If Amber Xiu had still been human, seeing his own head get cut off would have made him start writing his will. But he was undead, and losing his head didn't necessarily mean death. Besides, he was a lich. As long as his phylactery remained intact, a severed head was no big deal.
The problem was, who was the beautiful woman in the vision, with skin as white as paper?
Was she the culprit who had cut off his head, or a... friend he might meet in the future?
If he could, Amber Xiu would have loved to ask Harvey to make another prediction, and he wouldn't have minded spending a few more gold coins. But the Goddess of Destiny was like a high-class tease who flirted but never put out. She might occasionally lift her skirt to give you a peek, but if you tried to see more, she'd instantly turn chaste and slap you hard across the face.
No prophet could withstand a slap from fate.
So everyone with the gift of prophecy followed the same rule: never divine the same matter twice within the same period of time. And don't even think about gaming the system by changing the angle or focusing on a different detail. Those were all challenges to fate, and its slap would come right on schedule.
That was the rule of seeing the future: if it showed you something, you had to believe it.
No one could break that rule except the Supreme God.
So, whether Amber Xiu liked it or not, he had to keep looking through the remaining six fragments.
After two extremes—getting rich and losing his head—the third fragment was finally one he could understand.
It showed the Iron Slag Ashes Bar on Southern Cross Street in Alchemy City. But in this future, it had become a ruin, as if some colossal creature had crushed it. The place had been reduced to rubble, with a deep crater left behind.
"Tsk, tsk. Is this what happens when you marry into the Bone Dragon Family and cheat? But what does that have to do with the secret in the sewers?"
Amber Xiu was puzzled. Headless Bro's marital problems shouldn't have anything to do with the secret in the sewers—unless the bar hadn't been smashed by that Bone Dragon heiress.
Another baffling fragment. Amber Xiu could only skip ahead.
The fourth prophetic fragment was still simple and straightforward. Amber Xiu appeared in the sewers of Alchemy City, seemingly performing some kind of Magic Ritual, but the image was fragmented, making it impossible to see what he was doing. The scene was clear enough, but all it showed was that Amber Xiu had returned to the sewers. He didn't need a prophecy for that. He could've guessed.
"What a waste. This fragment cost me tens of thousands of gold coins."
Suppressing his heartache, Amber Xiu looked at the next prophetic fragment.
Compared with the others, the fifth fragment was very unclear, but Amber Xiu recognized the person in it.
It was the Druid girl who had hired him to rescue someone. What was her name again...? Amber Xiu thought for a moment, then finally remembered: Naomi Woz.
Her surname was unusual. It seemed to be connected to some ancient Mage family, but she was a Druid, so it might just be a coincidence.
Naomi's future didn't look good. She lay somewhere unknown, covered in blood, while her killer stood beside her with a longsword. What made the scene unsettling was the killer's appearance. From behind, the figure seemed to be a Druid.
A Druid feud? Or had the girl broken some rule and been honorably murdered by her own people?
And the place where she was murdered looked strangely familiar.
"Wait, did this girl die in Alchemy City's Hall of Wisdom?"
Alchemy City was governed by the Alchemist Council, and the Hall of Wisdom was where those lofty councilors held their meetings. How had this Druid girl ended up in a place like that? Even if it was a Druid feud, they wouldn't commit murder somewhere like this.
"Druids lured into the sewers, a murder in the Hall of Wisdom... This is getting more and more complicated. What are these lunatics plotting?"
The final two prophetic fragments seemed to be connected, and what they showed left Amber Xiu stunned.
Alchemy City was flying.
It was a city on the verge of collapse, lifted by some unknown force and sent soaring into the sky.
More than half the city had been reduced to ruins, and debris kept falling to the ground—shattered buildings and living people alike.
If there was one difference between the two fragments, it was that the last one showed people from the Lyne Empire. One appeared to be a Paladin, standing at the highest point of Alchemy City. People from the Alchemist Council stood beside him, but their faces were too blurred to make out who they were.
These two fragments undoubtedly contained the most information.
There was nothing impossible about a city flying into the sky. Long ago, when the Goddess of Magic still allowed mortals to use many high-level spells, Mages had loved building floating cities of their own. But then an accident occurred, and those cities came crashing down, causing a disaster worse than a meteor shower.
Amber Xiu didn't know the exact cause. It had happened before he crossed over. He only knew that after this historical disaster, mortals' ability to cast spells was greatly restricted. The Goddess of Magic stopped generously sharing her power with mortals, and floating cities vanished from the world.
Were those lunatics trying to turn Alchemy City into a floating city?
"Something's wrong. It doesn't make sense. What's the point of this city flying when it's already in such bad shape?"
Amber Xiu didn't think that theory made sense. Those mad Alchemists shouldn't care much about flying cities. It was a path others had already taken, not some great innovation. They wouldn't waste their time on something unoriginal that couldn't showcase the greatness of their Alchemy.
Besides, this was a city focused on academics and Alchemical production. What was the point of making it fly, aside from increasing transportation costs?
A city this small couldn't provide a stable supply of Alchemical materials on its own. It still depended on the surrounding minor lords' taxes to support its Alchemists. Those invisible ties bound Alchemy City fast. Making it fly would be pointless nonsense.
"Unless Alchemy City has to fly... Wait, could it be because of the secret in the sewers? Is it so dangerous that they need to lift the whole city into the sky to escape it?"
Amber Xiu thought he might have stumbled upon the truth.
Whatever those lunatics were making in the sewers, they'd ultimately botch the job and have to raise the entire city into the sky to avoid being completely destroyed.
"So that means they'll mess it up in the end."
Amber Xiu felt he'd grasped the key to the whole situation.
Amber Xiu told Harvey to clean up the laboratory, then went to the library and dug out several dusty old books, poring through them carefully.
By the time news arrived from Alchemy City that a member of the Alchemist Council would personally visit Amber Xiu's castle to discuss how to deal with the Paladin Allen Watson, Amber Xiu remembered that Headless Bro had been in a bad mood and had gone to "spar" with Allen. Several hours had passed by now. Was Allen still alive? Had he been maimed?
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