The moment Anbaixiu mentioned renegotiating, both Mammon and Zariel felt as though they had turned to glass, shattered by a gentle tap.
Zariel was the first to snap. Roaring with fury, she bellowed, "I want you dead! I will rip out your soul, grind it to dust bit by bit, and cram it right up a hellworm's ass!"
The enraged fallen angel lunged again, reaching for the magic mirror before her as roaring flames blazed over her hand.
Yet the instant Zariel touched the magic mirror, it began to melt. The glass fractured, and the metallic framing within began to turn into molten iron.
Even until the mirror was utterly destroyed, Zariel never managed to fish Anbaixiu's soul out from it.
Mammon let out a shriek. If the magic mirror was destroyed, wouldn't all their investment go down the drain?!
"You idiot! You worthless fool! He provoked you on purpose, couldn't you even tell?!" Mammon ignored the searing heat and grabbed at the molten iron in an attempt to repair the mirror, only to realize he did not even understand how the magic mirror worked—he had no way to begin.
Millions upon millions of soul coins had been poured in, well over ten million!
Those things were far more precious than gold coins. Every single ounce of Mammon's flesh trembled in agony.
Red light flared wildly across Mammon as his body ballooned by tens of meters. His plump fiendish form warped into something grotesque and horrific, covered from head to toe in barbs, fangs, and claws. In a voice resonating with multiple echoes, he roared, "Damn you, Zariel! If we can't get that back, I will fight you to the death!"
Zariel was beside herself with rage as well, roaring flames billowing around her. All she wanted was to tear into someone—she didn't care who.
Yet both of them seemed to have forgotten that there was more than one magic mirror in this residence.
In a corner, Anbaixiu's reflection surfaced on a mirror's glass. Watching the two hell lords swell hundreds of meters tall and tumble into a brawl, there was no triumphant expression on his face.
Because the trouble here in Hell had never been the greatest danger.
As Anbaixiu's reflection slowly faded, his figure emerged inside a colossal magic mirror within the God of Alchemy's divine realm.
Anbaixiu offered a greeting to the God of Alchemy, whose face was fraught with anxiety.
"Teacher, thanks."
Seeing Anbaixiu appear, the God of Alchemy finally breathed a sigh of relief and marveled, "You actually pulled it off. You brat, you really are a genius."
Yet Anbaixiu said, "It's hardly that simple. For now, it can only be called... half a success."
"Half?"
"Yes. For the moment, everything has gone smoothly. By exploiting the properties of the magic mirrors, I turned myself into the artifact spirit of all magic mirrors. It is an undead-like state of possession that allows me to traverse any plane. Furthermore, because the true core of the magic mirrors resides in your divine realm, even if the magic mirrors in other planes are destroyed, it has no effect on me. It is a survival mechanism far more reliable than a phylactery.
"Although my spellcasting has been somewhat restricted, it's still much better than I anticipated. The power of the Golden Throne has merged into the magic mirror; I can still expend gold as a material component to cast spells, and even my Simulated Soul ability has been preserved..."
The God of Alchemy asked dubiously, "Those all sound like good news, but you're about to say 'however', aren't you? Don't tell me you saw another grim future."
Anbaixiu chuckled. "Not something I saw. I've already died once; even if the Goddess of Fate truly wanted to kick me again, she'd at least have to bat her eyelashes first. But Teacher, you guessed right. Here comes the 'however', and this issue is extremely severe."
Anbaixiu's expression turned deadly serious as he explained to the God of Alchemy, "My capacity to think is rapidly dissipating. I underestimated the toll of becoming an artifact spirit. It is far more terrifying than an undead losing its obsession. Soon, I will be reduced to pure 'functionality,' stripped completely of all desire and autonomy, becoming nothing more than the core of the magic mirror—an upgraded component of this artifact."
"How could that happen?" The God of Alchemy looked taken aback.
"It makes perfect sense. The capacity for independent thought stems fundamentally from need. Curiosity, empathy, greed, all manners of desires—only with desire as a driving force do we generate corresponding thoughts. When I became an undead, I still required rudimentary desires to sustain my cognition. Most zombies and skeletons possess no capacity for thought; they usually do nothing but lie around or sleep precisely because they lack desire. Most wraiths cannot think coherently either; they can only endlessly replay their deepest hatred to maintain their form, forever consumed by hatred alone.
"Seeing Arthur Ryan retain his sense of self after more than a thousand years as an artifact spirit, I assumed being an artifact spirit wasn't much different from being a ghost. In truth, I underestimated the magic mirror's effect on me. Teacher, even my remaining desires are fading away. When I need nothing at all, my ability to think will naturally fade along with it. Arthur could hold out for over a thousand years, but I estimate I can only last two days at most."
Anbaixiu felt utterly helpless. He knew his willpower had never been particularly strong, or else he wouldn't have been driven to despair and self-abandonment so easily by fate. Yet he had thought that as an old man of several centuries, even if his willpower fell short of Arthur's, it shouldn't lag too far behind.
Yet the Holy King's will had been so formidable—so powerful that it seemed no different from that of an ordinary man. That had led even Anbaixiu to misjudge, failing to grasp just how terrifying it was to resist the 'void.'
Now, facing this 'void' directly, his willpower crumbled instantly, dragged inch by inch into the abyss without the slightest ability to resist.
The God of Alchemy asked, "Then do you have a backup plan?"
Customarily, Anbaixiu should have unveiled some grand scheme right about now, working to fleece a few more unfortunate souls within a couple of days, resolve his dilemma, and attain complete rebirth.
Instead, Anbaixiu gave a bitter smile. "This time... there really is no backup plan."
The God of Alchemy froze, thinking he had misheard. He hurriedly asked, "This is no time for jokes. Brat, are you hiding things from me too?"
"I truly am not, Teacher. Being able to talk to you like this might already be the Goddess of Fate's final grace to me. Just now, I tried to talk business with those hell lords, but seeing them stomping their feet in fury meant nothing to me. I didn't even have the heart to calculate how much money I could squeeze out of them."
Anbaixiu spoke in a very calm tone, but the God of Alchemy understood that this calmness was precisely the issue.
His poor student no longer even feared death.
In other words, Anbaixiu would not strive to think of ways to avert this fate out of fear; he was placidly accepting the transformation.
The God of Alchemy snorted, then said, "When push comes to shove, you still have to rely on your teacher."
Yet the moment he said those words, the God of Alchemy vanished.
Anbaixiu watched his teacher leave and forced a faint smile, but it immediately returned to flat calm. Emotional ripples could hardly sustain themselves anymore.
Chapter 530