An elf had actually appeared within this secret passage of the royal palace.
Coupled with the recent devil raid, all manner of insidious conspiracies flashed through the dwarf king's mind. But he quickly dismissed them.
What kind of joke was that—elves allying with devils?
Even if Corellon went mad, he would never play with fire using the elven race's centuries of reputation.
This elf surely had little to do with the Silvermoon High Court. Escaping with his life was what mattered now; regardless of who this intruder was, he had to kill him first.
Without needing a spoken order, just a single glance was enough: the dwarf iron guards charged toward the pale elf. Yet as these dwarf iron guards roared and rushed forward, they bolted straight past the pale elf, completely ignoring his presence.
"An illusion?!"
The dwarf king was startled. How had he failed to detect even the slightest fluctuation of magic?
A vampire in a dark subterranean tunnel ought to be extraordinarily sensitive; ordinary illusions should have been completely ineffective, let alone going entirely unnoticed.
Yet such was reality: the guards beside the dwarf king roared one by one as they dashed forward, charging at nonexistent enemies, swiftly vanishing down the end of the passage.
No matter how the dwarf king shouted, they seemed unable to hear him.
In the end, only the dwarf king remained, alone against the pale elf.
The dwarf king knew something was dreadfully wrong. This was not an enemy he could handle. Without caring to conceal his power any longer, his eyes turned crimson, and wings unfurled from his back as he flew in the opposite direction down the tunnel.
Fleeing was top priority. The underground passages ran in all directions; he had plenty of escape routes.
He believed this labyrinthine network of subterranean tunnels could make the elf lose his bearings—so long as he had just a sliver of an opening.
His wings stirred up violent gales as the dwarf king turned into a streak of bloody light, flying backward.
He had thought the pale elf would make a move to stop him, but the dwarf king found that the entity did not move at all, merely letting him pull farther and farther away.
Whether out of carelessness or arrogance, the dwarf king only wanted to escape at top speed.
Soon, a corner appeared before him.
The dwarf king recognized the markings at the corner. After rounding this turn, a fork would soon appear, and taking the right path would lead to another tunnel exit.
Yet just as the dwarf king excitedly surged through the junction, he discovered in shock that the pale elf stood at the end of the passage once more.
This frightened the dwarf king so badly that he nearly crashed into the wall, barely managing to flutter his wings to a halt. The pale elf smiled faintly at him and said, "Why are you always thinking of running away? You are a monarch, after all."
Yet the dwarf king had no desire to converse with him. Flapping his wings, he flew back the way he came.
From the day he turned into a vampire out of fear of death, he had discarded everything associated with courage; all that remained was greed and selfishness.
Facing this bizarre elf, the dwarf king possessed no courage to fight, wanting only to flee.
One turnabout, two turnabouts... This short passage seemed cursed. Though it was a place he knew intimately, every single path he chose somehow led him back.
No matter how the dwarf king struggled, waiting at the end of the tunnel was always that same pale elf.
He did not know how long he tried, but ultimately the dwarf king collapsed to the ground exhausted, unable to fly any longer. Struggling to his feet, he gritted his teeth and stared at the elf, demanding, "Who in the world are you, and what do you want?! If it's wealth, or power, I can give you..."
The dwarf king desperately offered whatever bargaining chips he could muster, trying to strike a deal with this pale elf.
Yet the other party simply pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shh. Don't utter such dull things. I have no need for your wealth or power. I came here merely to have you do one thing. Rest assured, it will not cost you your life."
The dwarf king hastily asked, "What is it?"
"Just to have you take a look at this book."
The pale elf produced a thick tome bound in pitch-black and held it out to the dwarf king.
The dwarf king took it in confusion. The moment his hands touched the book, he felt a sharp, burning pain, as if seared by a branding iron. By reflex, the dwarf king tried to fling it away, but with a single glance at the cover, he was utterly captivated as if possessed.
The dwarf king's eyes turned into two swirling vortexes. The text within the book transformed into floating runes, plunging one after another into his eyes. The pages flipped rapidly until he turned the very last leaf and the final rune sank into his gaze. The swirling vortexes ceased their rotation, condensing into the image of a pale, jawless skull.
The dwarf king knelt before the pale elf and said devoutly, "Great Supreme God, your humble servant begs for your forgiveness."
The pale elf smiled with satisfaction and said approvingly, "Very good. Come with me. Things up above are probably just about finished by now. Your kingdom has been stolen, and going back will be difficult."
A look of astonishment crossed the dwarf king's face as he asked, "O deity, why is that? I am still king; I can dedicate the entire kingdom to you."
"Fool. You have already been outmaneuvered by that fellow. From the moment you fled, this kingdom ceased to belong to you."
The pale elf could not be bothered to explain further. With a casual wave of his hand, he opened a spatial portal and took the dwarf king away.
The next second, the two arrived inside a gloomy castle.
Still immersed in a fervent spirit of devotion, the dwarf king could not help asking, "O deity, if I have already lost my kingdom, what else may I do for you? Please tell me—I cannot bear the thought of not offering myself in service to you."
"Heh-heh. Don't fret; your time to serve will come."
The pale elf led the dwarf king into the castle's depths, soon arriving before a massive magic array.
Thirteen cages forged from pure magical power were arrayed across the magic circle, resembling some vile ritual. Just a glance made the dwarf king dizzy, as though his very soul were being drawn into it.
"Alright. The third cage on the right is your place. Step inside."
Completely dominated, the dwarf king did not hesitate for an instant. He walked into the cage and shut himself inside.
Only then did he notice that most of the thirteen cages already held prisoners.
A female knight whose face was crisscrossed with scars, a devil whose body bore extensive signs of modification, an orc lying on the ground looking utterly bewildered, an elderly man clad in an alchemist's robes... There seemed to be every race and station imaginable, and every single one remained motionless.
Of the thirteen cages, only three remained empty. The dwarf king had no idea who these people were. Could they be servants of the great deity, just like himself?
Just as he was about to ask, radiant pulses of light flared across the cage, and his entire body stiffened, frozen in place within the bars.
The pale elf walked to the center of the magic array. Tracing numerous lines of mana with both hands, he reconnected the newly occupied cage to the array. An invisible power was siphoned from the dwarf king's body, converging toward the magic array's center.
Instantly, the glow of magic grew more pronounced, and that shapeless malice seemed almost to come alive.
"Very good, high-quality malice indeed. A noble monarch, greedy, selfish, cowardly, and rather foolish, layered with a destiny of repeated deception and manipulation like a pawn in someone's palm... The noose around that lich's neck tightens another notch. Now, only three remain." The pale elf walked up to one of the empty cages and muttered to himself, "The purest love... When betrayed and deceived, the pain must be etched into the very bone. That princess is a bit troublesome; Talos isn't so easy to deal with. Still, so long as I am careful..."
Next, he stepped up to the second empty cage and muttered once more, "A transcendent existence, deceived repeatedly by a mortal. While it is impossible to genuinely imprison a deity within, the bargain is already struck. Those goddesses are willing to offer their hatred and memories, so this spot is taken care of as well."
Finally, he arrived at the center of the magic array. This was the largest cage, and it too stood empty.
His tone shifted as he mused, "The hardest one of all: baseless betrayal. The others are all victims deceived by that lich, but this one must be someone who profited from him, shares a close bond with him, and is willing to betray him. The Deceiver ultimately betrayed by his own kin—only this degree of malice can make the ritual complete. Alas, that lich has plenty of enemies, so finding victims was easy. But someone capable of betraying him? Truly hard to come by."
This was an exceedingly vile magical ritual, and the only method Cyric, the Prince of Lies, had devised to deal with Anbaixiu. Anbaixiu's current state was extraordinarily unique; as a spirit within the mirrors, he could not be harmed through conventional means.
The true physical body of the magic mirror was enshrined within the divine realm of the God of Alchemy. Even at the height of his power, Cyric could not have simply smashed open another god's divine realm to seize the artifact within, to say nothing of now, when he had only just regained his sanity and had lost the greater part of his power.
He had previously attempted to curse Anbaixiu through the magic mirror, twisting every piece of information Anbaixiu encountered. But fooling a professional swindler was no easy feat; Anbaixiu quickly detected the anomalies and unraveled his curses time after time.
Cyric felt helpless. A unique artifact like the magic mirror had never before existed in this world, and never had he imagined anyone would willingly turn himself into the artifact spirit of such an object. Alchemy was truly troublesome—something even divine might could not completely resolve.
After pondering for a long time, Cyric had finally applied his intellect to craft this malicious ritual.
It was a curse capable of acting directly upon Anbaixiu's soul, and its effect was very simple: chaos. Complete and utter chaos.
Once the ritual was complete, Anbaixiu would no longer be able to receive any normal information from the outside world. Sounds would be distorted into meaningless babble or completely inverted, jumbled words; colors would be tainted like bleeding paints, never again able to reflect their true forms.
Whether touch or spiritual perception, every means of sensing the outer world would be disrupted—and this interference would follow no discernible pattern. In this manner, Anbaixiu would be imprisoned forever in a cage of isolation.
This was a form of exquisite torture, far more wretched than merely existing as an undead.
Given enough time, anyone would fall into madness.
Cyric could find no way to kill Anbaixiu, so he could only ruin him in this manner. The end result would be the same: once Anbaixiu descended into this pure chaos, the so-called Deceiver would become nothing more than a mindless idiot.
However, the requirements to activate this ritual were exceedingly harsh.
The location alone had to be somewhere intimately tied to Anbaixiu. This castle was the very place where Anbaixiu had originally transformed into a lich; ever since Isabel moved away, it had stood entirely deserted.
With a few subtle moves, Cyric had refashioned the castle into a secret base for holding the ritual.
Next came the thirteen sacrifices. All had to be people closely connected to Anbaixiu, people who had suffered Anbaixiu's deception and whose threads of fate were deeply intertwined with his—and the nature of their deceptions could not be identical.
Fortunately, over the past few centuries, Anbaixiu had deceived a great many people, so choosing among them was not difficult in the least.
Although Cyric could not wield the power of fate, as the Prince of Lies he could easily discern the connections between a deceiver and his victims. Soon enough, he had gathered ten suitable sacrifices.
Yet the final one was the most troublesome: someone who had received Anbaixiu's favors, shared a close relationship with him, and was willing to betray him of their own volition. Such a person was truly hard to find.
Cyric had pondered for a long time: did anyone around Anbaixiu fit the bill?
The Rose of Decay was not suitable. Although their feelings ran deep, the Rose of Decay herself was on the verge of fading away; her soul was nearly a "blank slate," devoid of gratitude and incapable of generating the malice of betrayal.
"That alchemist named Isabel?" Cyric quickly shook his head, rejecting that option.
The sacrifice tied to love had already been chosen; adding another would only compromise the ritual's potency. Isabel's feelings toward Anbaixiu were complicated, far from a simple master-apprentice bond, making it difficult to control.
"Then it seems there is only one left."
The pale elf coalesced a phantom that drifted into the cage, transforming into the face of a young man. It was William Harvey—Anbaixiu's student and the most gifted divination wizard.
"Indeed, he is the best candidate. However, making him betray his teacher will likely take some doing."
Harvey got along well with Anbaixiu, and each owed the other their life. In terms of closeness, hardly anyone could compare.
As he was contemplating how to get Harvey to turn on Anbaixiu, he suddenly turned his head toward the castle gates.
"Look who is here."
The pale elf's gaze pierced through layer upon layer of stone walls, taking in everything outside the castle.
A dust-covered youth stood outside the castle, staff in hand, pushing open the main gates as if about to enter.
And this youth was none other than Harvey.
The castle gates swung slowly inward, and Harvey stepped inside at an unhurried pace.
Left unattended for so long, the castle now carried a faint odor of decay.
Harvey paid it no mind, merely walking step by step into the castle's interior.
The reason he had appeared here was that he had sensed an omen of fate: within this castle lay the opportunity for him to advance to legend rank.
This premonition was so overpowering that Harvey could not possibly ignore it.
Yet the Goddess of Fate seemed to have delivered another instruction: he had to come here alone and let no one know; otherwise, he would meet with unprecedented catastrophe.
This forewarning was just as potent.
Harvey's immediate thought at the time had been: *Is this targeted so specifically?*
As Anbaixiu's student, there were virtually no secrets between master and apprentice. The Goddess of Fate's decree forbidding him from telling anyone—wasn't that just telling him to hide it from his teacher?
Harvey felt helpless. He knew that Anbaixiu had recently stopped using the power of fate altogether, once again acting like a scoundrel who courted the Goddess only to abandon her. This latest instruction from fate was probably tied to his teacher as well.
If Harvey had just two more years, he might well have been able to say "no" to the Goddess of Fate's directives. His earlier research into circumventing fate had already yielded tangible progress; he truly lacked only time. Once he succeeded, he could erase unfortunate futures at will, forever choosing the path he desired.
Alas, the Goddess of Fate had foresighted this as well, handing Harvey a destiny he had no choice but to obey.
One was an enigmatic goddess; the other was his own teacher. Harvey felt the helpless exasperation of a child watching his parents fight. And Harvey truly had no alternative: right now, he lacked the power to defy fate's arrangements. Otherwise, stepping out of his room left foot first the next morning might genuinely see him fall to his death.
"Whatever comes, comes. It's a premonition of reaching legend rank anyway—a good thing for me either way."
Reassuring himself, Harvey ventured deeper into the castle. Before long, he saw a pale-skinned elf appear before him.
Waving a hand toward him, this pale elf with an eerie aura said, "William Harvey, I have waited for you a long time."
Chapter 612