Chapter 517: Can We Refuse?

Anthony gave a knowing smile — that was the right way to think: "How did you figure it out? Couldn't it be that Feti captured us?"

"Impossible. He's gone stupid, can't even speak — you lot definitely wiped his mind and refined him into some kind of battle weapon." Alanbru pouted as he spoke.

Gone stupid? Feti heard that and wanted to smack the back of his head, but remembering the earlier instructions, he held back.

"Heh heh, your guess is right on the money." Anthony laughed, drew out the Holy Shroud, and was about to wrap it around Alanbru.

"Wait, wait, what are you doing? What kind of cloth is that? Why does it feel so weird? Is it washed? Could there be bugs?" Alanbru shouted urgently.

"You, afraid of bugs? No, no, it's brand new, woven stitch by stitch by a pure saint. Every holy pattern is woven with a different thread, never fades. Apart from the saint having bathed only once in his entire life, it's not dirty at all. Surely you've seen this thing before?" Anthony asked curiously.

Alanbru's brow furrowed: "Hearing you describe it like that makes it feel even dirtier. What is this thing? Can't you not wrap it on me? It's no use to me anyway."

"Uh, you really don't know what this is? This is the Holy Shroud." Anthony said.

"Hiss— the kind of Holy Shroud that, once wrapped around you, makes you lose your memories even through Soul Casket rebirth? Kua ba…" Alanbru didn't even want to finish his sentence before igniting his soul fire.

He had been staying calm and unhurried, relying on the fact that he had Soul Casket rebirth. Although he knew about the Holy Shroud, he had only read about it in books and never seen it with his own eyes, so for a moment he couldn't recall it.

But even if he had recalled it, it wouldn't have mattered — from the moment Seeing Ange had hauled him up, he had lost every chance of escape.

Seeing Ange grabbed his neck in one motion, soul energy flooding in, forcibly pressing his soul flame back down.

Anthony took the chance to wrap him up, then said: "Wrapped, wrapped, too late now. Even if you burn yourself now, it's too late."

Alanbru slumped down weakly, needing Feti to hold him up just to stay standing, muttering in a lost voice: "How did I not think of it? How did I not remember you lot still had the Holy Shroud? If I'd known, I would have killed myself back in the carriage."

Anthony pouted: "Stop bragging. You couldn't have imagined we could disrupt teleportation either, so of course you couldn't bear to kill yourself. From the moment you fell into our hands, you had no chance of escape."

"No, that's not right — the one choking my neck isn't a deity. He used soul fire to suppress my soul. He's an undead — who is he exactly?" Alanbru couldn't help shouting out.

"Uh, seen through again, heh heh. Apart from Feti, doesn't our 'Divine Realm' have a second Mourner?" Anthony began to mislead him.

Alanbru muttered in a daze: "Jian Gu Luo Ke? Jian Gu Luo Ke was captured by you lot too? Oh heavens…"

After shoving him aside, Seeing Ange pulled out the Petrifying Crossbow, cranked it to maximum power, and gave the petrified dragon a shot.

Seeing Ange basically never used the Petrifying Crossbow, because it consumed too much energy — the holy light it burned was over thirty times that of a little angel's Holy Light Flash. Of course, the main reason was that there wasn't really any enemy that required him to bring out the Petrifying Crossbow; even against the gods of light, beating them to death was enough.

The Petrifying Crossbow slowly lit up, and all five gems finally glowed at once. Seeing Ange pulled the trigger, and a beam of light shot out, landing on the petrified dragon's body.

Crack! A sharp sound was heard — one of the five gems on the Petrifying Crossbow had actually split open.

"Oh oh oh, an Angel's Tear actually cracked? That's a huge loss. Way too much of a loss to reincarnate you. This is a divine artifact that can petrify deities, and now it's broken — who knows if it'll still be usable later." Lord Nai Ge sighed and groaned, his face full of pain.

Xierba was very embarrassed: "Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry for breaking a divine artifact. Apart from the fur on my body, I don't have anything else to compensate with. So this is an Angel's Tear? Where can I find one? After I reincarnate, I'll try to get a few back."

"These things are really hard to get. You have to beat up a little angel while she's in her six-winged state, make her cry, and only then might you have a chance of getting one. This is a six-winged archangel's tear." Lord Nai Ge lamented.

"…………Kua ni ba……"

Before Xierba could leap up and beat Lord Nai Ge, Seeing Ange grabbed him and hauled him away, tossed him into the Reincarnation Altar, and after a fierce round of operations, finished the job.

If he could wake up, that meant he had gained a new body — a living one.

If he couldn't wake up… then they'd rescue him a bit more, see what he reincarnated into. The God of the Undead was right here — could he really fail to protect its consciousness?

No surprises — six hours later, Xierba woke up, while on one hand fumbling with his body like a patient with nerve damage, struggling to pull his tongue back in, he shouted "hungry hungry hungry" on the other.

Seeing Ange tossed two bags of elf beans to him, and he ate them up in two bites, which made the big cat so angry it went over and slapped his head with a big paw.

And that wasn't all — he also guzzled down two big barrels of Sacred Essence Liquid, a full thirty liters. Now, apart from Seeing Ange, everyone else started feeling the pain.

Xierba licked his lips, grinning sheepishly as he looked everyone over: "V-very expensive?"

"Of course it's expensive! Even though the price has dropped a bit now, Mo Nika's side still sells it for five thousand magic crystals a bottle, and a bottle is only a hundred milliliters. You just guzzled down three hundred bottles in one go!" Lord Nai Ge said irritably.

Even Anthony said painfully: "Cultivating a single body only costs me twenty liters."

"I'll pay, I'll pay. I'll work hard to earn money. If I really can't afford it, I'll pull out my scales and sell them. So… can I have another mouthful?" Xierba said with an apologetic smile.

Romance

After gulping down two big barrels of Sacred Essence Liquid, he genuinely felt how good the stuff was — like a cool 'warm' current flowing from his throat into his body, and wherever it passed, every organ seemed to cheer.

Being petrified for so many years didn't mean the dragon hadn't suffered damage. Reincarnating into a dracolich was no big deal, but reincarnating into a living dragon meant the body's health was very important — if there was something like a cerebral blood vessel blockage, Seeing Ange would have to rescue him.

But after a gulp of essence liquid like that, many of the tiny damages were quickly repaired. Xierba felt that with every breath he took, his body became much stronger.

"Yi ya ma na ba bi la… &￥……#*￥……" Xierba let out a string of draconic syllables like he was gargling. The parts omitted were ultra-low frequency, inaudible to ordinary people, so there were no syllables.

"Alright, can you fly? Then let's ride him and go. Hurry up — if someone else crashes in here, that'll be trouble." Seeing that things were about ready, Lord Nai Ge urged them on.

"Best not. A dragon as big as me flying into the sky would definitely be spotted. There are always spectral patrollers up there, and undead of Alanbru's level also patrol from time to time. We'd better go back the way we came." Xierba said quickly.

"Then what do we do?"

"Watch me." Xierba began chanting in draconic, and his massive body rapidly transformed, finally turning into an… an owl.

……

Disguised as undead, they followed the original route back over several days, returning once more to the Starburst Canyon. This time, everyone didn't go back to the city, but returned to that cave in the Hall of Knowledge.

Because Wuga had been captured, the undead in the canyon had recovered to a certain number. Everyone didn't enter through the front door, but came in through that rock crevice that the dragon thralls used.

"Alright, the Life God Pool has been discovered. Although we have prisoners locked up there, and the Mage Alliance doesn't dare do anything to us for now, that's not a long-term plan, and it's very inconvenient. We need to switch to a different base for now. This place isn't bad — the original buildings are all intact and can still be used." Lord Nai Ge said.

This had already been agreed upon by everyone long ago. Before he finished speaking, everyone scattered to their own tasks — some cleaning, some repairing. Seeing Ange even hauled out the little dragon thrall family to work together.

Only Seeing Ange, Feti, Anthony, and Lord Nai Ge were left, and then they released Alanbru.

When he was released, he was actually sleeping — this dead lich was way too calm.

"Hey hey hey, wake up, wake up. If you don't wake up, I'll burn your hair off." Lord Nai Ge threatened, breathing dragon breath.

Maybe it was because a keyword had been triggered, but Alanbru, who couldn't be woken no matter how much he was pushed, suddenly sat bolt upright, nervously covering his own sparse forehead.

"Yo, with just a few hairs on your head, is there any need to be that nervous?" Lord Nai Ge asked, puzzled.

Alanbru said irritably: "How would a baldhead like you understand? A lich's hair is treasure — lose one and it's gone forever, it never grows back."

"B-baldhead?!" Lord Nai Ge pointed at himself with a little claw, saying in disbelief. This was the first time anyone had called him bald, and he found he couldn't even argue back, because dragons simply don't grow hair.

Alanbru was fully awake now. Looking at Lord Nai Ge, he frowned in confusion: "God of Knowledge? You got captured by them too?"

"You know me?" Lord Nai Ge was surprised. When Alanbru was captured, Lord Nai Ge had been hiding the whole time — this was their first time face to face. How could he recognize him at a glance?

"It's really you? How did you get so thin? Your Majesty showed me what you look like. This is the Hall of Knowledge, right? This place was built under my supervision, and the statue was also carved by me. That lecherous face of yours — I recognized you at a glance." Alanbru said.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si fumed: "Are you blind? Is this what you'd call a lecherous face? With such a kindly expression, where on earth is the lecherous look?"

"Alright, alright, let's get down to business — we don't need to hide our identities anymore." Seeing Ange quickly put a stop to this wildly off-topic squabbling, or they'd never get things sorted out.

"Hide your identities? What identities have you been hiding? Aren't you just lapdogs of the Light? What other identity could you possibly have?" Alan Alan Bulu mocked.

Everyone looked at Seeing Ange. Seeing Ange produced the Undying Divine Sigil, and when that torch-like Undying Divine Sigil appeared above Seeing Ange's head, Feti and Anthony slowly knelt down.

The Undying Divine Sigil was quickly withdrawn — after all, this was a long-range projection, and the drain was too great.

Still, this also showed that the soul strength of Seeing Ange's current body was growing stronger and stronger. When the projection had first come through, he couldn't even muster any divine power, yet now he could already manifest the Undying Divine Sigil here.

Just once was enough. Alan Alan Bulu's eyes went wide as saucers, and he said in disbelief: "You even snatched the Undying Divine Sigil?"

Lord Nai Ge Li Si nearly toppled face-first onto the ground and said irritably: "Couldn't it be that we wiped out the gods of Light and snatched the sigils, the faithful, the church, and whatnot from them?"

"Sure, it's possible, but why don't I believe it?" Alan Alan Bulu said suspiciously.

Feti stripped off his cloak and burial shroud completely, revealing a body of purple-gold bones, then said: "You're the stupid one. You're the one without a shred of sense."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si also revealed his own Bronze Tome, and after much coaxing, finally made Alan Alan Bulu believe that it wasn't the Church of Light that had snatched the Undying Divine Sigil, but the god of the Undying who had snatched the Church of Light.

"Then by that logic, you're on my side. So why did you attack me? You should have revealed your identities sooner — we're all Your Majesty's subjects. Why sneak into the Resting Plains, and after being here so long, never come find us?" Alan Alan Bulu asked, bewildered.

Anthony smiled: "If we had revealed our identities, would the Council of the Dead be willing to obey the commands of the god of the Undying?"

Alan Alan Bulu was shocked: "How could that be? Of course it's you who should obey the Council's commands, so we can all work together to rescue Your Majesty."

Anthony shook his head and said: "We've been working hard all along, working hard to rescue Your Majesty. But if it gets too dangerous — if it might even endanger my lord's life — can we refuse?"

"Of course we can't refuse. We're all Your Majesty's subjects. If Your Majesty dies, every single one of us dies with him. Of course we have to rescue Your Majesty at all costs." Alan Alan Bulu said, astonished.

"No, no, no — you are Your Majesty's subjects. We are my lord's subjects. If rescuing Your Majesty would endanger my lord's life, we would refuse without a moment's hesitation, because my lord bears the safety of countless subjects in the divine realm on his shoulders and cannot risk his person." Anthony said.

Alan Alan Bulu's eyes went wide, his face a picture of utter disbelief.

Anthony continued to ask: "Then, if we reveal our identities, are you willing to obey the commands of the god of the Undying and rescue Your Majesty together?"

"I… you… I…" Alan Alan Bulu stammered for quite a while, unable to say whether he was willing or not.

Anthony spread his hands: "See? Clearly, all you had to do was obey the commands of the god of the Undying, and we'd have a much better chance of rescuing Your Majesty. But you hesitated. You simply don't care about Your Majesty's safety — all you think about is yourself."

Alan Alan Bulu felt his head spinning from the circular logic: "No, no, that's not right, wait a minute, that's not the logic here. I just don't believe you have that kind of ability."

"You only need to obey my lord's command, and you'll find out whether we have that kind of ability." Anthony said.

The new king and the old king are not in a subordinate relationship. The old king's ministers of the new king are not subordinates of the old king either — especially with the undead, where if a king dies, all his subordinates are buried with him.

Even if Seeing Ange wanted to throw caution to the wind and rescue the Undying Sovereign, the others would stop him with everything they had — Feti included.

Therefore, no one would propose that Seeing Ange ally with the Council of the Dead. If the identities were revealed, then between them and the undead there were only two possibilities: cooperation, or a falling-out.

If they cooperated, who would take orders? Given Alan Alan Bulu's attitude, the Council of the Dead would never submit to Seeing Ange's command — so the only option was a falling-out.

Politics is sometimes this troublesome. Seeing Ange is simple and pure, and wouldn't think that far ahead, but the others couldn't afford not to think it through — even the dim-witted Lord Nai Ge Li Si and Feti sometimes had to stop and think.

PS: Scheduled for Monday.

－－－ Digression －－－

Thank you to Moon-Landing Flower-Seeking, Book Friend, and Book Friend for their tips.