Chapter 412: In Search of the Ocean Pantheon

Ambrose shut the magic mirror and let out a long breath. He hadn't expected to be unmasked like that. But he didn't realize that Black Rose had the wrong idea—he hadn't played the role of Monge Greywater from the very beginning. He had killed the real Monge Greywater and taken his place later. That the man had been an orphan, resembling some of Ambrose's earlier aliases, was a coincidence, nothing more.

Not that it mattered much. It wasn't like he'd been swindling her.

Aige smiled. "What's wrong? Did you upset Rose? You two even have a child together. How is your relationship this unstable?"

Ambrose had nothing to say to that.

The silence stretched long enough to become thoroughly uncomfortable. Aige grimaced. She hadn't meant to kill the atmosphere again. She really was terrible at conversation.

Fortunately, Ambrose didn't remain awkward for long. He changed topics: "We don't need to worry about the Ragetide Kingdom anymore. The contract has been signed. Once the handover is arranged between Coin Island and the Dragon Islands, construction on the alchemical factory can begin. It should be operational within half a year at most."

He had the collapse of Alkhemia to thank for that. The city's destruction had left an abundance of cheap alchemical machinery, and with the right connections, he could acquire the needed equipment quickly.

Modern alchemical production was highly automated, and a short period of training was all that would be needed before operations could begin. Once Isabel came to oversee things for a while, the factory would produce steady output.

Everything seemed to be going well. Ambrose felt a smile creeping onto his face, and promptly suppressed it.

Never count your gold before it's in your pocket.

He steadied himself and turned to Aige. "Senior, where should we go now? Do we continue looking for the mermaid goddess, or do we head for the Sea of Volcanoes?"

The Unholy Kingdom had built an enormous number of Hellgates during its time, and the constant infernal influence had slowly turned every dormant volcano within its borders active.

When the kingdom's landmass vanished, the magma beneath had surged upward, meeting the seawater that poured in to fill the void. The resulting zone had come to be known among the ocean's inhabitants as the Sea of Volcanoes.

With so much magma flooding the area, the seafloor had likewise changed dramatically. For months, the environment had been too hostile for any underwater faction to contest.

But time had done its work. The volcanic vents had cooled or sealed, water temperatures had gradually dropped, and the area had reached the point where marine life could reasonably settle in it.

It was why Ambrose and Aige had found themselves embroiled in an underwater war. Every manner of deep-sea creature was jostling to claim a share of the new territory.

It was an entire kingdom's worth of ocean, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers on the surface alone, and the seafloor added a fully three-dimensional living space on top of that. The food sources it could sustain and the populations it could support was an extraordinary prize.

Every faction in the ocean had taken one look at this opportunity and been unable to look away.

Ambrose continued, "If divine powers have entered the contest for this region, going directly into the fighting and demonstrating our strength might be the easiest way to attract a god's attention."

Their goal was to secure the faith of the people of the ocean. Most intelligent sea creatures already had their own gods, and Ambrose preferred negotiation over confrontation. The aim was simply to borrow enough faith to help Aige ascend to godhood, not to wage war on the ocean pantheon.

The problem was that Aige had rarely dealt with fishfolk during her life. If they wanted to open dialogue with the ocean gods now, they would need to find the fishfolk's priests.

Given the ongoing war, though, the Sea of Volcanoes seemed like a more suitable option for their eventual goal.

Aige had been turning the same problem over in her mind. She had never needed to ask anyone for help before, and wasn't entirely sure how to approach the situation.

"Heading into the Sea of Volcanoes now will definitely stir up trouble," she said. "I'm worried about what that will do to our plans."

What if they arrived and were taken for opportunists seeking territory?

They could certainly handle a fight, but fighting wasn't the point. That would be no different from simply seizing faith by force, which was exactly what they wanted to avoid.

Aige's reasons for wanting godhood had nothing to do with personal liberation. She wanted to petition Aion to resurrect her shipwright father. If she made too many enemies among the gods, she'd spend her entire divine existence embroiled in celestial warfare, with no opportunity to make her request at all.

Ambrose thought it through. "That's a real possibility, but there might be a solution. From what you've told me, the roca fishfolk and merfolk under the goddess Ezdolo are numerous but not particularly good fighters, and they're a long way from this region. If we secure a piece of territory and hand it over to the goddess as a gift, it might serve to earn her goodwill."

Any attempt to gain a foothold in ocean faith was going to offend someone. Rivalries ran deep among the ocean pantheon, and helping one deity meant antagonizing another. It might be better, then, to make a clean declaration of allegiance from the start.

Ezdolo occupied a position of absolute neutrality and held no particular hostility toward the undead, while commanding an enormous following. She was the most natural partner for Aige.

Whether Ezdolo would accept an unsolicited gift of conquered territory, however, was genuinely uncertain.

It was a gamble. The investment might not yield the expected return.

So Ambrose didn't make the decision for Aige. He laid out his thinking and left the choice to her. When the fighting started, it would be the Silent Sea pirates doing the heavy work—Ambrose was only there as support. The call was hers.

Perhaps because Aige was used to the perpetual dark of the ocean depths, she apparently had no sense of time. She thought about it for a full two hours.

Just as Ambrose's patience was running thin, Aige suddenly looked up toward the bow.

"Is there something wrong, Senior?" Ambrose asked.

"There's a large engagement between deep-sea creatures ahead. The battle is drifting toward us. We'll be in the thick of things within a few dozen meters."

Underwater fighting was three-dimensional: attacks came from every direction, and the combatants were in constant motion. A battle that started in one place could drift dozens of kilometers before it was over.

And this one was about to embroil the Silent Sea pirates.

"Which factions?" Ambrose asked.

Aige reached out with her senses. "The ixiray and the shagin. Neither will be easy to reason with."

The ixiray served the demon prince Demogorgon and were archetypally savage and vicious creatures. The shagin weren't much better; their deity, Sekkora, was notorious for her cruelty. The two gods had nursed a grudge against each other for as long as anyone could remember, and their followers had been killing each other ever since.

From what Aige could sense, a small shagin hunting party seemed to have walked into an ixiray ambush. The shagin were taking heavy losses, and the ixiray were pressing the pursuit relentlessly.

The shagin, fighting and retreating at the same time, had dragged the battle all the way here.

"Their combined numbers are just over a thousand," Aige said. "Do we avoid them, get involved, or just kill everyone?"

Sekkora was no candidate for partnership, so Ambrose had never considered approaching the shagin. Demogorgon was even less worth contemplating—there was something to be said for working with devils, but working with demons was the province of fools.

Neither side was worth anything to them, so Aige had no objection to wiping them out. Ixiray weren't too dangerous in manageable numbers; their demonic toxin was annoying, but at this concentration, Aige might perhaps feel drunk for a while. That was it.

Before Ambrose could finish his assessment, Aige spoke again. "Strange. Another faction just entered the battle."

"Who?"

Aige drew a finger through the air. The water in front of them warped and distorted, producing a cluster of bubbles that slowly assembled into the rough shape of a humanoid figure. "Is this the fool you mentioned?" she said. "The one called Aiolos."

The foam outline wasn't sharp, but Ambrose recognized him immediately.

He was still wearing the clothes Ambrose had given him, now battered almost beyond recognition.

With a fish spear in hand, he was weaving between the two sides, the water bending around him as though it were part of his own body, shredding shagin and ixiray alike into pieces before drawing the slurry into his mouth.

"He's gotten stronger!" Ambrose exclaimed, genuinely startled. "This quickly?"

Divine blessings really were something else. Within just a few days, Aiolos's abilities had grown enough to give Ambrose pause. The way he was manipulating ocean currents was approaching the power of a ninth-tier spell.

Then a smile spread across Ambrose's face. He turned to Aige. "We won't help either side. We'll help Aiolos."

Aige raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you trying to stop him from marrying the Ragetide princess? You want to help him?"

"Aiolos was definitely sent by some god to cause trouble," Ambrose said. "He might even be connected to a member of the ocean pantheon. Finding priests who can open dialogue with the ocean gods isn't easy, but Aiolos is right there in front of us. We might as well find out who's behind him first. Then we can decide whether we're dealing with an ally or an obstacle."

Aige nodded. "All right. It's your call."

None of the undead in the Silent Sea Pirate Company were particularly adept at thinking. They were magnificent in a fight and spectacularly fast at counting gold. Aige herself had no interest in strategy, and deferring to Ambrose was simply easier.

This time, Aige had committed the Silent Sea Pirate Company's full strength, including several ghost ships that had only recently been converted.

The fleet had sailed all seven seas without meeting its match. That day was no different.

The ghost ships drove straight through the shagin and ixiray lines. The wraiths aboard exploded outward like a burst of fish from a net, spinning and wheeling through the water in wild formation, their vast reserves of dark magic erupting into death spells that tore through enemies in bloody fragments.

Then wave after wave of undead fishfolk leapt from the ships and plunged into the melee, fish spears raised.

Sharpspear Phil was the most ruthless of the lot, showing not the slightest hesitation despite having been a shagin in life. The undead held no loyalty to their former kin. His spear became a vortex, pulling shagin toward him and grinding them apart, then launching outward to skewer several more in a line.

Ambrose had no chance to intervene. The Silent Sea Pirate Company's reputation had been earned over the course of innumerable fights. The fighting was over with before he could even raise a hand in support.

He turned his full attention to Aiolos, already trying to work out how to get the man to reveal who was behind him. "Whoever it is, let's hope they're reasonable..."

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