Chapter 517: You Have No Right

"Hell?"

The word made everyone in the room let out a breath of relief.

A delve into Hell was hardly difficult.

Throughout history, countless souls of the damned had been summoned back out of Hell. Many ancient bloodlines had used magic to summon their "ancestors" suffering in Hell, then struck a bargain with the Lord of Hell ruling over them. Pay a high enough price, and even a damned soul could be bought back.

Perhaps Ambrose was simply so remarkable that his soul would command an especially high price. But whatever the cost, the Elegiac Society could surely scrape it together.

Hope flared in Black Rose. She pressed eagerly, "Is it Sariel, or Tiamat?"

Ambrose had signed contracts with both parties, and the soul-coin transaction had never been completed. The odds were highest that his soul had ended up in one of their hands.

The President gave her a direct answer.

"His soul fell to the first layer of Hell. If I'm not mistaken, it will be in Sariel's hands."

Black Rose was about to offer her thanks when the President spoke again. "But don't set your hopes too high. His soul has already been shattered beyond repair. He can no longer answer anyone's summons. If you want to bring him back, you'll have to go to Sariel directly—but I wouldn't recommend it."

"Why not?" Black Rose exclaimed, agitated.

"Because you have no way to mend a soul."

"But you do, don't you, President?"

"I can. But I won't." The President shook his head and addressed the room. "I have only been able to provide a modicum of help to all of you since founding the Elegiac Society. That which is required to mend his soul would put me over my limit."

Black Rose meant to press further, but Poet cut her off. "That's enough, Rose. Worry about getting his soul back first."

Black Rose fell silent for a moment, then let the matter drop.

Poet was right. To revive Ambrose, she would have to bring his soul back first.

As for whatever restriction bound the President, it was most likely some limit imposed on the gods by Aion, keeping them from freely interfering in mortal affairs. But that was a problem that could be worked around later.

The most urgent task at hand was retrieving him from Sariel's grasp.

Black Rose addressed the room, "My apologies, everyone. I need to go. I can't wait any longer to bring him back."

No one in the Elegiac Society tried to stop her. Everyone could see that Black Rose's obsession had shifted from Lyon to the lich himself—and there was no talking anyone out of an undead's obsession.

Aige, however, hurried after her. As a demigod on the verge of ascension, she felt she could be useful in a negotiation with a Lord of Hell, and she wanted very much to help bring Ambrose back herself.

Once the two of them left, the gathering wound down quickly.

The others chatted a while longer before drifting off one by one, until only the ghoul Yugasi and the giant Im remained.

The two of them had joined the Elegiac Society very early on, and were among the most senior.

Once the latecomers were gone, Yugasi could no longer suppress the grin spreading across his face, which split into a wide smile that bared his blood-red fangs.

"Finally, the day has come." Yugasi took another drink, then turned to the President. "Every other candidate has lost their qualification. President, isn't it about time your trial produced a result?"

The God of Death was being replaced. That was the entire reason the Elegiac Society existed. Every member had been a candidate, but Gareth and Alabastra had lost themselves in their own romance; Aige had chosen an entirely different path; and Black Rose had spent ages trapped in her hatred... Every member of the Elegiac Society had their own obsession. None of them even knew the Society's true secret.

They had no idea the God of Death's position was even at stake. Only Yugasi had worked toward it from the very start. By now, who knew how many millennia had passed since then?

Now that Ambrose, his newest rival, had fallen into Hell as well, there was no other competitor left in the entirety of the Elegiac Society. In other words, by process of elimination, Yugasi had won.

Yugasi looked at the President with open anticipation, hoping he would finally hand over the reward he'd dreamed of for so long and crown him the new God of Death.

But the President only shook his head. "No. You still aren't qualified."

Yugasi hadn't expected that answer in the slightest. He crushed the wine glass in his hand in fury and demanded, "How am I not qualified? All these years, I've forced back my hunger. Even at the sight of fresh flesh and blood, I've held my appetite in check. I have transcended my own desires.

"In this entire Society, I'm the only one who's managed that. What gives you the right to say I'm not qualified?"

Yugasi had known the standard for becoming the God of Death from the very beginning, which was why he'd been holding back since day one. All these years, he had likely eaten less than any other ghoul alive.

Endless hunger had tormented him without pause, and still he'd kept his sanity, quietly working to remove every other rival one by one. Yugasi believed he'd done more than enough. No other undead had ever defied their own instincts and endured for so long.

Yet the President only shook his head again. "You still aren't qualified."

With a crash, Yugasi smashed the drinking table in front of him to splinters, unable to hold back a roar. "Not qualified? Not qualified! What exactly does it take to be qualified?! I've waited this long already! How much longer do I have to endure?! If I'm not qualified, then who is? Im?!"

Beside him, the giant Im said, expressionless, "I'm not qualified. I don't want to be the God of Death, either. I'm heading back. During Arthur's first resurrection, I missed my chance to kill him. During his second resurrection, I missed it again. But I'll keep waiting. When he comes back a third time, I'll kill him with my own hands."

Yugasi snapped, furious, "You idiot, Arthur Lyon is gone for good! No one can pull him back from Aion's grasp. He's dead for real this time. Your promise doesn't mean anything anymore!"

The giant Im showed no anger. He simply stood and said, calmly, "People said the same thing the first time. But I lived to see a second time. However long it takes, I'll wait for him to come back, and then I'll kill him. That's the promise between us. That's the reason I exist."

With that, Im left the tavern.

In the end, only Yugasi remained, facing down the President and Poet.

For a moment, Yugasi felt like he'd been made a fool of. Every other member of the Elegiac Society had spent these years pursuing exactly what they wanted, chasing their own desires.

Aige had found a real chance to recover her father and was on the verge of stepping into godhood. Black Rose had successfully destroyed the Lyon royal family. Gareth and Alabastra had spent all these years happily in love with each other... It seemed like he was the only one who'd had to endure anything at all.

Thousands of years tormented by hunger—and every time he'd felt himself on the verge of losing his mind, Yugasi had reminded himself that only by enduring could he become the God of Death.

Yet even after all that time, he apparently still wasn't qualified.

Yugasi rounded on the President, furious. "Are you saying that everything I've suffered through these thousands of years was for nothing?!"

"As long as you still think of it as suffering, you will never become the God of Death."

The President set down his cup and turned to leave the tavern.

Thousands of years of endurance, all for that one useless sentence?

Yugasi stared at the President's retreating back. That gaunt, skeletal frame looked as if it could be torn apart with a single swipe. His hands clicked and cracked, blades sliding out from his fingertips, a blood-red glow already spreading across his claws, as if he might lunge at any moment.

Poet didn't intervene, but for the sake of their long acquaintance, he offered a quiet warning. "Yugasi, one warning: the President's name is Yeger."

Those two syllables doused Yugasi's fury like a bucket of cold water.

He retracted his claws, and his mild-mannered gentleman persona returned at once.

Yeger the Recordkeeper... a name and epithet the world had long forgotten, but Yugasi knew exactly what it meant. No matter how furious he was, if he'd truly dared to bare his claws, he would have ended up like the lich, his soul shattered beyond even the possibility of revival.

Yugasi said to the Poet, "My apologies. That was a moment of weakness. Don't worry. Since I'm the only candidate left, the outcome is already decided. I'll stay patient. I'll keep waiting."

Poet said nothing more. But privately, he suspected that Ambrose, even with his soul shattered and all, still had better odds than Yugasi. The ghoul had spent thousands of years without ever grasping the actual rules of the game.

To become the God of Death was to transcend one's own desires.

Not endurance, indulgence, or substitution... but transcendence, to rise above desire itself.

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