Hearing Patchouli Knowledge's explicit question, Remilia drifted casually a few inches to the side, folding her arms over her chest with an elegant flutter of her wings while casting a curious, expectant gaze down toward her younger sister.
Flandre giggled softly, waving her small hands in the crisp night air to express that this entire scenario was incredibly simple and that there was absolutely zero practical need for them to waste time hiding their movements.
The most straightforward, foolproof solution was actually sitting right in front of their faces. Regardless of whether the Ursus frontier military expected a magical interference or not, as long as she unleashed her high-intensity maneuvers to completely and utterly level this entire mountain pass to the bedrock, the Ursus high command would have absolutely no way to enter the Reunion Movement's northern sphere of influence through this corridor anyway. Once faced with an impossible, completely blocked mountain, the local imperial officers would naturally be forced to invent their own bureaucratic excuses to satisfy their superiors.
Regarding Flandre's direct, unyielding brute-force philosophy, Patchouli stood silently at the edge of the cliff, pondering the structural logic for a few silent seconds before her head tilted in a small, approving nod. In truth, she found the little girl's reasoning to be remarkably sound.
Patchouli's original academic plan had been to utilize localized geological Magic to induce a minor, seemingly natural seismic tremor, making the imperial engineers below believe that the excavation had triggered an accidental landslide. But she truly hadn't expected Flandre's direct conceptual approach to be even simpler and more permanent than her own.
There was fundamentally no need to worry about what the enemy party thought at all. After all, there simply weren't many native entities residing across the world of Terra who could physically achieve such an apocalyptic feat of land-shaping. The imperial border officers down in the basin didn't possess such a high level of supernatural awareness to deduce the presence of Gensokyo magic. Therefore, as long as this narrow passage was violently and physically sealed shut, the panicked person in charge would automatically concoct his own desperate fabrications to report the failure up the chain of command to protect his own head.
"In that case, go ahead and execute it your way!" Patchouli stated smoothly, stepping back to grant Flandre the full radius of the cliffside.
Flandre beamed with joy, skipping happily over to the very edge of the steep drop-off. Her small frame suddenly tensed as she activated her core destructive ability, her colorful crystal wings flaring with an intense, pulsing elemental radiance.
Accompanied by a sudden, incredibly loud shout from the little girl, the solid inner cliff faces of the opposing mountains began to violently fracture, buckling and crumbling layer by layer under the immense psychological pressure of her power.
RUMBLE... BOOM!
A massive, deafening roar of grinding tectonic plates and shattered stone instantly echoed through the surrounding dark valleys, the sheer acoustic shockwave vibrating the heavy air for miles.
Down at the foot of the mountain pass, the tightly clustered Ursus soldiers and laborers stationed inside the outpost three kilometers away also clearly heard the terrifying, earth-shattering commotion echoing down from the pitch-black canyon. But because total midnight had already set in, and because this specific excavating route was already notoriously prone to massive, lethal rockfalls, not a single guard or supervisor dared to risk their lives by marching into the dark to investigate the source. They could only huddle inside their tents, praying the mountain wouldn't collapse onto their camp.
The massive, thundering noise of tearing rock and grinding earth lasted continuously for nearly half an hour.
Of course, this massive duration didn't mean that Flandre's actual spellcasting process required that much time to resolve. In structural reality, her core mechanical spellcasting took less than ten minutes in total to completely fill the gorge. Most of the extended time was actually spent on the hyperactive little girl getting more and more excited as she watched the massive boulders dance through the air, leading to her actively molding the flying rocks into bizarre shapes and playfully juggling them across the sky on a total whim.
If Remilia hadn't eventually been completely unable to stand the ridiculous delay and stepped forward to firmly pull her back by her collar, given Flandre's playful personality, she probably would have stayed up on the ridge merrily playing with the floating boulders until dawn broke tomorrow morning.
Once the final, grinding echoes of the landslide completely calmed down into a dead silence, Remilia and her group hovered down the basin to inspect the structural state of the canyon.
This time around, it could be said that the entire geopolitical passage was completely, flawlessly blocked beyond any hope of manual restoration. Under Flandre's chaotic play session, the entire deep gorge had been entirely filled in and leveled flat with the surrounding peaks.
Considering that the native rock formations of this northern ridge were naturally fragile and prone to shifting, and the fact that there was absolutely no paved main road leading up to this remote sector—only narrow, winding hunting paths that couldn't structurally support the entry of heavy industrial engineering equipment from the empire—clearing this pass would be an impossible nightmare. If the Ursus governors chose to rely solely on manual serf labor as they had previously done, it would probably take several consecutive years of uninterrupted digging to make a dent, and the participating workers would have to constantly risk being instantly crushed to death by unstable falling rocks. This massive investment of resources and human lives wouldn't be cost-effective for the military no matter how one looked at the ledger.
Most importantly of all, if the Reunion Movement ever truly wished to establish a permanent defense for this northern boundary in the future, the practical execution would be incredibly simple; they would only need to construct a single, modest military checkpoint right on the high mountain crest overlooking the basin. Due to the natural terrain and the alignment of the local ley lines, the entire far northern side of the ridge consisted almost entirely of sheer, vertical cliffs, ensuring that the heavy Ursus line troops couldn't physically climb up the mountain faces without being spotted.
So, with just a single fortified watchtower and a dozen or so alert soldiers stationed on the ridge, the Reunion Movement could easily and permanently hold this entire northern passage, which had been almost completely erased from the map by Flandre, for decades to come.
After the massive seismic vibrations finally ceased late in the night, the panicked Ursus supervisor still felt compelled to secretly dispatch a high-speed scout to investigate the situation under the cover of total darkness.
When the scout returned an hour later, trembling as he reported that the entire canyon passage—which had previously cost the lives of dozens of conscripted laborers and over a full month of grueling, non-stop manual digging to nearly breach—was once again entirely filled to the brim with millions of tons of solid bedrock, the commanding officer in charge of the operation felt his vision go instantly dark as his blood pressure skyrocketed.
Refusing to believe such a horrific, supernatural report, the officer personally ran out to thoroughly investigate the canyon line the exact second dawn broke across the eastern peaks. Unfortunately for his career, the physical results his eyes obtained were even more devastatingly detailed than the nighttime scout report.
After last night's earth-shattering vibration, the entire deep canyon had been completely and permanently erased, replaced by a smooth, solid mountain wall of jagged granite. Although his binoculars couldn't pierce through the massive stone barrier to see the structural security situation of the Reunion Movement on the other side of the ridge, the sheer density of the physical blockage sitting directly in front of his nose was fifty times more severe than the initial collapsed terrain a year ago.
If his regiment wished to manually clear this passage all over again using shovels and picks, it would take at least half a year of non-stop, intense labor just to scratch the surface. Within that half-year window, if the scouts of the Reunion Movement caught wind of any construction noises and came up the ridge to investigate, his covert breakthrough plan would completely fall through anyway.
The most terrifying key factor was that with such an apocalyptic, loud commotion echoing across the mountains last night, he absolutely did not believe the high command of the Reunion Movement was left completely unaware of the activity. To his perspective, a massive defensive force was probably already waiting for them on the other side of the stone wall.
Therefore, the reality laying directly before his feet was a absolute, unmitigated dead end.
"Pack up the equipment and withdraw the entire regiment immediately!"
After agonizing in deep, sweating silence for a few frantic seconds, the commander still wisely chose to execute a total evacuation. After all, the grand strategic breakthrough plan had completely failed, and remaining stationed in this barren northern valley would only result in a vain waste of imperial supplies and men.
Meanwhile, long before the Ursus forces began packing their tents, Flandre and the rest of the Scarlet Devil Mansion delegation had already smoothly returned to the central administrative sector of the Reunion Movement.
"How exactly did the northern operation go?" Talulah asked immediately, looking up from a map as she witnessed the group stroll back through the main gates of the command center.
Flandre flashed a bright smile, lifting her hand to make a confident "OK" gesture. "It was entirely easily handled, Sister Talulah!"
Beside her, Remilia reached out her pale hand, gently rubbing her younger sister's blonde hair with a soft sigh. "It was indeed incredibly easy for her power level. If Flandre hadn't started playfully juggling the giant rocks and almost entirely forgotten the main task at hand, our group would have probably been back lounging in the house hours ago."
"Talulah, shouldn't you be strictly confined to your main office desk right now processing the winter logistics? Why exactly are you standing out here in the reception hall?" Alina questioned, walking over to join the circle while looking at her childhood friend with a slight, knowing smile.
After all, Talulah was a notorious, absolute workaholic who was rarely ever seen resting or standing idle unless she was actively sleeping or eating her meals—especially nowadays, as the overall territory and political power of the Reunion Movement grew larger by the day, bringing an endless mountain of administrative affairs that required her personal signature.
"Miss Eirin Yagokoro just dispatched a formal magical messenger to the office a few minutes ago," Talulah explained, her tired eyes lighting up with genuine excitement. "The message stated that Yelena's core life signs are surging, and she might be fully waking up from the deep freeze very soon. I was just about to head straight over to the medical wing to witness the awakening."
Hearing Talulah's words, Alina's face instantly showed a look of profound, pleasant surprise, and she immediately adjusted her coat to go along to wait for Yelena to open her eyes.
Seeing the adults moving out, Flandre frantically shook Remilia's hand up and down, her ruby eyes wide with pleading excitement as she indicated that she absolutely wanted to tag along too.
"Go ahead, let's all head over," Remilia agreed, her wings tucking neatly against her back. "I also happen to be quite curious to witness whether Eirin Yagokoro's unique medical method can truly and permanently save the life of that native patient."
Although the legendary doctor of Eientei herself was always exceptionally confident in her pharmaceutical and spiritual formulas, until the entire elemental transmutation process was completely finished and concluded, no outside observer could absolutely guarantee that a volatile variable wouldn't go wrong halfway through the resurrection.
By the exact time the large group finally arrived at the secure isolation hospital wing, quite a massive crowd of anxious people had already gathered along the sterile white corridors.
The legendary commander Buldrokkas'tee was still silently guarding the main entrance of the ward, standing completely rigid and imposing like an unyielding metal monolith, just like he had during her last visit. With such a terrifying, legendary Gate God standing watch over the threshold, the physical security of the medical room was naturally beyond a single shadow of doubt.
Furthermore, the elite soldiers of the Yeti Squad had completely surrounded the entire perimeter of the ward in an impenetrable, shoulder-to-shoulder defensive wall, ensuring that not a single accidental disruption or outside noise could possibly occur to disturb their captain's recovery.
Inside the reinforced glass room, the top academic doctors operating from Rhodes Island and Eirin Yagokoro's assistant group were actively conducting a series of high-speed diagnostic examinations and monitoring the complex medical telemetry.
The moment Flandre stepped within a few meters of the ward's observation window, her sharp vampire senses picked up a sudden, incredibly solid, rhythmic heartbeat echoing clearly from deep within the massive block of solid ice.
She, Remilia, and Alina glanced at each other in surprise, and then simultaneously leaned their faces tightly against the glass window to peer intently inside.
At this specific point in the procedure, Yelena's physical form had completely turned into a flawless, glowing block of pristine, crystalline ice. Not far away from the pedestal, the Yuki-onna, Letty Whiterock, was still diligently channeling her freezing aura, her hands moving in precise circles to perfectly control the ambient sub-zero air currents, ensuring the critical transmuting chill wouldn't dissipate a single inch into the room.
"Such an incredibly powerful, vibrant heartbeat... is that person inside truly still Sister Yelena?" Flandre asked softly, her brow furrowing slightly as she listened to the rhythmic thumping.
"If an entity, born fundamentally from the pure essence of primordial ice, possesses Yelena's exact physical appearance, her exact childhood memories, her distinct leadership personality, her personal hobbies, and her deep emotional feelings—aside from a completely rewritten race and an Oripathy-free bloodline—then do you personal believe she should be considered Yelena?"
Remilia posed a deep, highly philosophical question that instantly plunged Flandre's young mind into a state of profound, silent thought.
"I... I guess she would be! Wait... no... that doesn't seem completely right either!" Flandre stammered, her thoughts momentarily stunned and tangled by the classic existential paradox.
While Flandre was busy pondering within her mind whether the ancient paradox of the Ship of Theseus held any true relevance to the original identity of a resurrected person, the physical commotion occurring inside the operating room grew louder and more visually stunning by the second.
Through the clear glass, everyone could now clearly see the dense walls of white cold air surrounding the solid ice pedestal beginning to rhythmically pulse and expand, as if the frozen ice itself were actively drawing deep, steady breaths.
In the specialized supernatural vision of Flandre, Remilia, and Patchouli, they could distinctly perceive the raw magical energy trapped within the solid ice layer rapidly escalating at an exponential rate. Within a matter of minutes, the surging energy signature comfortably surpassed standard levels, matching Cirno's absolute elemental baseline before finally stabilizing into a calm, harmonious hum.
"This phenomenon is...?" Flandre's attention was instantly completely drawn away by the magnificent elemental display inside the room, causing her to entirely forget her previous philosophical identity question.
"She is actively awakening her new baseline," Patchouli Knowledge replied with an uncharacteristically serious, academic expression, her eyes unblinking as she carefully recorded the grand transmutation sequence inside the chamber. "Once her consciousness fully wakes up, her body will naturally absorb the remaining concentration of this specialized cold air, and she will violently break through the external ice layer from the inside. At that exact moment, she will have successfully achieved a perfect resurrection."