Chapter 589 - 585 – BOREDOM ON THE BORDER AND THE SECRET INTERCONTINENTAL GATE PROJECT

Several days passed very quickly in Falling Star City, the capital of the Southern Star Province that now stood under the banner of the First Princess Hua Zhaoyue’s rule.

At first, Sylvia had assumed that the lightning-fast massacre and public execution of the former mayor, along with the corrupt officials, would trigger a harsh chain reaction. She had expected the remaining elite factions in the capital, or the noble groups who had lost their illegal funding sources on the border, to recklessly send hired assassins or declare a retaliatory attack on this city. Yet the reality on the ground unfolded far differently from her expectations.

Falling Star City rested in an extraordinarily peaceful silence, or more precisely, a peace grounded in an extremely profound sense of dread.

News of how Princess Zhaoyue had arrived riding two disaster-level dragons (Sol at 50 meters and Noir at 70 meters), combined with Sylvia’s reputation for eliminating ten corrupt officials without physically touching them in the plaza, had spread throughout every corner of the Tianhua Kingdom like a thunderbolt. Not a single border tribal chief, wild hunter group, or corrupt noble faction possessed enough courage or, more accurately, enough foolishness to challenge the new rulers of the southern territory. The shadows of the two gigantic dragons watching over the city from afar had become the most effective psychological fortress that had ever existed in Tianhua’s history.

For some people, this absolute peace was a blessing. Yet for Sylvia, the Queen of Death who was accustomed to living amid cosmic battlefields, sea-god hunts, and the dynamics of Nocture’s expansion, the overly quiet atmosphere of the border suddenly felt extremely... boring.

Inside her comfortable private pavilion at the governor’s residence, Sylvia sat relaxing on a soft silk-upholstered sofa. She wore casual home clothing while cradling a cup of warm herbal tea. On the floor near her feet, Sol and Noir had returned to their cat forms, the golden cat and the pitch-black cat, who were sleeping soundly after the exhaustion of "working" to carry goods and monster meat.

"Hah..." Sylvia let out a long breath, gazing at the ceiling with half-closed eyes. "I thought there would be a few bandits or arrogant mages coming to look for trouble. Turns out the humans on this mainland are truly cowards the moment they see large monsters."

Because there was nothing interesting to do outside, Sylvia decided to seek entertainment in another way. She raised her left wrist, where the silver-colored Hologram Bracelet, her Magic Smartphone powered by low-rank Monster Core dust, was neatly fastened. Thanks to the frequency and signal-stability upgrades previously achieved using the Astral Star Furnace Reactor from the Lumina ruins, the bracelet could now pierce extremely distant spatial barriers.

Sylvia tapped the surface of the bracelet three times with her fingertip.

Bum...

A soft hum resonated, and a three-dimensional blue light projection immediately appeared in front of her face. Unlike previous communications with Sofia, who was at the main palace of Nocture, this time Sylvia’s connection target was someone aboard the Nocture exploration fleet on the outer seas: Stacia, her sister as well as the ten-winged fallen angel who was the alchemy expert, space-magic specialist, and main logistics brain of Nocture.

The light projection flickered several times before displaying the background of an alchemy laboratory filled with glowing reaction tubes, floating magic parchment scrolls, and piles of Lumina mechanical components.

In the middle of that room, Stacia stood wearing her white scientist’s robe. Her long hair hung in a messy cascade, and on her back the faint illusion of ten blackish-silver-feathered fallen-angel wings appeared to flap gently. Beside Stacia, a pile of spatial-wave data could be seen, currently being analyzed using magic crystals.

The moment she saw Sylvia’s face appear on the bracelet projector, Stacia immediately stopped her work. She smiled widely, showing her characteristic enthusiastic expression.

"Oh? Look who is contacting me first," Stacia greeted in a cheerful tone, folding both arms across her chest. "How are you doing on that primitive human mainland, Sylvia? Have you already leveled their king’s palace, or are you busy shopping for gowns again?"

Sylvia snorted softly, though a small smile rose to her lips. "Don’t be ridiculous, Stacia. I’m enjoying my retirement days in a border city. But that’s exactly the problem... this territory is too peaceful. No one challenges me. The nobles here have the courage of rabbits the moment they see Sol and Noir."

Stacia laughed brightly at her sister’s complaint. "That’s the result of bringing two disaster-level dragons into the middle of a human civilization whose peak power is only limited to Rank 8 mages. They don’t have enough guts to breathe too hard near you."

"Yeah, forget about that." Sylvia waved her hand, dismissing the topic, then her expression turned a little more serious. "The main reason I’m contacting you isn’t to complain about my boredom. Stacia... I want to discuss something more important with you."

Seeing Sylvia’s tone of speech change to serious, Stacia pulled a lab chair, sat closer to the projector, and leaned forward. "Speak. What is it? Is there a new dimensional anomaly in the Tianhua mainland territory?"

"Not a dimensional anomaly, but a logistics and distance problem," Sylvia explained. "The Southern Star Territory where I am now is approximately 100,000 kilometers from our main base on the original continent. Although I can travel quickly using the dragons, long-distance communication and large-scale material supply deliveries still take too much time if we have to rely on physical flights."

"Not a dimensional anomaly, but an extraordinarily massive geographical distance problem," Sylvia clarified. "The Southern Star Province where I am now stretches extremely far from our original continent; the distance reaches more than 500,000 kilometers across the vast expanse of this new continental landmass! Although I can travel quickly using the dragons, long-distance communication and large-scale material supply deliveries require a more permanent solution."

Sylvia tapped her finger on the table. "This southern territory is also located not too far from the outer-sea coastline. I’m thinking... what if we create an Intercontinental Teleportation Gate that directly connects our maritime fleet base on the sea with this Southern Star Province?"

Hearing the words "Intercontinental Teleportation Gate" for crossing a distance of more than 500,000 kilometers, Stacia’s eyes immediately sparkled brightly like a mad scientist who had discovered the rarest experimental material in the universe.

"A spatial teleportation gate on the scale of hundreds of thousands of kilometers?" Stacia murmured, her tone rising several octaves in soaring enthusiasm. "You know perfectly well that space and time magic is my absolute specialty! I master various high-level magics, especially spatial and temporal manipulation. Although... ah, if we’re talking about the concepts of death and absolute destruction, my understanding is at an extremely small level, almost zero compared to you, who are a Demigod of the Authority of Death. But when it comes to tearing space, folding dimensions, and connecting distant coordinate points, I am the expert!"

"Yes, yes, praise your own genius as much as you like, Master of Space-Time Magic," Sylvia cut in with a teasing yet familiar tone. "I know full well that in the matter of twisting spatial coordinates and crossing dimensions, no one can match you. The question is: is it technically possible with the remaining Lumina matrix resources we currently possess to stretch a distance that far?"

Stacia immediately rose from her chair, pacing back and forth in front of the projection screen while floating slightly using wind magic. Her fingers moved rapidly in the air, typing rows of extremely complicated spatial-temporal magic mathematical matrix formulas.

"In pure theory, for a distance above 500,000 kilometers? Of course it is very possible, but the energy challenge is exponential!" Stacia exclaimed with full confidence. "We must use the remaining energy from the Astral Star Furnace Reactor that we secured from the Lumina ruins as the main power core that triggers the gate. We also need spatial anchor crystals installed at the sea coordinate point and the Falling Star City coordinate point here. That way we can tear the long-distance spatial membrane and create a stable wormhole tunnel across the vast Tianhua mainland."

Stacia stopped pacing and looked directly toward Sylvia through the hologram projection. "But there is one major obstacle, Sylvia. Stretching a spatial gate across a distance of more than 500,000 kilometers is no trivial matter. Opening a teleportation gate of that size will require a massive energy supply, and most importantly..."

Stacia narrowed her eyes. "If we open a teleportation gate directly into the mainland territory under the Tianhua Kingdom’s power, our maritime fleet consisting of millions of undead troops and black star-steel ships will be able to enter the heart of their territory immediately. The question is: has Princess Zhaoyue, your new friend, already given permission?"

Hearing that question, Sylvia fell silent for a moment. She leaned her back against the sofa, her fingers tapping the surface of the table.

"Of course not yet," Sylvia answered honestly. "I only just thought of this idea now. And besides... although Zhaoyue and I are close friends who trust each other, bringing a foreign military force on a massive scale, especially an undead warship fleet filled with millions of skeletons and zombies, secretly into her sovereign territory is a very bad action."

Sylvia snorted in amusement, imagining it. "If I bring a force of that size without official permission, even though she is my friend, the ministers and palace factions of Tianhua will certainly suspect that I am planning a coup or military invasion to overthrow their father’s throne. We must keep this diplomatic relationship looking clean, at least on the surface."

Stacia burst into loud laughter for that reason. "Ah, true enough! The Queen of Death, feared by the cosmic gods, now has to think about diplomatic etiquette and permission from a human princess so she won’t be thought to be rebelling!"

"This isn’t about fear, Stacia. This is about comfort," Sylvia defended in a casual tone, rolling her eyes. "I like Zhaoyue, and I enjoy our relaxed life here. I don’t want to ruin the atmosphere by creating unnecessary political noise in their palace."

"All right, all right, I understand." Stacia raised both hands in surrender. "So the princess’s permission will wait for later, yes? When is the right time to discuss it with her?"

"Wait until the situation in the Southern Star Province is truly stable and Zhaoyue fully holds the reins of government without any interference from capital factions," Sylvia answered firmly. "Besides, there’s no need to rush. Your main reason and the fleet at sea aren’t ready yet either, right?"

Hearing that, Stacia’s expression softened a little. She nodded in agreement. "You’re right. At present, our main fleet at sea is still occupied with important tasks from the center. Our explorers and scanner drones are still busy mapping the geographical structure of the new Earth, whose size has expanded hundreds of times from its original size."

Stacia further explained that after the dimensional collision and the fusion of the earth’s crust, the surface of this planet had not only enlarged to hundreds of thousands of kilometers, but was also filled with new geographical anomalies, hidden continents, and toxic miasma zones across the vast oceans that required months to be accurately mapped by Nocture’s navigation systems.

"So our priority at sea right now is to complete the mapping of the entire global sector first," Stacia concluded. "Meanwhile, for the intercontinental teleportation gate project that stretches more than 500,000 km to the Tianhua mainland... I will begin designing the calculation blueprint in the laboratory in secret. When the right time arrives, and Zhaoyue gives the green light, we can build it directly within a matter of hours."

"Good," Sylvia smiled in satisfaction. "Excellent work, Stacia. Make sure your space-time magic works perfectly, and don’t let any of your experiments explode and destroy the mana crystal tower in Nocture again like last week."

"That was only a minor accident caused by mana fluctuation!" Stacia protested in a pretend-offended tone, making Sylvia laugh lightly.

After several more minutes spent exchanging information about logistics situations and the progress of spatial magic research, the battery indicator on the Hologram Bracelet began blinking yellow, signaling that the power capacity limit from the low-rank Monster Core dust was nearly exhausted for extreme long-distance communication across those 500,000 kilometers.

"All right, Stacia. The connection will be cut off soon. Continue your work in the laboratory," Sylvia bid farewell.

"See you, Sylvia! Give my regards to those big pet dragons of yours!" Stacia replied while waving toward the projector.

Blink.

The three-dimensional blue light projector went out instantly, leaving the pavilion room in comfortable silence. Sylvia let out a soft breath, removing the bracelet from her wrist to recharge its energy on the magic power-charging plate.

She glanced toward the floor, where Sol and Noir were still sleeping curled up peacefully, undisturbed by the recent conversation. Sylvia stood from the sofa and walked closer to the large window that faced the governor’s palace courtyard illuminated by the afternoon light.

Although she was currently enjoying the temporary peace and boredom on the border of the Southern Star Province, Sylvia knew deep in her heart that this calm was only the beginning of something far greater. This new world that stretched more than 500,000 kilometers still held millions of secrets, ancient gods hiding in other dimensions, and ancient civilizations waiting to be discovered.

And when the time arrived when that space-time teleportation gate finally stood, and her fleet was directly connected to the Tianhua mainland, there would be no force on this earth capable of stopping the expansion steps of the Queen of Death.