't issuing tactical orders; it is suppressing the orcs' rage. There is no possibility of peace between them and Ryan. Even if I agreed, the Orc King would march in with his axe that very day and take off my head."
"Yet the war has devolved into a quagmire. Do the orcs truly plan to haul seagoing vessels onto the Emerald River? Are they prepared to starve half their population just to sustain this conflict?"
Anbaixiu might not have been a military expert, but he knew that forcibly constructing a fleet would take an immense amount of time.
Fighting a war of attrition against Ryan would take at least three to five years to conclude. If they dragged out such a grueling, messy struggle for that long, the orcs would collapse first. Their homeland lacked the economic foundation to sustain prolonged, high-intensity foreign warfare.
"The decisive battle will arrive soon. Winter approaches, and the Emerald River will freeze. With just a touch of magic, it can be turned into a solid expanse of ice."
"Since you're willing to say this aloud, it seems the Ryan people already know."
Urbano Pacheco crossed his tentacles like a man knotting his beard, sighing helplessly. "I would have preferred to keep it secret, but the orcs' grasp of magic is simply atrocious. Pulling off strategic magic of such scale is difficult enough on its own, let alone keeping it quiet. The Ryan people have known for a long time; there was never any concealing it from them."
Urbano Pacheco was deeply exasperated. Under normal mind flayer habits, he should have quietly transformed his host, fled upon reaching adulthood, and found a remote, sparsely populated village to settle down in. There, he would mind-control a few orcs, implant tadpoles in them, and spawn a new clutch of mind flayers.
When he grew old, he could have the youngsters scatter and hide, living out a simple, secure existence.
Perhaps when mind flayers from other planes fought their way back, they could board a nautiloid and return to that empire of supreme glory.
Instead, Urbano Pacheco had been exposed, thoroughly captured by the orcs, and turned into an instrument of war. He was bound hand and foot to the orc war chariot. Sharing in their glory was doubtful, but going down with them in defeat was guaranteed.
If he hadn't been forced into it, what did a war between humans and orcs have to do with him?
Even more frustratingly, the orcs' overall strength fell short of Ryan's. They looked like they were fighting well now, but once Ryan gave in and recalled troops from other borders to reinforce the front, the orcs would face total defeat.
Urbano Pacheco knew that the best possible outcome of this war was for the orcs to fall after dealing heavy blows to Ryan, leaving Ryan stretched thin on all fronts and spiraling into decline.
Yet he estimated the orcs wouldn't live to see Ryan's destruction. And if Ryan happened to produce a brilliant, heroic leader midway who turned the tide, the orcs would truly perish in agonizing wails and bitter regret.
Centuries of accumulated demographic and national advantages could not vanish overnight.
The mind flayer shared Anbaixiu's assessment: a behemoth like Ryan could never be shattered from the outside; one could only wait for it to fracture from within.
Unfortunately, the orcs refused to wait. They were itching to batter Ryan into oblivion, only to end up hammering Ryan into a monolithic block of iron.
Urbano Pacheco wanted to extricate himself, but his hands were tied.
Perhaps for that very reason, he was remarkably candid with Anbaixiu. The mind flayer likely hoped Anbaixiu might introduce a new variable into this doomed war.
However, peace talks were out of the question. The orcs would never accept negotiating with the people of Ryan.
Until the blood of Ryan's people filled the Emerald River, the orcs would not stop.
Such was the consequence of extreme racial supremacy and religious fanaticism. Once you unfurled that banner, your enemies had no choice but to push back with even greater extremism. If you discriminate racially against me, wouldn't I be a fool not to discriminate right back?
If you're religious fanatics enslaving us, wouldn't we be waiting for death if we weren't just as fanatical?!
Anbaixiu began to understand why Arthur Ryan had treated even dragons as equals. Perhaps Arthur had foreseen the perils of extreme racial supremacy and exerted every effort to avoid it, never imagining the sheer inertia of history would be so formidable—far beyond what a single Holy King could overcome.
In other words, the orcs were truly locked in a fight to the death with Ryan.
Once this was confirmed, Anbaixiu abandoned the idea of a peace summit between the two nations.
Many believed that a "fight to the death" was merely a matter of hotheaded impulse, but in reality, it was not. War was ceaseless; clashes happened every day, and people died every day. It wasn't just when the charge horn sounded and warriors rushed forward howling that passions ran high.
Throughout the duration of a war, one continually absorbed all kinds of grim realities. You constantly heard about who won and who lost, and you watched comrades fall day after day.
Under such circumstances, even the hottest blood would cool after a few days.
To maintain such ferocious fighting spirit continuously could not be explained by mere rashness—this was deep-seated national enmity and blood vengeance.
Ryan and the orcs were identical in this regard. Right and wrong aside, this war was no impulse; it was the eruption of hatred pent up over generations.
Still, it was no big deal. Anbaixiu had only been looking for an excuse to stir up trouble in the first place. If peace talks were off the table, he would simply rebrand his scheme.
Anbaixiu mulled it over for a moment, then proposed to the mind flayer general, "Since the orcs hate Ryan so much, and Ryan hates the orcs just as bitterly, how about a duel before battle commences? The Orc King challenging the Ryan Emperor—do you think the orcs would agree?"
Urbano Pacheco froze, visibly taken aback. "Master Ultraman, didn't you just say it was for peace...?"
Just moments ago, this lich had been talking about mediating the war between the dwarves and elves, boasting that no one understood world peace better than him!
"A duel is also for world peace. Once an emperor falls in combat, the war will probably draw to a close. Win or lose, both sides vent their fury, and far fewer people have to die. Isn't that a win-win for everyone?"
It sounded plausible on the surface, but such rhetoric meant nothing to a mind flayer.
A mind flayer's racial heritage was unique. From the moment ceremorphosis completed, a mind flayer was officially an adult, with all necessary knowledge imprinted directly into their minds. Thus, every mind flayer possessed formidable psionic power and was a shrewd, hardened veteran from birth.
Everything experienced by previous generations was distilled and instilled into the next, leaving almost no fools among their kind. Words like Anbaixiu's might fool simpletons, but they fell flat against a mind flayer.
This lich definitely wanted to stir up chaos; Urbano Pacheco just couldn't fathom what he was actually aiming for.
Rumor had it this lich was exceedingly greedy for wealth. Goading the rulers of two nations into a duel... could it be to sell tickets?
Absurd as the thought was, it seemed to be the only explanation that made any sense. It certainly couldn't be for world peace.
"Master Ultraman, your suggestion isn't bad. The Orc King would likely be quite keen on beheading the Ryan Emperor in front of everyone. But how can you guarantee the Ryan people will agree? Their emperor doesn't seem to be much of a heroic warrior."
From Urbano Pacheco's perspective, the more variables on the battlefield, the better. The orcs appeared to hold the advantage, but defeating Ryan was an impossibility; the more chaos and variables there were, the greater his chances of survival.
"Rest assured, the Ryan Emperor is not nearly as pathetic as people think."
In the eyes of outsiders, shifting into a dragon only to crush his own men had been the Ryan Emperor's greatest humiliation. No one imagined such an emperor could hold his own on a battlefield.
Even if the Ryan Emperor had made some slight strides later on, they were limited to "cunning," not martial courage.
Only Anbaixiu knew that if they actually stepped into an arena, the Orc King would be beaten so badly by the "Ryan Emperor" that his own mother wouldn't recognize him.
Yet that was all the better. Once everyone witnessed the revival of the Demonic Dragon Tyrant, the next step would be for all races to unite and gang up on the Demonic Dragon. If all went smoothly, every problem could be resolved in a single day.
Urbano Pacheco pondered for a moment before saying, "I can do my best to persuade the Orc King on your behalf, but I cannot guarantee he will accept."
"This is a war the orcs are doomed to lose. Only a duel offers a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Given that the Orc King is obsessed with honor, paired with your telepathic abilities—if you still can't convince him to agree to a duel, then I'd have to say your Orc King is probably a goblin in disguise."
Urbano Pacheco chuckled softly. There was indeed truth in that.
The Orc King was very unlikely to refuse. But the prerequisite for all of this was that Anbaixiu could genuinely arrange for the Ryan Emperor to participate in the duel.
Yet why would he?
Just as the lich had pointed out, the orcs had no future in this war, which was why they needed to take a desperate gamble. But Ryan had no such need.
Who would forfeit an advantage to gamble on an act that bordered on suicide?
Chapter 481