Just as the elves were preparing for negotiations, so was Ambrose.

Contact had already been established on the desert dwarves' side. The first contingent of Dwarven Ironguards was ready to be dispatched, and the initial wave of migrants had gathered along the border. Ambrose had helped select and prepare several stretches of wasteland, for reclamation and city-building.

The construction of the city itself was not Ambrose's concern. Desert dwarves were masters of building; three days was all it took for them to build an expansive set of city walls.

What Ambrose needed to do was "persuade" the nearby lords to welcome the dwarven migrants with open arms.

In truth, the difficulty was minimal. Once the Ironguards and Ambrose's skeletal legions teleported to the northern frontier and took a few casual strolls around the area, non-aggression pacts began arriving one after another.

There really were a lot of peace-loving, well-meaning folk out there. Orc tribes, lizardfolk lords, and human nobles alike expressed warm support for the dwarven migrants, even going as far as to offer humanitarian aid to these refugees of war.

Interestingly enough, the first batch of migrants the dwarves sent over consisted precisely of orcs, lizardfolk, and humans, perfectly mirroring the racial makeup of their surroundings.

Ambrose concluded that Hoffman Ironfist, the King's Hand, was a very clever man.

The greatest strength of the Golden Kingdom lay in its open and liberal policies, which were strikingly similar to those of the former Alkhemia.

This first wave of migrants could blend naturally into the existing environment, making the next, much larger wave of migration far easier to accept.

Within days, migrant orcs were already wrestling with the local tribes, lizardfolk were happily rolling in the mud alongside their kin, and as for the humans… well, not every race was equally enthusiastic about welcoming its own.

Despite a few minor hiccups, overall relations between the migrants and the neighboring lords remained fairly cordial.

The Golden Kingdom itself had no desire to fight on multiple fronts. Lyon had already beaten them nearly to the point of helplessness. Diverting troops to secure the rear and "open up the map" would be an extremely difficult proposition for the desert dwarves.

Hoffman Ironfist had made his position clear to Ambrose: if conflict resulting from this migration could be managed through appeasement, so much the better. Outright resistance was to be avoided if at all possible. This aligned perfectly with Ambrose's own thinking. Working in tacit coordination, the two sides suppressed the chaos around Alkhemia as much as they could.

The result was a rather strange situation. The Golden Kingdom, a would-be invader, and Ambrose, an evil lich, had killed remarkably few people in their takeover of Alkhemia. Instead, the local lords had taken advantage of the general chaos to hack back and forth at one another, racking up considerable casualties in the process.

It was hard to blame them.

Imagine it: you, lord of a noble house with centuries of history yet only a tiny scrap of land to its name. Suddenly, an opportunity arises. Your weak neighbor loses the emperor's protection. His lands are up for grab, a choice morsel right before your mouth. Wouldn't you bite?

Whether the desert dwarves ended up ruling, or the elves swept through and exterminated everyone, the principle was the same: the stronger your power base, the more leverage you had at the negotiating table. You needed strength to seize your own fate. That was human nature—who would willingly place their destiny in someone else's hands?Wheth Even the Skinner Duke who had been duped by Ambrose was starting to grow restless and send envoys to Ambrose requesting instructions. Naturally, Ambrose had no intention of letting that pain-worshiping fanatic stir up trouble. He fed him the usual line—"everything is part of the plan"—and ordered him to hold his territory and refrain from provoking any wars.

After some time, a rumor began circulating among the nearby lords: there was a deranged lich out there who was single-handedly maintaining world peace.

Reaching that level of achievement as a lich was probably unprecedented in history.

The effect, however, was plainly visible. Warfare was tightly confined, and thanks to the involvement of Ambrose and the dwarves, many would-be aggressors were forced to adopt a wait-and-see approach.

Otherwise, the dwarven army and Ambrose's undead legions would conduct a "military parade" right outside their lands, leaving those minor lords with no option other than surrender.

Now, all that remained was to see what was happening on the elves' side.

Ambrose had been waiting for their response, even going as far as to delay his transaction with the dwarves. Cicero and the others should have been delivered to the desert several days earlier. This was no small matter for Ambrose, considering the dwarves were offering a million gold—an extremely generous bounty.

Yet the elves had not replied, and Ambrose was starting to get impatient.

By his reckoning, Naya should have long since returned to the Court of the Silver Moon, and his letter already in the elven queen's hands. Ambrose wouldn't have been surprised if the elves had outright refused negotiations, but instead, they merely suspended the actions of the Twilight Wardens while offering no response at all. That was deeply suspicious.

For the past two days, Ambrose had even considered making a personal trip to the Court of the Silver Moon. Before he could decide, however, a sudden, unsettling sensation struck him.

"Someone's… attempting to peer into my fate?"

At the same moment, within the royal palace of the Court of the Silver Moon, a colossal magic circle took shape under the joint control of dozens of elven elders. Vast power surged through it, driving a structure resembling the Wheel of Fate into constant rotation.

This was a ritual the elves had poured immense effort into creating and had refined for generations thereafter. Through relatively simple means, it allowed them to divine whatever knowledge they desired.

Having so many elven elders participate in the ritual was an honor of the highest order, reserved only for matters concerning the very survival of the elven race.

The Wheel of Fate turned. At the center of the array, a letter was slowly eroded and pulverized by magical energy. The lingering aura of Ambrose upon it served as the anchor. As the wheel spun, Ambrose's entire life would be laid bare.

An image gradually emerged within the array: Ambrose seated upright in his castle, his skeletal face calm and unreadable, his eyes glowing with soulfire.

The old king stood to the side, carefully scrutinizing the projection.

So this was the lich who had written the letter?

He looked utterly unremarkable, no different from any ordinary lich.

But in the instant their gazes met, the lich's hollow eyes seemed to pierce through time and space to land directly upon the old king.

A veteran powerhouse, the old king immediately sensed something was wrong.

This was not a mere image from the past. That gaze had substance to it.

"What is going on? Is there something wrong with the ritual?" the old king demanded.

The elven elders hurriedly examined the array, but found nothing amiss. The Wheel of Fate continued to rotate smoothly. With a bit more effort, the scene would rewind, revealing the lich's past life.

Once enough of the "past" had been gathered, they could attempt to extrapolate the future. If all went well, even the outcome of the negotiations could be predicted.

But just as they were about to proceed, the lich's projection, at the center of the array, suddenly moved.

Though it should have been nothing more than a snapshot of the lich at a certain moment in time, the projection now appeared alive. The lich snapped his fingers at the assembled elves.

In the next instant, the Wheel of Fate began spinning wildly out of control.

One look at the panic on the elders' faces was enough for the old king to understand that something had gone terribly wrong.

Unfortunately, magic was not his specialty. All he could do was watch.

The elders turned deathly pale. They had no idea what had happened. The array itself was intact. The Wheel of Fate still turned, yet it had completely slipped from their control.

To seize control of a carefully prepared ritual in an instant was simply inconceivable.

But no matter how they struggled, the Wheel of Fate behaved like a fickle lover who had suddenly changed her heart. Now utterly indifferent to them, she threw herself into another's arms.

At last, the elders were forced to inform the old king of the grim truth. "The ritual has been taken over. It is completely out of control."

"Can't you cut off the power supply?" the old king asked.

"We already did. We are no longer powering it."

The old king blanched. This sounded absurd.

Not only had the other party seized control instantly, he could even supply power to the array from such an immense distance…

As the elves descended into chaos, Ambrose sat in his castle, watching everything unfold with keen amusement.

After taking control of the ritual, Ambrose could see everything happening on the elves' side.

These elves were crazy to have tried to divine his fate. Despite his ruthless breakup with the power of divination, it continued to try every possible way to reconcile with him. It clung on with absurd devotion.

Supposedly, his third legendary boon had been Levitra's trap—

But traps were an integral part of fate.

Those who believed in fate had to do so completely or not at all. There was no middle ground.

And though this Wheel of Fate ritual looked impressive, in Ambrose's eyes, it was nothing more than a clumsy attempt to force life into something lifeless. None of these elves truly wielded the power of prophecy; they were merely simulating it through ritual.

It was like building a dam to redirect a river by hand. Under normal circumstances, it might work. But if the river itself had a will, no dam, no matter how tall or sturdy, would matter. If the river decided to flood, it could ignore the riverbed entirely and flow upstream regardless.

Ambrose had already reclaimed his legendary authority over fate. For these elves to try to divine him was like trying to show off magic in front of Mystrix, Goddess of Magic.

He stroked his chin, pondering the elves' motives.

He was merely a single legendary lich. Was he really worth such an elaborate investigation? What could possibly drive them to expend so much effort and resources to probe him?

There had to be a reason that their behavior was defying common sense.

"Heh. Could it have something to do with why they started this war in the first place?"

Ambrose traced a small circle with his finger. On the elves' side, the Wheel of Fate began spinning frantically, scenes flashing past until the visage of Queen Catherine grew ever clearer.

𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

An elven elder shouted, "This is bad! He's using the power of fate to probe our secrets instead!"

"Destroy the array immediately!" the old king roared.

But the elder shook his head helplessly. "It cannot be destroyed. It was designed to resist external interference. Even if we raze this entire place, it will not stop the Wheel of Fate."

"Is there no emergency shutdown?" the old king bellowed. "How do you normally maintain this thing?!"

The elder sighed again. "Of course there is, but it requires that we be in control of the array. Who could have imagined that the target could have seized control of the Wheel of Fate?"

At that critical moment, Queen Catherine entered the hidden chamber.

The elves hastily bowed, but she had no time to waste on them.

She gathered her magic and poured it into the Wheel of Fate, attempting to disrupt the array and directly damage its internal structure by brute force. Both Catherine and Ambrose were legendary spellcasters. Though Catherine did not specialize in divination, destruction was far easier than maintenance.

Even before they had ever met, the two clashed magically across thousands of miles, a development no one had foreseen.

But Catherine could not retreat. The elves' secrets could not be revealed.

After a long while, the Wheel of Fate slowed. The flickering images vanished.

Catherine withdrew her hands, drenched in sweat. The old king rushed forward. "How is it? Are our secrets safe?"

Catherine nodded. "They should be."

"Thank the stars," the old king said, shaken.

Catherine, however, gave him a wry smile. "I did not stop him. He gave up voluntarily."

"What?" The old king gaped in disbelief.

"I could not control the array. The lich returned control of the Wheel of Fate on his own. He said…" Catherine hesitated, then continued, "…he said this was his gesture of sincerity, and that he hoped the negotiations would proceed smoothly."

The old king frowned, uncertain whether to believe such words.

"He truly did not discover our secret?" he pressed.

Catherine nodded. "I am certain of that. The Wheel of Fate did not reveal anything about mana addiction. None of that information surfaced."

"Good. Very good."

The old king finally exhaled. They might have barely escaped certain doom, but after this ordeal, they would need to reconsider their negotiation from scratch. This lich was far more terrifying than they had imagined. He was indeed worthy of being a member of the Elegiac Society.

As for Ambrose, he was now flipping open the Necromantic Codex and writing furiously. [Megaman Tiga: Friends, I have learned the elves' secret. You will never believe it.]

The Wheel of Fate had not revealed the elves' secret, but when Ambrose made contact with Catherine's magic, he had used it as an anchor to peer into her entire life.

There was no need for a dozen people standing in a circle performing rituals. With a single thought, he could cast hundreds of dice of fate, lifting the veil of destiny and laying bare the elves' secrets.

Catherine, lacking Ambrose's sensitivity to fate, remained completely unaware that she had been scried.

Now that Ambrose held the elves' greatest secret in his grasp, it was time for him to revise his plan, too.