Chapter 478: A Message for the Dragon Tyrant

The moment Arthur Lyon offered to put himself out as bait, Ambrose's instinct was to refuse.

Arthur Lyon was the strongest card in his hand, an ace in the hole. Was he supposed to just toss it out now to test the waters with the Dragon Tyrant?

"There's no need for that, Your Majesty. Do you have any idea how much of a shockwave it would cause if your identity got out?"

Arthur Lyon nodded. No one capable of leading a rebellion could be a fool. Arthur might have a na?ve streak, but he was nothing like that greenhorn Allen.

"Which is why we won't make a big show of it. Only the dragon needs to know. If he really is the dragon, all you need to do is deliver a single line to him, and he'll know it's me. The Dragon Tyrant wouldn't want Arthur Lyon making a reappearance, so he'll come find me quietly. That's the cleanest way to handle this."

Ambrose mulled it over. The proposal actually sounded fairly solid.

If they could get the dragon to set the time and place himself, then with the full Elegiac Society assembled, backed by an undead army, working alongside Arthur Lyon... taking the dragon down outright wasn't entirely out of the question.

"This plan's worth considering. So what message do you want me to deliver to the dragon?"

Ambrose was genuinely curious as to what the very first words would be when the hero and the tyrant of legend crossed paths again. Witnessing a moment like this felt thrilling—he could probably charge Heki Stone a few million just for the publication rights.

Arthur Lyon cleared his throat lightly, then said, with utmost seriousness, "Just tell him that the most handsome paladin on the continent has returned!"

Ambrose: "..."

A loud crash rang out nearby—the sound of glass shattering.

Naomi, who'd been pretending to busy herself tidying up nearby, had accidentally broken a couple of vials.

She'd only meant to eavesdrop a little on her master's conversation with the holy king. After hearing that, Naomi wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

How mortifying. How could the holy king say something so cringe it made her scalp tingle?

Living day to day in Ambrose's extradimensional space, Naomi occasionally exchanged a few words with the holy king, though mostly she only dared admire him from a respectful distance. His aura was simply too overwhelming to get close to.

But today... Naomi felt something inside her shatter. Even the holy king couldn't claim to be the most handsome paladin on the entire continent, could he?

Ambrose was so embarrassed his very bones were trembling. If he still had flesh and blood, he'd surely be covered in goosebumps.

Ambrose looked at Arthur Lyon's utterly serious expression and asked, "Your Majesty, are you being serious right now? This isn't some kind of joke?"

"What joke?" Arthur Lyon said, his face the picture of solemnity. "What's wrong with that? Who else on the entire continent could be more handsome than me?"

Ambrose: "..."

Arthur Lyon didn't get angry from seeing Ambrose's dubious expression. He simply pointed at his own face, very earnestly explaining, "Look at the proportions of my features. It's absolutely the golden ratio. Look at this nose bridge and these double eyelids. Hildas was only ever slightly better-looking than me back in the day, and now that he's gotten old, he's nowhere close to me anymore..."

He really was being serious. This wasn't a joke at all—he genuinely believed the elven king of his era had only been "slightly" more handsome than him!

Ambrose had absolutely no idea how to even respond to that. Paladins, thanks to the influence of holy light, were simply never ugly. Even a face covered in scars would, under the effect of holy light come across as rugged and striking rather than disfigured.

In short, there was no such thing as an ugly paladin.

As for Arthur Lyon's actual looks, calling him ugly would certainly be wrong, but calling him handsome was a stretch, too. Honestly, Allen was better-looking than him. After all, Allen's whole family carried good genes, generations of aristocratic breeding tending to produce considerably better looks than the average person. Arthur Lyon had been an orphan who'd grown up as a street kid and trained under an orc paladin—there really was no comparison on that front.

"Understood, Your Majesty. I'll deliver that message without fail."

Ambrose was now fully convinced this line would absolutely work. He could already picture Arthur Lyon appearing before the Dragon Tyrant, sword drawn astride his horse, bellowing out something like, "The most handsome paladin on the continent is coming to take your head!"

The Dragon Tyrant might have well spent his dying breath in sheer regret, unable to believe he'd been killed by someone capable of shouting a line like that.

There was no doubt that the dragon would surely jolt awake in shock even if it heard this line in its sleep.

Though they now had proper bait, arranging the actual meeting remained a problem.

The Emperor of Lyon was the kind of figure whose every move had consequences, and there was no way he could simply slip out of the palace unnoticed. So while Arthur Lyon's message was guaranteed to lure him out, Ambrose still needed to arrange a plausible cover story, something that would let the emperor leave the palace openly in full view of everyone.

That part, at least, was simple. As long as the emperor was willing to step out, Ambrose could organize something like a summit with a ceasefire between the orcs and Lyon as the pretext.

As Master Megaman Tiga, getting both nations to attend wouldn't be much of a problem.

But without Arthur's message, Lyon would probably just send some minister in the emperor's place. With the message now in play, there was a good chance the emperor would come in person.

In that case, the next step was arranging the actual meeting.

Ambrose thought it over and decided to bring in every kingdom—the elves, the dwarves, all of them. The dragon was a common enemy to every kingdom out there. The more people involved, the less likely he'd dare to flip the table.

If the Dragon Tyrant tried anything, Ambrose would immediately rally every kingdom's combined strength against him. Still, there was a balance to strike here. Ambrose needed to consider whether going too big might scare the dragon off entirely, making him too wary to show up at all.

"What a headache..." Ambrose sighed.

Ambrose really didn't have the bandwidth to profiteer off a national crisis right now.

The dragon was the biggest problem of all, more terrifying to him than even the kouto goddess or the Lord of Storms.

And whenever trouble like this came up, Ambrose's first move was always to call on his friends.

Opening up the Necromantic Codex, Ambrose quickly wrote, [Megaman Tiga: Friends, I have some grim news to share. The Dragon Tyrant of legend may have come back to life. President, the situation is extremely dire right now. We need your help!]

He waited a good while. As ever, it was the dwarven vampire Heki Stone who responded fastest.

[Human-Hater: You cooked this up while locked away in your extradimensional space? Didn't you say you keep your experiment formulas confidential? Where'd you even hear such a sketchy rumor?]

[Megaman Tiga: When have I ever joked about something this serious?]

[Human-Hater: You can't be serious! You... *******!]

Ambrose couldn't be bothered dealing with this vampire any further. He was the most useless one in the entire chat, and was never any help when it actually mattered.

[Black Rose: You mentioned this before. Has it been confirmed now? If the dragon really has revived, he must have taken control of the current Lyon imperial family, right?]

[Megaman Tiga: Yes, which also confirms those earlier reports about mass deaths within the Lyon imperial family. This has to be the Dragon Tyrant's doing. My guess is that the dragon has already taken control of Lyon's emperor. The imperial family probably doesn't exist by this point!]

[Black Rose: Can you verify this?!]

[Megaman Tiga: I'm working on it. I've already figured out a way to draw him out. Once that happens, I can personally verify whether the dragon has truly revived, and to what extent. The thing is, I'm afraid I don't have the strength to keep a hold on the situation on my own. Friends, I need your help. Consider this the one favor I'll ask for in this lifetime.]

That last line, he had written sincerely.

Anyone who knew even a little about history would understand how terrifying the Dragon Tyrant truly was. In every account of this tyrant, the very first description was always something like, "single-handedly unified every dragon clan across every race."

The time dragons were one of the three great legendary dragon bloodlines, but the iridescent dragons and force dragons weren't far behind either. The current lord of the Dragon Graveyard, for instance, had once been an iridescent dragon, his sheer size dwarfing even a chromatic dragon several times over, which spoke volumes about how powerful he must have been in life.

But every single dragon out there had submitted to this Dragon Tyrant—and by force, no less.

Considering how many blood feuds existed among the dragons themselves, the fact that one dragon alone had managed to make them set aside their instinctive hatred and unite suggested that this Dragon Tyrant might have been powerful enough to crush plenty of lesser deities outright.

What was more, the Dragon Tyrant was also a "mortal" exempt from Aion's covenant, meaning the dragon could strike at Ambrose with absolutely no restraint, swatting him dead on a whim if he felt like it.

Without Aion's protection, Ambrose genuinely couldn't win this fight. He might not even be able to dodge the blow.

The power of a time dragon was simply too terrifying; it could reverse the flow of time itself. If Naomi, a mere druid shapeshifted into a time dragon, could send Ambrose back several months, then the Dragon Tyrant must surely be able to move freely along the timeline at will. The moment he caught even the slightest trace of a lead, he could leap straight out of the river of time to appear right beside Ambrose, and crush him with a single slap.

Even a phylactery wouldn't help. No number of phylacteries could stand against countless time dragons all converging on the same instant. In theory, the Dragon Tyrant could locate every single one of Ambrose's phylacteries within a single second.

Of course, that was only in theory.

Using the power of time came at a cost too. A time dragon was, after all, not a true god of time.

But no matter how great the cost, a time dragon could still find a way to burn through Ambrose's greatest trump card. Drag the fight out long enough, and Ambrose's defeat would be all but guaranteed.

This time, Ambrose was genuinely scared. There was no way he'd go head-to-head without serious backup.

[Dullahan's Crown: Fighting a time dragon, huh? Count me in! I really want to know just how strong the Dragon Tyrant actually is!]

[Pale Little Skeleton: Absolutely not! Gareth, you are NOT going! And our bone dragons won't be involved either. Out of loyalty, I'll promise not to tell the other dragons about this. But I'm sorry, Gareth and I won't be participating.]

[Megaman Tiga: Gareth, you really shouldn't get involved in this one. Just keep an eye on the overseas dragons for me instead. Make sure they don't come stir up trouble.]

Ambrose wasn't surprised. Gareth, though his strongest ally, had far too complicated a relationship with the dragons. Alabastra naturally sided with her father first and foremost, and that lord of the Dragon Graveyard was practically the Dragon Tyrant's blood brother and number-one fanboy. Simply staying neutral and not getting involved was already the best outcome he could hope for from that quarter.

Alabastra felt a little guilty about it. After all, Ambrose had effectively saved her father before, and the entire Dragon Graveyard in the process. Otherwise they'd all have been picked clean to the bone by the githarks long ago. Now that Ambrose's life was on the line, the fact that they couldn't lend a hand felt deeply unjustifiable, no matter how she looked at it.

If Ambrose had pushed the issue and insisted on help, Alabastra worried she might not even be able to stop her husband from rushing in to assist. Fortunately, the lich turned out to be more considerate than she'd expected, far more mindful of his friends' situations than she'd given him credit for.

[Pale Little Skeleton: Thank you. Consider this a debt we owe you. We'll repay it someday. I swear on my soul that the dragons, bone and chromatic alike, won't cause you any trouble.]

Ambrose relaxed a little. With the dragons staying out of it, half his worries were gone.

[Mute: If you can lure him out to sea, I could help. On land, there's not much I can do.]

That was Aige's reply. Ambrose didn't doubt for a moment that she'd help if she could. That said, arranging a meeting out at sea wouldn't be easy—the entire world now knew the ocean was Ambrose's territory. Not only would the Emperor of Lyon be unwilling to go there, but inviting anyone else out into open water probably wouldn't go over well either.

Still, that wasn't really a dealbreaker. Worst case, they could hold the summit near the coast instead, and Aige could still lend a hand from there.

But Aige alone wouldn't be enough. Ambrose was really hoping Poet and the President would step in. With those two on board, he would feel a lot more secure.

Unfortunately, the President didn't respond at all, while Poet simply replied with a flat, [Poet: I'm not getting involved in this one.]

[Megaman Tiga: Something holding you back, old friend? You seemed plenty eager when we were dealing with Shara.]

[Poet: Trying to pry it out of me, eh? Fine, I'll tell you. It doesn't matter to me either way. The wager between the dragon gods and the Lord of Dawn still hasn't concluded. If I step into this, I'd be entering the bet myself, and I don't have the chips to match that kind of stake. I can't afford to lose, and I'm not even qualified to win. So, I'm sorry, but I can't get involved in this one. Same goes for the President: we both have our reasons for staying out of it. Don't count on either of us.]

Just as Ambrose's hopes were dimming, yet another senior stepped forward.

[Non-Vegetarian: Dealing with the dragon, huh... Let me think. I recall someone in the Elegiac Society who actually fought in the war against the dragon, back in the day.]

This brought Ambrose up short. Weren't all the Elegiac Society's members already accounted for?

Mourner (the President, suspected to be some kind of deity), the Poet (self-proclaimed Vice-President, insistent that he wasn't a deity), Mute (the ghost ship Aige), Non-Vegetarian (the ghoul Yugasi)—these four counted as the founding generation, the ones who actually knew the President personally.

Black Rose, Alabastra, Dullahan's Crown, the dwarf vampire, and Ambrose himself were all the newer additions, and as such, weren't especially close to the founding members.

And there was apparently yet another member lurking quietly in the chat, one who'd fought in the dragon war over a thousand years ago, no less?

Who could that possibly be? And what kind of undead was he?

The President really had no sense of design. Why didn't this Necromantic Codex show a full member list? If someone refused to speak up, there was genuinely no way to find them.

Despite a long wait, the group chat stayed completely empty.

[Non-Vegetarian: I sent him a message, but haven't gotten a response yet. I do know where he's hiding though, so I'll go find him in person. Wait for an update.]

Ambrose hurriedly expressed his thanks. Coaxing out a senior like this surely wouldn't come cheap, and Ambrose made a mental note to repay the favor. He'd send this ghoul one of those skeletal automata he'd picked up from the Arena of Storms and let him savor some proper vintage jerky left behind by an ancient giant civilization.

With over half the Elegiac Society's members willing to lend their support, Ambrose felt a little more at ease. Next came the rough work of settling on a location and time.

That part wasn't too difficult. It would just take some careful planning to make sure things didn't erupt into open combat on the spot.

Black Rose offered to handle that side of things. She had plenty of manpower in the Umbral Depths, and after all these years of waiting, this was exactly the moment she'd been waiting for.

What Ambrose needed to work on now was turn the war between the orcs and Lyon into a drawn-out stalemate, one that left both sides unwilling to keep fighting and ready to consider negotiating instead.

In other words, the orcs needed to take a bit of a hit.

Ambrose opened up the magic mirror and called up Gustavo Flynn. This alchemist had a decent relationship with the orcs. In fact, it was Gustavo who'd brokered the deal that let Ambrose sell his undead troops to the orcs for a hefty profit.

Seeing Gustavo Flynn's characteristically stern, unsmiling face appear, Ambrose got straight to the point. "I need to talk to that orc commander. Help set up a meeting for me."

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