Lich for Hire

Arthur Lyon's invitation caught Ambrose entirely off guard.

Inviting a lich to convert to the Lord of Dawn's faith—was there something wrong with the heroic spirit's head?

Even the slightest touch of holy light caused undead unbearable agony. As a legend, Ambrose was more durable than most, but he still felt pain. Other undead would suffer for a few seconds before being purified away; Ambrose would suffer until the holy light's power had been spent. Being a legend didn't discount the pain.

Convert to the Holy Light? Every prayer would be a fresh round of torture. He wasn't a masochistic worshiper of Levitra, the Mistress of Pain.

"Holy King, becoming a worshiper of the Holy Light isn't possible. I am, after all, a lich."

Arthur Lyon answered eagerly. "Don't be so categorical. You haven't tried it. How can you know it won't work? Come, recite the prayer with me..."

Ambrose presented Arthur Lyon with the back of his skull, then dragged a magic mirror out of a corner of his extradimensional space and set it down in front of him.

"Holy King, this device allows long-distance communication. I've already given a few of these to the elves. If you find yourself bored, you can speak with your old friends. Stop entertaining the impossible idea of converting an undead to the Holy Light."

Ambrose taught Arthur Lyon the activation phrase and then left his extradimensional space.

By then, Allen had already vanished. There was no telling where he intended to deliver his speeches to turn the hearts of more Lyon citizens.

Lavarun was no longer safe. The general had said he was petitioning the emperor for funds; in reality, he was surely petitioning to have the writ of pardon nullified so he could detain Ambrose.

That wily old fox. Given enough time, Ambrose would have liked to set up a trap to bankrupt him outright. But time wasn't on his side.

While the exemption token he was carrying still functioned, Ambrose hurriedly left the city, gathering some fallen hair on his way out.

The soldiers in Lavarun were losing hair rather badly. He picked up dozens of strands along their patrol routes with barely any effort.

Ambrose started to wonder if his Loom of Fate had gotten stronger. He had targeted Roger Ángelo's hair specifically. Why was the entire city losing theirs along with him?

He soon reached the city gates and was preparing to slip out, still disguised, when the magical token in his hand shattered.

"Damn it!"

The curse had barely left him when a terrifying column of holy light came down from the sky and landed on his head.

Leyla's True Illusion was powerful enough to deceive gods themselves—provided you didn't broadcast your own location.

Shara had been able to see through the illusion because Ambrose had studied her dark Weft; in the same way, the shattered token gave his position away. The bombardment Lavarun had been holding in reserve descended on Ambrose's head.

He had guessed correctly: that wily old fox had indeed gone to petition for the pardon's revocation. Ambrose just hadn't expected such a fast turnaround.

To think the Lyon emperor would respond within the hour... Was the imperial bureaucracy really that efficient?

As the holy light descended, all Ambrose could do was summon his Golden Throne and throw up a magical shield.

The shield was riddled with cracks almost immediately under the force of the holy light, but in that brief instant, Ambrose was able to trigger his jet engine and shoot toward the city gates at supersonic speed.

The instant the shield broke, Ambrose smashed through the gates and into the gateway tunnel.

The holy light from the sky wouldn't damage Lavarun's walls, so it dissipated quickly. Ambrose let out a small sigh of relief.

But the gateway tunnel wouldn't be a blind spot for the bombardment for long. A second column would soon come up from the ground. The bombardment wouldn't stop until Ambrose was destroyed.

So Ambrose maintained his supersonic flight. When the second column of light shot up at him, a small twist of his body was enough to slip past it.

Thanks to the legendary ranger boons Catherine had shared with him—and the fortunate fact that even holy light couldn't bend around corners—Ambrose was able to skirt death, dodging column after column, and eventually soaring to an altitude of three kilometers above Lavarun.

At that altitude, with cloud cover between him and the city, Lavarun's holy light could no longer lock onto him.

Ambrose looked down coldly at the city far beneath him. "Supersonic flight. Haven't seen that before, have you? Allow me to demonstrate."

He opened his extradimensional space and dragged out an enormous alchemical airship.

It was a discarded prototype from one of his earlier design iterations. Today, it would finally serve a purpose.

The several-ton airship hovered in midair while Ambrose loaded its hold with alchemical bombs.

These weren't quite the explosives of his past life, but they came close enough. Ambrose had made these bombs at considerable cost.

The bombs alone, plus the airship, came to three hundred thousand gold. But that was fine. Ambrose wasn't short on gold these days.

After loading the hold, he attached several jet engines to the rear of the abandoned airship—another scrapped design, this one dropped due to instability.

"Perfect repurposing. Go forth, my Phoenix. Show these Lyon citizens what alchemy can do."

As the jet engines fired, the airship Ambrose had christened Phoenix flew—or rather, plunged—toward Lavarun below.

Between the jet engines and gravity, the airship broke the sound barrier after only a fall of a few hundred meters.

The thunderous sonic boom reached Lavarun at almost the same moment the airship did.

Nothing like this attack had ever existed in the history of the world. Several tons of mass falling at supersonic speed produced enough force to overwhelm any defensive system. Lavarun's magical shield, designed to deflect magitech cannon fire, was punctured instantly without any meaningful effect. The only thing the shield managed to do was prematurely detonate the alchemical bombs aboard.

The instant the airship cleared the shield, every bomb in its hold went off at once, transforming the airship into a rain of fire.

Burning shards of steel rained down on the city, destroying numerous buildings and igniting fires across the rooftops.

Roger Ángelo had no time to react before the airship punched through the shield and exploded.

He had only just realized that Ambrose had escaped. The privileges he had worked so hard to secure were wasted. Without hesitation, he had revoked Ambrose's immunity to Lavarun's holy light.

The fact that the city's defenses had then activated immediately meant that the lich had still been within the city.

Roger Ángelo had been planning to destroy Ambrose's body just to teach him a lesson.

But how was he flying that fast? The moment the airship broke the sound barrier, Roger Ángelo felt his ears ringing.

What was that strange white mist trailing behind Ambrose?

He had no time to think about any of these questions. Soon after Ambrose shot into the sky, another roar came from above, followed by a devastating impact.

Roger Ángelo hadn't even managed to get a clear look at what had crashed down. If only the thing had been flying a little slower, Lavarun might have had a chance to detonate it in midair with holy light. How had it fallen so quickly?

The fires were spreading. The armory and granaries Allen had wanted to burn were caught up in the blaze, well alight.

Roger Ángelo had to issue orders to fight the fires immediately. But just as he gave the command, another paladin beside him let out an agonized scream. The man's body had begun to turn necrotic.

This time, the necrosis began at the throat.

The dead-ash gray spread upward from his neck, covering most of his face within moments. His mouth began opening and closing without intention, and foul-smelling saliva drooled from it.

"Phil!" Roger Ángelo cried out.

This time, Roger Ángelo's subordinate didn't last long enough for a Time Stop scroll to take effect. He was already lurching toward Roger Ángelo.

A column of holy light flashed down on Phil's head, reducing the freshly-turned undead to ash.

Roger Ángelo lashed out with a single furious punch, holy light erupting from his fist and shattering a distant section of wall.

"Damned lich! I'll see you pay for this in blood!"

Roger Ángelo had decided that, whether or not Ambrose admitted to it, he would pin the responsibility for the necrotic transformations of his subordinates on him.

He had to report this curse up the chain.

Undefendable and unpredictable, the curse would do more damage to morale than the fires currently raging across the city.

Roger Ángelo composed himself quickly. He methodically arranged the response to the fires, then dispatched a report to the imperial capital at maximum speed.

In his report, he requested that the Lyon emperor consider deploying the Draconic Armaments to shield his soldiers, lest mass undead curses appear on the battlefield.

High in the sky, Ambrose looked down at Lavarun, now half-engulfed in flames. He laughed. "Now it finally lives up to its name. What kind of city can be called Lavarun without a fire or two?"

Ambrose had spent a few hundred thousand gold for the satisfaction of venting his displeasure, but he knew it wouldn't change a thing. Lyon would still march on the Unholy Kingdom in a month and a half.

Still, the trip hadn't been wasted.

He now had a rough estimate of Lyon's military strength. He also knew that the Draconic Armaments hadn't originally been part of Lyon's plan.

In fact, today's incident might be what would force the emperor to bring the Draconic Armaments to the front lines.

If so, the emperor might also regard Roger Ángelo as a failure. Even a small rift between them could lead to coordination errors. The war might still be winnable—provided, of course, that Mr. Misfortune could resolve the devil contract on the Unholy Kingdom's side.

Whether the entire nation fell to Hell or most of the nobility did, the Unholy Kingdom would be devastated.

Ambrose himself couldn't think of any way to resolve the conundrum. Established facts remained facts; even reversing time wouldn't undo them. Under the Goddess of Fate's control, traveling back in time didn't produce paradoxes. He couldn't change what was foretold.

Ambrose found a quiet spot, ducked into his extradimensional space, and contacted Mr. Misfortune through his magic mirror.

In just half the day since they had last seen each other, the lines on Mr. Misfortune's face had deepened considerably, and his entire bearing had grown frail.

"Vladimir, what have you done?"

Mr. Misfortune smiled. "What I had to do. The kingdom is saved. I'll cut off every unfavorable future and keep the Unholy Kingdom alive."

Ambrose wasn't relieved. He answered calmly, "You know you can't do that. Even working together, we couldn't eliminate every possibility of the kingdom's collapse."

"I know." Mr. Misfortune's voice was almost excited. "A mortal can't accomplish something so grand. But a god can. I prayed to a god, and a god answered."

Ambrose's concern only deepened. "The Goddess of Fate doesn't answer prayers. Which god, Vladimir?"

Mr. Misfortune was silent for a long moment. "Sariel. I offered myself in exchange for two million tifling souls. A few hundred thousand nobles will still fall to Hell, but I've saved every important commander in the army. With everything I have left to give, I can reverse the kingdom's fate. I'll fall to Hell myself, and the kingdom will get its chance to live."