This Lich Requests More Remuneration
Chapter 707 - 603: Impossible Task_2

Chapter 707: Chapter 603: Impossible Task_2

"These little guys..."

Amberser didn’t know how to describe it—it was something akin to loyalty, but far greater than loyalty. Amberser had only just met Bartle today, and he couldn’t even distinguish which Mercury Avatar was which.

Yet he could feel that these little ones truly regarded him as their creator, willing to give everything for him.

No need for benefits, no reasons, not even a need for determination, for they had been prepared to dedicate everything to the creator since their birth.

When Amberser first created the Mercury Avatars, he had them worship him too, hoping to generate some gold with the Power of Faith. But he later found the efficiency too low—thousands of Mercury Avatars worshipping day and night produced less gold than he could earn from gambling at a tavern.

The initial Mercury Avatars had low intelligence, similar to naive children, so Amberser just felt like a parent duping their kid into taking medicine, exhausting effort for barely any results.

But Bartle and his followers were different.

Bartle’s performance could be regarded as both brave and strategic, already a qualified leader for a race.

Yet even with such intelligence, Bartle remained devout.

Since when had the Mercury Avatars developed the mentality of zealous believers?

Amberser had never posed as a deity nor had he encountered such pure and extreme worship. This peculiar feeling was indeterminate in quality, filled only with doubts. He couldn’t imagine anything that could transcend his own free will, so he truly worshipped no deities.

Could one maintain their personal will while also holding a devout faith... Did such a contradictory thing truly exist?

Perhaps the most devout faith treats the will of the deity as their own ideal. For their ideal, these Mercury Avatars could fight disregarding all risks, not even feeling it as a sacrifice, but rather as the utmost happiness, the supreme honor.

Finally, after the fifth demon was killed by Bartle and his followers, Amberser commanded, "Retreat, let’s go back to the Mercury River and rest a bit; this much is already enough."

A group of Mercury Avatars, stained in various colors, hastily jumped into the Mercury River and began frantically consuming Mercury to recover.

Amberser cast several magic spells to detoxify them, which finally dispelled the Illusion Realm.

The remaining hundreds of Flying Pig Monkeys saw their comrades’ bodies and initially howled madly, but upon failing to find the killers, they devoured their companions’ corpses and then flapped their wings back to the shattered space, blending into the ranks of demons.

Amberser confirmed the area was safe, then started examining the souls he had obtained.

The souls of these Flying Pig Monkeys were extremely strong, still roaring willfully trying to break Amberser’s containment. But Amberser could be considered the greatest soul expert below the deities—if these could escape, he might as well bury himself alive.

The first demon’s soul was massaged by Amberser, incessantly squeezed amid screams, releasing copious amounts of crimson points of light, all useless memories associated with slaughter and battle that occupied the majority of a demon’s life.

Efficiently dismissing these pointless memories, Amberser began to unravel and seek what he needed.

Primarily recent memories, examining where they came from and where they were headed, as well as the condition of those distant floating broken spaces.

From such a grand soul, only little useful information remained, allowing Amberser to barely discern their movements over the past few days. But he didn’t inspect closely, casually taking out the second soul and harshly filtering it in the same manner.

Thus, the souls of five demons were entirely unraveled by Amberser into threads, intricately intertwined under his fingertips, weaving out one scene after another.

Countless demons exited and entered that broken space, from various races and tribes, their views constantly shuttling through those Space Gates, ultimately gathering in a dim, dark place.

It was a barren land with a black Chaos sun hanging in the sky, numerous spatial rifts emerging from this black sun onto the ground, forming pathways. Every moment, thousands of spatial passages opened, and thousands closed.

These demons crawled out from spatial passages and then entered other ones. Some slower ones were directly bisected by the passages, and most demons unable to discern their directions simply kept wandering in the spatial maze.

But these demons were like the countless marbles in a pinball machine, lost without a path, falling into dead ends... it didn’t matter, for the number of demons was sufficient that many would find their way by luck, passing through these perilous spatial passages to other planes.

"Is this... the Nether River?"

Amberser was somewhat surprised; this so-called Nether River was not a river at all.

Although the imagery did not match, the power emanating from the black sun was not far off from the data he had received. Chaotic and lightless, a boundless darkness that connected all heavenly worlds, within the Nether River, there were no rules of time and space, only that black sun which controlled everything.

To verify his guess, Amberser turned these souls’ memories into Memory Crystals and sent them to Parurier.

Soon, he received a reply from Parurier, "Yes, this is what we have been looking for. However, this black sun is not the Nether River but a tributary closest to Hell, the conceptual manifestation of a Nether River tributary. In the eyes of these demons, the Nether River is not a river, but a sun, guiding them to various worlds, hence it appears as a black sun in their memories."

Amberser questioned, "So if I were to see this Nether River myself, might it appear differently?"

"Yes, according to your character, it might turn into a dazzlingly beautiful woman."

"You misunderstand me too deeply."

"Heh heh."

Amberser had no desire to argue with Parurier, the madwoman, and quickly got back on topic, "I can calculate the location of the Nether River tributary based on their memories. But, how are we to block this thing?"

No matter whether it was real or not, the black sun possessed chaotic and limitless power; ripping open space was as easy for the Nether River as breathing, and in a mere breath, countless spatial rifts would open, allowing these demons to travel freely.

Amberser could not discern which rifts led to Hell, nor did he have the ability to block every spatial rift that ceaselessly opened and closed every second.

Ending the Blood Battle without addressing the Nether River tributary was impossible.

However, Parurier was a deity; surely she had more solutions than him, a mortal?

Yet, Parurier answered, "I don’t know either. Originally, I thought the connection between the Nether River tributary and Hell was singular; even if it was a huge spatial passage spanning an entire plane, resolving it should suffice. But the number just now was too exaggerated, and these spatial passages are constantly changing; aside from Aeo, it’s basically impossible for anyone to completely block all these passages."

"My suggestion is, you could try to become an extremely powerful deity, then just slash the Nether River tributary with one stroke, and that would absolutely solve everything."

Amberser asked, "How powerful?"

"Powerful enough to kill Corellon, Lord of the Dawn, Ogma, plus the Magic Goddess and Grim Reaper... That should be about right."

"You might as well have said to become Aeo directly."

"You’re silly, you’re a mortal and can casually mention that name, but I’m a deity; how dare I easily bring up that being in conversation?"

Amberser began to lose interest in chatting with this madwoman.

So the Nether River was found, but there was no way to completely block it?

Thinking about it, it also wasn’t strange; if it were so simple to end the Blood Battle, it wouldn’t be Amberser’s turn to take action.

Completely blocking it was impossible, but what if Hell could lock all the teleportation locations in the Blood River? Perhaps that perspective could open up a way.

For instance, dismantling the entire Blood River region and moving it out of Hell?