Lich for Hire

Chapter 488: Time for a Change

The Lord of the Nine Hells wouldn't tolerate anyone challenging his authority, even if it was only economic.

If Ambrose had simply been producing counterfeits, Asmodeus would have slapped him dead without a second thought, and Aion wouldn't have lifted a finger to intervene.

The issue was, although Ambrose was producing "debased currency," it functioned well enough.

Every infernal device that ran on the standard currency in widespread use across Hell could run equally well on these debased coins, with barely any difference in performance. Why wouldn't the lords of Hell use them?

And if Ambrose was willing to bear the cost, he could produce genuine soul-coins too.

What was so special about a standard soul-coin, anyway? It could be cracked open to release a complete soul, and Ambrose could create complete souls as well. He'd just cut corners for cost efficiency, leaving only extreme emotions while stripping out all other mental functions. But the capacity itself was there.

So the soul bank's real operating model was a play on timing.

So long as the soul bank could keep running over a long enough timeframe, Hell's "genuine currency" would eventually be absorbed entirely into the bank's reserves, becoming something like a gold standard backing the economy from behind the scenes, while the currency actually circulating in the market would be nothing but Ambrose's debased coins.

At that point, Asmodeus could no longer dare simply slap Ambrose dead. If Hell's economy were to collapse, the ripple effects would be felt across every plane of existence, and that would genuinely annoy Aion.

As far as Aion was concerned, if Asmodeus couldn't manage Hell properly and ended up destabilizing the planes, then he might consider changing the ownership of Hell.

However ancient Asmodeus might be, and however many devils might call him father, if the God of Gods decided it was time to deal with him, Asmodeus would have no choice but to accept his fate.

All three infernal lords understood this clearly, which was exactly why they were willing to gamble—and gamble big. Win, and they'd be sitting as a new power in Hell. Lose, and things would just go back to how they were.

As Mammon had said, what devil didn't scheme? The only line you couldn't cross was flipping the table with brute force.

Playing with contracts was a devil's birthright. Regardless of how it ended up, Asmodeus generally wouldn't come down too harshly for that kind of play.

So why not take the shot?

With enough luck, perhaps a few thousand years down the line, the soul bank might grow into a genuine money-printing operation: a single slip of paper exchangeable for soul-coins on demand, a true fiat currency.

The odds of that, though, were slim. Hell was simply too unstable.

The lordship of each layer of Hell had changed hands countless times over the ages through blood feuds, wars, Abyss invasions, and more. Conflict never stopped, and the limitations on a fiat currency's usability under those conditions were severe.

After any major war, the soul bank's ownership might change hands multiple times over. It might even be wiped out entirely.

Ambrose's debased coins would still be usable no matter the ownership of the bank, but what of a paper-backed fiat currency? How much would that be worth after the dust settled?

Devils weren't fools. None of them would hold onto fiat currency that might become worthless paper at any moment.

The best realistic outcome was that fiat currency saw limited use, while Ambrose's debased coins remained the dominant medium of exchange.

Capitalism wasn't a one-size-fits-all answer, and needed to be adapted to fit different environments. Ambrose and the Goddess of Wealth both understood this well enough not to make the mistake of forcing a model onto a place where it didn't belong.

Still, as long as the soul bank could be controlled, its lords would accumulate vast reserves of wealth—and wealth, in turn, meant power. It wasn't entirely out of the question that, one day, they could use that accumulated power to break into the ranks of the truly powerful gods.

Whatever the future held, the road ahead looked bright enough. Nobody was going to say no to that.

The Goddess of Wealth only had to think briefly to understand exactly what these three lords of Hell were imagining for their futures. She understood just as clearly that those futures would never come to pass.

The reason was simple: the Goddess of Wealth would never allow Hell to march headlong into a capitalist age.

It was a matter of alignment.

The Goddess of Wealth despised demons, and she despised devils equally.

The soul bank partnership was nothing but a front: a scheme of her own, running alongside Ambrose's plan, to bring Hell's economy under the umbrella of her own domain of wealth.

To the Goddess of Wealth, this bank would become a nail she'd driven into Hell itself.

Someday, the Goddess of Wealth would use the soul bank's power to teach these devils a very thorough lesson.

But that, too, was a matter for the distant future. For now, everyone shared the same short-term objective: build the bank first, and worry about everything else later.

With the terms agreed upon, it was time to set out and take the kouto goddess captive.

"Ladies and gentlemen, assemble your forces. We're going to war against the kouto goddess. Abducting a deity on behalf of a mortal is a battle destined to go down in divine history. It also happens to make for the most spectacular advertisement the soul bank could possibly ask for. I'd ask all three of you to make sure the whole affair looks suitably impressive. It won't do any of our future returns any good if it ends up looking messy."

All three lords of Hell straightened at that, their expressions turning serious.

The point was well made. Three lords of Hell riding out together, including the lords of the first and third layers, was an event that would shake every plane of existence. If this grand expedition ended in failure, the reputation of every infernal lord involved would take a real hit.

Sariel rested a hand on the hilt of her sword, her confidence evident. "As long as you hold up your end and lure the kouto goddess out of her divine realm, I can handle her personally, even if she hasn't been weakened."

"Then it all comes down to everyone's performance."

The magic mirror's connection terminated. The Goddess of Wealth dispelled her disguise, with faint color still lingering on her face.

"It must have gone quite smoothly," the God of Alchemy said, pleased.

"Of course it did. Negotiating is my greatest skill. I saved your student quite a lot."

"Whatever you do, don't tell him that," the God of Alchemy warned.

"Oh?" the Goddess of Wealth asked, puzzled. "Why not?"

"If that boy finds out, he'll throw himself at your feet without a second thought, begging you to take him under your wing. And that will become his best excuse—claiming he wants to repay the goddess's help, insisting he wants to work for you, when really he'll just have latched on and there'll be no shaking him off."

The Goddess of Wealth burst out laughing. This master and student duo really were something else.

Then the Goddess of Wealth turned back to the God of Alchemy. "So what's next on your end? Are you confident you can actually lure the kouto goddess out? Hell's armies are already assembling. If you can't deliver, those devils won't take it kindly."

Contracts with devils couldn't be broken, and Aion certainly didn't step in to shield anyone from devil debt collection. The moment a contract was signed, all parties were bound to perform, backed by the full force of Hell's own law.

"Negotiation is your strength, and crafting artifacts is mine. Trust me: this will work. The one complication is that we'll need to enter the elemental plane of water first, which isn't a simple matter."

The elemental plane of water was a uniquely strange space, an endless ocean with no floor and no surface. No matter which direction you traveled, up or down, you could never reach the water's edge.

Every aquatic species from every plane could exist and thrive here, from seaweed all the way up to island-sized whales. Because the elemental plane of water was theoretically infinite in extent, it was equally infinite in resources.

The kouto goddess's divine realm was an independent space, but in principle, every ocean deity's divine realm connected to the elemental plane of water.

So finding the kouto goddess's divine realm meant entering that plane first, but the elemental plane of water was extraordinarily hostile to outside magical elements. Deities from other pantheons who entered would find it deeply uncomfortable, facing obstacle after obstacle before they could move freely within it.

The God of Alchemy had prepared for this well in advance.

Alchemy encompassed everything, and wasn't constrained by any single element. So long as the God of Alchemy wasn't trying to throw fireballs while inside the elemental plane of water, his other abilities would be entirely unaffected.

With a draught of water affinity, the God of Alchemy could pass himself off convincingly as a member of the ocean pantheon. That was the remarkable versatility of alchemy at work.

Freedom of movement wasn't the concern. His divine status alone was enough to render most of the plane's dangers irrelevant.

The only real problem was the ocean pantheon's attitude.

Ezdolo, Sekkora, Demogorgon—the divine beings of the deep had an exceptionally sharp sense of anything occurring within the elemental plane of water. The God of Alchemy's entry would be noticed the moment it happened.

If any of those deities chose to object, he'd be in real trouble.

Fortunately, Ambrose's groundwork had already smoothed the way.

The God of Alchemy produced something resembling a scale and handed it to the Goddess of Wealth.

"When the time comes, travel as my attendant deity. Carry this scale with you and you'll be free to move throughout the elemental plane of water without interference from the ocean pantheon."

The Goddess of Wealth looked at it, surprised. "This is... the aura of a merfolk. A scale from Ezdolo, the goddess of the merfolk?"

"That's right. My student drove Blobdilpulp into full madness, and now she's lashing out across the elemental plane of water in her desperation. She's attacking creatures indiscriminately and trying to force them into her service. Ezdolo couldn't tolerate this kind of disruption to the plane's balance, so she's coordinated with the ocean pantheon. Blobdilpulp is now ours to deal with as we see fit."

The Goddess of Wealth marveled aloud, "Can your student even be considered a mortal anymore? Every move he makes drags the gods deeper into an endless spiral around him. Aion should really have granted him a divine domain by now."

Aion did tend to act on whim, granting divine domains to whoever he felt like. But when it came to matters concerning the gods, Aion paid close attention.

This mortal lich had, in a relatively short span, left Shara punished, left Loss punished and on the verge of being finished off by her former husband Choralan, left the lords of Hell coming to blows over one of his ideas and nearly shattering Hell's first layer in the process, and was now about to abduct an ocean goddess and hand her over to Thanos. It was frankly absurd.

Aion couldn't have failed to notice that a mortal had accomplished so much.

With a record like that, it was difficult to justify not granting him the divine domain of something like deception.

The God of Alchemy also mused aloud, "I've actually been wanting to bring that boy along for quite some time. Why struggle among mortals when he could just live in my divine realm? But someone held me back, a deity I couldn't refuse. The deity asked me to wait a little longer."

"Wait a little longer? You mean—this deity is the reason why Aion hasn't granted your student a divine domain yet?"

The Goddess of Wealth frowned. Very few deities carried enough weight to ask that kind of favor. The Goddess of Wealth ran through the list quickly and arrived at a senior figure most of the gods had long since forgotten about.

"The Mourner. The Elegiac Society... I think I know who you mean. But for what purpose?

The Goddess of Wealth found herself genuinely perplexed. This particular deity did indeed have the standing to make Aion give ground on something like this, but what was the point? What was Ambrose being groomed for?

The God of Alchemy let out a sigh. "What else could it be? Think about what this elder has done with his entire existence: raising those who are worthy up, and dragging those who prove unworthy down.

"I don't know what his reasoning is this time around. But it seems that the position of the God of Death is almost due to change hands."