The fierce battle outside the royal palace lasted an entire day and night. By the time it ended, vast sections of ground had been pulverized. The once-grand plaza had collapsed into an enormous crater. Seawater from the inner bay began to spill inward, flooding the ruins.

What had begun as an evenly matched fight had finally reached its conclusion.

Aige's ghost ship sailed across the shallow waters that filled the crater, while Arthur Lyon stood immovable, bound to the seal he had sworn to protect.

Then came the ghost ship's earth-shattering strike. The impact sent seawater surging skyward, rising higher than even the palace walls themselves.

Ambrose had not merely stood by to watch. He had successfully convinced the Ragetide Kingdom to lend a hand. In the final clash, the Ragetide Legion unleashed a devastating storm of thunderous attacks.

Both sides joined forces and finally managed to shatter Arthur Lyon's heroic spirit.

Only after witnessing his power firsthand did Ambrose understand that the ancient epics had not been an exaggeration. A guardian who had stood watch for seventeen centuries, whether or not he had indeed founded the Lyon Empire, was worthy of every praise and paean he had received.

With the holy light exhausted, the seal collapsed entirely. What had once been a hairline crack expanded into a field of fractured spatial shards. When Aige thrust her hand inside, the remaining structure disintegrated completely.

She withdrew a glowing hourglass.

The temporal artifact of the Dragon Tyrant was finally in her hands.

Under countless gazes, Aige stood atop the mast of her ghost ship, looking toward the people of the Ragetide Kingdom.

In truth, however, she was looking at Ambrose, disguised as Monge Greywater.

The intense fight had left no means for communication. Still, she trusted that Ambrose would not betray her, and so she had waited for the Ragetide Legion's strike that would signal its cooperation.

Now that the relic was secured, however, she wondered how this lich intended to continue the performance.

On the Ragetide Kingdom's side, all eyes had likewise shifted to Ambrose.

He did not disappoint his audience. With the solemn bearing of a man marching to martyrdom, he walked toward Aige.

To the people of Ragetide, he seemed as though he were staking his life on the line.

His opponent was the undead who had just destroyed nearly half the capital! It was well known that undead had no humanity, and yet General Monge Greywater dared to approach her alone.

Many silently admitted that, even with an army at their backs, they could not walk so calmly toward such a monster.

His stride was steady, his expression unshaken. Some had once thought his reputation as a famed general somewhat inflated—but today, his courage alone justified all prior praise.

Ariel was among those watching. She had once looked down on the relatively weak Monge Greywater. But in these past two days, her view had changed completely. A man did not need overwhelming strength. The wisdom and courage to turn the tide of fate were far more precious than brute force.

He was exactly what the Ragetide Kingdom lacked.

It was also why neither father nor daughter had mentioned the duel again. The conflict between them had been resolved. A performative duel without killing intent would only insult the gods.

Ambrose felt every gaze upon him, but he did not care in the slightest.

That was the advantage of being a lich: he had no shame nor fragile pride to speak of. Public scrutiny had no effect on him.

Reaching the edge of the newly formed lake, he cast Mist Step and teleported directly onto the ghost ship. That alone made countless hearts seize with anxiety. Approaching the ship had been dangerous enough. Boarding the ship meant placing his life entirely in the undead's hands. Even if the kingdom wished to rescue him, it would likely be too late.

Aige looked at him and asked softly, "How do you want me to play this? Should I swat you away with a single slap? And how exactly did you fool those storm fanatics into supporting me?"

"Absolutely not," Ambrose said quickly. "This is a peace negotiation. The Ragetide Kingdom wants a truce. If you agree to stop raiding their ships, they're willing to offer compensation."

Aige tilted her head. "You're seriously negotiating on their behalf? The relic is ours. We can leave. With this many people, they can't stop me."

"Captain Aige, that's precisely what I wanted to discuss. The Silent Sea Pirate Company doesn't truly have a deep blood feud with the Ragetide Kingdom, does it? You've been undefeated over the years."

The Ragetide Kingdom had lost countless lives—and even two kings!—trying to exterminate the pirates. Yet the Silent Sea Pirate Company still thrived. At worst, they would dive into the sea and wait out any invaders. The tactic was all but unbeatable.

"No hatred," Aige replied casually. "My true form is a pirate ship. Raiding is simply a habit of mine."

A thousand years of suffering amounted to little more than personal preference. Such was the alien perspective of the undead. Over long centuries, everything diminished in significance.

"There's room for negotiation, then," Ambrose said. "Captain, you once mentioned in the chat group that the President's sudden appearance signals impending upheaval, possibly even a repeat of the divine war from a thousand years ago. When that happens, the people of the world—not just on the mainland, but even on the seas—will be drawn in. You were injured helping me claim this artifact, and I owe you for your troubles.

"The Ragetide Kingdom can become an ally. In the coming conflict among the gods, their power could be useful. You needn't give up anything. Just nod. Leave the rest to me."

He had been avoiding direct confrontation with the Ragetide Kingdom to spare Aige unnecessary losses. He had not expected Arthur Lyon to be so absurdly powerful as to have sealed his own soul into the artifact and be in fighting shape even seventeen centuries later.

Aige seemed indifferent to the whole affair. "Whether we make peace is up to you. I don't much care."

"Oh?" Ambrose asked. "Do you have another request? I'll do everything I can to help."

He meant that sincerely. A partnership could only last if both sides benefited.

"Do you know why I agreed to help you find this relic?" Aige asked.

Ambrose shook his head. It couldn't merely be for Black Rose's sake; she and Aige were hardly close.

"The President told me that you could solve a question that has troubled me for ages: why my father cannot be resurrected."

"The President? He knows me? No, I'm sorry. That was a silly question."

The President had left the Necromantic Codex beside his coffin when he first transformed into a lich. Of course he knew him.

"Even the President couldn't help you?" Ambrose clarified.

The President of the Elegiac Society was an unfathomable figure. Ambrose suspected even his own master, the God of Alchemy. It seemed certain that the President was a deity, but that was all Ambrose had gleaned.

Aige's search for the answer to this question had lasted longer than the history of the Lyon Empire.

"I don't know," she said. "At first, I thought it was because I was too weak. As a ghost ship, all I had were my instincts: to drift the seas and devour stray sailors. I didn't even know how to use the Necromantic Codex. I couldn't speak. That's why I once named myself Mute.

"When I asked the President for help, he would always say that the answer would come in time. I thought that I simply wasn't strong enough yet, so I worked hard to grow stronger. But recently, he told me that you were the key."

Ambrose sighed. "I'm afraid I don't have a solution for you, either."

Aige lifted the hourglass. "No. This is the clue, and you helped me find it."

"You don't expect me to go back in time and save your creator?" Ambrose said. "That's impossible."

Even if Ambrose could return to the past, he wouldn't be able to revive Aige's creator no matter how hard he tried. Harvey had foreseen his own death; Ambrose only had until the moment of Harvey's death to assist him. Once the death came to pass, there would be nothing he could do.

Fate was unidirectional. One could swim upstream, but the river itself did not change course. The past could not be rewritten. Only events not yet fixed could be influenced.

Only fools would try to rewrite history.

Aige shook her head. "No, that's not what I'm talking about. Probe this artifact. The moment I interacted with it, I sensed an awareness, as if it had a soul of its own."

Ambrose accepted the hourglass and immediately understood what she meant.

It was struggling to escape his grasp, as if it were alive.

He was more sensitive to souls than Aige. As his fingers traced its surface, faint light shimmered, forming a familiar face: Arthur Lyon.

"A heroic spirit fused with a relic?" Ambrose muttered. "Just like the ghost ship..."

It was possible for lifeless objects to develop souls of their own, in principle. Ghost ships were the premier example, though even they required highly specific conditions to form.

As Ambrose carefully examined the heroic spirit that had fused with the artifact, realization dawned.

"This isn't Arthur Lyon's true soul at all," Ambrose said excitedly. "He made a powerful wish upon the artifact and used his own soul as nourishment, watering that seed until it grew into a heroic spirit.

"Captain Aige, your creator must have done the same. In the battle that led to his demise, his strongest wish must have been for you to gain true consciousness. That wish became a seed. Fed by his soul, it grew into you..."

Aige fell silent for a long moment before completing Ambrose's train of thought. "So Father used his soul as fertilizer for the seed of his wish, and I was born from it. His soul exists within mine. To resurrect him would mean carving a piece from my own soul. That's why the Wish spell failed—it cannot directly harm the caster. But if I were willing to risk soul damage... I could still revive him."

Excitement flickered in her voice.

Ambrose shook his head. "No. That's a misunderstanding. Your father's soul does not discretely exist within yours, either as a fragment or otherwise.

"Consider this: when a human eats food, it becomes energy and flesh, incorporated into every drop of blood, every fiber of muscle. Can you restore the food by carving out chunks of flesh? Of course not. Once digested, it no longer exists as it was.

"Wish cannot kill you and reverse spiritual matter back into its original form. When you used a Wish spell to restore your father's body, you weren't actually reconstituting his decomposed flesh, but rather creating a similar corpse out of nothing.

"My advice is this: wish for a recreation of the father from your memories instead. It won't be anything more than a false substitute, but it's the only solution I can come up with."