Alan had never imagined there would come a day when he would look forward to the return of this lich with such eagerness—especially when, at the very beginning, he had wished nothing more than to grind the creature's bones to ash.
Only two years had passed, yet Alan had gone from a paladin with a prestigious background to a traitor, and then to the only man left standing who could represent Ryan.
Too little time had passed. Alan felt entirely incapable of keeping up with the pace of the world's transformations, let alone carrying the immense weight of the duty the Holy King had placed upon his shoulders.
Seeing Alan's haggard, exhausted appearance, Anbaixiu felt a twinge of sympathy.
Not everyone could be Arthur Ryan; Anbaixiu had learned that lesson from firsthand experience.
He had once fancied himself Arthur's equal, but only after enduring the torment Arthur had suffered did Anbaixiu realize just how unimaginably vast the chasm between them truly was.
"Alan, do not judge yourself by Arthur's standards."
Hearing Anbaixiu's words, Alan shook his head. "Lately, I haven't even had the luxury to wonder what His Majesty would do. With our faith shattered, nearly everyone has fallen into despair. I've given everything I have, but I've only managed to pull a fraction of them back from the brink. Right now, Ryan simply has no way to deal with both the dwarves and the orcs. So I'm begging for your help. Whatever price it takes, please save Ryan."
Anbaixiu scratched his nose awkwardly. Two years ago, he had been a lich cursing Ryan to burn every single day, yet now he had somehow become Ryan's savior. Fate truly had a twisted sense of humor.
"I have a general grasp of the situation. Keeping Ryan in one piece under these circumstances is already an impressive feat."
It wasn't that Anbaixiu had grown soft-hearted; Alan genuinely had done well.
After the battle with the Demonic Dragon, Arthur Ryan had sacrificed himself. But strictly speaking, Ryan was a defeated nation—and the chief culprit behind the entire catastrophe.
The entire country hovered on the brink of total collapse.
The orcs had originally considered attacking immediately. Their newly crowned Orc King needed to establish his authority, and though winter was nearly over, their food crisis was far from resolved. Why pass up the chance to bleed Ryan dry?
Before, they had been forced into a truce because they couldn't afford to drag the war out. Now, a renewed assault meant guaranteed victory, so what reason did they have to hold back?
Thus, the moment things stabilized slightly in Ryan, Alan had set out without a moment's rest for the Orc Mountains, hoping to avert a war through grain reparations.
Yet the more weakness he showed, the more emboldened the orcs became, and the more eager they grew to invade Ryan.
Once Alan realized this, he had no choice but to issue a challenge to the Orc King.
Orc tradition revered martial prowess; many disputes could be settled through a duel. But for an outsider like Alan to challenge the Orc King, he first had to pass the Blood Battle ritual.
A whole mountain had been designated as an arena, and from its foot to its summit stood countless orc champions waiting to meet his challenge.
Only by fighting his way from the foot of the mountain to the summit within a single day would Alan earn the right to challenge the Orc King.
In the thousand years since the ritual's inception, only thirty-four individuals had ever attempted it, and only one had succeeded—the twenty-seventh Orc King.
It was also the simplest and most direct path to claiming the orc throne.
Yet in a thousand years, only one person had achieved it, because the defenders stationed along the path were all legendary combatants—at least twenty of them in total. Nor was it necessarily a gauntlet of one-on-one matches; if the defending champions took a dislike to you, they could gang up at any moment.
And Alan was a Ryanite—the very people orcs despised the most.
Right from the start, Alan had found himself hunted down by five legendary orcs fighting in unison.
In the end, though battered and bleeding from countless wounds, Alan had dragged himself to the summit, only for the Orc King's greataxe to sever his arm in a single blow.
Though Alan lost, the Orc King nonetheless agreed to his plea.
During his ascent, Alan had severely wounded twenty of their legendary warriors.
Had Alan chosen to kill them, the Orc Kingdom would have suffered grievous losses. Moreover, Alan wouldn't have sustained such terrible injuries and might have had enough strength left to put up a real fight at the summit.
The Orc King had hesitated for a long time over whether to execute Alan—the pillar of Ryan's spirit—or to concede ground.
Ultimately, he had followed a certain someone's advice, sparing Alan's life and choosing to negotiate with Ryan to extract even greater concessions.
Alan had healed his severed arm with divine magic and spent the next few days in talks with the orcs. He gave ground at almost every turn, promising extensive reparations before he finally managed to stabilize that border.
Yet the dwarves remained the critical factor, as the orcs had only agreed conditionally. The moment the dwarves went to war and gained an advantage, the orcs would not hesitate to tear up the treaty and march their armies out.
And the dwarves had no Blood Battle ritual where Alan could put his life on the line. The current dwarf king could only be described as insatiably greedy; the dwarves not only wanted their desert lands back, but they also wanted Ryan to disintegrate entirely so they could swallow every scrap of spoils.
After listening to Alan lay out the situation, Anbaixiu asked, "With things in such utter chaos, is Ryan still going to hold this World Council? The Lord of the Dawn won the wager; did He not give you any guidance at all?"
In a world where deities existed, their will reigned supreme.
"The Lord of the Dawn gave me guidance only once, after His Majesty departed," Alan said with a heavy sigh. "But I couldn't understand His meaning."
"A paladin can't even interpret a divine decree?"
Anbaixiu was somewhat surprised. Clerics had to rely on devout prayer to communicate with deities, whereas paladins were more like handpicked warriors chosen by the gods themselves; they ought to enjoy far greater divine favor.
"It's not that I couldn't interpret it—I simply couldn't make sense of it. The Lord of the Dawn gave me no direct commands. He told me only to follow my own heart and never give up hope. And then He instructed me to convene this World Council to bring final judgment upon Ryan's transgressions."
Anbaixiu furrowed his brow. That sounded ordinary enough; it aligned perfectly with the Lord of the Dawn's dogma.
Yet at such a crucial juncture, an ambiguous revelation was virtually useless.
The Lord of the Dawn would never allow Ryan to be destroyed—Anbaixiu was a hundred percent certain of that. But what on earth was the deity planning?
Anbaixiu knew far too little about the Lord of the Dawn to deduce His intentions from past habits. Giving up on that line of thought, he said to Alan, "Since the Lord of the Dawn told you to do as you see fit, don't burden yourself overthinking it. Just give me the bottom line: what is the absolute most Ryan can offer?"
"We can return the desert territory to the dwarves and pay a certain amount of war reparations. Converted to gold coins, it comes to roughly six point eight billion."
"Only that much?" Anbaixiu was surprised. For a nation as vast as Ryan to offer such a paltry sum, there was no way the dwarves would accept.
"Ryan is in complete disarray. Resources are stretched to the limit everywhere. This is the absolute maximum the country can scrape together."
Alan wore a helpless expression. It was a miracle Ryan hadn't collapsed already; rallying the entire empire for national fundraising drives, as they had done in the past, was completely out of the question.
"That sum certainly won't satisfy the dwarves. Still, if I handle the negotiations, it's not entirely impossible."
Alan breathed a sigh of relief. Anbaixiu's words meant he was willing to help, and as long as this lich stepped in, no obstacle seemed insurmountable—after all, he had personally brokered peace between the elves and the dwarves before. But Alan was also slightly taken aback: why hadn't the lich brought up his fee first? That was completely out of character.
Unable to hold back, Alan asked, "Master Ultraman... perhaps you could name your price first? I'd feel a bit more at ease."
Anbaixiu cast a disdainful glance at Alan. "Do you know how much gold a single soul coin can buy in Hell?"
Alan shook his head.
He had never been to Hell; how could he know?
Anbaixiu gave a low chuckle. "Roughly two hundred kilograms of gold."
Alan's eyes widened. Were soul coins really worth that much?
"Gold is worthless in Hell," Anbaixiu continued. "It's the transportation cost to other planes that drives up the price. Do you know how many soul coins I possess?"
Alan shook his head once more, though he guessed it must be an astronomical figure—at least ten million, at a conservative estimate.
Yet Anbaixiu gave no specific number. Instead, he said, "Alan, I'm not the same lich I used to be. I pursue grander ambitions now. I will resolve this trouble with the dwarves for you, and I won't ask for a single gold coin. But I will need you to pay me in something else."
"Name it. As long as it is within my power to give—even my own soul!" Alan said resolutely.
Anbaixiu scoffed. "What good is your soul to me? Besides, if I dared touch it, the Lord of the Dawn would slap me across the face."
Alan rubbed his head sheepishly.
"Then what do you want?"
Anbaixiu smiled faintly. "I heard you mention that over a million people committed suicide in Ryan, and the vast majority were military elites who took part in war crimes, yes? Since they've all gone to Hell anyway... why don't you let me put them to use?"
Chapter 568