Chapter 424: A Major Campaign

Thanos watched Ambrose work through the intelligence with methodical calm as he himself grew increasingly agitated. His hands were practically crackling with ball lightning.

For all his uncontrollable rage and violence, Thanos was no fool. He recognized a sharp mind when he saw one.

Not only did this lich possess extraordinary intelligence, he had the power to cause chaos throughout the world.

Thanos wanted to get his hands on him. He wanted this lich as a subordinate, someone to unleash on the followers of other gods, to deliver satisfying punishment on his behalf.

"What a pity that he's a lich!"

Thanos had once shared his divine power with a lich, but all he had gotten in return was betrayal. Valarun had fled. To this day, Thanos still hadn't tracked down that god of liches. The very nature of liches set Thanos's teeth on edge.

Otherwise, he would have genuinely considered sending a divine projection to have a chat with this lich to find out what it would take to make him a hireling.

While Thanos brooded, Ambrose finished transmitting the intelligence. Now there was nothing left to do but wait for his contacts to solve his military problems for him.

Aige had been watching Ambrose work himself ragged on her behalf. Once he finally finished, she said quietly, "Thank you. I don't know how to express what this means to me, and I'm sorry I have nothing to offer in return."

The Silent Sea Pirate Company was formidable in name, but had little material wealth to show for it.

Their possessions amounted to the tribute the Ragetide Kingdom paid them, plus whatever they'd seized in raids—which was rarely gold and more often miscellaneous items that ended up rotting on the seafloor because no one knew what to do with them.

Aige was starting to regret not having saved more money. That would have come in handy right about now. She could hardly send Ambrose a pair of ghost ships as compensation.

In self-conception, Ambrose had long since graduated from merchant to capitalist. Ghost ships added little to his enterprise. If he didn't accept Aige's ships, he could ask for her help or favors down the line instead. On the other hand, if he did accept her ships, he'd have to handle maintenance himself and lose access to free labor. It was a pure loss.

Ambrose waved off Aige's apology. "We're all part of the Elegiac Society. Think nothing of it. But going forward, we'll need to change our approach. No more piracy. Lady Aige, have you ever had experience governing a territory?"

Aige thought for a moment. "Do you mean... the Silent Sea?"

The Silent Sea was the name of the stretch of ocean where she most often operated, territory she'd haunted so long that it had been named after her: her ghost ship could glide through it without a sound.

But it wasn't the answer Ambrose was looking for.

"Lady Aige, living somewhere isn't the same as ruling it. We're going to seize the Sea of Volcanoes, the territory of an entire kingdom. The surface alone spans hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, and the ocean floor is three-dimensional space on top of that. How do you intend to govern a domain of that scale?

"Our goal is to gather enough believers to supply you with faith. The land is new, but what about the population? You can't seriously be counting on these few undead to provide all the faith you require."

It was simply the nature of the undead: whether numb to feeling or consumed by resentment, they were largely incapable of generating faith in any meaningful quantity or quality. As believers went, they were essentially worthless.

There was a reason Ambrose and Black Rose and the other liches had never worshiped Valarun. Undead-aligned deities had always been kept on a very tight leash.

For Aige to become a god, she would need vast numbers of living believers.

Aige understood the problem immediately. "So what do I do? You must have something in mind."

Ambrose sighed. Why did everyone around him refuse to think and make him solve everything for them?

No matter how formidable his mind, this kind of load was unsustainable. He needed to start recruiting more intelligent assistants.

He kept the irritation to himself and answered patiently, "Most of the races in the sea already have their own faiths. One option is to capture enough of them and allow them to breed anew, then claim the faith of the next generation. That approach is non-aggressive enough that it probably won't provoke the wrath of their existing gods. The downside is that it takes years of patient cultivation. If you want to become a deity, that path will require a great deal of time."

Aige heard him out, then smiled. "And this must mean there's a faster way, yes?"

"Of course," Ambrose said, resigned. "The simplest and most efficient target: the kouto. As long as you don't mind being reshaped into something strange by their chaotic faith, the kouto are your best bet."

Any given kouto could generate enormous quantities of faith. The problem was that their minds were chaos incarnate. Once Aige absorbed large amounts of kouto faith, there was a real possibility it would distort her fundamental nature.

Whether she'd ascend to godhood or transform into some nightmarish hybrid of lobster and ghost ship first, nobody could say.

"So the safe method takes forever, and the quick method has side effects," Aige said. "Is that what you're telling me?"

"That's it. And there's another concern. Harvesting the kouto en masse won't be difficult, but their goddess might take issue with it. As you know, insanity is one of her divine domains. There is genuinely nothing she won't do."

That was Ambrose's greatest worry. Gods were technically capable of killing mortals—they just generally didn't dare.

Loss and Shara had given the rest of the deities significant reason to be careful. But the kouto goddess was not careful. She was not sane. If she decided to ignore Aion's rules and come after Aige directly, the divine punishment that followed would be cold comfort if Aige was already gone.

You couldn't reason with a madwoman, and you couldn't predict her behavior by normal logic.

Every other faction in the sea presented manageable problems. The true danger came from those dim, blank-faced kouto and the unhinged goddess behind them.

Aige didn't answer immediately. "No rush," she said. "Let's get the Sea of Volcanoes secured first. By the way, why did you send all of this information to people on land, to humans and elves?"

That was what puzzled her most about Ambrose's decision.

Naval warfare was nothing like land warfare. Armies and navies were created to solve entirely different problems. Aige was confident she could outfight any celebrated army general the moment they were both in her stretch of the ocean. She could win with her pirates alone, without even joining the battle herself.

And yet Ambrose had handed strategic intelligence to a group of landlocked humans. It seemed overly cautious.

Ambrose shook his head. "I'm not asking them about tactics. People who spend their lives on land can't conceive of what an undersea battle looks like. Sending them that intelligence serves two purposes. First, it shows them that I've made plans for acquiring an overseas market—a deep-sea market at that—and that I intend to control this stretch of sea where it meets the continent. Any clever person will understand the significance of that, and our future business dealings will be far simpler as a result.

"Second, I'm not asking about the specifics of individual engagements. I'm asking about strategy at the scale of an entire kingdom's war. They may not know how to command a specific battle, but veterans who have spent decades in the field can absolutely map out a strategic framework: where to strike first, where to begin consolidating, where to establish defensive lines. We'll take their recommendations and adapt them to the realities of the sea.

"Lady Aige, this is going to be a war involving every race in the ocean, with over a million combatants. It is not a few hundred pirates raiding on the open water. Being undefeated at sea does not mean you can simply coast to victory."

Aige frowned. "I don't follow. If no one can beat me, why would I lose?"

Ambrose smiled. "I once heard a story about a general who was unmatched in open battle. He led fifty thousand against four hundred thousand and won, then thirty thousand against five hundred thousand and won again. Later, even with a hundred thousand against seven hundred thousand, the enemy still couldn't face him. And yet in the end, he still died.

"When he took his own life, he probably didn't even know how he had lost."

Aige stared. "Why would he, with a record like that?"

"I don't understand it either, which is exactly how I know I'm a complete amateur when it comes to military matters. Every engagement I've ever been in has been a small skirmish. I've never been part of a war involving hundreds of thousands of people. So we'll leave it to those who know what they're doing.

"Winning one or two battles doesn't determine the outcome of a whole campaign. We no longer have Ezdolo's support, which means we only get one shot at this. We cannot lose. We cannot afford even a moment of carelessness."

As the uncontested Mistress of the Silent Sea, Aige had genuinely never faced an opponent who could challenge her directly, and a certain amount of quiet contempt for other races had inevitably taken root. But hearing Ambrose speak with such gravity, she understood she had misjudged the situation. This required everything she had, and she would leave her opponents no opening at all.

Ambrose saw the shift in her expression and let out a breath.

Aige was the center of the entire plan. She could not be the weak link, or everything else would be wasted effort. At last, she was taking it seriously.

But there was no time to rest. He activated the magic mirror again. This time, the face that appeared was a dark-skinned old man with a severe expression.

The moment Ambrose saw him, he grinned. "Old friend, as for those parts I commissioned from you, any chance of speeding things up? I need them urgently."

The old man gave Ambrose a look of withering contempt. "You placed the order three days ago. Even the God of Alchemy can't rush an entire set of components to completion in that kind of timeframe."

"You're underestimating the God of Alchemy. Fine—three more days. And if that's not enough, I'll come down to your workshop and help you with the bolts myself." Ambrose's tone turned completely serious. "Flynn, my old friend, I mean it. Don't let me fall behind schedule, or I will spend the rest of my existence making sure you regret it, one day at a time."

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