Chapter 530: A Fatal Crisis

The instant Ambrose said the word "renegotiate," both Mammon and Sariel felt as if they'd turned to glass, one light tap away from shattering completely.

Sariel was the first to react. She roared, "I want you dead! I'll rip your soul out, grind it down to dust piece by piece, and stuff it up a hellworm's ass!"

The furious fallen angel lunged again, hand wreathed in roaring flame, grasping for the mirror in front of her.

But the instant Sariel's hand touched the mirror's surface, the glass began to melt, the surface cracking apart as the metal framework inside dissolved into molten liquid.

Even with the mirror utterly destroyed, Sariel still failed to pull Ambrose's soul out of it.

Mammon let out a shriek. If the mirror was destroyed, didn't that mean they had spent all those soul-coins for nothing?!

"You idiot! You useless fool! He was baiting you on purpose!" Not caring about the heat at all, Mammon grabbed at the molten metal, trying to salvage the mirror, only to realize he had no idea how the thing even worked in the first place. There was nothing to be done.

Tens of millions of soul-coins had been poured into that mirror. Tens of millions!

The soul coins were worth far more than gold. Every inch of Mammon's body ached with the sheer pain of the loss.

A red glow surged over Mammon's body as he swelled, growing thirty, forty feet taller, his bloated devilish form twisting into something monstrous, spikes and claws and fangs erupting across his flesh. His voice boomed out with a multi-layered echo. "Damn you, Sariel! If we can't get him back, I'll tear you apart myself!"

Sariel had gone equally mad with rage, flames roaring across her body. Right now, she just wanted a fight. It hardly mattered with whom.

Both of them seemed to have forgotten one small detail: there was more than one magic mirror in this residence.

In a corner of the room, Ambrose's figure appeared on another mirror's surface, watching the two lords, both of whom were now a few hundred feet tall, grapple with each other in a furious tangle. But his expression carried no trace of satisfaction.

Hell had never been his biggest problem.

As Ambrose's image slowly faded from that mirror, another vast mirror, this one within the God of Alchemy's own divine domain, lit up with his reflection instead.

Ambrose greeted the visibly anxious God of Alchemy.

"Thank you, Master."

Seeing Ambrose appear, the God of Alchemy finally let out a breath of relief. "You actually pulled it off? You really are a genius, kid!"

"It's not quite that simple. For now, let's just say it's... half a success."

"Half?"

"Right. For the moment, everything's gone well. I used the magic mirror's properties to turn myself into the spirit bound to every single copy of it, a state close to undeath, letting me move freely between planes. And since the mirror's true core exists here in your domain, even if copies of it get destroyed on other planes, it won't affect me at all. It's an even better safeguard than my phylactery ever was.

"My spellcasting is somewhat limited, but still better than I expected. The power of the Golden Throne has fully merged with the mirror itself. I can still burn gold to cast spells, and I've even retained my Mimetic Soul boon..."

The God of Alchemy frowned. "This all sounds like good news, but I have a feeling you're about to say 'but.' Please don't tell me you've seen some grim future ahead."

Ambrose smiled. "Not exactly. I've already died once, and even the Goddess of Fate would have to bat her eyes at me first before kicking me again. But you guessed right, Master. I do have a 'but' coming, and it's a serious one."

Ambrose's expression turned deeply serious as he explained, "My capacity for independent thought is dissolving rapidly. I underestimated what becoming a bound spirit would do to me. It's worse than being an undead who's lost their obsession. Soon, I'll be nothing but a 'function.' I'll lose every last shred of desire and self-will, and become nothing more than the mirror's core, an upgraded component of the artifact itself."

"How is that possible?" Even the God of Alchemy sounded surprised.

"It makes perfect sense, actually. The ability to think for oneself fundamentally comes from need. Curiosity, empathy, greed—desires of every kind. Desire is what produces thought. Even as an undead, I still needed some basic desire to sustain my own mind. Most zombies and skeletons can't think at all. They just lie down or sleep, because they lack any desire whatsoever. Most wraiths can't think clearly either. They can only endlessly replay their deepest hatred just to maintain their form, but that hatred is all they'll ever have.

"I saw Arthur Lyon hold onto his sense of self for over a thousand years as a bound spirit, and I assumed being a bound spirit was basically no different from being a wraith. But I underestimated what the mirror would actually do to me. Master, what little desire I have is already fading. Once I need nothing at all, my capacity for thought will fade right along with it. Arthur managed to hold onto his sense of self for over a thousand years. I estimate I have, at most, two days left."

Ambrose sighed, helpless. He knew his own willpower had never been particularly strong. Otherwise, he wouldn't have given in to despair so easily when fate turned against him. But he'd assumed that, being several hundred years old himself, his willpower couldn't be too far behind Arthur's.

But the Holy King's will had turned out to be so overwhelmingly strong that his behavior was almost indistinguishable from an ordinary person's. As a result, Ambrose had seriously misjudged the situation. He'd had no real understanding of just how terrifying it was to face oblivion.

And now that Ambrose was confronting oblivion directly, his own will was quickly deteriorating, dragged inch by inch into the void. And he had absolutely no ability to resist.

The God of Alchemy asked, "So what's your backup plan?"

From precedent, this was the point where Ambrose would pull out some grand scheme to swindle a few more unlucky marks within the next few days and solve his problem with a full rebirth.

But instead, Ambrose managed only a bitter smile. "This time... there really isn't a backup plan."

The God of Alchemy was certain he must have misheard. "This isn't the moment for jokes, kid. You're going to hide something from me, of all people?"

"I'm out of ideas, Master. Being able to even tell you this much might already be the last favor Fate has left to grant me. I just tried negotiating a bit of business with those lords of Hell, but watching them stomp around in a panic meant nothing to me at all. I didn't even have it in me to calculate how much gold I could squeeze out of them."

Ambrose's tone stayed perfectly calm, but the God of Alchemy understood exactly why that calm was the real problem.

His poor student wasn't even afraid of death anymore.

Ambrose wouldn't be driven to keep scheming his way out of this fate by fear of his impending doom. Instead, he was quietly accepting the transformation.

The God of Alchemy grunted, then said, "Well, I suppose it falls to your master to save you at a critical moment, then."

And with that, he vanished without another word.

Ambrose watched his master go, forcing out the faintest hint of a smile—but it faded quickly and settled back into calm. Holding onto any emotion for long had become difficult for him.

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