A benevolent lich—such a concept had always existed only in fairy tales, and it seemed far more like nonsense fabricated by storytellers seeking attention in a world overrun by evil liches.
The racial traits of a lich destined them to never be accepted by human society. Seventy percent of humanity blatantly discriminated against liches, while to a lich, the feeling was rather: *To think I'm being looked down on by dogs.*
Regardless of how much humanity remained, an undead body subtly influenced a lich's senses and thoughts over time. Gradually, they would entirely lose their human perspective, transforming into another species altogether.
To an immortal lich wielding immense magical power, mortals truly were no different from dogs—both belonged to a lower order of life.
Make no mistake: most liches discriminated equally against every living race, and even against other low-tier undead. To a lich, a skeleton servant was merely a tool, hardly better than a hound.
Only the strong, possessing equal wisdom or might, could earn a lich's respect.
Furthermore, lacking mundane desires, a lich's thinking tended toward absolute rationality. Only certain exceptionally intense emotions from their mortal life were preserved. Such an emotion was like the unreachable moonlight of one's youth, the cinnabar mole in one's dreams, or more fittingly, the only piece of chocolate whose flavor they could still taste.
In any case, looking back on it usually tasted of bitterness.
Thus, most liches conducted themselves with ninety percent calm reason, only to turn completely unhinged at critical moments.
Anbaixiu had not been a lich for long, so more of his humanity remained intact. And his most intense emotion was pure hatred of poverty.
It was not a love of money, but a burning hatred for the state of being impoverished.
Anbaixiu had been forced to turn into a lich precisely because of poverty. He detested the feeling of knowing there was a way to extend his lifespan, yet lacking the coin to pay for it.
Thus, what he pursued was the freedom to buy whatever he wanted, not hoarding massive piles of gold just to wait for adventurers to bust him open for loot.
Because of this, even though the Rose of Decay's request was outrageous, she genuinely paid well, so Anbaixiu accepted without hesitation.
Extra pay, money is no object, upfront deposit... To Anbaixiu, these phrases were like potent specialty spells; any one of them could strike straight to his soul.
Isabel, knowing none of this, could only try to look on the bright side, hoping fairy tales were not entirely lies.
Anbaixiu could sense the shifts in Isabel's emotions, but he paid them no mind. He had already fully entered work mode. First, he examined the intelligence sent by the Rose of Decay, and a single look made him realize something was amiss.
It was not that the materials were lacking in detail. On the contrary, they were far too detailed—far beyond what could be gathered by asking around through outsiders. It looked much more like she had planted a mole inside the Ryan Empire, and one of very high standing at that.
These documents recorded more than three hundred defensive spells, not only marking their locations and areas of coverage, but even listing the personnel responsible for maintaining the spell formations.
If the contents were true, reporting this dossier directly to the Ryan Empire could likely fetch a million gold coins.
"What lavish generosity," Anbaixiu murmured with a sigh.
Though the intelligence was immensely valuable, he had no intention of selling out the Rose of Decay.
Doing so would likely get him silenced first; the Ryan Empire would never believe that Anbaixiu had not kept a copy.
And in fact, he certainly intended to make one.
Perhaps there would be a chance down the line to sell it to the mountain dwarves of Thunder Keep. They utterly despised their neighbor, the Ryan Empire.
Anbaixiu studied the spell formation documents thoroughly. The more he read, the more he felt he had gotten an incredible bargain. Many of the magical structures filled him with wonder; he had never realized defensive formations could be configured in such ways. Once he saved up enough coin, the castle's magical traps could undergo a total overhaul.
Immersed in the documents, Anbaixiu temporarily lost track of time until a carriage arrived before the castle gates near dawn.
Anbaixiu called out to Isabel, who was nodding off, "Your brother is back."
Isabel woke with a start. The Tranquility Potion she had drunk the previous night had relaxed her nerves. After waiting idly into the late hours of the night, she had unwittingly drifted to sleep over the table.
To fall asleep right in front of a lich—Isabel was shocked by her own nerve.
Now hearing news of her brother, Isabel asked anxiously, "Lord Lich, may I see Raul?"
"Of course you can see him. Why else would I wake you... Wait, what is going on here?"
With a flick of Anbaixiu's finger, rings of soft light rose from his fingertips, projecting the scene at the castle gates.
Raul looked thoroughly exhausted, yet he still braced himself to open the carriage door and dragged out a blood-soaked corpse.
Isabel could not help but let out a scream, clamping both hands over her mouth immediately after.
She had never witnessed such a gruesome sight. The carriage was crammed full of corpses. Some were disemboweled, others had their throats cut or heads severed, all having met gruesome deaths.
Raul moved them with an expression of hollow indifference, as though he had gone completely numb.
"Raul..."
Isabel could not believe her brother had done this. How could he have slaughtered so many people?
Anbaixiu was even more surprised than Isabel. With a cast of Teleportation, he brought them both to the castle gates.
Raul was still hauling bodies when he suddenly saw Anbaixiu and Isabel appear. Stunned for a moment, he said agitatedly, "I brought the bodies back! Twelve in total, more than the number you asked for! Please keep your promise and release my sister."
Isabel broke down in tears. Only now did she realize Raul had killed people for her sake, trading twelve lives for a slim chance of her survival.
She knew she should not blame Raul, yet looking at the corpses, Isabel could not bring herself to utter a single word of gratitude.
Raul gripped the gemstone controller tightly. If Anbaixiu went back on his word, he would command the aberrant skeleton to attack. Even if the odds were minuscule, he had to fight with everything he had to survive.
Yet to the siblings' utter bewilderment, Anbaixiu gave a strange look and said, "I told you to bring back living people. Why did you bring me a carriage full of corpses? Raul, I told you to bring the fleeing freemen to live on my land, not to harvest crafting materials for me."
"What did you say?!"
The controller slipped from Raul's fingers and hit the ground.
Anbaixiu shook his head. "What on earth were you imagining? Didn't I make it perfectly clear? I told you to bring back fleeing freemen. I even had your sister prepare Tranquility Potions so they wouldn't be too agitated to listen to me speak."
Raul stammered in agitation, "B-But... you gave me an instrument of slaughter!"
Anbaixiu answered as if it were obvious, "What else did you expect? Without my skeleton to protect you, wouldn't the lord have dragged you back long ago? If you wanted to rescue other freemen from the lord's clutches, did you plan to do it with your bare tongue instead of a weapon?"
Raul's mouth hung open, but not a single word came out.
Anbaixiu continued, "You trespassed upon my territory. Setting aside past grievances, I treated your wounds and gave you the power to rescue your compatriots, yet in your eyes I am still a monster who slaughters humans. You didn't even bother to ask for clarification, because in your heart, you assumed this wasn't a misunderstanding. Oh, humans... racial prejudice is your original sin."
Raul recalled everything from before. It truly had been just as Anbaixiu said. From the very beginning, the lich had not harmed a single human, nor had he ever commanded him to kill... Why did it sound like everything had been his own fault?
Could it really be that his own prejudice had caused this outcome?
Raul turned pleading eyes toward his sister beside him and asked with a tremble, "Is that true?"
Isabel vaguely felt that something wasn't quite right, but she could only nod and say, "Lord Lich did indeed have me prepare many bottles of Tranquility Potion. Th-These are meant for the living."
Undead creatures had no use for Tranquility Potions, so Anbaixiu was entirely correct.
"Lord Lich, are you truly willing to take in refugees like us? We can actually live on your land?" Raul asked.
Anbaixiu nodded and said, "Naturally. As long as you pay your taxes."
Chapter 7