This Lich Requests More Remuneration
Chapter 413 - 385: Goddess Tiamat’s Plan

Chapter 413: Chapter 385: Goddess Tiamat’s Plan

The Starburst was known as a Ninth Circle Spell, already extremely difficult to cast, and its hit rate was even more worrisome. Amberser was supposed to rely on the Golden Throne to perform it, and at most he could only unleash four meteors consecutively.

But now, four hundred meteors were falling from the sky together.

The scene resembled the sky collapsing, like the end of the world had come.

Leds had never seen such a terrifying sight in his life, frantically casting all the defense spells on himself, then controlling his mount to dodge.

"Just a Starburst," the spell was notoriously known for its low hit rate.

No matter the vast number, the large area covered and the many gaps between the meteors provided spaces to dodge; he could definitely avoid them.

But Leds only managed to shout a command to scatter before his mount, a Red Dragon, was struck harshly in the head by one of the meteors.

The impact broke the dragon’s horn, shattered its skull, and rendered the Red Dragon unconscious in an instant.

The Red Dragon’s body stiffened as it fell towards the sea; Leds quickly cast a Flight Spell on himself and a Featherfall Spell on his mount.

Red Dragons were tough; a meteor couldn’t kill one, just knock it out. Maybe it would wake up if it fell into the sea, but a heavy crash would be injurious.

As Leds was lamenting his bad luck for his mount to be hit by a Starburst with such a low hit rate, when he looked around, he realized this "coincidence" was occurring repeatedly.

Twenty Red Dragons, all hit by meteors?

What were the odds?

Were there even twenty people in history who had been killed by a Starburst?

What scared Leds even more was that at first glance, even the Githyanki riding Yixi Manta Rays on the sea had been struck by the Starburst. The meteors raised huge waves, created whirlpools, and dragged the Githyanki into the deep sea.

With hundreds of meteors falling, Leds saw not a single one missed its target.

This was not a Starburst at all!

Leds sensed something was wrong too late, he then remembered something Goddess Tiamat had mentioned when explaining the disappearance of the Impure Chant—a name.

Diga Ultraman, a Lich, a Legendary Rank Diviner Mage.

Leds was shocked; how could he encounter that Lich here and why did all the Liches in the world look so similar? By just looking at the opponent’s skeleton head, Leds hadn’t recognized him.

And now it was too late; this terrible Starburst had decimated the Githyanki’s military force.

All the Red Dragons had fallen, many killed, and over ten thousand Ray Fish Knights were either crushed on the spot or pulled into the sea.

Leds knew his cause was lost; a mighty army of a hundred thousand had set out, only to be reduced to a few thousand in a short span of time.

What plane was this, exactly?

Leds, with venomous eyes, stared at Amberser, memorizing his appearance, then gritted his teeth and ordered, "Retreat, the entire army retreats!"

He could no longer care about the life and death of those Red Dragons; Leds had to preserve the last vestiges of his forces.

The surviving Githyanki didn’t hesitate to flee. They too were terrified by the frightful meteor shower; had there ever been such a terrifying spell?

Amberser did not stop them from running away, for Leds had not fled, but instead was flying towards Amberser.

His casting range wasn’t as far as Amberser’s; he could only try to get closer. Leds understood that he was finished, so he resolved to cover for the other Gith with his life.

Leds had never imagined that he, a Legendary Mage, would need to close the distance to his opponent intentionally; it felt so illogical, just as everything he had faced before was so absurd, like a trap laid out for him to fall into.

Amberser curiously looked at the Gith Yankee, who aside from his white hair, looked no different from the other Githyanki, with a celestial nose and full of spots, as ugly as a toad.

But Leds’s face was filled with a zealot’s madness for death, and as soon as he entered into his own casting range, he unleashed all his Magic Power without hesitation.

Dark clouds enveloped, shrouding Amberser within.

Lightning flashed, thunder roared, fierce winds howled, and the scent of corrosion filled the air; this was the Ninth Circle Spell—Revenge Storm!

The Revenge Storm displayed various attacks, starting with acid rain, then thunder, followed by hail—it represented the extreme weather conditions found in nature.

But this Revenge Storm was no ordinary Ninth Circle Spell. The moment the dark cloud coalesced, a giant engulfed in thunderbolts appeared in midair, his eyes filled with white lightning, but Amberser could still feel the imposing gaze of the giant.

He was the embodiment of thunder, an exemplar of destruction, a furious deity—Lord of the Storm, Talos.

Amberser was stunned; it was preposterous. How could a Githyanki summon the visage of Talos? Are they sick in the head, the Githyanki aren’t even chosen by Talos.

Githyanki seem to have a unified faith, which particular deity they worshipped Amberser was not sure of, but it definitely wasn’t Talos.

Then by what means could he summon the Shadow of Talos?

No one would answer that question, because an endless barrage of thunder had already engulfed Amberser, turning into a spherical lightning bolt with a hundred-meter diameter.

All the extreme weather converged into a simple, direct thunderstorm of destruction, annihilating everything in its path, leaving not even air behind.

Everything inside the spherical lightning disappeared, and even space itself was left with countless fractures.

When the lightning dissipated, the space that reassembled in the air made a thunderous noise, but there was nothing inside.

It seemed that Amberser had been struck by lightning to the point where not even his ashes remained.

Leds looked on at everything, his face now completely drained of color.

This was his Legendary Grace power—every day he could choose one spell and endow it with a special effect.

For example, an invisible web spell that could shield perception, that was the special effect he had granted his spell, transcribed and given to other mages of the Githyanki to use, specifically to deal with Gareth.

But such a spell would lose its effect after a day and needed to be re-endowed.

And the more powerful the spell, the greater the price of the endowment. Leds had transformed the Ninth Circle Spell, Revenge Storm, with the power of Legendary Grace into a God-given Spell, powerful enough to summon the Shadow of Talos.

This strike had completely drained him, even his soul had suffered severe damage.

He was certainly going to die, but at least he had destroyed the body of the Lich, hopefully giving his kin enough time to successfully escape.

In this way, he could also slightly atone for his repeated failures.

Just as Leds closed his eyes, Amberser flew up from below, seizing his body with Mage Hand, and then dozens of sealing spells slapped onto him.

Leds opened his eyes wide in shock and spat blood, "How is this possible? The power of Talos can destroy everything!"

Amberser chuckled, offering no explanation.

Leds’ Revenge Storm was a God-given Spell, but wasn’t Amberser’s Laila just as much an illusion?

From the very start, Amberser had never appeared on the frontline of battle, but was rather controlling an illusion from a great distance.

This Illusion Technique could even deceive deities, let alone a forcefully summoned projection that had strength but no consciousness.

It was also thanks to his own caution that he wasn’t completely wrecked by that move, or his Mithril Mech would have been utterly destroyed.

Without receiving an answer from Amberser, Leds ultimately died with his eyes wide open, a tragic death amidst his spilling blood.

His death was not without meaning, at least after Amberser obtained his body and fragmented soul, he gave up the pursuit.

These Githyanki didn’t have much to offer, and who would bother with a few thousand deserters.

Amberser returned to the small island with Leds’ body and soul.

The island itself was shrouded in fog, unremarkable from the outside, but inside one would find tens of thousands of specters serving as the magical battery for a gigantic Magic Array.

Amberser could not produce the effects of the Hundredfold Meteor Burst with the Golden Throne alone, but with this Magic Array and the magic power of tens of thousands of specters, not to mention that miraculous ring.

After a long study in his personal space, Amberser finally discovered the purpose of the ring. The ring’s conversion of Dark Magic Power was very useful; it could serve as a fulcrum, helping Amberser control a vast amount of magic power, far beyond his own capacity.

It was this comprehensive approach that enabled Amberser to cast that terrible Hundredfold Meteor Burst, not possible without every single component.

Returning with Leds’ body, Amberser left the body for the Withered Rose and then took Leds’ soul to begin disassembling it.

This man was a Githyanki commander and must have known Goddess Tiamat’s plan like the back of his hand; his memory was certain to contain relevant intelligence.

Not caring how precious the soul was, Amberser began the thorough process of unraveling it.

Several hours later, Amberser finally obtained the desired intelligence from the dismantled soul.

Amberser mused, "It really could have helped the Dragon Race return, by transferring souls. That’s quite a clever move, but a pity, it was ruined by me before it could be enacted. Evil Dragon Goddess, this is what you get for provoking me."

Goddess Tiamat’s plan was actually very simple, to use the Devil’s ritual to swap the souls of the Overseas Dragon Clan with the Astral Red Dragons.

Arthur Laine’s contract only bound the Dragon Race that had sinned initially; the Star Realm dragons were not affected to begin with, and as long as there was the slightest link, they could circumvent the contract’s restriction. In Arthur Laine’s view, if every species tinged with Dragon blood were to be affected, then there would be too many such creatures on the continent.

For instance, having the body of a Star Realm dragon and the soul of a native Dragon Race would also allow one to sidestep the contract’s effects and directly enter the continent.

This strategy nearly allowed the grand scheme to unfurl, had it not been thwarted by Amberser’s hands.