Lich for Hire

Ambrose didn't linger in the Unholy Kingdom. Even though Redriver was the place he'd lived in longest, he felt no attachment at all to the city it had become.

He teleported directly to Blackgate, the border city. The moment he was outside its walls, he wrapped himself in an illusion and took to the air.

He wanted to look over the territory and see for himself what the situation was, and whether there was any chance of holding back Lyon's army.

He instantly noticed the Hellgates packed densely across the landscape.

Hellgates could be hidden when inactive and rendered completely invisible. But since the Unholy Kingdom wanted to threaten Lyon, all of these gates were projecting visible phantom images of themselves.

Each one stood a hundred meters tall. The miniature Hellgates Ambrose had seen previously didn't even begin to compare.

The gates were arrayed along the border between the two countries, a roughly two-hundred-kilometer stretch. The two ends of the border were rugged mountain ranges crowded with active volcanoes.

Apart from these two hundred kilometers, then, there was no easy way for Lyon to bypass the volcanoes and strike at the Unholy Kingdom's interior.

Still, two hundred kilometers was a great deal of ground, and it was composed almost entirely of flat plain. Apart from the Hellgates, the tiflings had also deliberately dug numerous channels of lava, drawing molten rock down from the active volcanoes to form a crisscrossing network of untraversable terrain.

Several dozen Hellgates were spaced evenly along the border, one every two or three kilometers. As defensive lines went, it was quite thorough.

There were twenty-three border cities in total across both sides of the border. Of these, only ten belonged to the Unholy Kingdom.

Blackgate was the foremost tifling border city, and had been thoroughly militarized. Its walls had been stained black by years of accumulated volcanic ash, explaining its name.

Thirteen border cities, on the other hand, belonged to Lyon. Lavarun was both the closest to the border and the largest among them all. The other twelve served as satellite cities for supplies and backup defenses.

Lyon's army would have to set out from Lavarun. Once across the border line, they would then face the lava channels and the Hellgates directly.

Under ordinary circumstances, those two obstacles alone were enough to stop any army.

The tiflings only needed to wait inside Blackgate, lobbing the occasional ranged spell in support.

Even if Lyon's soldiers were unstoppably brave and cleared the obstacle course, the infernal creatures from the Hellgates would chase them down from behind, herding them toward Blackgate. Caught between two pincers, the Lyon army would be done for.

So long as Lyon couldn't bypass this defensive boundary, the Unholy Kingdom could rest easy.

But the tifling defenses would soon be rendered paper-thin. Lyon would be able to punch right through.

And once Blackgate fell, so too would the entire kingdom. Lyon could attack as it pleased. With its supply lines secured, it could occupy the entire kingdom without difficulty.

"No wonder Vladimir was willing to shore up these defenses. The idea really is impressive—great effect at minimal cost, saving enormous sums in military spending. The kingdom's quality of life has shot up remarkably. It really is a pity that all this came at so steep a cost."

The longer Ambrose lived in this world, the more he understood the workings of fate.

Ambrose had been doing well over the past year or so, but only after centuries of hardship and displacement. He hadn't merely missed that one shot at godhood. No—he still carried regrets that made his soul shudder.

Arthur Lyon had been blessed in life, slaying the Dragon Tyrant as a mere mortal and saving the world. But in his final years, in order to contain the Dragon Tyrant's malice within his own body, he was forced to sacrifice his very soul.

The dragons were no different. Once rulers of the world, they had been driven across the seas. Newborn dragons now had to make do with fish for food, a measure of how far they had fallen.

Vladimir had enjoyed centuries of smooth sailing, and the bill was now coming due.

Ambrose continued flying toward Lavarun in order to scout Lyon's defenses for himself, and to identify any potential openings.

It was quite simple, really. All he had to do was appear outside Lavarun and release his dark magic for all to see.

The city's defenses sensed the necromantic energy at once. Holy light flared up around its walls and locked onto him.

Ambrose, however, had cannily positioned himself well outside the range of the city's defensive magic.

Within moments, several dozen figures came charging out of Lavarun: paladins on a reconnaissance sortie.

The moment they saw a lich displaying his dark magic so openly, they raised their swords and shouted, "Holy Light! There is evil worth the fight!"

A dozen-odd paladins galloped forward at full speed, Sacred Slashes already gathering on their blades, intent on grinding Ambrose down to bone meal.

Ambrose only chuckled. Magic poured from his fingertips as an enormous wall of stone slammed up across the paladins' path.

There was just enough time for the paladins, all skilled riders, to rein in their horses. They came within a hair's breadth of crashing into the wall.

By then, Ambrose had appeared on top of the earthen wall, holding out a writ of pardon for them to see.

"Don't go swinging swords at every undead you see. I'm a lich pardoned by your own Lyon Empire. By your laws, you can't lay a hand on me. Doing so would be a crime."

The paladins were rendered nearly apoplectic at this. A pardoned lich? They'd never heard of any such—no, actually, they had heard of him.

Ambrose had stopped a brewing war between the dwarves and the elves and had been pardoned by Lyon in the aftermath. The matter had caused considerable controversy. Many felt that the undead, inherently evil, could not be pardoned no matter their actions.

But plenty had supported the decision too, on the simple basis of their doctrine. To save humans from peril was a praiseworthy act.

By stopping the war, Ambrose had saved over a million human lives. If a lich who had done that wasn't to be honored, then how could the priests look themselves in the mirror when receiving honors of their own? The total lives saved across all their lifetimes wouldn't add up to a fraction of Ambrose's count.

For the sake of domestic stability, even those who had opposed the pardon were forced to accept the outcome. Otherwise, every commendation ceremony from then on would have someone muttering bitterly, "Can't even compare to that lich."

The pardon had been issued partly for that reason. No one could afford the consequences of a mass mutiny among the priests of the Holy Light.

Recalling this rather unpleasant chapter of history took the wind out of the paladins' sails. This was the first time in any of their lives that they'd encountered an undead and been unable to draw their swords against it. And it wasn't because they lacked the courage—it was because the lich had legal immunity.

It was infuriating, frankly.

Choking back the urge to swear, the paladins demanded, "What are you doing at Lavarun? You're not welcome here!"

Ambrose smiled. "Let's not be hasty. I have important intelligence about the Unholy Kingdom. As Lyon's only undead friend, shouldn't I be passing this information along to your superiors?"