Irene, seated off to one side, upon hearing that the Olan Royal City had been completely taken, grew so excited that she flung herself directly into Sophia's arms to read the letter together.
Her sapphire-like eyes were brimming with excitement.
"Wow! Wonderful!
Your Majesty, that refined steel and Alchemic Copper Mother in the Olan National Treasury—can it all be requisitioned into my workshop by tomorrow?!
I can use them to triple the musket output again!!"
Sophia gazed expressionlessly at this band of loyal subjects in the study who had once again sunk into their self-overclocked cognition, feeling only that the hot, dry summer wind blowing in through the window made her temples throb faintly.
Sophia rose slowly to her feet, her black Gothic gown casting an exceedingly elegant and oppressive, slender shadow beneath the interweaving of moonlight and candle-flame.
She walked to the enormous map-sandtable and, with her fingertip, lightly tapped a golden chess piece symbolizing the direction of the Imperial Capital, her voice cold, clear, and resolute.
"Willow, convey my written order to Delilah—have her complete the standardized disposition of all Olan assets within one week."
Early morning.
The Yurilland Temporary Palace gradually awoke amid several crisp birdcalls.
The air after the rainstorm carried a rare trace of coolness, sweeping away the sultry heat of the past several days.
Sunlight passed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, spilling silkily into the spacious, bright conference hall.
Upon the long table, everything appeared orderly and in its place.
Sophia sat at the head seat, leisurely enjoying her breakfast.
Upon the long table were croissants baked in the newest-model oven of Irene's workshop, their surfaces brushed with a layer of glistening Red Maple honey-syrup, giving off an enticing sweet fragrance in the morning light.
Beside them sat a small dish of bacon cured with seasonings and fried until it sizzled with oil, along with a cup of warm black tea exuding a rich, milky aroma.
Having shed her heavy armor and changed back into a comfortable silk nightgown, Sophia was using those fair, slender fingertips—like an exquisite work of art—to elegantly pinch a small silver spoon, stirring the black tea in her cup on and off.
That delicate, flawless, deadpan face was as placid as ever, an ancient well undisturbed, the pale-golden pupils seemingly devoid of all emotion, her whole person exuding a coldness and ease unique to one of superior station.
Meanwhile, in a chair off to one side, the pink short-haired Irene was sprawled there in a thoroughly unbecoming manner.
The aftereffect of getting overexcited last night and flinging herself directly into Sophia's arms to read the letter was that, even now, a trace of undissipated fervor still lingered in those sapphire-like eyes.
At this moment, while stuffing jam-slathered bread into her mouth, she mumbled in a muffled, indistinct voice.
"Your Majesty, Delilah is just too efficient.
Early this morning I heard from a passing inner guard that the Olan military equipment piled up over by the west main gate has already started being hauled over to our side…
Once that batch of Alchemic Copper Mother arrives, I guarantee the components for the black muskets will instantly stuff the entire assembly line full!"
Sophia slightly lifted her long lashes, sweeping a cool, detached glance at her, just about to swallow the last bite of bacon and ease into the salted-fish daily routine of this morning.
"Tap, tap, tap."
A series of footsteps—exceedingly light yet exceedingly regular—broke the tranquility of the study at precisely this moment.
The door was pushed gently open, and the administrative officer Willow walked in, wearing that ever-present gentle smile that left not the slightest fault to be found.
Her head of neat, short hair was groomed without a strand out of place, and in her hands she held a thick stack of morning briefings.
"Your Majesty, good morning."
Willow came forward gracefully, bowing to Sophia in an exceedingly elegant salute, then reported in that soft yet crystal-clear voice:
"Out on that gravel road, several nations' city lords and lieges have already been waiting quietly before the Temporary Palace gate for quite some time.
They have brought the complete granary ledgers and national seals of their countries, wishing to request an audience with Your Majesty and to convey their most sincere greetings to the Black Rose banner of Mason."
Hearing this, Irene—who had been immersed in fantasies of refined steel and Copper Mother—abruptly lifted her head.
She wiped a smear of jam from the corner of her mouth in a haphazard swipe, a flicker of curiosity flashing across her sapphire-like eyes, and couldn't help but jump in to ask first.
"Several city lords?
How come they're all jammed up outside the gate this early in the morning? Do these people who play at being kings not need to sleep at all?"
Facing Irene's flighty question, Willow did not grow angry; instead she tilted her head slightly, the signature trace of elegance at the corner of her mouth growing all the more profound.
She extended her fair fingertip, tucked back a lock of hair, and softly uttered a number:
"In reply to Miss Irene, it is… seventeen in total."
"Seventeen?"
Irene rubbed her ear, stuffed the last piece of bread in her hand into her mouth, and blinked somewhat puzzledly:
"Then what about the other twenty-some?
Didn't the herald say yesterday that those neutral nations' carriage convoys were lined up at the border for a good few li long?"
Willow turned, gently set the morning briefings in her hands on the corner of Sophia's desk, then looked toward Sophia, her voice carrying a delicacy and admiring sigh unique to the civil officials of the old era:
"These seventeen kings and city lords are all the miniature nations closest to our Yurilland, whose territories press tightly against the borders of our land-reclamation district.
As for the implication…
Those nations a bit farther from us, a bit larger in scale—their kings and special envoys should not yet have managed to force their way across those several hundred li of wasteland and rush over before this morning."
Saying this, Willow paused slightly, and a strand of exceedingly fervent light suddenly burst forth in her eyes.
As the supreme commander responsible for collating the entire Northern border's black-market intelligence, she understood all too well the true meaning behind this number, seventeen.
Her Majesty's stroke of quicklime liquidation was simply like sending down an invisible spiritual natural disaster upon this wasteland.
Yesterday afternoon, the three thousand fire-controlling elites of the Crimson Vulture Duchy on the far west side had been wholly subdued by Her Majesty using the tens of thousands of catties of that powder that couldn't even fit into the main warehouses—before they had even touched a single stone brick of the west main gate.
Before that scalding white vapor had even fully dispersed, the battle report had already grown wings and flown into the courts of these seventeen neighboring nations.
These nearby city lords and kings, when they saw the battle report last night, were probably so frightened their very souls flew off!
How would they still dare put on any airs of neutrality?
Overnight they stuffed their ancestral national seals into their trouser pockets and, scrambling and tumbling, drove their carriages in a mad dash across the wasteland the whole night through—all just to seize, this very morning, the very first slot of identity-card holder that best conformed to Mason's standards!
As for those nations farther away…
right now they were probably also, drenched in sweat, frantically whipping their horses along the muddy mountain roads, terrified that if they came too late, the family assets behind them would be wiped out root and branch by General Delilah's greatsword in Her Majesty's next destruction ledger!
Listening to Willow's gentle yet astonishingly elaborate mental-embellishment of details, the Third Princess Victoria—seated on the other side of the soft couch, who had all along been covering the lower half of her face with an ivory folding fan—couldn't help at this moment but let out an exceedingly elegant low chuckle.
Those golden eyes glittered with rich admiration, the folding fan tapping lightly against her robe.
It seems yesterday's white powder not only helped clear out the surplus stock for Irene's workshop, but along the way neutralized clean every last shred of these neighbors' self-righteous arrogance.
My dear little sister, this maneuver of yours—killing the chicken to frighten the monkey—has truly, this very morning, made one-third of the entire Northern border's map slide silkily down onto its knees before you.
At the head of the long table.
Listening to the string of overclocked mental-embellishment and praise that Willow, Irene, and Victoria had completed in the span of mere seconds.
Sophia, who had just lifted her milk tea to wet her throat, went imperceptibly stiff for one-tenth of a second.
Those pale-golden dead-fish eyes rolled slightly, and gazing at her own deadpan face reflected in the cup, deep in her heart she let out the first powerless sigh of this morning.
Those city lords who'd dashed through the night…
she would have to hurry up and move forward the schedule for planting all the nations with the new type of wheat, otherwise she wasn't going to be able to feed this many people.
Sophia rubbed her somewhat aching temples, feeling that the few wisps of cool breeze blowing in through the window had, in this instant, turned somewhat hot and dry once again.
But looking at this ring of subordinates before the long table—who were watching her almost as though witnessing a True God descend upon the world, awaiting the Great Emperor to hand down the command to devour the Northern border—she could only slowly set down the silver spoon in her hand, her black silk skirt-hem cutting a cold, sharp arc through the morning light.
She lifted her head, the official document Willow had handed over reflected in her pale-golden pupils, her voice as cold and detached as ever, without a trace of mortal emotional fluctuation:
"Since they've come this early.
Willow, have the interrogation team make seventeen copies of the Crimson Vulture defense roster organized yesterday from the dungeon as well."
Sophia's fingertip rapped lightly against the tabletop, giving off a crisp physical impact:
"When they enter the hall in a moment, hand one out to each person.
Before they verify their respective national-seal ledgers, let them first take a good, clear look at… exactly how Mason's new Order treats those restless fellows."
The Yurilland Temporary Palace, Hall of State Affairs.
This had once been a lavish venue used by the Grand Duke of Yurilland to display his power, its four walls inlaid with ornate colored glaze and gold leaf.
But at this moment, the enormous Yurilland lion banner at the very center of the hall had already been cleanly torn down, replaced by an enormous, coldly resplendent Black Rose banner that gave off a faint, clear fragrance of medicinal herbs.
Within the spacious Hall of State Affairs, seventeen people were now crammed together, sitting and standing in restless unease.
They were of all kinds—men and women, old and young—every one of them, without exception, dressed in their own nation's most ceremonial royal regalia, heavy crowns inlaid with all manner of gemstones atop their heads.
On ordinary days, this group were supreme rulers in their own little patches of land, whose word was law, prostrated before by tens of thousands.
Yet now, in this bright council hall, not even half a shred of imperial dignity could be found upon them.
Everyone's gaze drifted, involuntarily and tremblingly, toward that black-lacquered, carved throne at the very top of the high dais.
The head seat was still empty.
That rumored silver-haired, golden-eyed Girl Queen had not come over immediately.
But even facing an empty chair, the seventeen kings and city lords seated below still subconsciously softened even their breathing; not a single person dared to raise their voice in this place, nor did they even possess the courage to make a slightly louder sound.
The atmosphere within the hall was strained taut like a bowstring drawn to its very limit, so suppressed it sent chills down one's spine.
"Phew…"
Berick, King of the Kingdom of Goran, sat in a round chair near the front, somewhat neurotically tugging at his rather curly brown hair, the cold sweat on his forehead dripping down his fat cheeks drop by drop.
The silk ceremonial robe on his body had long been soaked through with sweat; after dashing several hundred li through the night, his spirit was already on the verge of extreme fragility.
"Berick, your face that didn't have much meat on it to begin with—how come it now looks as pale as the quicklime outside the city wall?"
Seated beside him was a middle-aged female city lord with a graceful figure, dressed in a deep-purple tight-fitting gown.
She was the female liege of Black Stone City, hailing from a neighboring mining district, long renowned for her shrewdness.
Though her mouth was still teasing him in a somewhat mocking tone, the hand clutching her velvet skirt-hem so tightly that the knuckles were faintly whitened from the excessive force deeply betrayed the terror within her heart.
"You still have the heart to mock This Queen?"
Berick lowered his voice, an uncontrollable faint tremor in it, looking toward the female city lord as if pleading for rescue.
"Last night when the spy slammed the report of the Crimson Vulture Duchy's total annihilation in This Queen's face, This Queen nearly went to meet his ancestors on the spot.
Three thousand elites smeared with fire-resistant grease!
They didn't even smash apart the wrought-iron bolt of the gate tunnel before they turned into a steaming heap of….
The moment This Queen now closes his eyes, his nose is full of that stench of scorched mud!"
Evidently, the news they had received was somewhat more exaggerated.
In their understanding, yesterday Sophia had truly steamed those three thousand people through and turned them into rotten meat.
In reality, those people were at this moment undergoing interrogation within Yurilland's dungeon, but they did not know that.
They only knew that those soldiers had given off smoke and then not even bones remained—exceedingly terrifying.
"Hush! Are you mad?! Keep it down!!"
Beside him, an Old King, rather advanced in years and with hoary white hair, was so frightened he hurriedly tugged at Berick's sleeve, the somewhat crooked crown atop his head wobbling with his motion:
"This is that Majesty's Temporary Palace!
If you bring up yesterday afternoon's affair, and it happens to be overheard by those cold-faced inner guards and taken as discontent toward the Black Rose Order, the first one to be liquidated in a moment will be you!"
The moment these words came out, the faces of the several city lords around the long table went a few shades paler in unison.
One after another they turned their heads, casting their gazes toward the Mason guards stationed on either side of the throne's stairway.
Those guards each wore ink-black chainmail forged from refined iron, their faces shrouded behind cold, cruel iron masks, their bearing as upright as statues, level-holding gleaming black muskets in their hands.
Though they spoke not a word, the bloody reek and sense of discipline they carried out from mountains of corpses and seas of blood weighed as heavy as a great mountain, pressing down so that the seventeen old-era rulers present could scarcely breathe.
This was utterly unlike the slack troops of many small nations; in sheer momentum alone they overwhelmed them by a great margin.
Berick swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and looking at the empty head seat, the dread born of the unknown in his heart grew greater and greater.
He finally couldn't quite hold himself back any longer, feeling as though his spirit was about to be driven mad!
And so, he rose tremblingly from his chair, bowing somewhat ingratiatingly, and with great care shuffled his steps over to the side of a Mason inner-guard centurion at the very front.
"Heh heh… this military master, you've worked hard, you've worked hard."
Berick squeezed out an exceedingly fawning smile, even erasing the haughty royal self-address he used on ordinary days.
He lowered his voice and, with a touch of ingratiation, asked softly:
"That, um… I wonder, about when might Your Majesty Sophia be able to arrive?
We neighbors—the moment we received Mason's formal state letter last night—didn't even get our shoes on steady before we brought over each nation's asset ledgers and national seals through the night.
We are so very devout, so very loyal toward Your Majesty's supreme new Order…
heh heh, we just wished to convey our greetings to Your Majesty a bit earlier."
Hearing this king's near-groveling inquiry, that Mason centurion did not so much as lift an eyelid.
Behind the iron mask, only a pair of eyes—coldly detached to the extreme, carrying not half a shred of superfluous emotion—were fixed hard upon Berick's face.
"Her Majesty has her own schedule."
The centurion's voice was cold and hard, without a single fluctuation, the black musket held level in his hands shifting slightly, giving off an icy metallic chill:
"When the time comes, Her Majesty will naturally summon you.
Please return to your seat, City Lord, and wait quietly.
Within the Hall of State Affairs, no one is permitted to move about without authorization, still less to clamor loudly.
Otherwise, it shall uniformly be regarded as a provocation against the Black Rose new Order, and cleared on the spot."
Hearing those four words—cleared on the spot—Berick's two fat legs gave a sudden shudder, and he nearly slipped and fell right there on the smooth marble floor.
"Yes, yes, yes…
the military master is right, it was this small king who was abrupt; this small king will return to his seat at once, return to his seat at once!"
The cold sweat on his forehead broke out even more fiercely; smiling sheepishly in apology, wiping his face with his sleeve while somewhat wretchedly backing up bent at the waist, he sat back down in his own round chair.
Seeing Berick hit a wall before a mere Mason centurion, the other kings and female city lords in the hall not only showed not the slightest trace of mockery, but instead the awe and terror at the bottom of their eyes grew all the thicker.
"Heavens… did you see that?"
The female liege of Black Stone City covered her mouth with a handkerchief, her long lashes trembling violently, and in a low voice spoke to the several people beside her a string of near-neurotic, frenzied mental embellishment.
"This is precisely Your Majesty Sophia's brilliance.
She deliberately invited us in, yet leaves the head seat empty, not even giving us a precise summoning time.
This is by no means an ordinary case of leaving us out to dry—this is clearly Her Majesty having long since used her supreme thought-model to calculate precisely the greed and wishful luck in all of our hearts!
She is using this silent intimidation to tell us that, within Mason's grand plan that has reshaped the entire Northern border's map, we old-era kings aren't even qualified to make her end her breakfast two quarter-hours early!
If anyone shows even the slightest shred of impatience and discontent, it is adding unnecessary garbage liabilities to her liquidation ledger, and they will be utterly resolved, along with their entire nation, by the black muskets outside!!"
"That's right… Big Sister put it too perfectly!"
Another young city lord of a small nation had by now nearly shrunk his whole body into his chair, clutching the pure-gold national seal he had brought, nodding repeatedly with an ashen face:
"Look at those iron tubes in the guards' hands—yesterday it was with exactly these fire-spewing things, combined with the white powder of the earth, that they steamed the people of the Crimson Vulture Duchy alive.
Your Majesty Sophia…
she is simply not a mortal; she must surely be a supreme Great Emperor striding toward legend!
In a moment, we absolutely must not raise any superfluous conditions; however much tax Her Majesty wishes to levy, however she wishes to re-divide our wheat-field schedules, we must all acknowledge the debt in full.
Not to be a watching, wavering impurity, but to go now and become Her Majesty's most loyal servant—that is the only chance we have to go on living!!"
Amid one low, urgent whisper after another, brimming with terror, extreme deification, and blind worship, these seventeen kings—lofty and aloof on ordinary days—utterly handed over and shredded their spiritual defense lines before this empty head seat.
They had tremblingly prepared their assets of submission in the dead of night, and now, within this spacious Hall of State Affairs, they were just like a flock of sinners awaiting final judgment.
With eyes near-despairing yet incomparably fervent, they locked hard upon that tightly shut inner door of the Temporary Palace, awaiting the final descent of that silver-haired queen who could master their fates.
Roughly another two quarter-hours passed.
The air within the Hall of State Affairs had grown as heavy as a congealed block of lead, almost enough to snap the nerves of these seventeen monarchs clean through.
Just as King Berick of the Kingdom of Goran was counting down his own heartbeats and wiping the cold sweat from his forehead for the thirteenth time, a crisp, slow, exceedingly rhythmic series of footsteps suddenly came faintly from behind the tightly shut inner door of the Temporary Palace.
"Tap… tap… tap…"
The crisp footsteps were neither light nor heavy, yet seemed to carry some strange magic capable of resonating with one's heartbeat, each step landing precisely upon everyone's vital point.
The low, undulating whispers of ingratiation and terror in the hall came to an abrupt halt in an instant, and a suffocating dead silence instantly swallowed the entire Hall of State Affairs whole like a rising tide.
The seventeen kings and city lords who summoned wind and rain in their own domains, in this moment straightened their stiff spines in unison, even subconsciously forcibly choking off their breathing.
A dozen-some pairs of eyes brimming with terror, probing, and awe were fixed hard upon that carved wooden door being slowly pushed open.
"Shing——!!"
The Mason inner-guard centurions standing watch on either side, expressionless, suddenly slammed the black muskets held level in their right hands against their refined-iron breastplates, erupting into a piercing, uniform metallic clang, the friction of armor exploding through the hall like a thunderclap.
Then, lowering their heads slightly, they intoned long in cold voices without fluctuation yet resounding to the vault of the ceiling:
"We greet Your Majesty!!"
Amid a field of gleaming, ink-black chainmail's cold glint, that rumored streak of silver, at last, stepped unhurriedly into this Hall of State Affairs heaped together from the dregs of the old era.
She was a girl beautiful enough to suffocate, yet cold enough to leave one's whole body burning.
Sophia had by now changed back into her signature black Gothic gown.
The layer upon layer of dark silk skirt-hem spread out across the mirror-smooth marble floor, giving off a soft rustle with her steps, like the night soundlessly flowing across the ground.
Atop her head she wore an exquisite crown, her head of hair like a silver waterfall swaying faintly behind her, refracting, under the dazzling noonday sun, a near-unreal holy glow.
Yet what truly tore at the very hearts and guts of the seventeen rulers below was that delicate, flawless, deadpan face, and that pair of pale-golden pupils without the slightest ripple.
Cold and detached.
Absolutely cold and detached.
This terrifying queen who had reshaped every rule of wealth in the Northern border's black market, steamed three thousand elites with that powder in a single day, and effortlessly took the Olan Royal City—within the one ten-thousandth of a second of stepping into the Hall of State Affairs, did not waste even the tiniest scrap of a superfluous glance upon the seventeen kings lined up waiting on either side.
She simply gazed straight ahead with composed countenance.
Her long lashes cast a cold, clear shadow upon cheeks fair to the point of near-translucence, and with steady, noble steps, she walked unhurriedly straight past the round chairs of the assembled crowd.
At last, beneath the gaze of the multitude, she seated herself steadily upon that black-lacquered, carved throne at the very top of the high dais.
Not until that streak of black skirt-hem had spread out neatly upon the throne did a string of sharp intakes of breath—and the faint physical commotion of hearts overclocking into a frenzy from excessive fright—rise from the dead-silent crowd below.
In this moment, the mentalities of the seventeen monarchs, having seen the true face of this supreme Great Emperor, utterly sank into a subversive storm.
Really… really sixteen years old?!
King Berick of the Kingdom of Goran stared hard at that silver-haired girl on the high dais, propping her chin with one hand, her expression cold and detached, his eyeballs nearly gouging their way out of their fat sockets.
Deep in his heart was frantically churning wave upon wave of absurd, despairing self-abasement.
Mad… this world has truly gone mad!
Before This Queen came to Yurilland, though he'd heard from spies that Mason's queen was still young in years, This Queen had thought it nothing more than a riddler's lie fabricated by the Black Rose paper slips to deify her!
But now, seeing it with his own eyes… she truly was just a girl of only sixteen years!
Sixteen!
What was This Queen doing at sixteen?!
At sixteen, This Queen was still scrapping with his own elder brother in a stinking gutter over snatching a short-legged pony of pure coat-color in the Frisa Temporary Palace, both their faces caked with mud, and in the end was whipped by Royal Father until his thighs were red and swollen!
But this Your Majesty Sophia before him?!
She too is only sixteen this year, yet she already grips in her hands black muskets capable of smashing the entire Olan Empire into scrap iron, and with a light wave of her fingertip can liquidate the survival and death of hundreds of thousands of people as flowing figures in a ledger!
Compared to her, the years This Queen has lived through more than half a lifetime are simply as though lived into barley chaff—all turned into a heap of utterly useless garbage dregs!!"
Meanwhile, on the other side of the long table, that middle-aged female liege of Black Stone City, along with several young female city lords, gazing at the Sophia on the high dais, had their delicate faces flush with an exceedingly bizarre redness, blending extreme terror and extreme fervor.
Especially that female liege of Black Stone City, long renowned for her shrewdness and domineering nature.
When Sophia's black Gothic gown brushed silkily past her side, raising a wisp of icy, clear fragrance that mingled Black Rose herbs with faint Red Maple honey-syrup, this middle-aged beauty—who on ordinary days had toyed with countless old-era political schemes in the mining district—found the body hidden beneath her deep-purple gown trembling exceedingly violently for an instant.
Her heartbeat, in an instant, utterly lost its original rhythm, like a lost little deer that had crashed headlong into an iceberg, pounding frantically against her chest.
Heavens… how could there be in this world a being so perfect, so as to make one want to kneel and lick her skirt-hem?!
She is so beautiful…
That head of silver hair and that near-morbid, noble, fair skin—it is simply like an artwork carved by a deity from a single block of cold jade in the most perfect workshop.
But what leaves me most unable to extricate myself is the ultimate coldness upon her—trampling the fate of an entire continent underfoot, carrying not a single shred of mortal emotion!
Those crude people see only the fire-spewing tubes in her hands, but what I see is a supreme empress in the midst of awakening, about to utterly format the hypocritical laws of the old era!
If I could be coldly and detachedly gazed upon, just once, by such a pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes…
no, even merely as the most insignificant minor asset in her ledger, lightly grazed by her fair fingertips, would be far, far more brilliant and far happier than being a false king guarding a heap of scrap copper and rotten iron in Black Stone City!
All the minerals of my Black Stone City, all my private soldiers, from this day forth must all become this Majesty's vassals beneath her skirt-hem, in full!!
Off to one side, another young queen of a small nation was at this moment biting hard upon her moist lips, a pair of lovely eyes brimming with a near-intoxicated fervor.
Gazing at Sophia's slender figure that nonetheless radiated the crushing weight of dominating all, from excessive excitement, a flush on her cheeks spread all the way down to the root of her fair neck.
Before this terrifying aesthetic and absolute power that had overturned the age, these self-important female rulers of the old era not only had no thought of resistance left, but instead began, in the depths of their hearts, to frantically crave being subjected to the most thorough unification and conquest by this silver-haired girl, with the most iron-blooded, most elegant rules.
And that hoary-white-haired Old King seated at the very edge of the round chairs, at this moment could not even spare a hand to steady the crooked crown atop his head.
He stared hard at the thick stack of official documents Sophia had casually set upon the carved long table, faintly giving off the scent of ink, his pair of withered old hands all covered in sticky cold sweat.
"Did you see that… did all of you see that?"
The Old King mumbled in a voice near the buzzing whine of a mosquito to the two trusted attendants behind him, the terror at the bottom of his eyes having already transformed into utter worship of an unknown godhood:
"From the moment that Majesty entered the door until now, she hasn't bestowed upon us even a single superfluous riddler's word.
Why did she come in carrying that stack of brand-new paper slips?!
This clearly means she has long since, through the channels of the administrative officer Willow, calculated crystal-clear the underlying royal granaries of all seventeen of our nations—even the very authenticity of the national seals we brought over this morning!
This long table is by no means a trading hall to discuss neutrality slots with us—this is the very… execution block she will use to declare upon what kind of distribution schedule we old-era garbage dregs are to be fully written off and merged into Mason's new Order!!"
Within the hall, the expressions of the seventeen monarchs were each different.
Some were immersed in the inferiority of having their very years dimension-reduction-struck; some had utterly fallen, heart-stirred, before the supreme aesthetic; and more of them were tormented to the point of near-breakdown of spirit by the imperial aura Sophia gave off intangibly.
And upon the high dais.
Sophia, seated steadily upon the black-lacquered carved throne, propped her somewhat aching cheek with one hand, her pale-golden pupils overlooking without a ripple this group of indigenous kings below, kneeling in a heap, frantically overclocking their own mental embellishments.
It seemed these kings' awareness was rather decent.
Yet Sophia did not intend to speak up first; though Mason now possessed formidable strength, one must also have the momentum to suppress these small-nation people.
Within the Hall of State Affairs.
Time seemed to have been pressed onto a heavy deceleration switch, every minute, every second slipping by accompanied by a suffocating, heavy oppression.
Upon the high dais, Sophia leaned elegantly back into the black-lacquered carved throne, those fair, porcelain-like fingertips unhurriedly pinching the small silver spoon, slowly stirring within the warm black tea.
The porcelain and silver spoon collided into an exceedingly faint, crisp sound, which in this hall so silent a falling needle could be heard, was like a death-knell striking blow by blow into the depths of everyone's souls.
She did not speak, and her pair of pale-golden pupils did not even shift downward by half a measure, merely gazing coldly at the rising and falling black tea in the cup.
Within the survival creed of one reborn, Sophia understood deeply that in a negotiation, whoever loses their composure and speaks first will lose all their bargaining chips in the ensuing distribution of interests.
What was more, her mind was now swiftly calculating another ledger.
Seventeen miniature nations… plus those who hadn't yet come…
their populations added together amounted to at least several hundred thousand.
The aged rice in the Olan granaries had already been pretty much squandered by Tina; if all these neighbors were merged into Mason's map, then even if the Black Bread ovens in Irene's workshop were spun until they threw off sparks, they still couldn't fill this many mouths.
It seemed she must forcibly bring forward the planting schedule for that batch of new high-yield wheat in Red Maple Valley and Iron Hammer Town, otherwise before this winter was through, there would be irreversible population losses.
However, this deep, profound expression of Sophia's—rubbing her temples, her whole face cold, detached, and suppressed—falling into the eyes of the seventeen monarchs below who were nearly frightened out of their minds, became the fatal omen before the imminent arrival of a storm.
Sweat had already utterly soaked through Goran King Berick's silk regalia.
He could even clearly hear that fat heart within his chest pounding with an overburdened frenzy from excessive terror.
Two quarter-hours passed.
For two full quarter-hours, the lofty silver-haired girl had not bestowed even a single superfluous word.
The monarchs in the hall were already nearly unable to hold themselves back.
The extreme dead silence was like an invisible sharp blade, slicing apart inch by inch the last defense line they had held as rulers for several centuries.
"Thud!!"
At last, a dull, enormous impact broke the deadlock within the hall.
Seated at the very edge, that hoary-white-haired Old King's legs went weak, and he actually tumbled scrambling down from his round chair, his two withered palms clutching hard at the marble floor, kneeling without a shred of dignity before the steps of the throne.
That ancient crown symbolizing a nation's legitimacy, inlaid with mottled gemstones, dropped straight to the ground with his violent motion, sliding a desolate arc across the smooth bluestone slabs, and finally, with a clack, jammed hard against the edge of a Mason inner guard's pitch-black war boot.
"Your Majesty… Your Majesty Sophia!!"
The Old King's voice was hoarse and trembling, brimming within with the ultimate despair and pleading of an old-era ruler facing destruction.
"The Kingdom of Rhodes… is willing to submit, the whole nation!!
This is the document of supreme directive authority my Duchy of Rhodes has passed down for three hundred and ten years, and the supreme tariff national seal enshrined in the royal shrine!
From this morning forth, the Kingdom of Rhodes shall no longer establish an independent army; all the wheat fields, the minerals, and even the life-assets of every last lowly liege-subject shall be wholly handed over to Mason's Black Rose banner to be reformatted!!"
The Old King, while crying out with streaming tears, tremblingly drew from his bosom a great black-iron seal wrapped in gold-threaded silk brocade, lifting it high above his head.
This single crisp sound of kneeling was like toppling the very first domino across the entire Northern border's map.
The faces of the remaining sixteen kings and city lords in the hall turned utterly ashen in an instant.
Watching the Old King's near-frenzied posture of submission, the last wishful luck in their minds was torn to shreds within one ten-thousandth of a second.
"Your Majesty! My Kingdom of Goran is also willing to surrender supreme directive authority!!"
King Berick flung himself scrambling down from his chair, that mass of fat rubbing violently against the marble floor, giving off a dull thud.
He flusteredly unfastened the mineral ledger at his waist and, like a fat hunting hound wagging its tail and begging for mercy, desperately pressed his head against the icy floor:
"This is the contract for all of Goran's iron-ore veins!
I beg Your Majesty's mercy—permit me, Berick, to become the most loyal identity-card holder under the Black Rose Order!!"
"Black Stone City is willing to merge entirely into the Mason Duchy!!"
"The Vala Outer City is willing to hand over all administrative authority!!"
For a moment, throughout the entire Hall of State Affairs, the sounds of metal-and-stone colliding and knees slamming the ground densely merged into one.
The seventeen supreme rulers, whose word was law in their own domains on ordinary days, were at this moment just like bankrupt merchants queuing to await liquidation, kneeling without a shred of dignity into a dark, oppressive mass, presenting with both hands the national seals and ledgers representing the supreme power of their respective nations to the foot of the high dais.
And amid this near-frenzied flood of kneeling worship, the kneeling posture of that middle-aged female liege of Black Stone City appeared especially singular at this moment.
Clad in her deep-purple tight-fitting gown, her full, graceful figure was prostrating itself exceedingly obediently at the very front of the steps.
Owing to this posture, her head of ink-like long hair spread across the floor, all the more setting off her mature face flushed with a singular redness from extreme excitement and stimulation.
Her gaze, from beginning to end, had never once left that streak of black Gothic skirt-hem on the high dais.
At the very second the Old King surrendered his supreme directive authority, she even clearly heard the proud heart beneath her undergarments giving off a violent palpitation near to utter capitulation.
Beautiful… beautiful to an outrageous degree, and powerful to the point of making one shudder.
You pack of fools, you only know to fear that fire-spewing black tube.
But look at that throne lofty on high, look at that silver-haired queen—in the face of all seventeen of our nations submitting, that ultimate cold indifference of hers, too lazy even to lift an eyebrow.
In this old era, ruled year-round by crude people like us with warhorses and ramshackle spears, only Sophia, with a few paper slips and a heap of white flour, toyed with the reins of the entire continent in the palm of her hand like flipping through account books.
To be able to offer up everything of Black Stone City with both hands at the feet of such a supreme queen, to watch her delicate, fair fingertips graze across my territory's deed—this is no humiliation at all, this is the most supreme glory heaven has bestowed upon me!
Even merely becoming the most lowly asset beneath her black skirt-hem would be enough to let this dull, dreary body of mine feel an ultimate ecstasy surpassing all political schemes!!
Off to one side, another young female monarch of a small nation was at this moment also pressing her full bosom hard against the icy marble, her long feathery lashes trembling violently—where was there still even half a shred of a city lord's dignity in those moist eyes?
Within them was nothing but an inextricable intoxication and submission.
Before this terrifying aesthetic and absolute power that had overturned the age, these self-important female rulers had their spiritual defense lines utterly disintegrate in an instant, willingly offering up all their loyalty toward that streak of a silver-haired figure.
At the foot of the long table, those dozen-some aged monarchs, while desperately kowtowing, stirred up in their hearts a kind of mournful, resolute resignation, as if having seen through cause and effect.
They understood very well that far to the south, there was yet a supreme core so vast as to be unimaginable, which had ruled the entire continent for a century—the Imperial Capital.
The Imperial Capital held in its hands soldiers in numbers ordinary people could not know, possessing an unshakable power; once that colossus truly freed up its hands, it would inevitably carry out a devastating sanction against Mason's Black Rose new Order.
But… so what of it?!
No matter how strong the Imperial Capital's army, it was a full thousand-some li distant from this wasteland of Vala.
King Berick pressed his forehead hard against the floor where the white slurry had not yet dried, the line of thought in his heart at this moment unprecedentedly clear.
By the time the Imperial Capital's punitive mechanism finished mustering from the south and lumbered its way to the foot of this Yurilland city, it would be at least two months later.
But if This Queen did not sign upon this state letter this very morning, before the sun even set, Delilah's heavily-armored greatsword outside the city, soaked with royal blood, would utterly smash the palace my Kingdom of Goran had passed down for several centuries into a heap of rotten kindling!
As for the future contest with the supreme core?
That is a divine match worthy only of the participation of a supreme empress like Your Majesty Sophia.
We impurities of miniature nations—so long as we can, before this trans-epochal meat-grinder starts up, snatch a formal Mason identity card ahead of time, and live within Her Majesty's plan to the day of the autumn harvest—that already counts as the most shrewd investment in all the world!!"
The seventeen national seals and contract documents representing supreme governance authority, beneath the rising morning sun of high summer, refracted a dazzling golden gleam—somewhat absurd, yet incomparably conforming to the logic of interest-liquidation.
Upon the high dais.
Sophia propped her chin with one hand, those pale-golden dead-fish eyes quietly overlooking this group of indigenous kings below, kneeling in a heap, frantically overclocking their own mental embellishments.
Watching the heap of heavy seals being presented up one after another by the inner guards, this sixteen-year-old silver-haired girl, deep in her heart, silently let out her twenty-seventh sigh.
The momentum had indeed been seized, true enough.
But… she hadn't even spoken a single sentence—how had these seventeen neighbors gone and frightened themselves into on-the-spot bankruptcy reorganization?
And those two queens in the front row… ah no, henceforth to be called female city lords.
Why were the looks they gave her so clingy and sticky, their very necks flushed crimson…
When it came to facing the merger of accounts, did these old-era royal houses of the Northern border truly all harbor some irreversible mental affliction?
Could it be they'd flushed red from anger?
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