Chapter 461: Ambushed

Ariel stared at the phylactery in a daze.

Surely not. Was the lich handing his phylactery over to her for safekeeping?

"Master Megaman, this is your phylactery!"

A lich's phylactery was even more critical than the soul itself. It was far more than a simple vessel of rebirth. A phylactery shared a profound connection with a lich's soul. Necromancers who knew what they were doing could use it to seize full control of the lich.

Though Ariel had no such ability, the phylactery was an extraordinarily precious object regardless. How could this lich bring himself to simply hand it over?

Did he trust her that much?

At that moment, Ariel felt nothing but shock.

"No, no—Master Megaman, please take it back."

Even holding onto it felt dangerous. What if she accidentally dropped it? Would the lich die on the spot?

"Your Highness, please keep it. You threw caution to the wind just now to protect me, and I owe you that trust in return. As for my earlier proposal, it's really a simple matter of probability.

"We're in a relatively safe zone. You can guard my phylactery while I brave the risk ahead. If I die, I'll simply reconstitute here. But if I stay here and let you go forward instead, what then? Can you be revived?"

The logic was sound. Ariel pursed her lips, but in the end, she had no choice but to let Ambrose go alone.

Ambrose turned and swam into the depths of the labyrinth. To save a little money, he switched out of the underwater mech and into his plainest skeletal form. That way, even if he genuinely came under attack and was destroyed, it wouldn't cost him much.

He cast Mage Shield on himself and pushed forward speedily.

Threading through the convoluted underwater passages, Ambrose quickly reached the spot where his undead had been attacked earlier. He focused all his attention, waiting for whatever lurked in the darkness to make its move.

Tentacles, rows of jagged teeth, or anything even stranger—whatever marine creature came at him, Ambrose would pull back immediately.

He just wanted to confirm that the creatures were afraid of Ariel, not him.

He waited and waited, but nothing came. Even as he pressed further into the depths, the shadows in the darkness simply retreated before him, pulling back as though he were carrying some kind of contagion.

"Interesting. Are they afraid of undead? No — that can't be it. The Grunt Type Is got swallowed whole and were crunched like snacks. It's not a fear of the undead. So what exactly are they afraid of?"

Ambrose was genuinely puzzled. He was nothing but a skeleton right now. With his dark magic carefully suppressed, he was the most ordinary thing imaginable. What could possibly make these enormous marine creatures afraid of him?

He was still turning the question over in his mind when something suddenly occurred to him.

"Wait, if the sea beasts are afraid of me, then Ariel is in danger!"

Ambrose couldn't afford to let anything happen to the princess.

He turned and swam straight back in the direction he'd come from.

But the moment he turned, he realized he had no idea which way that was.

"The terrain changed? Can these underwater rocks actually move?"

He was certain there had been a winding fork turning right behind him, but now there was only a straight passage.

"No, the terrain didn't change. Something is interfering with my perception..."

He had barely registered that something was wrong when the light on his bracelet went dark, a sign that Thanos was watching him.

Why would Thanos look his way now?

The Lord of Storms said nothing, which meant he was here for the show as an audience, not a participant.

"Scrambled perception and memories..." Ambrose called out into the darkness, "Blobdilpulp, you would stoop to scheming against a mortal? Have you no shame?"

From the darkness came a response, a sharp, grating voice that seemed to tear through the water itself and drive straight for Ambrose's soul.

"You brazen wretch, how dare you blaspheme against our kouto goddess! Today, you will die screaming!"

Dozens of red lights blazed to life. A torrent of spells came hurtling toward him.

A kouto ambush... But how had they known he would show up here?

Ambrose threw his dice of fate into the torrent of spells, converting them into a scatter of beneficial effects, while carefully turning the question over in his mind.

The kouto goddess herself could never have tracked him without him noticing. He was a legendary lich, diviner, and ranger all in one: three classes renowned for their perceptiveness. There was no way the kouto could have put him under surveillance without his knowledge.

The only explanation was that Thanos was involved.

The Lord of Storms had probably decided a one-sided affair was no fun to watch, and had shared Ambrose's location with Blobdilpulp in hopes of a more exciting show.

As the beneficial effects of the spells washed over him, Ambrose raised his right hand and invoked Thanos. "Great Lord of Storms, is this a trial you've arranged for me?"

Lightning crackled in his palm, and Thanos's voice came through. "You're too clever for your own good, lich. Yes. I told Blobdilpulp where you were so she could set this ambush. But don't worry: every trial comes with a reward. Try hard to stay alive, little skeleton."

Thanos's voice faded, but the bracelet didn't light up again. Thanos was still watching.

Ambrose looked at the kouto closing in around him with a resigned shake of his head.

As the kouto warriors rushed him, he pivoted. His skeletal form gave way to silvery-white armor.

His newest mithril body, Deep Diver, was designed specifically for underwater engagements.

He deployed anti-magic blades from both arms and went straight at the kouto.

He wanted to use magic, but he had overdrawn from the Golden Throne too much recently. He didn't want to use the Golden Throne unless he had no other choice.

But without the amplifying power of the Golden Throne, his spellwork would be far weaker underwater. Add to that the interference from whatever strange emanations kept disrupting his perception, and fighting as a ranger was clearly the better call.

The Deep Diver outpaced the kouto in speed, mithril plating giving it formidable defense and anti-magic blades letting Ambrose cut through their bodies without resistance.

In speed, defense, and offense alike, he overwhelmed the kouto. Ambrose moved through them like a force of nature, leaving carnage in his wake. Not one of the kouto warriors managed to inflict so much as a scratch before their bodies were sliced apart.

Just as he was having fun ripping through the kouto, without any warning, his mech shuddered. His arm struck solid rock where a moment ago there had been nothing but open water.

"What? A wall?"

He had been swinging directly at a kouto's head, only to find a wall in his way instead.

His perception had been scrambled again. This time, it had directly compromised his combat judgment.

During that brief lapse, several kouto warriors threw themselves onto him. They clung to the mech's limbs with abandon and shoved their hands into the jet propulsion vents, apparently intent on jamming the thrusters entirely.

Ambrose found himself unable to move. More and more kouto were swarming in, trying to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

Once his mobility was gone, even the toughest armor could be taken apart piece by piece.

At that moment, a spatial portal opened beside him. A massive shark came surging through.

Its jaws snapped shut, and two kouto vanished. Ambrose's right arm came free.

He cut down the remaining kouto clinging to him and swung up onto the shark's back.

A ranger was never meant to fight alone. Only in combination with an animal companion did the class reach its full power.

Naomi, who had transformed into a great shark, elevated Ambrose's combat effectiveness to another level. The tide turned almost immediately, and he began cutting through the kouto again.

To an outside observer, it might have looked as though Ambrose was single-handedly dominating the enemy, but Ambrose knew he was in serious trouble.

Somewhere in the darkness, a kouto was hiding and disrupting his perception again and again.

The first two times, he'd gotten lucky. If that happened a few more times, these kouto might actually manage to finish him.

He had two options: find the hidden illusionist, or get out of this area as quickly as possible.

While he considered his options, Naomi suddenly accelerated rapidly toward a wall of rock.

Naomi was less resistant to mental interference than he was. She'd been hit instantly.

Fortunately, Ambrose reached her through their mental bond in time to command her to stop. Even as she felt phantom kouto biting at her tail, she endured the sensation and halted.

And the moment she stopped, the pain vanished.

Naomi communicated with Ambrose. "Master, I think I just fell under an illusion!"

"Yes. There's an extremely skilled illusionist hiding somewhere out there. Unfortunately, I didn't bring many undead with me on this trip."

The undead he'd manufactured recently had all been deployed for commercial purposes. What remained with him was a skeleton force, and throwing them out here would be pointless.

"I'm going to cast Storm of Revenge. We'll use the opening to get out of here."

He could cast the ninth-tier spell for free once a day, and it would be a waste not to use it. Even if the illusionist was hiding somewhere, the Storm of Revenge would blanket the entire battlefield. Whether they got caught in it would come down to luck.

But just as Ambrose raised his right hand to cast the ninth-tier spell Thanos had bestowed on him, a bolt of lightning detonated somewhere in the depths below.

The violent magic moved like a living thing, leaping between the kouto in a rapid chain.

"Chain Lightning? It can even bounce dozens of times while underwater?"

Ambrose was genuinely astonished. Using Chain Lightning underwater would certainly extend its range, but seawater distorted its path. Under normal conditions, the spell could bounce to three targets at most, and landing even one clean bounce underwater was considered impressive. And yet Ambrose counted exactly seventeen kouto struck in rapid succession, cooked through on the spot.

From the darkness came Ariel.

She looked like a deity descending to the mortal world. Her fiery red hair had gone silver-white, and her eyes were blazing with pure lightning.

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