"Kneel?"
Liliana coldly repeated the word, and upon that exquisite face brimming with wild beauty, she tugged out a cruel smile that froze the very air around her.
"Truly a ridiculous and ignorant relic of an old-era term.
Ever since I, with my own hands, overturned that decaying deep palace of Leighton, washed the throne clean with the blood of those old nobles, and went on to don this supreme crown—upon this whole continent, apart from Sophia...
there has never again been a single person who could make me, Liliana, bend my knee, and no rule whatsoever that could make me lower my head!!"
The longsword left its sheath, giving off a crisp, drawn-out metallic ring.
Liliana's right arm, fair as jade, swept a clean arc through the air, the sword-tip pointing slantwise at that trembling, lavish carriage ahead, her voice cold and resolute, carrying not the slightest superfluous warmth.
"Knights of Leighton, take my command.
Leave not a single one alive!!"
"Roar——!!"
At the Queen of Leighton's single command, the several dozen elite knights guarding behind her erupted into a furious roar like a clap of thunder.
Without even a single second's hesitation, the tall horned-horses beneath them, under the lash of the whip, in an instant raised a suffocating black torrent, charging in a mad, flat push straight at the dozen-some Royal Guards of the King of Mafen!
"Damn it! Engage them! Hurry and engage them for This Queen!!"
Inside the carriage compartment, the King of Mafen, watching that black, dense mass of black-armored cavalry exuding a terrifying murderous aura push toward him like an unstoppable black wall, was so frightened his goatee bristled straight up on the spot, and he hysterically clawed at the window-sill, shrieking.
However, the turning of the great tide would not stagnate in the slightest because of his terror.
The Mafen Duchy had long been far removed from the flames of war; those dozen-some Royal Guards of theirs—lavishly dressed, their armor polished bright and gleaming—were at most, on ordinary days, mere decorative ornaments showing off honor at palace banquets.
Faced with this band of top-tier deathsworn who had just cut their way out of Leighton's deep-palace civil strife, out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, their defensive line, the very instant it was touched, met with utter, wholesale disintegration.
Clang! Clatter!! Squelch!!——
Ear-piercing sounds of metal collision exploded out in rows.
Leighton's elite knights, leveling their two-meter-long refined-iron heavy lances, with the aid of the enormous inertia of the charging horned-horses, did not even use any superfluous tactics, but just so brutishly and crudely thrust them in to the hilt through the gaps in the Mafen Royal Guards' shields!
The dull sounds of blades sinking into flesh rang out without cease, and great sprays of fresh blood splashed out dazzling red glints in the hot, dry air.
With merely a single clash, the dozen-some Mafen Royal Guards in the front row, before they could even swing the longswords in their hands, were carried aloft into the air by the enormous impact force.
They smashed heavily onto the gravel road behind them, their armor bursting apart all over, becoming on the spot useless discarded refuse.
Liliana simply reined in her horse and stood quietly at the very center of the three-way crossroads.
With cold eyes she watched the brutal savaging unfolding along the long street.
She herself knew very well that, when it came to personal swordsmanship, she was indeed no match for those two at Sophia's side, the ones named Delilah and Bardess who rolled about in military ranks all day.
But as a supreme monarch who held the assets of an entire nation in her grasp, she had no need at all to dismount in person and grapple with this pack of trash.
She needed only to stand here, and use her absolute power and numerical superiority to clear away, all of it, every impurity that dared attempt to obstruct her from going to Yurilland to secretly meet Sophia.
"Hurry!! Protect His Majesty and retreat!!"
"N-no... this is bad! The carriage axle's broken!!"
The situation on the battlefield, within the span of less than ten breaths, had sunk into a one-sided, wholesale slaughter.
The few surviving Mafen ministers and Royal Guards were jammed dead into a dead corner of the long street; the screams and the spraying mist of blood interwove together, dyeing that originally lavish brass carriage a mottled mess.
"Bang!!"
A war-boot smeared all over with fresh blood and yellow dirt viciously stamped through the carriage's wooden door.
Two expressionless Leighton knights, as though dragging a dead dog, crudely tore apart the silk lining inside, seized that gaunt King of Mafen from the deepest recess of the compartment, dragged him out by force, and flung him hard before Liliana's horse-hooves.
"Cough, cough... bah!!"
The King of Mafen, utterly disgraced, lay sprawled in the sodden mud-water, the elaborate ceremonial robes on his body already torn to tatters, that single wisp of long goatee he treasured most all smeared with foul-reeking bloodstains.
He stared in terror at the corpses of his subordinates all around, dead with eyes unclosed, knowing that the entire grand expedition plan of his this morning had thoroughly become a dead end.
Yet in his murky eyes, catalyzed by extreme terror, there erupted a near-neurotic venom and hatred.
He stared dead at the lofty Liliana, the veins on his neck bulging, and howled madly in his withered, cracked-gong voice:
"You're mad... you pack of damned lunatics!!
Does a woman like you have any idea who This Queen is?!
Have you any idea that the one you just killed is the regent King of a legitimate tributary state on the rolls of the Imperial Capital's commercial guild!!"
The King of Mafen, while coughing madly, pointed dead with that gaunt finger toward the south, his voice so shrill from extreme rancor it was like a fingernail scraping across an iron helm.
"This new Order of you Mason people, and that sixteen-year-old yellow-haired girl Sophia—do you think that by relying on a few scraps of paper and the sorcery in a workshop, you can run rampant here in the Northern border?!
Let This Queen tell you!
Defy the Imperial Capital, and you will all regret it!!
The moment the heavy-armored legions of the supreme southern core set out, a hundred thousand knights will grind your Leighton, together with that silver-haired witch's Yurilland Temporary Palace, all to ashes!!
Your very bones will be crushed to fertilize the Empire's wheat fields!
This Queen will wait beneath the earth to watch your bankruptcy and ruin! Hahahaha!!"
Faced with the King of Mafen's near-hysterical, venomous threat brimming with old-era delusion.
Liliana, mounted upon her horse, merely tilted her head slightly.
She extended one long leg clad in ink-black light armor, swinging it on the stirrup with a touch of disdain, that head of black curls dark as the deep night scattering loose in the hot, dry gale, setting off her fair, pretty face all the more cold and bewitching.
"Regret?"
Liliana looked down loftily upon this gaunt man sprawled in the mud-water, who still pinned his hopes on the great crocodile of the south to redress his grievance, and the trace of sourness in her lovely eyes transformed in this instant into the most absolute contempt for the weak.
"You old piece of trash, whose very main-warehouse assets are nearly being drained dry by Sachi City—at a juncture like this, you actually still dare use the Imperial Capital's far-off, long-term expedition to threaten me?
And you still go on about a hundred thousand knights....
Heh, if that ancient core at your back were really as swift and decisive as you claim, would that old woman Tina have been driven by Sophia into on-the-spot bankruptcy and suicide back in her Royal City?"
Liliana rolled her eyes and, somewhat listlessly, slid the longsword in her hand back into the refined-iron clasp on her back.
She did not care in the least about any punitive mechanism of the Imperial Capital; so long as she could reach Yurilland before that pack of Northern border vixens filled up Sophia's side, then even if a hundred thousand southern troops came flat-pushing over tomorrow, she would relish it gladly.
"You're about to die yourself, yet you still have the leisure to fret over that old core in the south?"
The corner of Liliana's mouth hooked into a soul-stirring, cruel smile, and her pair of lovely dark eyes fixed on the King of Mafen's face without a trace of warmth, as she murmured softly:
"Rather than worrying over whether the Imperial Capital's knights will come a few months from now, you had best...
first give some good, hard thought to this head of your own—in just what kind of converted posture it ought to be packed up by me and sent off as a meeting-gift to Her Majesty in a little while."
She turned her head slightly to the side and, toward the inner-guard Commander at her flank, gave an exceedingly crisp, cold wave of her hand.
"Send this great King of Mafen, Your Majesty, on his way.
And while you're at it, gather and tally up clean every last bit of the Mafen national seal and the main-warehouse ledgers inside this carriage for me.
Didn't he just say they were a legitimate tributary state?
Then the Imperial Capital silverware and furs hoarded in that Royal House storehouse must surely be exceedingly bountiful.
These assets shall all, in full, count as the second meeting-gift that I, Liliana, present to Her Majesty Sophia—the second one to be merged into the new Order."
"N-no... no, don't!! You'll regret it!! Aaagh!!"
"Squelch——!!"
Before the King of Mafen's scream, brimming with unwillingness and madness, could even fully carry across the watershed of the wasteland, a gleaming Leighton heavy lance, with utmost crispness, ran clean through his chest.
Amid the spraying blossom of blood, this most stubborn old-era monarch of the northwest had that long goatee of his twitch violently twice, and then he slumped utterly limp into the ghastly-pale dust of the long street.
The noonday gale howled past as before, and that heavy reek of blood in the air was soon wholly covered over by the hot, dry yellow dirt.
"Report!! Reporting to Your Majesty the Queen!
The King of Mafen's ancestral national seal has been fully tallied!
The ledgers inside the compartment also record three thousand piculs of top-grade refined rice and ten thousand high-quality furs they had hidden away at the border!!"
The inner-guard Commander, his whole face flushed red, came running over and respectfully held aloft a golden great seal wrapped in silk brocade.
"Very good."
Liliana took that great seal in one motion, hefting it idly in her hand, and then upon her deadpan-like face there once again surfaced a complex expression that mingled extreme sourness with a morbid adoration.
Sophia....
This time, let me see with what those Black Stone City vixens who crowd around you all day long, and those little foxes branded with the magic seal, will still contend head-on at your side... against my Leighton sovereign authority!!
Liliana lashed her whip viciously across the warhorse's rump, raising a soul-stirring thunder of hooves.
"All forces, take my command!!
Change horses but not riders—before this day's sunset, you must cross Sachi City's sentry checkpoint for me, and race at full speed to the Yurilland Temporary Palace!!"
"Roar——!!"
Rolling yellow sand kicked up wantonly behind them as Liliana personally led the elite Leighton column, like a black storm charging recklessly straight ahead, racing at full speed through the central border of the Northern border in the scorching summer wind.
However, when the column had crossed in succession the border lines of two miniature nations that had originally been at odds with each other, the bizarre sight presented before her eyes made this Queen irrepressibly slow the pace of her march.
There was none of the anticipated post-defeat desolation, nor the chaos and despair befitting small nations of meager population.
As far as the eye could see, across the black earth stretching for dozens of li in every direction, mountains and fields were full of farmers and displaced people brandishing iron spades and shouting at the top of their voices.
And what made Liliana even more astonished was that, upon the key junctures of those field-ridges and gravel roads, there actually stood squad after squad of soldiers clad in ink-black chainmail, their faces covered by cold, cruel iron masks.
Though those soldiers held no fire-spewing tubes leveled in their hands, the heavy sense of discipline they carried on their bodies was, without a doubt, all that of Mason's elite.
"Whoa——!!"
Liliana abruptly reined in her warhorse, and the tall horned-horse reared its forehooves high, raising a crisp clatter of iron shoes upon the dried mud.
She knit those pretty brows slightly, gazing at the scene of fervent labor ahead, and a flicker of curiosity flashed through her pair of obsidian-like enchanting eyes.
She turned her head slightly to the side and, toward the inner-guard cavalryman at her flank, issued an order in a low voice:
"Go, find a local farmer and inquire.
These small nations that were originally still wavering—why have they now suddenly all gone down into the fields en masse? What exactly are they stockpiling?"
"As you command, Your Majesty the Queen!"
In but a moment's time, that Leighton messenger who had been dispatched came galloping back on his horse.
His face was full of an undisguisable shock and astonishment as he bowed before Liliana's warhorse and reported:
"Reporting to Your Majesty the Queen, your subordinate has already found out!
These few stretches of land ahead are precisely one of the seventeen nations that, a few mornings ago, presented their national seals to Her Majesty Sophia at the Yurilland Temporary Palace.
Now, the ducal legitimacy of these nations has all been abolished, fully downgraded into cities directly subordinate to Mason.
That Queen Sophia not only spared the lives of those old kings, letting them serve as the first City Lords, but at noon that very same day, through the administrative officer Willow and that pink-haired Inventor Irene, distributed across the whole region a brand-new kind of seed called Improved Wheat!
Those Mason soldiers standing guard on the field-ridges now are precisely supervising every city, which must, within half a month, all go down into the fields en masse to complete the sowing—all so as to welcome, come autumn, a great harvest belonging to the Black Rose new Order!!"
"Improved Wheat.... downgraded into cities?"
Liliana, seated upon her horse, had her slender, willowy figure tremble slightly within the wrapping of her dark light armor.
Somewhat astonished, she cast her gaze toward a field-ridge not far off.
There, an old native farmer of Goran City was kneeling in the mud with a face full of fervor, his two hands trembling as they cradled a handful of cyan wheat seeds that had just been poured out of a coarse hemp sack.
As the supreme ruler of Leighton, Liliana had naturally seen the ordinary wheat in her own main warehouse.
Leighton's traditional ordinary wheat seeds were for the most part shriveled and yellowing, and once sown still depended on the mercy of heaven's mood.
Yet what this band of just-defeated dirt-legs held in their hands was actually, every single one, a top-grade seed giving off a faint cyan shimmer in the sunlight, the grains plump to an unreasonable degree!
She had plainly heard the messenger say that this was merely an inferior improved variety, casually whipped up with potions in the workshop by that pink-haired artisan after the quota at Mason's home base had been used up.
Yet even this so-called inferior product, in the fullness of its grains and the faint fragrance it gave off, already far, far surpassed the top-grade crops painstakingly nourished in all the Royal House rear gardens of the old era!
Watching the fervent scene of those farmers whose labor efficiency had multiplied and surged after receiving the bone broth Mason had prepared, that strange flush mingling extreme sourness with morbid adoration upon Liliana's exquisite face grew, in this instant, all the more dense.
My Sophia.... you truly are a supreme Queen one cannot extricate oneself from.
Those seventeen good-for-nothing kings had only just knelt before your black-lacquered carved throne a few mornings ago, yet at noon that very day, you handed the seeds—capable of thoroughly overturning the entire ecology of the Northern border—into the hands of every single city.
You aren't using Delilah's greatsword and the black muskets to destroy them at all; you are using the very lowest survival lifeline of this land to bind tight the stomachs and the futures of these several hundred thousand people to that noble, coldly elegant black Gothic skirt-hem of yours!
At the thought of those female lieges mentioned in the intelligence... Liliana could all but imagine how those lieges, after obtaining the seeds, would curry favor at Sophia's side, how they would vie for her attention before Sophia.
Liliana felt only that the vinegar jar within her bosom, piled up out of extreme possessiveness, in this instant utterly blazed red, heating to the most frenzied critical point!
Such profound foresight, such vast and bloodless mastery of dominion....
No wonder those damned vixens would rather not be kings and instead queue up every morning in the Temporary Palace to attend at Sophia's side!
No good....
My Leighton sovereign authority must be handed over in full today!
At my little silver-hair's side, there absolutely cannot be left any core space belonging to those Northern border native vixens!!
Liliana fiercely clenched the horse reins in her hand, that head of black curls dark as the deep night roaring and blazing in the gale.
She lowered her head and glanced at the golden great seal in her hand—the one she had just snatched from the mud-water, representing the century-long heritage of the Mafen Duchy—her lovely eyes glittering with a morbid resolve to stake it all:
"So what if I can't become the Queen?
In this new world whose rules Sophia has rewritten, I, Liliana, can always use my own means to gain something!!"
Liliana abruptly whipped her head around, those obsidian-like enchanting eyes fixed dead upon the faces of the several dozen Leighton elites behind her, and in that cold, bewitching voice she sternly bellowed:
"All of you, stride out for me! Don't waste time in these wheat fields!
Bind tight for me the King of Mafen's golden national seal, along with the Imperial Capital silverware and the ten thousand furs tallied from the compartment!
Once we've seen Her Majesty, we too will be able to obtain such fine seeds!!"
Leighton's soldiers were naturally glad—though Leighton had now changed to this new Queen, who was indeed far better than the Old King's exploitation, it still wasn't all that much better.
But if they joined Mason, it seemed everything would become different.
Compared to the fervent soil-turning and sowing out on the open fields beyond, the east side hall of the Yurilland Temporary Palace at this moment presented a wholly different yet equally vigorous bustle.
This spacious palace hall, originally used to store the imperial ceremonial regalia, had had the former master's emblems crisply stripped away a few days ago, and above its great doors had been hung a signboard forged of brand-new refined iron——Irene Workshop Branch.
Within the side hall, beneath the lofty vaulted dome, several dozen thick, broad long wooden tables were arrayed in neat rows.
Sunlight spilled down slantwise through the high windows, lighting up clearly the fine cotton fluff in the air and the faint scent of tanned leather.
Several hundred nimble-handed workers were busy at the long tables; the tearing sound of scissors cutting open heavy canvas and the crisp clinking of wrought-iron rivets striking against one another interwove together, converging into a wondrous symphony belonging to a new era of handicraft industry.
And at the innermost part of the hall, beside a soft couch near a fountain where the terrain was cool, Sophia was sitting quietly.
She had already shed the heavy leather armor and changed into an exceedingly comfortable plain white silk dress, her head of silver hair flowing like moonlight down one side of the chair-back.
That exquisite, flawless deadpan face appeared especially cold and clear in the morning light, her pair of pale-golden pupils without a ripple, her fingertips lightly turning the pages of an ancient herbal chronicle hauled back from the Royal House of Olan's main warehouse.
Though outwardly she looked like a languid deity indifferent to worldly affairs, in the deepest depths of the reborn one's heart, Sophia was silently calculating as she gazed at those mountains of defensive-gear materials piled up not far off.
Although she had taken the Olan Royal City, the attitudes of the Mafen Duchy and several other small nations had all along remained ambiguous and unclear, and the ancient core in the south might at any moment muster a great army to march north.
In this world so lacking in any sense of security, black muskets alone were not enough; defensive fortifications and sturdy armor were likewise indispensable loss-prevention assets.
Irene moving the workshop right under her nose was a bit noisy, true, but being able to stockpile more fine armor before the situation worsened could, after all, let me—this Queen forever facing the crisis of bankruptcy—sleep a little more soundly.
The center of the hall.
Several dozen nimble-handed farmwives and young girls were gathered around the long tables, the needles and threads in their hands flying up and down, their movements exceedingly swift.
In order to be able to come work in this Irene workshop, the commoners of the entire Yurilland city and the family members of the surrendered soldiers had nearly trampled the recruitment notice-board to pieces.
Now, under Mason's rules, becoming Miss Irene's assistant meant not only being able to learn the finest forging and tailoring techniques under all heaven, but also being able to steadily receive, every morning, a standard bread ration and bountiful labor credits!
With these labor credits, not only could the whole family eat their fill, they could even, under the banner of the Black Rose, exchange for precious salt.
This batch of embroiderers who were finally screened out were, every one, people who had sweated in small workshops before, who had a foundation and exceedingly nimble hands.
"Pull the thread taut! Put your full strength into it for me!!"
The twin-tailed Irene at this moment was like a pink lop-eared rabbit, standing in a thoroughly unbecoming manner atop a little wooden stool.
Her freshly washed artisan's vest was hung all over with tiny measuring rulers and little hammers, and her pair of sapphire-like eyes glittered with an exceedingly excited flowing light as she loudly directed the girls beside the tables.
"What we're making now is by no means the kind of soft, flimsy garment the nobles used to wear just for embroidery!
This is the cotton-armor lining that Her Majesty personally laid down the rules for, to be issued to the frontline garrison troops!
In between these layers of thickened canvas, you must use a special technique to sew in three layers of tanned leather soaked in potions, and finally hammer in refined-iron rivets!
If the thread in your hands runs unsteady, or you don't use enough strength, then on the battlefield, the frontline soldier sisters will get hurt because of a small bit of carelessness on your part! Have you all understood?!"
"Understood, Miss Irene!!"
A neat and resounding response came from beside the long tables.
At a long table near the front, a young little embroiderer of perhaps only about ten years of age, with a head of short brown hair, was at this moment biting her lower lip hard, her small hands covered with tiny calluses skillfully pulling a thick, waxed cotton thread.
She was a lowborn displaced person from a previously defeated miniature duchy.
A few days ago, she and her mother were still shivering in cold and hunger, thinking she would be sold off in full as a prisoner of war's property.
Yet she had never imagined that the silver-haired, golden-eyed Queen would not only distribute to them the Improved Wheat seeds capable of being boiled into a thick broth, but even allow her to enter this sacred workshop.
"Swish——!!"
As the last thick thread was crisply snipped off with her scissors, Nina let out a long, long breath.
She wiped a handful of the fine sweat from her forehead and lifted high that one whole piece of heavy, thickened cotton-armor lining she had sewn—dense and impeccably neat—her pair of clear eyes full of an indescribable ecstasy and pride.
"Miss Irene! I've finished weaving this one!
Come quickly and take a look—does it conform to the workshop's rules?!"
Hearing the shout, Irene crisply hopped down from the wooden stool and, with brisk steps, ran over to the girl's side.
She used her fair little hands to tug hard at the seams of the cotton-armor lining, then pinched the thickness of the leather inside with her fingers, and immediately upon that lively round face there bloomed an incomparably brilliant smile.
"Wow! The stitching is exceedingly solid, and not a single fault can be picked out in the needlework either!
Little sister, your craftsmanship is simply too amazing!
Go register your identity at Willow sister's adjutant—this noon you'll not only receive double labor credits, but can also go to the main warehouse and draw an extra box of top-grade cured-meat bone broth!!"
"Thank you, Miss Irene! Thank you for Her Majesty's grace!!"
Hearing that she could draw an extra box of cured-meat broth, the girls all around at once cast over gazes of incomparable envy, and the hands at their work could not help but speed up a few notches more.
And the little girl, cradling that heavy cotton armor, gazing at the faint Black Rose herbal fragrance it gave off, could not help but turn her pair of big eyes toward the outer side of the side hall.
In the bright sunlight, several Mason garrison-troop female warriors clad in ink-black chainmail, black muskets leveled in their hands, stood guard straight and tall on either side of the long corridor.
The young embroiderer pressed the cotton armor dead against her chest, a proud flush rising upon her small cheeks from over-excitement, and murmured softly:
"Wonderful.... the armor I weave, in the future, will surely be worn by those brave soldier brothers and soldier sisters.
So long as the clothes I sew are there, they'll bleed less on the battlefield, and can keep on protecting these peaceful days we have now....
I, too, am someone who can be of use to Her Majesty and the Black Rose Order now!!"
This enormous sense of gain from crafting future defensive assets with her own hands let this girl, once humble as dust, in this instant find the ultimate dignity of living on.
Irene wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead and, somewhat smugly, turned her head in the little girl's direction.
Her pair of sapphire-like eyes were brimming with show-off intent, and with a wave of her little hand she lifted high that cotton-armor lining which had just passed inspection, looking with utmost precision toward Sophia, seated on the soft couch not far off.
As if to say:
"Your Majesty, look quick! My workshop can not only make black muskets—now it can even produce defensive armor row after row! Aren't I amazing?!"
Feeling that scorching yet pure gaze, Sophia atop the high seat slowly closed the herbal chronicle in her hand, and that exquisite, flawless deadpan face lifted slightly.
That pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes, seemingly without the slightest emotional fluctuation, exceedingly steadily met the pink-haired girl's gaze brimming with fervent anticipation.
Their eyes met.
In the air it was as though a wisp of invisible, warm flowing light was quietly circulating.
Sophia's facial muscles gave not a single superfluous twitch; she merely coolly twirled the quill pen between her fingertips, and then, toward Irene, gave an almost imperceptible, exceedingly light nod.
Having received this one nod of approval from Her Majesty the Queen, Irene grew so excited her whole self nearly had the twin tails atop her head standing on end, and with a turn she once again, brimming with energy, charged into the heap of long tables to verify the next batch of leather ledgers.
And Sophia, her gaze returning once more to the pages of her book, in the deepest depths of her heart, felt a little more pleased as well.
As the gaze that had fallen upon Irene was slowly withdrawn, Sophia gently closed the ancient herbal chronicle in her hand.
Now the open fields of the Northern border seemed to have settled into stillness; seventeen cities had been fully downgraded and submitted, and Olan City too had stepped onto the peaceful track of everyone farming the land—but Sophia knew very well that this was nothing more than a brief calm before the coming of the storm.
Those neighboring small nations whose attitudes remained ambiguous to this day, still looking on coldly from the sidelines, had in secret probably already begun to take certain unknown, covert measures—they might even have already sent out a plea for aid to the ancient Empire in the south.
In order to deal with the even more massive conflict that might erupt at any time in the future, she had to plan early.
"Delilah, Bardess."
Sophia slowly rose to her feet, her elaborate, coldly elegant black Gothic gown refracting a cold, noble texture in the sunlight.
She turned her head slightly to the side, her pale-golden pupils without a ripple, her cold, clear voice ringing out within the side hall:
"Come with me to the training square outside.
Those newly merged garrison troops—it's time to go take a look at their quality."
"Respectfully obeying Your Majesty's imperial decree!!"
The red-haired General Delilah and the garrison Commander Bardess, guarding at her side, turned solemn-faced, and at the same time pressed their hands to the weapons at their waists, the friction of armor erupting into an exceedingly crisp metallic clang.
Outside the Temporary Palace, the originally broad and majestic central training square was, at this very moment, filled to the brim by a near-suffocating black torrent of iron.
At Sophia's single command—apart from the necessary garrison troops left to hold the defensive line at Olan City—the Mason main force stationed around Yurilland, the newly recruited Vala recruits, and that batch of fifty thousand Olan surrendered soldiers who had just been branded with the Black Rose mark and still gave off the smell of black earth and sweat, had all assembled here at the fastest speed.
There were too many people.
So many that this enormous stone square was terrifyingly nearly unable to hold them.
The black, dense soldier formations pressed one tight against the next, packed densely from below the high dais all the way to the very end of one's vision; even beneath the tall surrounding ramparts and watchtowers were crammed tight with fully armed soldiers.
Over ten thousand battle flags painted with the Black Rose emblem danced wildly in the wind beneath the blazing sun, raising bursts of rustling that rolled like ocean waves.
In the air, the thick smell of leather, the cold aura of refined-iron armor, and the terrifying killing intent intangibly converged from a host tens of thousands strong interwove together, so heavy one could scarcely breathe.
When that streak of noble, cold-clear silver hair slowly stepped to the very edge of the high dais, the eighty-thousand-strong army, originally still somewhat clamorous, in an instant sank into an absolute dead silence enough to freeze the vast sky.
Eighty thousand pairs of eyes—scorching, awe-filled, even brimming with fanatical faith—within the same one-ten-thousandth of a second, fixed dead upon Sophia's exquisite, cold face.
Standing on Sophia's left, Delilah propped both hands upon that ruby heavy greatsword, that head of hair dazzling as raging flame roaring and blazing in the wind.
She thrust out her tall, slender chest high and looked down upon the boundless ocean of steel below the platform, her dark-red eyes full of irrepressible pride and exultation.
Did you see it.... this is my Her Majesty.
That day, Her Majesty led four thousand soldiers cutting their way out of the Royal City, and to save the life of this unworthy general, did not begrudge plunging deep into peril.
But now?!
In the short span between this single morning and sunset, Her Majesty used merely a stack of the most basic cultivation plans and a few tens of thousands of catties of white powder to make a full one-third of the entire Northern border's territory slide silkily down onto its knees beneath her skirt-hem!
These eighty thousand invincible troops, who could at any moment die for Her Majesty and flat-push the entire wilderness into ruins, are the supreme wealth Her Majesty hewed out by sheer force upon this wasteland with that supreme wisdom no mortal could ever attain!!
And on the other side, Bardess too gripped her wrought-iron lance dead-tight, that heavy ink-black armor on her body giving off a cold, hard gleam beneath the blazing sun, and upon her ever-easygoing face there at this moment also faintly rose a flush of agitation from over-excitement.
At the very front of the high dais.
Sophia clasped one hand behind her back, facing the hot, dry summer wind blowing against her face, her long lashes trembling faintly upon her fair cheeks.
She looked down loftily upon that enormous torrent of troops and horses ahead, row upon row, column upon column, which nearly blocked off her entire field of vision, gazing at those sharp steel lances giving off a glaring, cold glint beneath the blazing sun...
This sixteen-year-old reborn one, in the deepest depths of her heart, had her whole self utterly sink into an unprecedented, violent shock and terror.
Wait... how can there be this many people?!
Earlier, in the study, when she'd looked at the document Willow had compiled, with the number eighty-eight thousand written on it, Sophia still had no concrete concept of it.
Now, seeing it with her own eyes from up here, this black, dense great expanse of heads was simply several times more terrifying than a train station during the Spring Festival travel rush in her previous life!!
Back when Sophia cut her way out of Mason with four thousand people, just tallying up the expense of those few hundred sacks of coarse wheat flour every day already exhausted me to the point that my mind's precision-calculation system nearly crashed.
Now this number has multiplied a full twentyfold...
Upon Sophia's deadpan face it remained still as an ancient well; that pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes glared coldly down below, seemingly scrutinizing her army with a deity-like cold gaze, when in reality, inside, she had already begun to frantically tear at her hair, weeping and wailing.
Eighty thousand mouths!! And that's not even counting the several hundred thousand commoners of all those cities!
This many strapping soldiers—just the Black Bread and refined salt they consume every day could pile up into a small mountain.
However, Sophia, owing to fretting excessively over the next phase's rice-circulation costs, appeared all the more cold, suppressed, and even carried a few traces of bone-deep chill in her profound expression—and this, falling into the eyes of those tens of thousands of Olan prisoners of war and recruits below, within one-ten-thousandth of a second, triggered an even more terrifying spiritual storm.
The several former Olan heavy-armored knights standing in the front row looked up at that silver-haired girl upon the high dais who, before the sky-piercing killing aura of an eighty-thousand-strong army, could not even be bothered to raise an eyebrow; their bodies trembled faintly without cease from extreme awe, and in their hearts they let out a near-frenzied cry.
"Heavens... did you see that?"
That is the supreme core of Mason, that sixteen-year-old silver-haired Great Emperor!
Facing a full eighty thousand—a heavy-armored legion enough to trample any nation to pieces—upon her face there was not even a hair's worth of elation or arrogance!
Within those pale-gold pupils, there clearly glimmered a cold light that regarded the lives of every last one of us as something insignificant, something that could be dispatched and disposed of at any moment!
She isn't looking at an army at all; she is using that epoch-transcending macro vision to overlook the Imperial Capital's grand host that will march south two months from now, and even the old rules of the entire continent!
Before such a supreme Empress—who schemes without the slightest oversight and can turn even the dust of the earth into Divine Punishment—our only way to live is to offer up our loyalty in full, to help her plant the banner of the Black Rose upon every last city of the Empire!
"The Black Rose blooms forever undefeated!!"
Some centurion—from which formation, no one knew—was the first unable to restrain the fervor within his heart, and with reddened eyes erupted into a hysterical roar.
"—We are willing to die for Your Majesty!!"
"—Reshape the Order of the Northern border!!"
"BOOM——!!"
In the next moment, a full eighty thousand iron-blooded soldiers, like fanatical believers who had undergone the cleansing of a supreme divinity, fiercely smashed the steel spears and great shields in their hands against the hard flagstone ground, erupting into a sky-towering furious roar enough to rend apart the cloud layers of the heavens!
The sound shook the land for a hundred li; the spirit surged into the vast sky.
At the center of the high dais, the summer wind blowing past lifted Sophia's head of silver long hair into a crisp, elegant arc in midair.
This sixteen-year-old Girl Queen faintly moved her eyelids, feeling that her originally healthy ears had begun to ring with a buzzing sound, repeating over and over in her heart: someone save me.
Then, Sophia extended her hand.
After the soldiers saw Sophia's movement, they immediately, in perfect unison, halted their shouting.
Daphne at her side, seeing this, immediately employed a magic enhancement, amplifying Sophia's cold, clear voice.
As Saint Daphne's slender hands folded together, a wisp of pure-white sacred flowing light spread lightly through the void, in an instant steadily wrapping around and amplifying the sound within several zhang of Sophia.
Sophia's pair of pale-gold eyes drooped slightly.
Facing the black, dense ocean of steel below—where even the breathing had utterly stilled—she drew a deep breath, struggling to suppress the rumbling that lingered at her ears.
Immediately after, her cold, clear, indifferent voice, without a trace of mortal fluctuation, under the enhancement of magic, like the fragmented snow falling in early winter, rang out clearly above the entire majestic training square.
"Though the situation in the Northern border has been preliminarily settled, the many surrounding cities are still watching from the sidelines, with undercurrents surging.
Our headquarters—the Royal City—is at present empty of defenses; we absolutely must not leave any opening for those greedy schemers harboring ill intent."
Sophia's fingertips brushed exceedingly lightly across the jade-white railing of the high dais, her plain-white silk skirt-hem stirring faintly in the wind:
"To this end, I need to select from among you five thousand garrison troops to set out at once and return to garrison the Royal City.
The defensive fortifications there are complete, and the city's resource dispatch and production systems are the most mature as well. All who go there to garrison shall have their daily labor credits and main-warehouse allocations circulate on equal terms with the core cluster."
Although, once they went back, those five thousand mouths would still be waiting for her to feed them, at least she could feel a bit more at ease.
Yurilland was now so crowded there was scarcely even a place to set one's foot.
Sending five thousand people back to the Royal City would not only greatly relieve the consumption of grain and Black Bread here, but could also, conveniently, make use of the Royal City's existing mature farmland and the old workshops Irene had left behind to settle them in.
However, when this cold, noble proclamation, amplified by magic, came thundering into the ears of the eighty-thousand-strong army, the originally silent ground below the square at once stirred up a low commotion like a rising tide.
All manner of differing stances and complicated thoughts churned wildly within the breasts of the countless soldiers.
The large batch of Olan surrendered soldiers and the recruits from the miniature cities standing at the very front of the formations, after a brief shock, soon lowered their heads and began to converse in low voices.
"Go to the Royal City? It sounds like rather a fine assignment."
A former Olan heavy-armored knight with half his face-guard broken off swallowed a mouthful of saliva and muttered in a low voice to the companion beside him.
"In any case, my hometown long ago became a stretch of ruins in the flames of war back then, and the kin in my family all died off long ago; out on this wasteland I have not the slightest worry.
Since the Royal City is the place where Her Majesty made her start, the Black Bread and meat broth there are surely served in plenty!
So long as I can honestly earn labor credits to feed myself, what's the difference where I stand guard for Her Majesty?"
"That's right, I'd like to sign up too."
A surrendered soldier from a small nation beside him hurriedly nodded, his eyes full of fervor for the new Order:
"I hear the rules over at the Royal City are the most complete; so long as you have enough labor credits, you can even exchange them for a whole brand-new set of refined-iron chainmail.
I heard from the soldier big-brothers who came from Mason that if you perform well they even give you chicks—the kind that can lay eggs.
Since we have no family ties to drag us down, following Her Majesty's dispatch is absolutely the most secure path to survival!"
For these lowest of the low soldiers, who in the old era had nearly been written off as garbage assets, so long as they could eat their fill and receive labor credits, the Royal City was the holy land they yearned for most in their hearts.
However, in the new-army formations recruited only a few days ago from the surrounding seventeen cities, the atmosphere appeared somewhat gloomy.
Many young soldiers gripped the spades and long spears in their hands tightly, their gazes wavering somewhat as they looked toward the distant stretches of black earth where Improved Wheat was being sown.
"If I go to the Royal City..... then that's a full several hundred li of great mountains away."
A young soldier of Goran City lowered his head, his voice carrying a wisp of conflict and reluctance he could not conceal:
"My mother and little sister only just received their Black Rose identity cards the day before yesterday at noon, and are now turning the soil in the scattered plots apportioned to us.
If I now follow the column back to headquarters, between the going and the coming I'm afraid I won't see them for a full year.....
But the treatment over at the Royal City is, of all things, this good—it really does put one in a bind."
"Indeed. Staying here on the Yurilland side, though watching General Delilah's greatsword every day makes my heart leap and flesh tremble a little, at least I'm close to my family.
Once the autumn harvest comes and the wheat grows out of the fields, the whole family will be able to live good days for good."
These soldiers, whose families were still alive and who were full of hope for the future, whispered head to head; though they were filled with longing for the Royal City's wealth, out of attachment to their families their feet simply would not budge.
And within this dense, packed torrent of steel, there was one formation of only some four thousand-odd men that appeared especially conspicuous at this moment.
They were, every one, elites clad in ink-black armor polished exceedingly clean, with eyes fierce as wolves and tigers.
This band of people was precisely the oldest core trump card that had once followed Sophia and Delilah, cutting their way out of the Royal City all along the road on nothing but a bellyful of death-defying will.
Listening to the discussions of those recruits and prisoners of war around them, the faces of this band of Mason veterans grew heavier one than the next, even faintly betraying an indescribable heart-wrenching ache and bitterness.
"Madness.... Her Majesty is plainly using her own safety to selflessly backstop the defense of the Northern border!"
A scar-covered Mason centurion ground his teeth hard, his pair of rough, large hands gripping his long spear so tightly from over-exertion that it creaked.
His somewhat reddened eyes fixed dead upon that streak of plain-white, slender silhouette on the high dais, and he lowered his voice to say to his companions.
"Brothers, have you seen it?!
Why would Her Majesty, at a time like this, transfer her most trusted force back to the Royal City?!
It's because she has seen through those neutral small nations' wish to launch a sneak attack on our old nest!
But if she transfers us back, what's left at Her Majesty's side.... is all this band of foreign-nation surrendered soldiers who only just surrendered a few days ago, whose hearts haven't yet fully taken root beneath the Black Rose banner!
If we leave, the truly 'kin' at Her Majesty's side will be far too few!
Should this band of sticky-hearted newcomers harbor malice, who will block the hidden arrows shot at Her Majesty for her?
No good—as the oldest trump card, we must nail ourselves dead-tight to Yurilland; we absolutely cannot let the slightest vacuum arise in Her Majesty's safety!!"
"That's right!! We're not leaving!
We will stay at the Temporary Palace and, for Her Majesty, suppress this band of newly-organized new assets!!"
Several thousand Mason veterans exchanged glances, the depths of their eyes all filled with a fanatical light mingling extreme loyalty with a vow to defend her unto death.
They even felt that Her Majesty's profound, cold gaze at this moment plainly carried a kind of extreme trust in them and a silent entrustment.
Upon the high dais.
Delilah propped both hands upon her ruby greatsword, that head of raging-flame red hair fluttering wildly in the wind.
Listening to the discussions of the eighty-thousand-strong army below gradually subside and finally transform into a uniform, low hum of battle-will, this red-haired big-sister type turned her head, her pair of dark-red lovely eyes brimming with a near-worshipful fervor, and said in a low voice to Sophia:
"Your Majesty's Divine Authority.
The moment this rotation-dispatch of five thousand men is issued, it not only renders the Royal City's defensive line solid as an iron cauldron, but moreover makes this band of surrendered soldiers who only just merged into Mason thoroughly understand what the true rules of the Black Rose are.
Where is it that one doesn't do work?
So long as we can serve you, every inch of black earth in this Northern border will, sooner or later, be inscribed in full with your name."
Sophia, expressionless, looked at Delilah beside her, who had once again sunk into her ultimate tactical-aesthetic mode of thought, and lightly patted her hand.
Then her gaze fell upon those four thousand-odd soldiers she had brought out.
This couldn't help but leave Sophia somewhat puzzled.
That band of veterans below—what are they doing, looking at me one and all with that gaze as though they're looking at a martyr?
Sophia thought: it'd be fine if they went back—many of them still have family or friends in Mason, and I reckon some of them must miss home too.
I'm letting them go back to visit home, so why is it that, in their eyes, Sophia felt as though she'd become some lonely, forlorn empty-nest Queen about to be murdered by a new faction at any moment?
After Saint Daphne's magic enhancement was declared at an end, the gloomy silence over the square was at last thoroughly broken.
The centurions of every rank in the garrison troops began to shout loudly, maintaining order, having the soldiers willing to return to garrison headquarters step forward to register.
However, the scene that followed far exceeded the expectations of all the retainers on the high dais.
The clattering friction of armor rose in sheets like a tide; within the black, dense steel formations, nearly half the soldiers actually raised their right hands high at the same moment, and even impatiently stepped forward!
At a rough glance, those dense, packed heads and high-raised arms numbered, at the very least, close to forty thousand men!
"Wow, Your Majesty...."
Irene, who had been obediently keeping watch at Sophia's side all along, seeing this, couldn't help but widen slightly that pair of sapphire-like curious eyes.
She crept softly over to Sophia's side, tugged at her own pink twin ponytails, and lowered her voice to exclaim incredulously in a small voice:
"It looks like everyone's desire to earn labor credits really is intense!
I used to worry these Olan recruits would reject our Mason system; I never imagined that the moment they heard they could get the same labor credits and allocations as the core cluster, it'd be just like they'd seen some supreme treasure.
So long as you give enough labor credits, I'm afraid they'd even be willing to go reclaim a rubble-strewn flat deep in the wasteland!"
Hearing Irene's soft, sticky-sweet words full of amazement, Sophia faintly lowered her long lashes, and in those pale-gold dead-fish eyes without the slightest emotional fluctuation, there exceedingly covertly leaked out a trace of relief.
Wonderful—it seems the saying 'under a heavy reward there must be a brave man' works in any world.
So long as this band of people had enthusiasm, the plan to evacuate them in batches next could then proceed exceedingly smoothly.
However.... only five thousand slots were needed here in all; faced with these forty-thousand-odd volunteers pressing forward row upon row, a meticulous screening would have to be done.
Below the high dais, tens of thousands of soldiers still locked their near-fervent, expectant gazes dead upon the silver-haired girl.
Sophia, expressionless, slowly rose to her feet, her plain-white silk skirt-hem tracing a cold, elegant arc in the gentle breeze.
Her fingertip, fair as porcelain, tapped lightly at the edge of the tray, seemingly making a god-like decision among tens of thousands of military-registry files in a cold posture of command over the whole panorama.
In fact, her gaze first of all fell upon that somewhat bizarre four-thousand-veteran formation.
At this moment, this band of the oldest Mason veterans, every one, wore taut faces, their eyes glittering with a near-tragically-heroic die-hard light, still muttering under their breath about staying to protect the Her Majesty who was in a state of insecurity.
Yet when Sophia swept her extremely rational thought across the faces of this band of veterans, she keenly caught, deep in the eyes of several hundred among them, that trace of conflict and longing they could not conceal.
Many of these veterans, in fact, had in the Royal City families who shared weal and woe with them, or aged, sickly parents.
Although, under the collective fervent atmosphere, they clamored about defending the Queen unto death, those reddened eye-rims and that trace of trembling when they gazed toward the horizon simply could not be hidden from Your Majesty the Queen's eyes.
Since they miss home, then the whole lot of them can just pack their bags and get back there to visit their families for me.
If I were to make them forcibly suppress their attachment to their families and work high-intensity overtime here, and they suffered some psychological-level breakdown, would the attendant chaos triggered by it, too, have to be charged to my account?
Sophia withdrew her thoughts, her fingertip drawing a cold stroke through the void, her voice, without a trace of mortal emotion, settling crisply into place:
"Mason veteran sequence: in the first through the third army formations, all whose families are at headquarters, fall out.
Your meritorious service is already enough to redeem a furlough period; this time, you shall be reorganized as the core backbone of the homecoming cluster."
The instant this cold imperial command fell, those several hundred Mason veterans whose names had been called went stiff on the spot as if struck by lightning.
They lifted their heads, gazing at the silver-haired girl on the high dais whose expression was cold and detached—who hadn't even bestowed upon them so much as a superfluous gentle glance—and in their minds those thoughts concerning the supreme sovereign burst apart wholesale in an instant; they were so moved their tears all but smashed onto their leather armor on the spot.
Your Majesty.... Your Majesty actually used that supreme insight of hers to see through the faintest, most humble and private homesick thought in the deepest depths of our hearts!
We had clearly hidden it so well within the ranks, yet Her Majesty, with a mere casual point of her finger, picked out, in full and with precision, every one of us burdened with family ties!
She is fulfilling our reunion—she would rather stay in Yurilland herself and face these foreign recruits of unsteady hearts, just so as to leave the most secure, most prosperous rear to our families!
What manner of vast and yet gentle grace this is....
From this day forth, should anyone dare show even a shred of disloyalty to the banner of the Black Rose, we will be the first to tear him apart alive!!
Several hundred soldiers, with reddened eyes and a near-demented fanatical reverence, knelt on one knee in perfect unison, giving off a dull sound of armor clashing.
And as for the remaining vacancy of some four thousand six hundred slots, Sophia rolled her pale-gold pupils, casting them exceedingly cold and ruthlessly toward the recruit formations gathered in from Olan City and the surrounding seventeen downgraded cities.
Her screening criteria were exceedingly simple and efficient.
Those local recruits whose families were still alive and who were full of attachment to the local wheat fields—not a single one was permitted to move; all of them were to stay on the open plains of Yurilland, spades in hand, turning the soil for me, and within half a month must finish sowing the Improved Wheat seeds.
As for the remaining four thousand-odd slots.... the whole lot were to be selected from those displaced surrendered soldiers who had lost their homes in the flames of war, who were all alone with no asset ties whatsoever.
Pack up these single men and women—free of all attachments and liable at any time to become a public-security hazard through idleness—row by row, and send them back to the Royal City, where the rules were most complete.
This would not only allow the old workshops and mature systems over there to settle them thoroughly, but could also, to the greatest extent, hedge clean the grain-consumption pressure here on the Yurilland Temporary Palace side.
"The remaining slots are to be filled from within the Olan newly-organized cluster, by all who have no family and no fixed property."
Sophia slowly turned around, her black Gothic silk skirt-hem tracing an exceedingly elegant and oppressive shadow beneath the blazing sun, her cold, clear voice bringing down the final, ultimate iron lock upon this grand review of this early morning.
"Once the documents have been tallied, the five-thousand cluster is to set out at once, led by the centurions.
Within half a month, I want to receive word that the Royal City's defense has entered onto the right track."
"We subjects—!! Respectfully obey Your Majesty's imperial decree!!
May the Black Rose bloom forever undefeated!!"
A full eighty thousand iron-blooded soldiers, together with those who had been chosen and those farmers staying behind to till the land, once again erupted into a uniform furious roar that shattered in full the lingering clouds of the heavens.
Beyond the high walls of the Yurilland Temporary Palace, at the far end of that ancient commercial road sinking into the wasteland.
A convoy of several carriages bearing no emblem whatsoever, their axles all but throwing off sparks, carrying the supreme wealth of the Kingdom of Leighton and a Queen's heart burned utterly crimson by extreme sourness, at last came crashing into the outermost defensive line of the Temporary Palace.
On the periphery of the Yurilland Temporary Palace, upon the originally flat, rubble-strewn wasteland, the noonday sun was baking the ground until it faintly cracked.
Liliana reined in her horse tightly and, leading that travel-worn troop of Leighton elite cavalry, concealed herself steadily behind a loess-yellow high slope not far from the Temporary Palace's city gate.
The hot, dry gale of summer blew through her black curls rich as the dead of night; the edges of her dark-black light armor were faintly soaked with sweat, clinging to that soul-stirring figure of hers.
However, at this moment she could not spare the attention to wipe the sweat from her forehead; her pair of obsidian-like enchanting eyes was staring dead at the enormous column forming up into a steel dragon at the city gate ahead.
"Tap, tap, tap...."
It was a full five thousand fully-armed soldiers.
At the front of the column were several hundred Mason veterans, their eyes fierce as wolves and tigers, yet their eye-rims faintly somewhat reddened; they walked at the very front, their steps heavy and resolute.
And behind them were four thousand-odd Olan surrendered soldiers, sturdy and strong, their faces cold and resolute, free of all attachments.
Each of these soldiers had received ample marching rations, and under the leadership of their respective centurions, treading in perfectly uniform steps, were setting out row by row, neither hurried nor slow, along the ancient commercial road leading south.
Watching this army that radiated a terrifying sense of discipline, the Leighton knights behind Liliana couldn't help but secretly swallow a mouthful of saliva, the depths of their eyes all filled with horror.
Liliana sat upon her warhorse, both hands gripping tight the red-and-white interwoven reins, her bosom heaving violently with her breathing.
What is going on....
Just a few mornings ago, Sophia had only just subjugated the surrounding seventeen nations in the Hall of State Affairs; even the tens of thousands of surrendered soldiers of Olan City had not yet been thoroughly settled.
At the critical juncture when all forces assumed the Black Rose would hold fast to Yurilland and recuperate, why would she suddenly, at this noon, secretly draw out so many battle-hardened elites from the city?!
Liliana's lovely eyes narrowed slightly, and within one ten-thousandth of a second the thoughts concerning scheming and the situation in her mind wildly interwove and swelled, sanctifying this most ordinary act of homecoming before her entirely into a supreme showdown enough to overturn the whole continent.
No—it absolutely is not ordinary border defense.
Those veterans' eye-rims were reddened, their steps resolute—plainly carrying a kind of heroic, die-hard loyalty that vowed not to return until the enemy army was broken!
And those Olan surrendered soldiers behind them, all the more without any family ties to drag them down, could without the slightest reservation become the sharpest blade at Sophia's fingertips!
That goateed King of Mafen, before his death, had still arrogantly clamored, saying the heavy-armored knights of the southern supreme core could march north to liquidate at any moment.
But in my Sophia's eyes, she had probably long since, with that supreme vision of hers that sees through all things, calculated to exactness the Imperial Capital's entire punitive mechanism!
This is plainly her intent to, before the Imperial Capital's grand army sets out, forcibly lay down across the central hub of the whole continent an all-devouring iron net of strangulation!!
At this thought, Liliana felt only wave after wave of chill down her spine; within her heart, apart from that extreme adoration so thick it nearly drew into threads, there arose all the more a boundless awe unique to that felt toward a god.
How could she be so strong... strong to the point that all the clever ones who toyed with power in the old era appeared, before her every chess move, so farcical and laughable.
Watching the five-thousand-strong steel dragon gradually sink into the dust and smoke of the distance, Liliana pressed down hard on the longsword at her waist, drew a deep breath, and forcibly suppressed that urgent, sour impulse—the one that wished she could charge into the city right now and crush that silver-haired girl hard into her embrace.
"Your Majesty the Queen, shall we now accelerate and charge over to intercept this column?"
The inner-guard Commander at her side, somewhat nervously pressing the haft of his spear, requested instructions in a low voice.
"Idiot! Stay put and watch obediently for me!!"
Liliana turned her head slightly to the side, that pair of dark eyes glittering with a near-frigid cruel edge, and reprimanded in a low voice that was tender yet lost none of its majesty.
"This is Your Majesty Sophia's core scheme for reshaping the new Order of the whole continent!
Every step these five thousand soldiers take bears upon the ultimate gambit with the southern supreme core in the future!
If we now go crashing over brazenly with the assets of two nations and disrupt Her Majesty's strategic rotation, then even if you had ten heads, you still couldn't make good Mason's ensuing main-warehouse losses!!"
Berated like this by his own Queen, the inner-guard Commander's face went pale, and he hurriedly lowered his head, not daring to even draw a heavy breath.
A full two quarter-hours of time.
Liliana simply reined in her horse and kept watch quietly behind the loess-yellow high slope, her pair of soul-stirringly beautiful eyes, full of patience, locked dead upon the city gate, until the last row of Mason soldiers holding the Black Rose banner aloft vanished entirely at the end of her vision, and the thundering of hooves in the air dispersed in full.
"Whew."
Only then did she let out a long breath of turbid air, and somewhat greedily licked her own, somewhat dry, rosy lips.
Those few vixen City Lords, at this very moment, were probably before Her Majesty's long table, vying for Sophia's attention with those sticky, disgusting eyes of theirs.
But it's all right.... this very noon, I will bring the richest bargaining chips in all the world and go settle this account clean with you!
Liliana reached back to straighten that set of close-fitting dark-black marching light armor on her body, binding those soul-stirring, full curves all the more straight and coldly alluring.
She tilted her head and snapped her fingers toward the several dozen Leighton knights behind her.
"Move out."
"Yes! Your Majesty the Queen!!"
As the Leighton cavalry column slowly rode out from behind the high slope, the dozen-some Mason garrison troops standing guard at the Temporary Palace's city gate at once turned solemn-faced.
Those soldiers were each clad in ink-black armor, their faces shrouded behind cold iron masks, like statue after statue of frigid stone.
Watching this Leighton elite cavalry—bearing no Black Rose emblem whatsoever, and even carrying a dozen-some crates of heavy goods—approach neither hurried nor slow, several female warriors standing in the front row leveled the black muskets in their hands, the muzzles refracting a cold metallic gleam, soundlessly jamming themselves before Liliana's horse.
Under such oppressive force, where even the air carried a terrifying sense of discipline, Liliana, rarely for her, reined in the wildness and pride that pervaded her whole body.
She slowly dismounted, her pair of slender, straight legs stamping out a crisp sound upon the marble ground.
She tossed the warhorse's long rein casually to a subordinate, then folded both hands before her lower abdomen and stood, submissive and elegant, before those few cold muskets.
She faintly lifted that supremely beautiful face flushed with an unusual redness, gazing at the Black Rose banner fluttering high above, and said to the soldiers before the gate:
"I am the Queen of the Kingdom of Leighton, Liliana.
This very dawn, at the watershed of the wasteland, I intercepted and on the spot eliminated the rebellious Mafen Duchy. Herewith I bring the century-old hereditary national seals of two nations, the Royal House's complete main-warehouse inventory ledgers, along with ten thousand sheets of top-grade fur and several crates of century-old Alchemic Copper Mother...."
Liliana faintly lowered her pair of lovely eyes brimming with fervent love, her voice low and resolute:
"I beg an audience.... with the supreme Queen of Mason, Your Majesty Sophia.
On this trip, This Queen is willing to hand over in full the supreme administrative and defensive guidance authority of two nations—let the Order of the Black Rose reshape Leighton!!"
In this instant the sunlight poured down fiercely, and this Leighton she-wolf who had once intruded into the Bedchamber by night was now, in a near-pious posture, standing properly upon the cold marble of the Yurilland city gate, awaiting the final summons of that streak of silver-haired girl within the side hall.
And it was at precisely this moment, upon a shady corridor outside the east side hall of the Temporary Palace.
Irene, who had just finished directing the embroiderers' stitching in the workshop, was somewhat vexedly scratching at her pink twin ponytails.
She held in her hand a fine charcoal pencil used for drafting, tapping it against her forehead now and then, intending to take a stroll in the Temporary Palace's garden and, while at it, seek a fresh wisp of inspiration for the rivet layout of the next batch of heavy cotton armor.
However, before she could even take a step, the curious commotion at the city gate—stirred up by a great quantity of heavy objects landing on the ground and warhorses uneasily pawing the earth—instantly drew her attention.
"Huh?
Didn't the soldiers returning to Mason all already leave with their things? How is it that at noon there's still someone bringing so many carriages over?"
Irene blinked her sapphire-like eyes in puzzlement and, in her little leather boots, plucked up her courage and leaned more than half her body out over the carved stone balustrade to look down.
However, the instant she made out clearly that beautiful, alluring figure at the city gate—clad in dark-black marching light armor, with a soul-stirring physique, radiating from her whole body a highly destructive wildness and extreme sourness—Irene was struck as if by lightning, and the charcoal pencil she held clattered to the ground, snapping into two pieces upon the bluestone slabs.
"Th-this is bad...."
Irene clapped her pair of fair, tender little hands hard over her own mouth, her pair of sapphire-like big eyes brimming in an instant with an unprecedented terror and panic.
Gazing at that whole troop of murderous Leighton elite cavalry below, she couldn't help but murmur to herself somewhat despairingly, in a voice only she could hear:
"She... how is she here at a time like this?!"
As one of the most core people at Your Majesty Sophia's side, Irene knew all too well just what a crazy-acting, boldly-styled, ruthless character this Queen of Leighton named Liliana was.
It was precisely because she had once intruded into Her Majesty's Bedchamber by night that Her Majesty had, helplessly, added several lines of female-soldier patrol defenses before the Bedchamber door.
She'd even given Her Majesty a psychological shadow!
And now, just great—the entire Olan Plains had only just settled down.
Those few young female City Lords had these past couple of days been currying favor right under Her Majesty's nose every day in ever-changing ways, their gazes so sticky one could scarcely pull them apart—already making Her Majesty's temples ache faintly.
But just great—at this most fatal juncture, this Leighton buzzkill woman with the strongest possessiveness and the most ruthless means actually packed up whole crates of treasures and forcibly blocked the gate of the Temporary Palace this very noon!
Gazing at Liliana below—who, though kneeling on one knee, had a pair of lovely eyes full of a scalp-numbing fervent edge—Irene felt only wave after wave of chill down her back.
How could she still have any mind to spare for finding inspiration for the cotton armor?
She hurriedly hitched up her artisan's vest and, half-rolling and half-scrambling, turned around and, with a string of panicked footsteps, fled madly in the direction of the rooftop greenhouse where Sophia was enjoying afternoon tea.
She had to make a report to Her Majesty.
This afternoon, before the tea table of this Yurilland Temporary Palace, was likely to witness the most terrifying shura-field storm under the Black Rose Order....
Within the rooftop greenhouse of the Yurilland Temporary Palace, the warm summer wind gently stirred the white gauze curtains hanging down all around, raising a soft rustling.
Sophia was leaning lightly against the cool chair-back, her fair, slender fingertips elegantly pinching a small silver spoon, preparing to once again moisten her somewhat parched throat.
However, before that cup of black tea giving off a rich milky fragrance could be brought to her lips, the tightly-shut hollow-carved wooden door was pushed open exceedingly crisply.
An inner-guard centurion in charge of protecting the outer defensive line strode briskly in, knelt at once on one knee, and reported aloud in a cold, hard, clear voice:
"I report to Your Majesty!
Outside the city, a troop of Leighton elite cavalry bearing no emblem whatsoever has crossed the border; the one leading the army is none other than the newly-appointed Queen of the Kingdom of Leighton, Liliana!
Midway, she intercepted and slaughtered in full the King of Mafen, who had attempted to go to the southern Imperial Capital to lodge a complaint. She is now, with the century-old national seals of the two nations of Leighton and Mafen, along with countless main-warehouse assets and top-grade furs, kneeling long before the gate of the Temporary Palace, swearing unto death to beg to hand over all administrative and defensive authority, and beseeching an audience with Your Majesty!!"
"Clack."
The delicate small silver spoon collided physically with the wall of the white-porcelain cup, giving off an exceedingly crisp, clear ring within the empty greenhouse.
Those pale-gold pupils, originally without the slightest emotional fluctuation, within one second moved abruptly in an exceedingly imperceptible way.
Upon Sophia's exquisite, flawless, absolutely deadpan face—which on ordinary days stayed still as an ancient well even with heavy troops bearing down—that originally cold, leisurely expression, the instant she heard the two phrases 'Liliana' and 'slaughtered Mafen,' exceedingly rarely.... her whole self went utterly, thoroughly, stiffly rigid on the spot.
Wait..... who?!
Liliana?!
Just as the little person inside Sophia's heart was frantically tearing at its hair, her whole cold face sinking into the most thorough state of frozen weathering in all history.
"Bang—!!"
That delicate wooden door of the greenhouse was violently slammed open by a brutish force.
The pink short-haired Irene came barreling in headlong, all in a fluster and gasping for breath, the artisan's vest on her body somewhat askew, her pair of sapphire-like big eyes written all over with an unprecedented terror and panic.
But before the four words 'Your Majesty, it's bad' could even be shouted from her lips, she caught sight at a glance of Her Majesty the Queen in the chair—whose entire deadpan face had bizarrely frozen dead-stiff.
The two of them, big eyes staring at small eyes, sank into an exceedingly bizarre dead silence.
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