War Loan

Anbaixiu sat across from the Porcupine Knight, curiously turning the pair of swords over in his hands. The elves had all been stuffed into his personal demiplane. With a space capable of halting time, he didn't even need magical bindings—tossing them inside and freezing time was more than enough. There was nothing particularly special about the elves themselves, but these two blades were rather peculiar. He had initially assumed they were enchanted specifically to pierce a wizard's Shield, but that wasn't the case. The magical patterns etched upon them were exceedingly unusual—so much so that even Anbaixiu had never seen their like. Upon closer inspection, he realized the two shortswords acted like mana black holes, capable of absorbing magical energy from virtually anything. When a Shield was struck by one of the shortswords, a portion of its mana was siphoned away, destabilizing its structure and allowing the blade to pierce through. This was no ordinary "anti-magic" effect, because the siphoned mana could also be funneled directly into the wielder's body. "Does anyone who wields such a weapon secretly wish they'd die sooner?" Mana was an intensely personal substance. It wasn't like the internal energy of wuxia novels, passed freely to whomever one pleased; absorbing someone else's mana was no different from drinking poison. Had the elf been willing to commit suicide just to amplify the destructive power of his shortswords? Judging by how that elf had behaved, he truly seemed ready to throw his life away. The Porcupine Knight sat nervously opposite Anbaixiu, completely at a loss as to what this powerful necromancer intended to do. When Anbaixiu had previously asked what kind of contract he had signed with the elves, he could only give a brief account of why they had come, after which the mighty necromancer had lapsed into deep contemplation. The Porcupine Knight didn't dare press for answers. He couldn't even handle that squad of elves, to say nothing of this terrifying necromancer. Anbaixiu stowed the peculiar shortswords, intending to thoroughly interrogate the elves once he returned. Their arrival was far too bizarre. It couldn't be as simple as blazing a trail for the elven host. The vanguard wouldn't have pushed all the way into the very heart of the realm before the main army had even launched a formal invasion. It undoubtedly had something to do with the magical contract the elf had sent away. But without any leads, he could only return and investigate at his leisure. Glancing over at the Porcupine Knight standing to the side, Anbaixiu waved him over. The lord edged forward with great caution. The first words out of Anbaixiu's mouth were: "How many gold coins do you have?" The Porcupine Knight blinked in surprise, then hurriedly said, "To show my gratitude, I am willing to offer twenty thousand gold coins as a reward." Anbaixiu shook his head. "Not how many you'll give me. I asked how many you have in total." "Huh? Your Excellency means..." Anbaixiu said casually, "Exactly what it sounds like. You said it yourself: you were willing to give anything. I only want all the gold in your treasury. That's hardly excessive, is it?" The Porcupine Knight protested agitatedly, "Master, if you take all the gold, this fief will collapse immediately! Doing this makes you no different from those elves!" Anbaixiu smiled faintly. "What does whether your territory collapses have to do with me? Besides, the City of Alchemy is descending into a free-for-all war. What good is gold on its own? Could you even defend it?" The Porcupine Knight's face lit up with surprise. "Master, are you willing to assist me? I'll gladly offer all my gold to hire you as my magical advisor!" Anbaixiu: "..." Where did this man get his wishful thinking? A mere tens of thousands of gold coins to hire a legend? You couldn't even hire a knockoff! "What I meant," Anbaixiu said, "is that while you have no money, others do. Aren't you allied with a few petty lords? On the outskirts of the City of Alchemy, a tiny alliance like yours barely registers. There are plenty of wealthy lords out there—you can simply rob them." The Porcupine Knight smiled bitterly. He would have loved to plunder them, but as Anbaixiu said, their alliance didn't even register. Put together, their forces numbered fewer than a thousand soldiers. They barely had the strength to defend themselves, let alone launch an offensive. Whenever the topic arose, the Porcupine Knight felt intense regret over that crusade against the lich. He should never have listened to the paladins' nonsense. Had he not gotten involved with those paladins, the troops he could muster right now would be at least double what he had. The Porcupine Knight said helplessly, "We simply lack the power to expand. The neighboring lords aren't fools either; they're all prepared for war." Wearing a devilish grin, Anbaixiu tempted the Porcupine Knight. "If you don't attack others, does that mean they won't attack you? Even you know how weak you are. Others will undoubtedly choose the weakest prey to devour first." "Master, what do you mean?" "My dear lord, have you ever heard of a war loan?" Anbaixiu asked. "A war loan?" The Porcupine Knight frowned. He truly had never heard of such a thing. As a knight elevated from the common folk, he lacked much education and hadn't been a lord for very long; managing the day-to-day affairs of his fief was already more than enough to keep his hands full. "If your forces are insufficient, you can borrow them. For instance, I can lend you a cohort of undead skeletons for combat, and in return, you pay me in gold coins. Once you have an army, you can seize larger territories and plunder more people, while I earn more gold. Isn't that a win-win?" At this moment, Anbaixiu was like a devil straight from Hell, coaxing the Porcupine Knight step by step into the abyss. Waging war was troublesome business. Anbaixiu couldn't be bothered to do it himself; it was far better to let someone else earn gold for him. Having lived for hundreds of years, Anbaixiu had witnessed countless wars. Whenever chaotic times arrived, ambitious men would emerge in droves. The Porcupine Knight might not look particularly capable, but when push came to shove, he was willing to risk it all. Lending a man like that a bit of leverage might yield a rather handsome return on investment. Furthermore, the Porcupine Knight had signed some sort of contract with those elves. Though Anbaixiu still didn't know what it entailed, the man was bound to prove useful elsewhere. The Porcupine Knight was reluctant in every way, but he had no choice. Anbaixiu could easily slaughter him and plunder everything anyway. At the very least, this necromancer's terms were marginally better than the elves', offering him a glimmer of hope to turn things around. Anbaixiu showed no restraint, hauling away all of the hundred-odd thousand gold coins in the vault. A modest sum, perhaps, but certainly not an empty-handed haul. Anbaixiu drew up a list for the Porcupine Knight detailing the materials he required, alongside an exchange price list for undead skeletons. Lacking money right now was of no concern—he extended a loan limit of one hundred thousand gold coins at a mere fifteen percent monthly interest. That meant repaying only fifteen thousand gold coins a month, which, for a war loan, could practically be considered dirt cheap. Even so, the Porcupine Knight felt a sharp ache in his chest. The cheapest mantis-form skeleton on the list cost a thousand gold coins; hiring adventurers wasn't even that expensive! Fortunately, the list also specified materials Anbaixiu needed: various corpses, alchemical ingredients, and so forth, which could all be used to offset the equivalent amount of gold. The Porcupine Knight bit the bullet and took out a loan for a hundred aberrant skeletons, turning over a pile of corpses and his stockpiled alchemical ingredients to Anbaixiu to offset the debt. These bodies had come from casualties suffered when he previously annexed neighboring lords' domains; having originally just been given a hasty layer of dirt, they could now be put to good use. Anbaixiu was quite pleased with the transaction. After agreeing on a time for the exchange, he instructed the Porcupine Knight to look into Isabel's whereabouts. Isabel had decent talent and was diligent and responsible. Not every alchemy apprentice could help him culture the bone-colonizing virus—anyone else would probably have died several times over by now. Anbaixiu needed to track her down and put her back to work for him. Yet when Anbaixiu mentioned the location of the exchange, the Porcupine Knight's face drained of color. He blurted in shock, "That castle... isn't that the lich's..." Anbaixiu smiled faintly and dismissed the effects of his Polymorph, revealing his true visage as a lich. The Porcupine Knight's knees went weak with terror. Just as suspected, the lich wasn't dead at all! Ryan's paladins were utterly unreliable. They had stormed right into the castle, yet had failed to eliminate the lich! The Porcupine Knight also breathed a secret sigh of relief, thanking his lucky stars he hadn't tried to lay claim to the castle. Otherwise, this creature wouldn't have come today to talk business—he would have come to take his life. Anbaixiu said to the Porcupine Knight, "Very well, prepare what I've asked for. And remember: with me, death does not cancel a debt. If you owe me money, even if you become a corpse, you'll still pay me back in full." The Porcupine Knight could only offer a bitter smile and swear he would settle his debts on time. Anbaixiu nodded in satisfaction, then returned to his castle. Opening his personal demiplane, Anbaixiu stepped up before the time-frozen elves. Releasing the temporal freeze on Cicero, Anbaixiu cut straight to the chase: "Why was the Silvermoon High Court in such a rush to send you deep into the heartlands? What is your actual goal?" Looking upon Anbaixiu's skeletal visage, Cicero said with slight surprise, "So you're a lich. I've heard of you. The destruction of the City of Alchemy must have had something to do with you, right?" Anbaixiu reminded him, "I am the one entitled to ask questions here. You are the prisoner. Understand your place." Cicero chuckled confidently. "Heh. What can you possibly do to me? At worst, you could torture me, or simply kill me. But an elf's soul will ultimately return to the embrace of the gods. If you think torture will break me, you are welcome to try." Cicero's supreme confidence stemmed entirely from the innate traits of elvenkind. Blessed by the elven pantheon, they possessed exceedingly high mental resistance; charm, compulsion, paralysis, and nearly all mental-affecting spells were completely useless against them. This was a divine blessing bestowed by their gods; even if Anbaixiu drew upon the power of the Golden Throne, he couldn't suppress the might of the elven gods. As everyone knew, dealing with an elf meant resorting strictly to physical force; even drugging or poisoning their minds was impossible. Furthermore, Cicero was clearly a veteran adventurer. Anbaixiu's tortures were unlikely to yield quick results, and more importantly, Anbaixiu didn't have that much time to waste on him. Anbaixiu pondered for a moment, then addressed Cicero: "Actually, I have a rough guess. The real secret lies in that contract, doesn't it?" Though Cicero's expression didn't shift, his pupils constricted involuntarily. Anbaixiu chuckled. "You see, that is the difference between the living and the undead. When the undead choose to show no expression, they truly have none. But you living creatures can't manage that. Charm spells may be useless on you, but neither can you use mental magic to control your thoughts and prevent micro-expressions from betraying your mind." Anbaixiu's words sent a wave of panic through Cicero's heart. He had never imagined this lich would be versed in such interrogation techniques. Anbaixiu continued, "Deducing by common logic, the terms written on the contract don't actually matter. A clause promising the safe evacuation of humans—such harsh terms are practically a death sentence anyway. The true crux must be the consequences of breaching the contract, right?" Cicero tried to close his eyes to prevent Anbaixiu from watching his pupils, but Anbaixiu reached out and pressed a hand to his neck, reading his inner thoughts through his pulse and heartbeat. "Oh, looks like I guessed right. But what benefit does breaching the contract actually grant you? Does it force the humans to surrender outright? ...No, apparently not. Does it aid your invasion? Good, seems I was right again..." Anbaixiu probed question by question, extracting a great deal of information by monitoring Cicero's pulse. First, signing the contract was tied directly to the elven invasion and provided an advantage for them, while the trigger condition was these human lords violating its terms. Second, the full-scale elven invasion would take place within days. Cicero's squad was by no means the only vanguard; many more Twilight Guards had been dispatched to force lords along the way into signing agreements. Unfortunately, with Cicero keeping his mouth clamped shut, Anbaixiu had no way of gleaning more specific details. Then again, a mere foot soldier like Cicero probably wouldn't know the finer details anyway. Anbaixiu resealed Cicero, stroking his chin in thought. The elves were just as stubborn as the Ryan Empire; they might not be willing to pay a ransom to buy back Cicero and his fellow Twilight Guards. It seemed it was time to get in touch with the desert dwarves. Business was all about expanding into new markets. If the elves wouldn't cough up gold, he was confident the desert dwarves would gladly pay a handsome price for these elves.