Chapter 513: A Hymn From Beyond

Atros found the notion of godhood, something most mortals could only dream of, a treacherous poison.

The dragon's eyes went wide as he roared, "Impossible! I refuse! I will never give up! I shall unify the world and surpass Arthur Lyon—I will win back everything I've lost, every last bit of it!"

He had been working on a thousand-year plan to unify the world. How could he possibly walk away from it now?

Once he was forced into ascension, he'd never have another chance to rule the material world. Gods were forbidden from interfering in mortal affairs, after all.

Ambrose only shook his head with a sigh. "Do you think the dragon gods granted you this power so you could go down fighting to the bitter end? A god cherishes its children. They gave you this last surge of strength hoping you'd use it to make a clean escape. If you'd wanted to run from the very start, who could possibly have stopped you? But in the end, you couldn't let go of your ambition to conquer the world, and you squandered the very last chance the gods offered you.

"Now I'm sending you home, back into the arms of your own kind, and you still think your ambition matters more. You've shamed your entire race. You've disappointed every god who ever cared for you."

"I..."

Atros trembled from head to tail. Could what this lich was saying possibly be true?

At that moment, Arthur Lyon, his body shattered nearly beyond function, struggled to fly to Ambrose's side and asked quietly, "Was what you just said actually true? Do the dragon gods really feel that way?"

Ambrose answered without the slightest hint of shame. "How would I know what the gods actually think? I made that up. All that mattered was making the dragon feel sick about himself. Look at him: he actually bought it. He's practically in tears."

Arthur Lyon: "..."

For one brief moment, the Holy King found himself genuinely relieved this lich had never been his enemy. Had this man stood at the Dragon Tyrant's side over a thousand years ago, Arthur might well have lost that fight entirely.

"You shameless, contemptible lich!"

Atros was so enraged by Ambrose's words that he nearly lost his grip on the pillar of rainbow light, which surged upward another considerable stretch. He was nearly at his limit. The instant it slipped fully out of control, all three of them would be struck by that light at once.

But Ambrose wasn't done yet. He pressed on. "I've met plenty of ambitious men like you. Read a handful of cheap adventure novels, think you've witnessed the rise and fall of dynasties, and suddenly you're dreaming of becoming some supreme sovereign—unifying the world, ending all conflict, all that nonsense. But what you actually want, deep down, is power, status, and beautiful women. You just want your name carved into the history books, to be sung about for generations. And the moment anyone dares oppose you, you make up some grand justification to crush them. That's a tyrant's logic, plain and simple.

"Arthur Lyon rose up in rebellion once, but not to become emperor—it was only so other people could live a little better. Do you know why he helped every other race build their own kingdoms, why he shared his own authority so freely? Because he never fought for power in the first place. He fought so the people of this world could live good lives.

"You keep insisting on comparing yourself to Arthur at every turn, but honestly, you fall miserably short of him. Strip away the fact that you happened to be born a powerful time dragon, and you're nothing more than an overgrown infant, lost in his own daydreams, day after day."

Arthur Lyon listened to all this with no small measure of discomfort. Even framed as praise, somehow, when it came out of this lich's mouth, it sounded like sarcasm.

Having said his piece, Ambrose finally paused to catch his breath and turned to Arthur Lyon. "You're about done recovering, right? I'm running out of things to say!"

Arthur Lyon nodded. A flurry of scattered parts came together in an instant, reassembling into a fully intact arm, as he raised his longsword high overhead.

Holy light, like the first ray of dawn, settled over his blade.

Ambrose's Golden Throne had long since been drained dry before this battle even began, so he'd spent the entire fight essentially bluffing. With his current spellcasting ability, he couldn't have broken through dragon scales even if he'd tried.

Every second he'd bought had been for Arthur Lyon's blade.

A dragon that had merely lost its head wouldn't die outright, but the window while it recovered and regenerated would be long enough for Karsas's Ascension to finish taking hold.

But the very instant Arthur Lyon's sword came down—

Atros released the temporal barrier entirely, and the rainbow light shot skyward in a single burst.

Arthur Lyon never managed to complete the swing. The moment Atros gave up resisting, he unleashed the very last of his power over time.

The colossal dragon accelerated to his absolute limit, tearing free of the pillar's radius entirely, and dragging Ambrose along with him in the process.

Only Arthur Lyon remained within the rainbow-colored blaze.

Vast power gathered within it, coalescing into something like a swirling vortex, pouring directly into his shattered mechanical frame.

Under the crushing force of that surge of energy, the remaining pieces of the mech disintegrated entirely. Even the ancient Dragon Tyrant's artifact dissolved rapidly, washed away by the flood of radiant light.

Ascending to godhood was no simple matter. First, every trace of mortal impurity had to be scoured away, transmuting the mortal into the divine.

Forced to accept this surge of energy with nothing but his soul, Arthur Lyon couldn't help but cry out in agony.

Karsas himself had suffered exactly the same fate, all those years ago. Even with the Goddess of Magic's blessing to become a god, he hadn't been able to bear the weight of the entire Weft, and had been blown apart in the very instant of his ascension.

Atros hovered at a distance, Ambrose's body still gripped in his claw.

Even when the lich had attempted to self-destruct and escape, Atros had simply reversed time and dragged him straight back. Even his last resurrection from Poet hadn't allowed, Ambrose to slip free of Atros's grasp.

Atros sneered at Ambrose. "So this was your perfect plan? Right now, thanks to your foolishness, Arthur Lyon is about to be torn apart by that very same power, and you've become my prisoner. I could kill you right here, this instant, without the slightest effort, and then take my time dealing with everyone else at my leisure.

"Even with my identity exposed, my power has returned to me. Time is on my side. Victory will be mine, in the end. Right now, you're the one who has lost."

Atros wanted badly to see the lich break down, wracked with regret and agony. Instead, Ambrose remained just as calm as ever, as though everything unfolding were still going exactly according to plan.

Furious, Atros crushed most of the bones in Ambrose's body, then pointed at his agonized, howling enemy from yore. "Look at him! This is your so-called plan. You've already lost, lich! Every scheme you've ever hatched is nothing next to my absolute power. Arthur Lyon won't be able to withstand this. Your ascension spell will kill him. And even if he somehow survives it, he'll leave the mortal realm forever, and there will be no one left in this world capable of stopping me.

"All he'll ever be able to do is watch, trapped inside the Lord of Dawn's own divine realm, as I destroy everything he ever held dear. And I promise you, I'll destroy everything you hold dear too!"

Ambrose watched the dragon lose his composure entirely, paying no mind whatsoever to the damage done to his own body. "The dragon gods made a wager with the Lord of Dawn, and the dragons lost. And yet they could still grant you a blessing, restoring you to full strength. So tell me, what about the Lord of Dawn? Hasn't he been freed of his own restrictions as well? Have you noticed the Lord of Dawn's own holy light descending yet?"

Atros's head snapped upward in shock—and there, streaming down from the sky above, were countless brilliant rays of holy light.

This was the power of Divine Intervention.

A priest deeply favored by their god could, through certain rituals, summon their deity's own will to descend directly into the mortal world, sometimes granting an overwhelming blessing, sometimes striking down an enemy directly, depending entirely on the circumstances.

This, too, was an act Aion permitted.

Just as the dragon gods could grant a time dragon the power to return to the peak of his strength, the Lord of Dawn could now act as well, ensuring that Arthur Lyon's ascension proceeded cleanly and smoothly.

Holy light merged with the rainbow radiance, neutralizing the terrifying turbulence of energy churning within it.

Arthur Lyon's screams of agony finally ceased. His body, once translucent and fading, grew steadily clearer and more solid, until at last he stood fully restored in human form once more.

But in the very instant his human shape solidified, divine light gathered before him, lifting him bodily into the sky above.

"He made it," Ambrose said, calm as ever.

His divinity having crystallized, Arthur Lyon ascended on the spot. The Lord of Dawn's own divine realm opened its gates wide, welcoming this newly risen god into its embrace.

Atros watched his old rival ascend. Though he insisted he didn't care, inside, he was boiling with fury. He was so frustrated he had reached the point of wanting to raze everything to the ground.

He hadn't wanted Arthur Lyon to ascend at all. He'd wanted to keep this old enemy imprisoned, forced to watch Atros claim his own victory. Atros needed to stand above Arthur Lyon in every possible way. Only then would he ever feel satisfied.

But Arthur Lyon had become a god.

Arthur Lyon had risen above him once again.

No matter how thoroughly he devastated this world, in the end, the man would still be looking down on him from somewhere far above.

And the one responsible for all of it was this very lich.

Atros stared down at Ambrose, held fast in his grip. "You know, I once considered handing you full control of my treasury once I'd unified the world, if only you would serve me. You could have managed the entire world's wealth yourself. What a pity that you kept working against me, time and time again."

Ambrose laughed. "The gold I earn now, I earn for myself. Working as your treasury minister would just mean I'm laboring away to make you rich instead. Why would I do that?"

Atros froze for a moment, then tightened his grip, crushing Ambrose's body completely, leaving nothing behind but a skull with a soul still sealed inside.

"Do you really think I can't deal with you? Do you think, just because you're an undead, that you get to ignore pain, ignore every form of suffering?" Atros twisted his face into a cruel smile and said to Ambrose, "I owe Cymric my thanks. He's the one who pointed me toward your greatest weakness. Lich, I hear these past few centuries of your existence haven't exactly been pleasant, that becoming undead was the only thing that let you finally forget all that pain, even if only for a while. Well, let me help you remember it all over again!"

Ambrose's skull opened its jaw, shaking violently, as though gripped by sheer panic.

But what echoed out from his soul instead was peal after peal of laughter.

"Idiot. I already know I'm going to die. You've forgotten something else entirely. Even if Arthur's become a god now, do you really think he'll let you off the hook?!"

Atros snorted coldly. "Gods are forbidden from interfering in mortal affairs. That's Aion's law..."

But before the dragon could even finish speaking, a beam of holy light descended from the sky and struck him directly.

Ambrose smiled. "That's right. Aion's law says a god will face severe punishment for laying a hand on a mortal directly. But tell me, do you honestly think the Holy King Arthur Lyon is the sort of man who'd let you go, just to spare himself from a little punishment?"

The holy light coalesced into a blade and pierced straight through Atros's body—not merely tearing into the dragon's physical flesh, but grinding away at his very soul.

Not even the power of time could save him from this. This was the power of a god, a might that stood far above anything mortal.

Before a god, all else were insects.

Arthur Lyon didn't hesitate for even a moment. The instant he'd claimed his divine power, he brought down the full weight of that strength in a single strike against Atros, holding absolutely nothing back, leaving himself no way out.

Just as he challenged the Dragon Tyrant alone all those years ago, so too did he strike at the Dragon Tyrant now, resolved to die if that was what it took.

From within that endless expanse of holy light came a single sigh, followed by a crash of thunder.

The nascent god, so close to entering the Lord of Dawn's divine realm, was struck by Aion's own thunderbolt and scattered into countless streaks of drifting light across the sky.

But the final strike this god had delivered struck true. The power of that holy light would remain locked onto the Dragon Tyrant's soul until it had been ground away entirely.

Amid wave after wave of agonized screaming, Atros felt his own soul dissolving at tremendous speed. This was a strike a god had sacrificed himself to deliver, and not even the power of time could reverse it. All he could do now was slow time down and experience the full, unbearable weight of his impending death.

No, wait. In that final moment, there was still one more thing he could do.

Within that slowed stretch of time, Atros poured what remained of his power onto Ambrose's body.

"With my own soul and flesh, I curse you! May every measure of suffering I've endured be returned to you a thousandfold!"

This was the dragonblood curse, the same vile spell the Dragon Tyrant had once cast upon Arthur Lyon, all those centuries ago, ultimately scattering the hero's soul to nothing and even allowing the dragon to possess his body.

But this time, Atros wasn't trying to steal Ambrose's body for himself. Instead, he used the last of his power to reverse time upon the lich, transforming Ambrose from a skeleton back into a frail, hunched old man.

As time reversed and the lich was restored to human flesh, every painful memory Ambrose had ever accumulated across his entire existence surged back all at once, flooding through him in a single instant. Everything he'd long since managed to forget rose up before his eyes, impossible to hold back.

The master he'd buried with his own hands, the torture he'd once endured. Friends who'd died with their eyes still open, full of unfinished grief. The druid girl whose hand he'd once held. Betrayal after betrayal, turning friend into enemy again and again. Starting over, and over, and over again—only to watch everything he'd ever built crumble away in the end, every single time.

Masters. Friends. Lovers. Wealth. Status. Power. No matter how many times he started again, no matter how tall the castle he built, in the end, Fate would always tear it down. Ambrose, who had ascended into a lich that toyed with mortals and the divine alike, now regressed into the man kneeling before Atros.

A diviner, in the end, could never escape his fate.

Tears streamed from his clouded, aging eyes, scattered instantly by the rushing wind, as wave after wave of remembered agony corroded what remained of his aged soul.

In that same instant, his every phylactery scattered across the world simultaneously lost its magical glow.

He was no longer a lich. This time, there would be no coming back.

As his broken, hunched body crashed heavily to the ground, Ambrose's body and soul shattered all at once.

Because his skeletal frame had already been crushed to pieces earlier, his body was bare. He fell, and died, naked on the ground, exactly as he himself had once foreseen.

If he'd had a choice in the matter, he wouldn't have wanted anyone to witness such an undignified death on his part.

But he had no choices left.

By the time the legends who'd been scattered across time finally found their way back to the arena, all that remained was the colossal dragon's corpse, and two broken bodies lying nearby.

One belonged to the orc king, Roga, whose soul had already returned to the orc god's divine realm.

The other body, no one could recognize. All anyone could confirm was that this old man was well and truly dead, since not even Speak with Dead could bring back any response from him.

His soul was gone entirely, nowhere to be found.

Still, with the gods themselves as witnesses, every kingdom present eventually heard of the harrowing tale, told to them by their own deities.

The Holy King, Arthur Lyon; the Dragon Tyrant, Atros; and a lich whose true name no one had ever known. All three had died on this same battlefield, in the end.

Once Ambrose's identity was finally confirmed beyond doubt, it was Black Rose who claimed his remains.

At the funeral held not long after, hymns praising the fallen heroes rang out across the arena—though no hymn sung by mortal voices could ever hope to reach their ears.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.