Chapter 484: Prelude to the Summit

Ambrose's invitation soon reached the hands of the emperor of Lyon.

The young emperor tapped the elegant little box idly with a finger, seemingly weighing whether to open it at all.

Angus Watson offered a cautious warning. "Your Majesty, he won't pass up an opportunity to profit from this war. I suspect this so-called peace talk is the front for some scheme."

"Naturally. This lich can't possibly be a genuine proponent of world peace. Otherwise the Lord of Dawn would have blessed him long ago."

Angus Watson rather wished he could witness that himself. The Lord of Dawn really ought to have given this lich a taste of holy light by now, sparing the world the spectacle of him plundering its wealth in the name of justice.

And yet, strangely, the gods seemed to have no objection to him whatsoever.

Once, Ambrose had even publicly declared himself favored by the Holy Light, and denounced the paladins sent against him as evil.

Every elite soldier in the legion sent to bring down the lich came back afflicted with severe psychological trauma, and they were all still undergoing treatment to this day. Worse still were the legendary paladins and priests: some had lost the ability to channel holy light entirely, while several others had simply vanished without a trace.

The Lyon Empire didn't even dare publicly acknowledge that they had deserted. Admitting as much would be an enormous blow to imperial prestige.

If this lich kept invoking the Holy Light to suit his own purposes, it would end up tainted by association.

The emperor offered some reassurance. "There's no need to worry. No mortal's actions could ever influence the gods. If the Lord of Dawn hasn't intervened, that simply means all of this is merely a trial. Angus, walk me through everything that happened, in detail. Don't leave out a single word that lich spoke."

Angus Watson, well prepared, recounted every detail of his exchange with Ambrose.

The magic mirrors could be fitted with memory crystals to fully record video calls, and Angus Watson certainly wasn't about to cut corners on something like this.

Once he'd thoroughly absorbed every detail, the emperor of Lyon nodded. "I believe I understand the situation well enough now. You may return to your post. The orcs may be quiet for the moment, but a commander shouldn't stay away from the front lines for too long."

Angus Watson offered one more reminder. "Your Majesty, perhaps it would be wise to have someone inspect this invitation first? There's no telling whether that lich has tampered with it in some way."

"No need. Even though he's an undead, tampering with an invitation simply isn't this lich's style."

Angus Watson considered this for a moment, then chose not to press the matter further.

His Majesty had a point. Greedy as this lich might be, he operated on too grand a scale to bother with such a petty, meaningless trick.

Once Angus Watson had taken his leave, the confident smile vanished from the emperor of Lyon's face.

"That damned lich. What exactly is he after?"

Anyone with sense could already see how this war would end. The current emperor of Lyon was, without question, a man of considerable sense.

Lyon would suffer heavy losses but ultimately hold firm, while the orcs stood a real chance of being wiped out entirely as a nation. As someone who now held absolute command over the Draconic Armaments, he had every reason to be confident of that outcome. However the orcs fought, there was no realistic path to actually destroying Lyon. He himself was the final guarantee against that.

And that was precisely the outcome he wanted.

Arthur Lyon's greatest mistake, all those years ago, had been helping the other races establish their own nations. That decision had led directly to seventeen centuries of unending conflict.

If every race had simply lived together within a single nation from the start, would the fighting have been this brutal?

Having inherited the Dragon Tyrant's will against all odds and earned a new life, and seizing the body of the current emperor of Lyon on top of that, he owed it to himself to accomplish something truly great, to surpass Arthur Lyon in every conceivable way.

That was Atros's defining obsession.

The orcs' destruction would make for a fine opening act. Lyon, in the process, might well grow weaker, though not to the point of true collapse.

And Lyon's weakness would only embolden the other kingdoms to start stirring restlessly.

The current state of the world had every nation banding together against Lyon. Even the elves and druids, once Lyon's allies, now eyed it warily. Under these conditions, having Lyon pay some price and enter a period of decline actually worked in his favor. All he needed was patience, and a bit of careful manipulation from the shadows, for the other kingdoms to turn on each other.

The neighboring dwarves and elves were bound to clash sooner or later. How could some coarse rocks survive being neighbors with delicate porcelain for long?

The shadow druids of the Emerald Dreamwood, meanwhile, were currently expanding at a furious pace, their extremism growing more outrageous by the day. They had already begun a sweeping campaign of assassinations against alchemists, a move bound to provoke the dwarves eventually, given how thoroughly their kingdom depended on alchemy to function.

Quarrels, conflicts, and chaos—once every kingdom had accumulated enough grudges against one another, the whole world would erupt into war. By then, Lyon would presumably have already resolved its internal and external troubles, and be reborn under his own absolute control.

Let the world burn. Lyon would finally have its chance to unify it all.

Then he could bring the exiled dragons back home, achieving the true, complete unification that neither the Dragon Tyrant nor Arthur Lyon had ever managed, bringing this entire plane fully under Lyon's rule.

At that point, he would become an emperor who'd surpassed even Arthur Lyon, a true hero in every sense.

But this lich had chosen now of all moments to intervene—and was hoping for peace between both sides, no less.

He couldn't make sense of it. He genuinely couldn't make sense of it at all.

The emperor of Lyon opened the elegant little box. Within was a small memory crystal in lieu of a letter.

"He's gone to quite some effort."

The emperor of Lyon pressed the memory crystal to his forehead. An instant later, the stored images flooded into his mind.

The very next moment, his expression changed violently. His hand clenched involuntarily, crushing the memory crystal outright.

Countless veins bulged across his face, and the draconic pupil normally hidden beneath his hair now blazed with a crimson glow.

"Arthur Lyon! It really is you!"

A low growl escaped his throat, closer to a dragon's roar than a human voice.

As if suddenly realizing he'd lost his composure, the young emperor quickly reined in his fury, once again hiding the draconic pupil beneath his hair.

Beneath the anger, he felt a flicker of confusion. Why exactly was he reacting this way at all?

"I'm not the original Dragon Tyrant. And hadn't I already suspected Arthur Lyon was serving that lich? So why, upon seeing that man, upon hearing those words, did something so uncontrollable well up from deep inside me?"

Though the footage of the naval battle Ambrose had released earlier had clearly been edited, with only brief glimpses of the paladin ostensibly serving him, the dragon's inherited memories were enough for him to recognize that signature strike of light at once. He'd suspected even back then that Arthur Lyon had somehow returned, though he hadn't understood why the man would be working for some gold-grubbing lich.

It wasn't until just now, upon seeing the message Arthur Lyon had left for him within the memory crystal, that things had really changed.

Even with his face blurred beyond recognition, the moment that figure spoke, he knew exactly who it was: that same na?ve, childish, yet utterly unshakable Arthur Lyon.

He had assumed he would be able to handle Arthur Lyon with ease, but it seemed that he had overestimated himself. Hearing just a few words from his old nemesis had completely shattered his composure.

Something deep within his soul seemed to be driving him toward tearing apart everything connected to Arthur Lyon, so much so that he hadn't even properly registered what the invitation itself actually said.

When and where the summit would be held, who else might attend... None of it had registered at all. Only that hazy, half-glimpsed figure had left any real impression.

This reaction left Atros deeply unsettled.

Atros had always believed himself to be something born purely from the Dragon Tyrant's memories and the bloodline of Lyon's royal family, that the Dragon Tyrant's old history was nothing more than a drama, and he the audience. Perhaps his own personality and ambitions had been shaped by that drama, but he was not truly the Dragon Tyrant himself, reborn.

Atros had believed he could handle anything related to Arthur Lyon with perfect composure.

But clearly, that wasn't the case. Something within his soul was actively interfering with his rational mind.

"The Dragon Tyrant's lingering hatred, bleeding through? Or some leftover trace of that useless soul I absorbed, not yet fully digested, producing this kind of helpless, impotent rage?"

He thought on it for a long while, but ultimately came to no conclusion.

Time dragons had little understanding of the soul, and he certainly wasn't capable of dissecting his own soul thread by thread the way Ambrose so fearlessly did.

"Arthur Lyon... there's still something of mine in your possession, isn't there? I suppose it's about time I took it back."

Whatever the case, he had no choice but to attend this summit.

Whoever this lich had invited, whatever scheme he might be running, if Arthur Lyon would be there, then he absolutely had to meet him face to face.

As for the details, he'd leave all that to Angus Watson to hash out with the lich directly.

Ambrose soon received word back from Lyon: the emperor had agreed to attend the peace summit.

The moment he received the news, Ambrose forwarded it straight to the orcs. The mindflayer's purple octopus head appeared on the magic mirror, shocked. "You actually got the Emperor of Lyon to agree to attend this summit, when it's obviously a trap? Master Megaman, I'm starting to wonder if you've coordinated with Lyon to set up our orc king."

It was a fair suspicion, honestly.

Lyon had any number of representatives it could have sent in the emperor's place. The young emperor shouldn't have been attending in person at all.

Ambrose didn't bother explaining. "And so what? Would your orc king back out over a concern like that?"

"Of course not. His Majesty's already itching to take an axe to the emperor of Lyon's head himself. But here's the thing. You've framed this as a duel to lure in our orc king, and as a peace summit to lure in Lyon. When the moment comes... Master Megaman, I have to warn you, when our orc king loses his temper, not even the gods can talk him down."

The implication was simple enough: Ambrose was playing both sides, and there was no guarantee that things would go smoothly when it came time to actually get the orc king and the emperor of Lyon into the arena together. If negotiations broke down and a fight erupted on the spot, it wouldn't stay a clean, honorable duel. It would inevitably spiral into outright chaos.

And if that chaos wasn't handled carefully, things could very easily spin completely out of control.

"Don't worry. I've already got that all worked out."

Ambrose's confidence put the mindflayer somewhat at ease, though no one had any idea what was actually going on in his head.

A brawl? A free-for-all?

None of that was a problem. If everyone ended up piling on and managing to actually kill the revived Dragon Tyrant for good, Ambrose would be more than happy to see that happen.

But could the Dragon Tyrant really be killed?

Ambrose had studied the power of time fairly extensively by now. It was essentially the ultimate life-preservation technique. Unless the Dragon Tyrant deliberately sought out death, it would be ridiculously difficult to kill.

Back in the day, if Arthur Lyon hadn't managed to steal the dragon's artifact first, there would have been no possible way to kill the Dragon Tyrant at all.

Even if he beheaded the dragon cleanly, time itself would simply rewind, restoring it to a perfectly intact state.

Right now, that very artifact was in Arthur Lyon's possession. Arthur's heroic spirit existed only by anchoring itself to that artifact. Ambrose's real concern was this: the moment the dragon and Arthur Lyon actually came face to face, the artifact might simply fly straight back to its original owner.

That would be a serious problem. He'd be losing a powerful ally in Arthur Lyon for nothing, while handing the artifact right back to the dragon in the process.

So, without hesitation, Ambrose reached out to his own master.

The God of Alchemy looked exactly the same as ever, seated at the workbench, a crystal hammer in hand, performing some operation Ambrose couldn't begin to follow. Without even glancing up at his student's call, he said, "You'd better not be calling to tell me you've offended yet another god."

The last time Ambrose had provoked Thanos, it had nearly scared the God of Alchemy half to death.

Though the God of Alchemy was doing well for himself, having succeeded at the impressive feat of becoming an intermediate divinity after only a few centuries of godhood, his student really did have a knack for stirring up trouble. The Spider Queen Loss, the Dragon Queen, the Lord of Storms... every single one of them was an existence the God of Alchemy himself couldn't afford to provoke. The God of Alchemy genuinely dreaded the day Ambrose might casually announce, "Master, this time it's Aion."

At that point, the God of Alchemy would honestly rather throw himself straight into Hell than keep being a deity at all.

Ambrose comforted him. "Master, relax. I'm not some devil. I don't go around provoking gods every single day."

"Heh."

The God of Alchemy's laugh carried more than a hint of mockery.

He carefully set down the crystalline hammer in his hand, then addressed Ambrose properly. "I know exactly what kind of student you are. You never reach out unless something's wrong. Out with it."

"Relax, I'm not asking you to go deal with some god this time. It's just a minor mortal matter..."

Ambrose briefly explained the situation with the revived Dragon Tyrant and his hourglass artifact. "Is there any way to sever the connection between this artifact and the dragon? And, ideally, if there's a way to use the artifact itself to finish the dragon off for good, that'd be even better."

The God of Alchemy frowned. While this particular matter genuinely had nothing to do with the gods, the Dragon Tyrant was hardly an easy opponent either.

"Are you certain the dragon has actually revived? I haven't heard anything stirring from the Lord of Dawn or the dragon gods on their end."

"Master, you know about that wager too, don't you? Any inside information?"

"Nothing more than you already know. I can't afford to get involved in this particular matter. Haven't you noticed? Not even the devils of Hell have tried exploiting this opportunity to stir up trouble. Lyon's gone all these years without any major catastrophe. You don't actually think that's purely because of their devout faith, do you?"

Ambrose nodded. He'd suspected as much himself.

Under normal circumstances, after so many years of extremism, plenty of Lyon's paladins should have been damned to hell by now—yet there'd never been any reports of devils mobilizing en masse to tempt paladins into corruption.

It seemed that the Lord of Dawn and the dragon gods carried enough weight that even the devils felt compelled to show some deference.

"So you can't help, Master?"

"I can't step in personally, no. I have no standing to involve myself in this particular wager. But here's a hint for you. Didn't you build Arthur Lyon a mech suit? You used the legendary ability I granted you to transform that mech into something resembling an artifact-grade material. How'd that turn out?"

Ambrose thought it over for a moment. "Not great. Forcing materials together like that just damages the artifact and makes it run poorly... Ah. I see what you're getting at."

The God of Alchemy nodded, clearly pleased with how quickly his student had caught on.

"Artifacts exist specifically to channel their respective powers efficiently and effortlessly. Otherwise, why would a time dragon need an hourglass at all just to sustain immortality? The simplest way to disable an artifact is to make using it more troublesome than simply casting the spell yourself."

Ambrose grinned. "Bless the Goddess of Fate. I happened to prepare a whole pile of extra components back when I was trying to modify the hourglass."

Severing the artifact's connection to the dragon outright might prove difficult, but the more components bolted onto it, the harder the artifact would become to operate. That amounted to solving the problem through an entirely different approach.

He hoped Arthur Lyon wouldn't mind becoming a ten-meter-tall mech for a while.

When the Dragon Tyrant tried to summon his own artifact, only for Arthur Lyon to come crashing down from the sky and stomping him flat instead—that would be a sight worth seeing.

Just as he was about to get back to his own business, the God of Alchemy spoke up again. "Have you been doing something to that kouto goddess lately? Word's come in from the elemental plane of water that something's off with her."

Ambrose said, surprised, "It's already having an effect? It's only been a few days."

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