Chapter 502: Man Proposes, Heaven Disposes
Chapter 502: Man Proposes, Heaven Disposes
As far as Alderien was concerned, even a hundred Dragon Tyrants combined wouldn't be half as terrifying as the Lord of Storms. What made that god so dangerous wasn't just raw power, but also his manic, unhinged temperament.
If Thanos suddenly decided he was in the mood for it, he might very well release the heroic spirits of his own divine realm and force everyone present into some deranged deserted-island death game, just for fun.
Ambrose wore an expression of pure innocence. "What does this have to do with me? You know as well as I do he's the Lord of Storms—a god, way up there above us all. You think I have any control over him? What do you mean, I 'dragged him into this'? The Lord of Storms decided to play this game entirely on his own. What am I supposed to do about that?"
"You expect me to believe that?"
Coming from anyone else, Alderien might well have bought it. After all, gods existed far above mortals, and were well beyond any mortal's control. But Ambrose was not just anyone.
Alderien would have sworn on anything that this was entirely his scheme, and that the Lord of Storms was nothing more than one more piece in his plan.
"If you don't believe me, take this."
Ambrose handed Alderien a ring that seemed to hum faintly with powerful magic.
Alderien released his grip on Ambrose, puzzled, and inspected the ring carefully. "This is... a lie detection spell?"
Ambrose nodded. "That's right. It boasts a permanent lie detection effect. If someone tries to deceive you while you're wearing it, the ring will glow red. Otherwise, nothing happens."
Alderien frowned, still confused. "You're a diviner. Why would you hand me something like this?"
Wasn't lie detection exactly the kind of trick diviners liked to play with most?
"Don't worry. This ring is a God of Alchemy original, and boasts the highest tier of lie detection. Forget a mere mortal like me: not even a god could fool this ring's detection. Well, except for gods whose domain specifically involves deception."
Ambrose eagerly slid the ring onto Alderien's finger, then pressed him. "Go on, then. Try asking me something."
Still somewhat doubtful, Alderien asked, "As far as the drow shipping business is concerned, how much of the gold that should belong to us elves have you been quietly pocketing for yourself?"
"What are you even implying? Do I look like that kind of person to you? I've never once run my business that way—"
Before Ambrose could even finish the sentence, the ring on Alderien's finger flared bright red.
Alderien narrowed his eyes at Ambrose, unable to hold back a cold smirk.
Ambrose sighed, resigned. "Fine. I did inflate the drow's food and wellness expenses slightly. But that was purely to keep morale up among the drow. I could hardly make them work for free, could I? I set that money aside as spending money for them."
The ring's red glow didn't fade.
Ambrose: "..."
"Alright, fine. Following standard business practice, I did take a small personal cut out of that income."
The red light on the ring still refused to go out.
Alderien said with a cold smile, "A small cut? How small a cut, exactly?"
"I took seventy percent. But the remaining thirty percent genuinely did go toward supporting the drow, I swear."
Only then did the ring's red glow finally fade away.
Ambrose let out a sigh. "Did you really have to pick such a brutal question? You could've just asked whether I've ever taken advantage of Catherine instead."
Alderien said flatly, "You don't have the capacity for that."
Ambrose was a lich: a skeleton, a pile of bones. What kind of idiot would worry about something like that, especially when he was joking about it so brazenly?
But Alderien hadn't come here to trade jokes with Ambrose, though. He pressed on. "Are you telling me you really had nothing to do with dragging the Lord of Storms into this?"
Ambrose chuckled. "Now you're convinced this thing's the real deal, I take it... All right, fine, I admit it. I did give the Lord of Storms a very gentle nudge. I simply happened to mention, in his presence, how important this peace conference was going to be, and how it would go down in history. Once the Lord of Storms heard that, naturally, he decided to take part himself. He couldn't wait to have us lowly mortal dignitaries witness his greatness firsthand."
Alderien pressed further. "Why? Why lure the Lord of Storms into this?"
"Security, my friend. Insurance in a meeting where all parties present have their own agenda. Not only did I have the Lord of Storms hold his wedding at the conference venue itself, I've also invited every god I personally know to attend the ceremony. They'll only be present in the form of avatars, of course—but with that many gods in attendance, the true focus of this conference is going to shift entirely."
"Shift how?"
Alderien frowned, thinking it over for a long moment, then turned to Ambrose with sudden alarm. "Master Megaman, you can see into the future. Tell me honestly. Did you see our plan fail?"
The original plan had been to expose the Dragon Tyrant's identity during the conference itself, and then unite the strength of every race present to kill the revived Dragon Tyrant once and for all.
The plan had always sounded somewhat vague. Plenty of details would need adjusting depending on how things unfolded in the moment, but so long as the Dragon Tyrant's identity could actually be exposed, everything else was supposed to fall into place.
No matter what, though, dragging the gods themselves into it had never been part of the plan, unless something had fundamentally changed.
Ambrose skipped the wordplay entirely and answered honestly, "I did see an unfavorable future. This is precisely the countermeasure I've been preparing for it."
"Aren't you diviners always saying the future can't be changed? If a negative outcome is already fixed, what good could bringing the gods into this possibly do?"
"A future that's already been seen can't be changed, no. But the damage can still be minimized." Ambrose clapped Alderien on the shoulder. "Some people are simply fated to die. Others can still be saved. This is the insurance I've set up to protect as many of you as I can. I already suspected you'd come find me over this, so I want you to pass a message on to the elven gods for me. Ask them to send one of their own to attend this conference as well."
Alderien was finally grasping the full weight of the situation.
"Where did things go wrong, exactly?"
Ambrose shook his head. "Now's not the time to worry about that. Go home. Prepare yourselves. In two months, you'll understand everything. Oh, and one more thing—I'll need the elves' support soon."
"What kind of support?"
"I need some magical materials. I'd like your people to gather them as quickly as possible."
Ambrose handed over a detailed list cataloging a large quantity of magical materials. He didn't need too much of any individual item, but a good number of them were exceptionally rare, and Alderien would need to check the elves' own reserves before he could even confirm they had access to them all.
Alderien read carefully through the list, his brow furrowing deeper with every line.
He was almost certain he'd seen some of these materials before somewhere. Several of the magical fruits listed were particularly unusual, as though they'd been cultivated for a very specific, ancient piece of magic.
But no matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn't place exactly which spell that might be.
"What exactly are you gathering all this for?"
"To deal with the Dragon Tyrant, obviously. What else would it be for?"
Alderien glanced down at the lie-detecting ring, saw it hadn't reacted at all, and decided against pressing further for details.
The elves and this lich were in the same boat now. Since the lich clearly wasn't willing to elaborate further, Alderien chose not to push it.
"I'll do everything I can, but I'm afraid I have no way of getting the elven gods to attend Thanos's wedding. You'll need to find another solution for that one."
Ambrose nodded. "Then let's do what we can, and leave the rest up to fate."