To anyone else, Shara's contract would have seemed brutally harsh.

Within ten years, Ambrose would have to deliver either a legendary devotee to Shara, or cause three holy paladins to break their oaths.

Legends were rare to begin with, and most already had gods of their own. Convincing one of them to abandon their faith for a fallen goddess, and one openly despised across the continent at that, was no small feat.

Worse still, gods paid special attention to their legends: a conversion at that level could easily spark a holy war.

Corrupting a paladin was no easier. Though the Lyon Empire had no shortage of them, only the most devout could ever become paladins in the first place.

Killing three paladins would have been easy enough for Ambrose, but making them betray their oaths was another thing entirely. Ambrose had captured many paladins before. Every single one of them had faced death without fear. Their wills were unshakable.

A decade wouldn't have been enough for most people. Even a century might have been pushing it.

But Ambrose was different.

His new legendary boon, courtesy of Levitra, allowed him to weave a target's fate. Given a miserable enough future, even the kindest, most righteous soul might break.

A decade was more than sufficient time to weave such a tragedy.

And if all else failed, the elves could always produce a legend of their own. To sacrifice oneself for the sake of one's people—surely the elves would consider that noble.

Shara, for her part, was remarkably straightforward. The moment the contract was sealed, she left behind a deep, roiling shadow.

It was a mass of endlessly writhing darkness. Staring into it, Ambrose felt as if his very soul might be dragged inside.

Ambrose first tossed several dice of fate, confirming that Shara had not slipped a curse into the gift. Only then did he reach out and touch the darkness.

The black substance clung to his hand. Billions upon billions of runes flared to life and engraved themselves into his bones. Torrents of knowledge forcibly poured into his mind, leaving him reeling with a long-forgotten sensation of vertigo.

Finally, after a long while, the shadow peeled away from his arm and returned to its slow, undulating state.

Ambrose opened his mouth and exhaled a cloud of ash.

This was the residue that resulted from overtaxing his soulfire. For a brief moment, his soulfire had nearly been snuffed out.

"So this is the Weft…" he muttered. "It's even more absurd than the Wish spell."

He had thought Gary Watts' Wish ritual a masterstroke of alchemy and magic, encompassing enough theory to fill an entire library. But even it paled in comparison to the Weft.

He had only skimmed the surface of the Weft's structure before his soul instinctively withdrew, unable to process the sheer volume of information contained within.

No wonder Shara had left the knowledge in this shadowy form. If it were written down, it would probably fill an entire kingdom.

Rubbing his temples, Ambrose realized just how much he had underestimated the Weft.

"I see why that idiot who tried to control it was blown to pieces now. No mortal would even be able to survive the information overload. There'd be nothing left of them but dust."

The folly of mortals always began with arrogance and ended in tragedy. That was the structure of all cautionary tales.

Ambrose reminded himself not to follow the same path. He did not need to control the Weft. He only needed to access the part that could stabilize chaotic, uncontrolled magic.

After resting for a while, he plunged back into the boundless sea of knowledge.

It became a cycle: immerse himself, withdraw, and write down hundreds of pages of notes. Recycle, repeat. He lost himself completely in research.

The elves, on the other hand, were far more agitated.

The failure of the Wheel of Fate ritual had left them even more wary of the lich. Only now did they truly understand that Ambrose possessed prophetic power far beyond the entire elven race.

Before, he had merely been troublesome. A single legendary lich posed no real threat. It was as if he were an ant before an elephant.

But his mastery of divination changed everything.

Fate was a force even the gods feared.

If a deity's downfall were fated, no amount of divine power could bring salvation. Only the Supreme Creator Aion stood above fate; all others struggled within its weave.

The power Ambrose had displayed bordered on the divine.

Against a diviner, schemes and conspiracies were meaningless. The only way to deal with such a foe was overwhelming force.

The elves possessed that force. They outmatched a lone legendary lich, and were stronger even than the desert dwarves fighting on two fronts. They had previously fought conservatively only because elven lives were too precious to waste. But now, with more than half their population afflicted by mana addiction and destined for the battlefield anyway, their unleashed military might would be enough to make even the Lyon Empire avoid them.

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

That was their ultimate trump card. As long as they advanced openly and decisively, their victory was assured.

The old king spoke earnestly to Catherine, "Your Majesty, during the negotiations, we must project this stance clearly. This war is one we will win, no matter who stands against us. Only from that position can the negotiations favor us."

Catherine nodded, but her expression was troubled. "Still, we cannot ignore the lich's position. Our objective is to rescue Cicero and the others."

The old king grew concerned. Catherine's emotional anchor was the enemy's greatest leverage. If the lich seized that weakness, the negotiations would tilt in his favor instantly. Fortunately, the lich had not discovered the elves' greatest secret. Otherwise, they would be doomed from the start.

Catherine seemed to realize the flaw in her stance. "We still don't understand him well enough. We need more intelligence."

"I agree," the old king replied. "I found a human, a former member of the Alchemists' Council. He dealt with the lich many times. Perhaps he can tell us something."

Catherine's eyes lit up. "Please, summon him at once."

Before long, Gustavo Flynn appeared in the Elven Queen's palace, his expression solemn.

The legendary alchemist actually looked better than before. Though he remained stern and unsmiling, he looked far less stressed than before.

The destruction of Alkhemia had cost him dearly, but it had also lifted a crushing burden. A legendary alchemist, free of self-imposed pressure, could live quite comfortably.

After Alkhemia fell, he had sought out the Court of the Silver Moon, the only place left that could satisfy his thirst for alchemical research. He had not expected to become trapped there by circumstance.

This audience with the Elven Queen was his chance at regaining freedom.

Yet the moment he saw Catherine, the old man froze.

Her beauty was peerless even among elves. A human would naturally be awestruck. It was as though she carried an aura of enchantment; those with weak wills might drop to their knees and swear eternal fealty to her on the spot.

Long used to such pronouncements, Catherine patiently waited for him to recover.

It took long seconds before Gustavo Flynn regained his composure and lowered his head.

"My apologies, Your Majesty. I was discourteous."

"No need to concern yourself, Master Flynn," Catherine said gently, moving straight to the point. "I understand you have crossed paths with the lich. I would like to know more about him. If you assist us, the elves will remember this favor."

"I would not say we were close," Gustavo replied. "We debated several times on academic matters. His attainments in alchemy are extraordinary. Our council president invited him repeatedly to join the Alchemists' Council, but he always refused…"

He described his experiences with Ambrose in detail, embellishing them slightly but never belittling him. If anything, he subtly elevated Ambrose as a once-in-a-millennium genius.

After all, he had lost utterly to Ambrose. The stronger his opponent appeared, the less shameful his own failure seemed.

Who could hope to rival a once-in-a-millennium genius, after all?

Catherine was unaware of the true nature of their relationship. She only knew that Gustavo had been forced into exile because of the lich, and naturally assumed there was deep animosity between them.

If even the lich's enemy spoke so highly of him, then the lich had to be more formidable than she had expected.

After some time, Catherine asked, "Does he have any obvious weakness? A hobby… or perhaps an obsession?"

All liches possessed obsessions. This was common knowledge. Touching on that fixation could cause them to act irrationally, and this was what Catherine was hoping to exploit.

Gustavo answered without hesitation, "Gold. Without question, his obsession is to accrue wealth. He is a miser and a mercenary. Offer him enough gold, and he would even hand over his phylactery."

Catherine stared at him in astonishment. "Is it really… that simple?"

Gold was nothing to the elves. If a ransom was all Ambrose wanted, she could easily satisfy him.