Even the gods could not resolve the domestic disputes of husbands and wives, let alone a heartless lich like Anbaixiu, who understood even less about how to mediate marital strife.
So, acting with great responsibility, he simply relayed the news of the young bone dragon lady's impending arrival to Gareth, leaving him to nurse his own headache.
Anbaixiu had initially assumed Gareth would immediately run for his life, thereby sparing the castle from destruction under a bone dragon's breath weapon.
To Anbaixiu's surprise, Gareth's very first thought was that the orc woman was in danger.
"I know her too well. If she already discovered I was in the City of Alchemy, then Ona must be under her surveillance too. I'm afraid she's in mortal danger—I have to go save her."
Though that orc woman had sold the tavern, moving away was no simple matter; she had been busy tying up all sorts of personal property and real estate, and hadn't yet left the City of Alchemy.
Anbaixiu hurriedly said, "Gareth, if a third party is really involved, going off to rescue her will only make your wife even more furious, won't it?"
"If I don't go, Ona will certainly die. If I go, she still has a slim chance of survival."
Gareth buckled his helmet into place, reverting into that scruffy middle-aged adventurer once more, and bolted toward the City of Alchemy without delay.
For a moment, Anbaixiu genuinely couldn't tell whether that made him a caring gentleman or an absolute scoundrel.
Still, it was someone else's domestic affair, so Anbaixiu couldn't meddle too deeply, and he had far more important matters to attend to anyway.
The first task was to tend to the mercury soul puppet's injuries.
During the earlier ambush, the mercury soul puppet had once again displayed battle prowess that pleasantly surprised Anbaixiu; its formidable ability to devour metal had nearly ruined Fanxing's enchanted armor.
If not for the paladin's excessively lavish gear, the mercury soul puppet alone would have made him suffer a grievous defeat.
Even so, the little fellow had carelessly taken a hit from a Divine Smite, leaving its body severely damaged.
Right now, the little creature lay languishing inside a glass jar, gasping on its last breaths and in desperate need of vast quantities of metal to recover.
Anbaixiu was not stingy in the least, tossing the scrapped paladin gear straight in to give the little creature a sumptuous feast. The paladins' suits of armor were forged from top-grade metals—not only light and agile, but exceptionally sturdy as well. There was no telling how much adamantine and mithral had been mixed into them, but they were certainly worth more than their weight in gold.
Yet under the mercury soul puppet's enveloping embrace, those tough metals were swiftly corroded and absorbed. The previously languishing puppet revived at a visible pace, and several streaks of varying shades appeared across its silvery body.
"Adamantine and mithral? Indigestion from overeating?"
Anbaixiu was a bit concerned that those two rare metals couldn't be fully absorbed, leaving those threadlike patterns on its body. But he soon realized it wasn't indigestion at all; rather, having devoured such high-grade metals, the little fellow had directly begun to evolve.
Anbaixiu spoke gently to the mercury soul puppet, "Come, my little darling, show me how much you've grown."
As its creator, Anbaixiu commanded absolute obedience from the little creature by instinct. The moment it heard his order, it swelled up like an inflating balloon.
A gold-trimmed longsword extended outward, lightly scoring the glass and slicing cleanly through the entire container.
Moments later, tiny metal plates sprouted across the mercury soul puppet's surface, assembling into a diamond-shaped shield.
With a single glance, Anbaixiu could tell it was crafted of mithral—lightweight yet remarkably resilient.
"You can reproduce the properties of the metals you devour, can't you?" Anbaixiu asked.
The mercury soul puppet hopped up with delight, seemingly in response to his question.
This was a formidable trait indeed. The world was brimming with extraordinary metals; if he fed the mercury soul puppet enough high-grade ores and alloys, could it potentially ascend to legendary rank?
At the thought, Anbaixiu hurried into the treasure vault and brought out a helmet radiating pure white light.
This was a piece of magical gear stripped from Fanxing's head, brimming with dense holy light energy, and within it Anbaixiu could even sense the presence of divine power. Without question, it was a replica of a divine artifact. Even if it wasn't the genuine article, the divine power inside was entirely real; likely not even the Ryan Empire possessed very many of them.
Such an item was undeniably worth a fortune, yet Anbaixiu still intended to let the mercury soul puppet consume it.
Anbaixiu had no use for holy light energy, and selling it would prove difficult. Buyers with enough coin might not dare offend the Ryan Empire, while those with a grudge against the empire mostly couldn't afford it. As for someone like Rose of Decay, who was both wealthy enough and bore a grudge against the empire... she was an undead just like Anbaixiu and had made it plain that the item was useless to her, refusing to waste money buying it just to smash it unless he gave it away for free.
Rather than haggling and arguing back and forth with the City of Alchemy, it was better to feed it to the mercury soul puppet. Perhaps it might yield a pleasant surprise.
Thanks to Master Morgan's research, the mercury soul puppet was a living construct rather than an undead, meaning it was completely unaffected by holy light and might very well absorb every trace of the divine power within.
The helmet proved tough to chew, however. The mercury soul puppet draped its entire body over the piece, corroding it bit by bit at a crawl. Anbaixiu had no choice but to place the puppet and helmet together inside another glass container, leaving the little creature to digest in peace.
With that handled, Anbaixiu hurried down to the castle's dungeon.
The once-empty prison cells were now packed with paladins hanging in suspension.
Seeing Anbaixiu appear, every one of them glared with venomous fury, longing to unleash Divine Smites in unison and burn him to ashes on the spot. Yet only their eyes could move; Anbaixiu had placed several layers of seals upon each paladin, and stripped of their equipment, they had no hope of escape.
Anbaixiu walked up to a female paladin, scrutinized her face, and reached out to pinch her cheek, as though inspecting merchandise.
The paladin's eyes nearly shot flames, but she could only glare helplessly at Anbaixiu, unable to put up any resistance.
After confirming that her appearance bore no disguise whatsoever, Anbaixiu finally released her and dispelled the seal over her mouth.
The instant she regained the freedom to speak, the woman unleashed a torrent of abuse upon him.
Anbaixiu listened for a few seconds before remarking, "Save your breath, will you? Your combined vocabulary of insults doesn't even outnumber the paladins in this room."
It was nothing but "despicable," "shameless," "filthy," and "hideous," narrowly directed at him without even dragging his family into it. Anbaixiu guessed these paladins had never engaged in a real quarrel since childhood; their choice of insults was probably lifted straight out of religious scripture.
Such curses packed no punch at all; pointing at a druid and mocking him for shedding fur after wild shaping would cut deeper than this paladin's diatribe.
"Let me ask you a question: were there only ten of you this time? Are there any other paladins? Especially female ones?" Anbaixiu asked.
A wad of bloody spit flew at him, which Anbaixiu dodged with ease.
The paladin sneered mockingly, "Keep dreaming! No matter what you ask, I won't answer a single word. Kill me if you have the guts!"
Anbaixiu sighed. "Couldn't you just save me some mana?"
Tracing pink lines of magic between his fingertips, Anbaixiu pressed a charm spell onto the paladin's forehead.
A few minutes later, Anbaixiu emerged from the dim dungeon, his mind clouded with doubt.
"It seems the one who takes my head isn't from this bunch of paladins."
Among the ten paladins, there was only one woman, and she was heavily built, stern in demeanor, and thoroughly politically correct.
Her appearance bore no resemblance whatsoever to the alabaster beauty from the prophecy—not even the slightest trace.
After pondering for a moment, Anbaixiu arrived at an unsettling conclusion.
If it wasn't these paladins, could the person who would take his head be one of those mad alchemists instead?
Chapter 68