Chapter 426: The Choice of Marshal

"Is the moonlight on your end so exceptional that even a lich who avoids the light can't sleep?" Alderien said irritably. "Are you aware that it is the middle of the night here?"

He had only just woken up, but that did nothing to diminish his natural elegance. Elves simply seemed to be born that way. Bluntly put, an elf picking their nose looked more refined and beautiful than most other races on their best days.

Alderien, half-reclined against his pillows in rumpled silk sleepwear—Ambrose could have sold a memory crystal recording of that image for a fortune in certain aristocratic circles.

But neither Ambrose nor Aige was remotely affected.

"I waited until night specifically to wake you up," Ambrose said without ceremony. "I wanted to disrupt your sleep, just so we're clear."

Anger flickered across Alderien's face, only to be quickly suppressed. "Very well," he said coolly. "You've succeeded. I'll be turning this thing off and going back to sleep now."

"If it were that simple," Ambrose said, "I wouldn't be calling. Let me ask you something: the battle plan I requested from the elves—what exactly was that you sent me? Is that the best the Court of the Silver Moon has to offer?"

Alderien smiled pleasantly. "We can't help it. Elves aren't suited for underwater combat. We had to work from imagination, and there are bound to be gaps. I'd recommend not following our plan too closely. Adapt to circumstances as they develop."

"That's a shame," Ambrose said. "Because this means the elves stand to lose out considerably."

Alderien's eyes narrowed slightly. "Continuing this conversation is probably the equivalent of drinking poison, but just what do you mean?"

Ambrose clacked his jaw in satisfaction. "Exactly what it sounds like. If you don't help, the elves are going to miss an exceptional opportunity."

"What opportunity?"

"A chance to command a massive campaign, completely free of cost and risk. Alderien, you may not be aware of this, but I've reached out to military experts from other kingdoms as well, Lyon included. I was planning to evaluate all your proposals and select the finest commanders to lead the campaign in person.

"We're talking about a battle involving hundreds of thousands of combatants across multiple fronts. How often does an opportunity like that land in the elves' lap? And you don't have to send a single soldier. There are no losses. All of it will be done remotely through magic mirrors. What do you gain? Not just experience in command—you'd have a front-row view of how ocean races actually fight. And you'd see exactly how Lyon conducts its military operations in the field..."

That last point clearly landed. Alderien looked genuinely startled. "You'd let us take command?"

"It comes down to who proves the most capable. This is a full-scale kingdom campaign. The battlefield spans hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of seafloor, and the terrain down there is stranger than anything on the surface. No single person could run this. I need a large cadre of skilled commanders. I'll provide the army, and you might provide the direction.

"Would you really pass up a chance to cost me money?"

Alderien considered it carefully. Without the magic mirrors, this would be a total lie: there was no way the elves would send people into the deep ocean to command an army for a lich.

But with the mirrors, they genuinely could sit at home and direct a war without a shred of personal risk.

And if Lyon was also involved, the elves would want to take that very seriously indeed.

By now, it was clear to the Court of the Silver Moon that Lyon's escalating extremism was the true long-term threat. If Lyon didn't collapse from within, a war between the Silver Moon Court and the Lyon Empire was eventually inevitable. Given elven lifespans, even if that war were a century away, the elves presently alive would surely be involved.

Understanding your enemy before the fighting started was simply sound preparation.

If this campaign could yield genuine intelligence on Lyon's military capabilities, it would be purely beneficial for the elves at zero cost.

But Alderien had misgivings. The lich was being too generous.

Being greedy in front of this particular lich meant you were surely about to fall into a trap. He decided to trust his instincts. "The Court of the Silver Moon has closed its borders," he said. "We can't assist with warfare. That's a political matter."

Ambrose blinked, surprised Alderien could hold out against the temptation.

He had fully expected Alderien, ambitious as he was, to take the bait immediately. Instead, the elf had simply... declined.

Ambrose sighed. "Well, I suppose I have no choice. Did you know that this sea will be a critical stretch of the drow trade route? You can decline—no harm done. I'll just have Catherine lead the drow through it anyway. With a queen of the elves clearing the path, I expect my shipping lane will stay safe enough. Even a few million sea-folk in the way probably won't cause any serious trouble."

Alderien nearly leapt out of bed. "How dare you use Catherine to threaten me?!"

Ambrose spread his hands in studied innocence. "What threat? The elven gods made Catherine the guardian of the drow. That had nothing to do with me. I simply provided a pathway for the drow to become lawful. Alderien, I'll be direct with you: that sea is mine. If you won't help, Catherine will. The choice is yours."

Alderien's fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. He wanted nothing more than to put his fist through the mirror and into that smug skull, but he held himself in check.

He couldn't fall out with the lich just yet. The elven gods did indeed have a standing arrangement with Ambrose, and until that business was concluded, he had a grip on the elves' most sensitive vulnerability. For Catherine's safety, Alderien would comply regardless of how much he hated it.

He calmed himself quickly, as a king must, thinking always of the broader picture. His answer came without delay. "Fine. Give me time. I'll send you a revised plan."

Ambrose brightened. "Now we're getting somewhere. I genuinely mean it, you know. Where else are the elves going to find a chance to command a battle of hundreds of thousands? You've gone so long without real war that you even ended up with a mana addiction epidemic. This is your opportunity to address that. And let me not forget to mention that, this time, you'll actually get to order me into the front lines. Don't waste it."

That last line made Alderien grind his teeth hard. "Rest assured, I won't disappoint you."

He cut the connection before he said something he'd regret.

"That's remarkable," Aige said, with genuine admiration. "You now have three kingdoms all competing to give you their best military thinking, and top-tier commanders who'll lead the troops remotely as well."

"It's not quite enough yet," Ambrose said. "I'm going to set up a group chat and get all of them in one conversation so they can argue face to face. The Unholy Kingdom, Lyon, the Court of the Silver Moon—plus us and the merfolk. Everyone will be in the same room.

"The tiflings despise Lyon. They'll attack every detail of whatever Lyon proposes. And the elves can never afford to look anything less than brilliant in front of outsiders. So those three will inevitably clash—and when they do, they'll bring every trap and flaw that none of us would have spotted on our own to the fore. Add the merfolk as the technical advisors for ocean conditions, and by the time the argument burns itself out, we'll have a plan as close to perfect as possible."

Aige tried to picture a multi-way interplanar argument spanning thousands of kilometers and found herself quietly looking forward to it. Truly a spectacle for the ages.

"So what are we still missing?" she asked.

"At least two things, I'd guess. First, standard forces. We may have tricked a collection of brilliant commanders into working for us, but who are they going to command? The entirety of the Silent Sea Pirate Company barely constitutes a proper unit. It's nowhere near enough to sustain a campaign of this scale."

"Troops... that shouldn't be too difficult."

"Exactly," Ambrose agreed. "After all, we're undead."

The undead's greatest strategic asset was sheer numbers. Generating large quantities of low-tier undead quickly was simply a matter of having sufficient raw material.

If he ran dry, he could always borrow more from Black Rose.

That was a secondary concern, though. Undead from the Umbral Depths might not be suited to naval combat, and it was best for Ambrose to field the requisite forces himself.

"Beyond basic troops, we need a commander of sufficient renown. Lyon, the tiflings, the elves—all three are proud to the point of insufferability, and they will never cooperate smoothly. Warfare changes by the moment. You can't follow a plan exactly, and the moment things deviate, disagreements will follow.

"I have no interest in being stymied by arguments while a battle is in progress. We need a marshal, someone who can unify everyone at a critical moment and ensure the plan actually gets executed."

Aige's expression immediately fell. "I can't imagine who that would be."

The tiflings and Lyon had warred. The elves' arrogance was legendary. There was no one alive who could press all three of them into submission at the same time.

Unless...

She looked at Ambrose. "It seems like... you might be the only person who can do that."

He had just demonstrated exactly that—three different kingdoms, three sets of powerful figures, all of them compelled to bow their heads. Not through brute force, but because Ambrose had found and had access to their vulnerabilities.

When the war came, the same would hold. He would command their compliance without needing to understand the orders himself.

But Ambrose shook his head. "Getting them to listen isn't the problem. The problem is that, when they argue, I won't be able to tell which position is correct. Even if I can force them to comply, I can't give orders I have no basis for."

That was his fundamental limitation. He had never served in an army. At his peak as an adventurer, he had commanded a group of ten for an hour or two at a time. He had no military training, had never acquired it, and was genuinely unqualified to hold the role of marshal.

"Then who?" Aige asked.

Ambrose thought for a long moment. "It doesn't have to be a military expert. They just have to know more than me—someone with actual training in the basics, someone whom all three parties would genuinely respect..."

A face rose unbidden in his mind.

Was there anyone more suited for this than Catherine?