The lemure who had entered the city not long ago was now dressed in presentable clothes, speaking eloquently before Melina and painting a vivid picture of that scribe of the second layer of Hell.
Anbaixiu did not show himself, merely hiding inside the magic mirror and listening to the lemure's description.
Once the creature had said his piece, Anbaixiu had Melina send him back.
"Father, your enemy actually became the scribe of the second layer of Hell... That title sounds rather important!"
Earlier, Anbaixiu had warned Melina never to provoke any of those three names of her own accord, and she had thought her father was simply being overly cautious.
She had not expected the very first one to emerge would hold such status.
The master of the second layer of Hell was Dispater, the Iron Archduke, who was notorious for his aversion to public appearances. He preferred to hole up in his iron fortress, seemingly indifferent to everything.
Yet the second layer had remained free of major turmoil, unlike the First Layer of Hell with its constant betrayals and counter-strikes. In Hell, where not a single soul was good, to quietly maintain stability over an entire layer proved the Iron Archduke's immense capability.
To serve as Dispater's chief scribe, this Salvador was naturally extraordinary. Furthermore, taking time into account, Anbaixiu was only a few hundred years old, and the time his enemy had spent in Hell could not exceed that figure.
In just a few centuries, to climb from the lowest lemure to scribe of the second layer of Hell—how astonishing was that?
Anbaixiu also remarked with sighed admiration, "Salvador is more than qualified to be a scribe. In managing administrative affairs, he might be the most capable person I've ever seen. Do you know what he did back when he lived in the Prime Material Plane?"
Melina asked curiously, "Was he a human lord?"
Anbaixiu shook his head and said, "When I met him, he was a clerk in the Ryan Empire's Cardinal Inquisition. If he hadn't crossed paths with me, he might have become the youngest Supreme Arbiter in the empire's history."
Melina blinked, puzzled. "Supreme Arbiter... doesn't sound like much."
Anbaixiu said awkwardly to his daughter, "Melina, you're looking down on him far too much. Do you realize how powerful the Ryan Empire was back then? The Supreme Arbiter was practically equivalent to prime minister of the empire!"
"Still... All right, Father, please go on."
Melina did not know how to explain it. Regardless, in her short life of just over a year, a Supreme Arbiter really didn't seem all that impressive, let alone a clerk from three centuries ago who merely had a shot at becoming one.
Still, if her father said he was formidable, then he must truly be so; she decided it was best to keep her opinions to herself.
Anbaixiu also realized the issue. The scale of Melina's life experiences was absurdly skewed: she had been born a legend, her mother was the Undead Queen of the Underdark, the first things she saw upon opening her eyes were tens of millions of undead servants, everyone she met was an elite from the Elegy Poetry Society, and everything after that was deities.
In her few battles, she had clashed with either the Chosen of Lolth or golems forged by Zariel; later, she had witnessed the war against the Demonic Dragon Tyrant, and recently she had marched straight into Hell to become a hell lord ruling a vast swathe of land.
Laid out like that, it truly dwarfed Salvador back then, and even Anbaixiu himself couldn't begin to compare—in his first ten years after transmigrating, he had been a wretched commoner worrying about where his next meal was coming from.
This was by no means the life experience a normal child should have. It was only because Melina possessed an innocent temperament; anyone else would have grown accustomed to looking down their nose at the entire world.
Still, Anbaixiu needed to remind Melina of just how formidable Salvador was.
"It was roughly three hundred years ago. My memory has gaps, so I can't recall many of the details clearly, but I remember that by then, I had already mastered the power of fate and become a full-fledged divination wizard. I had just used my savings to purchase a youth potion, filled with the boundless vigor of regained youth—much like how I am now..."
As Anbaixiu spoke, he gradually drifted into reminiscence.
Spending everything he owned to buy a youth potion and transforming from an octogenarian back into a vigorous young man, Anbaixiu had set off for Ryan with lofty ambitions, eager to see what that sacred kingdom, yearned for by all humankind, was truly like.
And that was when he met the young Salvador.
Salvador had graduated from the Ryan Seminary, a devout believer of impeccable pedigree. Still young, he was already a high priest, and achieving legend status was only a matter of time. Straight out of the seminary, he was assigned to the Cardinal Inquisition as a clerk; in three years, he knew the empire's laws backward and forward, winning the favor of the Supreme Arbiter of the time.
However, the Cardinal Inquisition frowned heavily on nepotism. As much as he favored the young man, the Supreme Arbiter followed convention and decided to send Salvador out to the provinces.
After spending a decade or so in a grassroots tribunal, rising from an ordinary confessor priest to regional bishop, he would be ready to return to the Cardinal Inquisition in the imperial capital as the Supreme Arbiter's deputy. Barring any major missteps, he would smoothly succeed the position.
Given Salvador's age at the time, he had stood a fair chance of becoming the youngest Supreme Arbiter. Regrettably, in the second year of his provincial post, he met Anbaixiu.
It began with a dispute between humans and non-humans. Back then, Ryan had not yet entered into all-out war with the Dwarf Kingdom, and occasional trade still took place.
Yet human supremacism in Ryan was already deeply entrenched, so instances of humans mistreating other races were commonplace.
A traveling dwarf merchant came to trade, only to be arrested on the spot, stripped of all his property, and sentenced to thirty years of hard labor on the grounds that he had insulted the Lord of the Dawn in speech.
Anbaixiu had traveled alongside this dwarf merchant and knew the entire sequence of events. In truth, after entering the city and suffering constant discrimination, the dwarf had simply lost his temper and snapped: "Do the teachings of the Lord of the Dawn instruct humans to discriminate against other races? Does that truly qualify to call itself justice and light?"
The words were not particularly harsh, but to the fanatical Ryan citizens, it was blatant blasphemy against their deity.
Anbaixiu had never witnessed such religious fanaticism before, yet he still wanted to save the merchant.
Inquiring all around, he heard the name Salvador.
Word had it that this priest possessed deep connections and wielded considerable influence in this border city; if he intervened, a reduced sentence might be possible.
As a divination wizard, arranging a "chance" encounter with Salvador was trivial. The two crossed paths on an ordinary afternoon in a small tavern.
Priests did not drink alcohol, but Salvador enjoyed sitting quietly in taverns to observe the daily lives of common folk, sometimes gleaning unexpected pieces of information.
Anbaixiu sat down beside him and struck up a conversation.
Salvador was surprised by Anbaixiu's breadth of knowledge and intrigued by what a divination wizard was, while Anbaixiu appreciated this high-ranking priest who bore no arrogance. Perhaps because both were clever men, their conversation flowed pleasantly, and an acquaintance was formed.
Anbaixiu understood that shallow acquaintances could not bear deep requests; he could hardly ask Salvador to help release the dwarf merchant right after meeting him.
And so he took time to forge a genuine friendship with the priest. Over the course of more than half a year, Anbaixiu even teamed up with Salvador to resolve several crises facing the town.
A Ryan border city was never short of trouble: kobolds, goblins, undead... It was no exaggeration to say skirmishes broke out every few days.
Anbaixiu's divination abilities had resolved many dilemmas for Salvador, making them brothers-in-arms. Salvador invited Anbaixiu more than once to become a follower of the Lord of the Dawn, even offering to recommend him for advanced studies at the seminary in the Ryan capital.
Seeing that their relationship was solid enough, Anbaixiu prepared to bring up the matter of the dwarf merchant.
Little did he expect Salvador to speak first—bringing up words far more deviant, bordering on heretical blasphemy for that era:
"Don't you think Ryan's faith in the Lord of the Dawn is far too fanatical, having strayed into extremism? At this rate, before long, it will become the enemy of the entire world."
That had been over three hundred years ago, when Ryan was the most powerful empire in the world and had not yet reached the point of being an enemy to all, yet Salvador had already foreseen that future.
Anbaixiu had been shocked. How could a future Supreme Arbiter dare speak such words? If word leaked, even if his prospects weren't entirely ruined, he would surely be landed in massive trouble.
Yet Anbaixiu thoroughly agreed with Salvador's sentiment. He was a human himself, but because he did not worship the Lord of the Dawn, he still suffered absurd amounts of prejudice in this city.
"I want to change all of this—starting with your friend's case."
Recalling the moment, Anbaixiu told Melina, "That's what he said back then."
Melina pressed eagerly, "What happened next? If you were friends, how did you turn into enemies?"
Anbaixiu said with resignation, "Because while he claimed he wanted to end that fanaticism, he didn't realize that he was part of it himself. And the depth of his madness ran deeper than anyone else's."
Chapter 560