"Do you have no other demands?" Zariel asked.
Anbaixiu said, "Of course I do. Simulated Soul is my personal patented technique. You may not pry into the processing of these demon corpses by any means, nor may you leave any special marks on them. I have no wish for my craft to be leaked. With the Nine Hells as our witness, you must sign an inviolable covenant—and don't even think about exploiting loopholes! If any mark is found on them, it will be considered a breach of contract on your part, even if that mark was left behind by the demons themselves!"
Zariel and Mammon exchanged a glance. Put this way, the condition was not unacceptable.
Demons certainly left many things on their remains, such as curses and spatial coordinates. Clearing those away beforehand would be a bit troublesome, but the cost was low.
This lich definitely wasn't using the demon corpses solely to forge soul coins; he surely had another purpose, which was why he demanded these minor nuisances be removed. Yet whatever his purpose might be, as long as the soul coins were delivered on time, such minor costs could be disregarded.
Wasn't it just some tedious manual labor? They could simply dump it onto the lesser devils beneath them. Hell lacked many things, but it never lacked slaves. It was perfectly suited for such labor-intensive toil—no pay required, just the crack of a whip.
As for Tiamat, the Dragon Goddess had never shown herself in person, merely voicing her assent when Zariel contacted her. In truth, whether Tiamat agreed or not made no difference, as the demon corpses in the First Layer of Hell were all processed through the Blood River Fortress. Tiamat couldn't provide any to begin with, so her consent changed nothing.
After repeatedly confirming Anbaixiu's terms, Mammon and Zariel finally nodded, deciding to sign the contract with him.
Anbaixiu chuckled, holding the contract as he said to Zariel, "A pleasure doing business with you both. Please prepare enough demon corpses as soon as possible, and I will make up the missing soul coins promptly."
Anbaixiu's figure faded from the mirror's surface. Only then did Mammon turn to Zariel and say, "Did you sense any change in that lich? His aura doesn't feel like an undead."
Zariel nodded. It was not an artifact spirit, nor was it a ghost; rather, he possessed a vivid vitality reminiscent of the living. In particular, the clown mask on his face clearly marked itself as no ordinary object, though Zariel could not guess which deity had bestowed such a treasure.
It was likely related to the God of Alchemy.
"What he has turned into doesn't matter," Zariel said. "My only concern is that he might be playing tricks."
"It doesn't matter. The contract is written plainly," Mammon replied. "Whatever other uses those demon corpses may serve, they are useless trash to us anyway. As long as we can get this lich to work diligently, forget about the rest. Digging ourselves out of our own hole comes first."
Zariel nodded helplessly. There was no other choice.
***
Having just concluded his negotiations with Zariel, Anbaixiu appeared in another magic mirror the very next second.
This magic mirror was currently held in Melina's grasp.
Seeing Anbaixiu appear, Melina cried out in excitement, "Father!"
Anbaixiu had already greeted Melina after his true resurrection, so although she was thrilled, she managed to keep her composure.
Dispensing with pleasantries, Anbaixiu asked directly, "Melina, how is the situation on your end?"
Melina hastily picked up a human-skin scroll and held it before the magic mirror.
"Father, here is the intelligence on my current territory and forces."
A vast expanse on the human-skin scroll was marked in deep crimson—the Blood River battlefield.
The Blood River Fortress stood at the center of the battlefield in the shape of a colossal inverted pentagram, surrounded by scattered outposts and bunkers.
Below the Blood River battlefield lay an inconspicuous small black patch, which was Melina's territory.
It had originally belonged to three hell lords, but after Melina subjugated the erinyes Monica, she had swept forward irresistibly, shattering the strongholds of the other two hell lords.
Monica had smoothly charmed one of them, while Melina severed the head of the other.
Yet even joined together, these three domains amounted to an insignificant speck compared to the vast Blood River battlefield. As for her military strength, Melina now commanded thirty thousand undead troops and roughly twenty thousand varied devil troops. Most were low-tier units, with high-end combatants that could be counted on one hand.
Thrown into the Blood River battlefield, such numbers wouldn't even suffice to fill the trenches; at best, they could pick off stray demons on the periphery.
Thus, crossing the River of Blood had been a suicidal notion from the start.
Fortunately, Melina had been delayed en route, allowing Anbaixiu to successfully complete his rebirth and stop the foolish girl just as she was about to charge toward the river.
Anbaixiu had ordered Melina to encamp on the spot and disregard everything else until she had properly secured those three territories.
During this time, Melina had been driving her subordinates to overhaul the domains, linking the three fortresses into a contiguous front as if settling into Hell for good.
Cambien had become Melina's most capable lieutenant, entrusted with matters great and small. While the cambion's personal strength was mediocre, he was dependable and handled affairs with steady competence.
Yet Cambien still couldn't comprehend why Melina, an undead destined to leave, was playing at being a territorial lord here.
Did she truly want to become a hell lord?
What a joke. Hell had its own laws; no matter how powerful an outsider was, they would never receive the protection of Hell's planar order. Just like now, thanks to the surrender of the erinyes Monica and another hell lord, Melina could mobilize the resources of two domains. But after the lord of the remaining domain was slain, that land began to turn barren.
This barrenness did not mean the earth stopped growing grass; it meant the appearance rate of soul fragments dropped precipitously.
Devils needed to consume soul fragments to survive. Although countless sinners' souls drifted through Hell, they were always distributed unevenly, dense in some places and sparse in others.
So many devils perished on the Blood River battlefield that soul fragments should theoretically have been innumerable. In reality, Hell operated on its own cycle; once a physical form was destroyed, many souls were shattered by the planar laws and redistributed throughout Hell.
Generally speaking, uncontrolled wilderness resembled untilled wasteland where soul fragments rarely manifested, leaving the wandering devils there to scavenge and butcher each other over scraps.
Yet once an entity attained official status as a hell lord, the appearance rate of soul fragments within their territory would surge dramatically. The land became like cultivated, fertile soil that yielded a "crop" with minimal effort.
So how did one obtain this lordship?
Becoming an official hell lord in the First Layer of Hell was not difficult: one simply had to bring demon corpses to the Blood River Fortress and exchange them for merit.
Whether Monica or the other hell lords, anyone who possessed a domain might never have stepped onto the Blood River battlefield itself, but they had certainly turned in demon corpses.
Monica had charmed a powerful devil, snatched a demon corpse from his hands, and traded it for the authority of a lord. The Blood River Fortress cared nothing for the method; the reward went to whoever handed over the prize.
If Melina wished to become a hell lord, the requirement was identical: she merely needed to submit an adequate number of demon corpses.
The trouble was that Melina now controlled three domains. To claim lordship over a realm of that size was not something common lesser demons could satisfy. One would have to delve deep into the Blood River battlefield to hunt powerful demon lords—a venture that carried a nine-in-ten chance of death.
Hadn't they agreed to find a shortcut to the Blood River Fortress and seek out Archduke Zariel? Why the sudden shift in plans?
Cambien did not understand, nor did Melina, but she never questioned any of Anbaixiu's decisions.
After waiting for so long, word had finally arrived from her father.
Having studied the details of the territory closely, Anbaixiu said to Melina, "The land is still too small. With your current forces, you should be able to eliminate the nearby lords. Melina, find a way to expand our current territory threefold. As for the demon corpses, I have already prepared them for you."
Applying for hell lordship was a one-time affair. The quantity and quality of the demon corpses submitted on the first attempt determined the size of the territory granted. Of course, once the entitlement was secured, one still had to seize the land by force.
Once conquered, one could construct their own fortress through the power bestowed by Hell's planar laws.
Advancing one's rank later was extraordinarily difficult, so Melina was far better off staking out as vast a domain as possible right from the start.
This was the true reason Anbaixiu had demanded demon corpses from Zariel. He wasn't trying to swindle Zariel's wealth; he was using this method to rack up merit for Melina, granting her the protection of Hell's laws and making her a genuine hell lord.
For the past several days, Zariel had been consumed with grief over her bankruptcy, so dazed that she couldn't even attend to the Blood River battlefield, let alone realize that Melina had driven a nail into her domain.
Thus, that nail had to be hammered even deeper before Zariel could come to her senses—driven straight into the very bedrock of Hell, ensuring that even if Zariel noticed, it would be too late to pull it out.
The soul coin bank was about to be established; how could Anbaixiu ever be satisfied with merely serving as a money-printing machine?
Only by establishing his own faction in Hell would he have the right to claim a substantial share of the spoils in the grand events to come.
Beyond that, Melina could offer Anbaixiu another form of aid.
Oghma had bestowed the clown mask upon Anbaixiu not merely to resurrect him; divine gifts always came with a price that could not be refused.
Since Anbaixiu had answered the three questions, he was bound to serve Oghma in accordance with those three answers.
To ensure the poor were fed and clothed, and to see that greater masterpieces were brought into being. On top of that, Anbaixiu had to maintain the equilibrium between the deities of good and evil, preventing a full-scale divine war.
Only by achieving both could Anbaixiu sustain eternal life through the power of the clown mask.
Otherwise, Oghma could revoke his gift at any moment, turning Anbaixiu back into a mindless magic mirror artifact spirit.
In the past, Anbaixiu would likely have started from the Prime Material Plane, proceeding step-by-step and steadily reshaping the world.
Now, however, he had decided to be bolder.
Literary greatness thrived on adversity; masterpieces were forged in suffering. What place could ever rival Hell in misery?
Having reclaimed his life with such difficulty, if he was going to stir up trouble, he would do it on a grand scale. He was no longer that moribund, listless lich—a young man ought to have some fire in him!
Chapter 534