Chapter 606: MEMORY OF THE AZURE DRAGON, A JOURNEY IN A HEARTBEAT THROUGH THE GATE, AND THE NIGHT CITY THAT GREW WITHOUT ITS QUEEN

The next few days passed in a peace that felt almost suspicious to anyone who knew Sylvia.

No new investigation fleet appeared on the northern horizon. No Noble Council crystal ships hovered above the wall. Hua Chen sent a single short letter by courier eagle of the Association of Hunters, reporting that the Grand Noble Council was in an unnatural silence, and that he himself was slowly rearranging the affairs of the palace. Construction of Fallen Star City’s new fortress wall had crept from forty percent to nearly sixty percent thanks to hundreds of earth mages from the Guard Legion, who for some reason preferred to donate their strength rather than sit idle in the barracks. Commander Lian had even begun sharing chili sauce recipes with the Nocture dwarves on the Quiet Bay docks.

Sylvia spent her days calmly. She had light monster meat for breakfast, moderately seasoned roast meat for lunch, and for dinner a dish spicy enough to make Sol cry quietly. She accompanied Zhaoyue to inspect the nearly finished public housing in the eastern district. She let Baihu sit in her lap for two full afternoons while it discussed, in an archaic tone far too serious for a cat, the difference between grilled and boiled monster meat. And, as was her old habit, she tapped her finger on her knee whenever her mind began to wander.

That tapping finally stopped one sunny afternoon, when Baihu, basking on the windowsill of Zhaoyue’s study with a full belly, murmured something in passing.

‘In the old days, the Guardian of the East always teased me about my taste in food,’ it said in a drowsy telepathic voice. ‘He said a tiger should not be so fussy about meat. He himself would only eat fish caught under moonlight.’

Sylvia, who had been reading the port’s logistics reports on the sofa, suddenly stopped turning pages.

“The Guardian of the East,” she repeated softly. “The Azure Dragon?”

‘Qinglong,’ Baihu corrected without opening its eyes. ‘The Azure Dragon of the East. Why?’

Sylvia set the report in her lap. At once an old memory crept back from a corner of her mind that had been buried beneath dresses, spicy food, and far too much politics: a dimensional rift north of Nocture, and in its darkest depths, an obsidian chamber without light where a giant Asian-style dragon with blue-black scales lay in the coils of black chains pulsing with dark red runes. The Azure Dragon. She had met it together with Stacia and Alicia, and that ancient dragon had calmly mentioned that it was one of the guardians of the four directions of the world.

At the time she had thought it was just one more lesson in how old this world was, and then too many things happened, and the memory sank beneath everything. She had almost forgotten.

“Baihu,” Sylvia called in a voice calmer than usual. “You said the other three Guardians had left this world.”

‘That is what I believed.’ Baihu finally opened both eyes. ‘Why do you ask?’

“Because I’ve met it. The Azure Dragon, sealed inside a dimensional rift.”

Silence instantly fell in the study. Zhaoyue, who was signing trade permit documents at her desk, dropped her pen. Sol, asleep on a pile of maps, woke with his head held high. The white cat on the windowsill stood with all four legs rigid, the fur on its back bristling, its tail, which had been swaying idly, stopping entirely.

‘Where?’ The telepathic voice was cold and very quiet, far from the basking tone of two minutes earlier.

“Inside a dimensional rift north of Nocture. Not close, but also not as far as you’d imagine. The rift is in a human city.” Sylvia frowned, trying to recall more. “In its deepest depths, there’s a chained blue dragon. It said it and its brothers were sealed, and it suspected the World Avatar did it. It held no grudge at all.”

‘Sealed…’ Baihu leapt down from the windowsill and walked closer with faintly trembling steps. ‘The last I saw of Qinglong was when the sky cracked. It went chasing something at the eastern edge and never returned. I thought it had fallen.’ Its pale golden eyes glistened. ‘If it was trapped… all this time it has been alive?’

“It was still alive then, only bound and asleep. I don’t know what condition it’s in now, and I don’t want to guess before seeing it myself.” Sylvia stood, smoothing her black dress with a motion that no longer seemed casual. “But I won’t sit idle. Zhuque in the south still has to be found, and the Azure Dragon turns out to be closer to my home than I thought. I’m going to Nocture.”

“Now?” Zhaoyue asked quickly, already standing from her chair.

“Today. I also want to see the city I’ve left behind for so long. If I don’t come home soon, Sofia might send a squad of Archangels to drag me back.” Sylvia smiled faintly. “Besides, there’s someone in Nocture I’ve neglected for quite a while.”

Zhaoyue bit her lower lip for a moment, then nodded with a firmness that was beginning to feel like true leadership. “This city will be fine. Celes is here, and so is Commander Lian. Go.”

In the doorway, Celes was already standing without being called, her black armor neat and her spatial sword sheathed at her waist. She bowed deeply before Sylvia could speak.

“I will protect the Princess and this entire territory until the Queen returns,” she said flatly. “If there is any movement from the Council, I will report immediately through the Holographic Bracelet.”

“I know.” Sylvia patted her shoulder once. “And don’t forget, if the Second Prince asks for the spiciest dish, give it to him. He needs to prove something to himself.”

“Understood.”

Baihu leapt onto Zhaoyue’s shoulder, clinging to her neck, its eyes still fixed on Sylvia with an intensity it couldn’t hide.

‘Woman who smells of death,’ it said quietly. ‘If you find him… tell him that the fussy Tiger is still alive.’

“I’ll tell him,” Sylvia answered gently. “With spicy meat as proof.”

Quiet Bay greeted Sylvia with a clamor entirely different from the last time she had seen it.

The new port city had now grown into a maze of magic-clay terraces creeping along the cliff walls, with narrow lantern-filled streets and small shops selling everything from fertilizer crystals to chili powder branded “Breath of the Queen,” clearly printed without permission. Nocture’s dwarves shouted from atop magic cranes, Tianhua human merchants quarreled fiercely over prices in front of warehouses, and in the busiest corner of the dock, Brom’s tavern already had a line fifty meters long curling along the canal’s edge.

Sylvia crossed the crowd in a casual black dress and a wide-brimmed hat, so most people took her for a wealthy visitor who happened to be passing by. Sol followed behind in golden-cat form with the flower garland he refused to take off, while Noir clung silently to her shadow. Only when they neared the end of the canal, where the giant thirty-meter Black Starsteel frame stood majestically with its white-gold veins pulsing softly, did the black-armored Nocture guards salute in unison with a spear-stamp that made the ground tremble.

“Greetings, my Queen!”

“At ease,” Sylvia said, waving a hand. “Is the gate in good condition?”

“One hundred percent, Your Majesty. Miss Stacia performed the final calibration three hours ago before going to sleep. She left a message that if you’re returning to Nocture, she’d like twenty kilograms of Alpha Shadow Tiger meat sent to her as experimental material.”

“Twenty kilograms for experiments or for dinner?”

“The guards dare not ask, Your Majesty.”

Sylvia chuckled. She stepped before the frame, where the air inside, which had looked merely empty, now trembled faintly. With a single touch of her fingers, the magic circles at the frame’s joints lit in sequence, and the air surface in the center of the frame turned into a colossal blue-silver mirror. Behind that surface lay an entirely different scene: a wide dock with black stone floors, a twilight sky of reddish orange, and a blackish crimson sea stretching without limit.

“Five hundred thousand kilometers,” Sylvia murmured, looking at the reflection. “And all of it is a single step.”

‘You’ve said that a hundred times,’ Sol grumbled on her shoulder. ‘Every time you pass through the gate, you praise yourself.’

“Because it deserves praise.”

Without waiting for another retort, Sylvia stepped in.

The sensation touching her skin lasted only an instant, like passing through a curtain of cold water that didn’t wet. White-blue light flashed before her eyes. Then her feet were on solid black stone, the damp salty sea wind slapped her face, and the sound of crimson waves crashing against the dock pilings was clear in her ears.

Sylvia opened her eyes.

The Nocture side of the Intercontinental Teleportation Gate, it turned out, had not been built in the middle of the city, but on the coast, near a giant military dock facing the Outer Sea. An identical gate frame stood at the end of a steel canal, surrounded by wide metal platforms and watchtowers full of crystal lamps. Nocture’s guard troops, a mix of armored zombies, dwarves, and beastkin, welcomed her in neat formation with slightly startled faces, as if they hadn’t expected the Queen to appear without notice.

But it was not they who drew Sylvia’s attention.

Before her, parked in rows along a dock stretching as far as the eye could see, stood her great fleet.

Giant ships with Black Starsteel hulls veined with white-gold metal that glittered in the twilight. Hundreds of meters long, crystal cannon towers rising like floating cities, and energy sails were neatly folded on every mast. She counted quickly and stopped at fifty-nine before giving up. The entire fleet that had once broken through the Wall of Storm and Death with her, challenged the Storm Sea King, and anchored at the Chimera Continent, now lay at rest like a pod of giant sleeping whales.

On the deck of one nearby ship, a zombie sailor in uniform was playing cards with two dwarves. On the bow of another, a group of skeleton soldiers was polishing cannons until they gleamed, apparently just because there was nothing else to do. From the galley of a distant ship came the hoarse singing of cooks preparing soup.

“They’re… not sailing?” Sylvia murmured.

“They’ve been parked for two months, Your Majesty,” reported the dock’s chief guard, a very disciplined wolf-faced beastkin. “After you left for Tianhua, there were no new exploration orders. Lady Sofia instructed that the fleet be maintained and kept ready, but not released carelessly into the Outer Sea without a direct command from you.”

“Because no one dares take my place on the bridge?”

“With all due respect,” he answered with a flat face, “the captains feel unworthy of leading an expedition you once led yourself. And the crews are starting to… get bored.”

Sylvia looked at her sleeping armada and suddenly remembered how hard she had once struggled to build all this. Crew boredom, on the other hand, was something she understood very well. She even felt a little guilty.

“Once my business is finished,” she said, “I’ll take you all sailing again. Tell the captains. Make sure they keep that spirit and don’t let the engines rust.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

Sol leapt from Sylvia’s shoulder to the dock floor and yawned widely, glancing toward the distant city not yet visible from there.

‘Don’t tell me you want to walk to Nocture’s capital from here,’ he needled. ‘It’s hundreds of kilometers, isn’t it?’

“You know I won’t walk.” Sylvia smiled sweetly. “How about you transform?”

‘Always me. It’s always me who has to be the vehicle.’ Sol sighed long. But his tiny body was already glowing gold and expanding like a balloon filled with light. Within a few breaths, a fifty-meter golden dragon stood on the dock, his scales reflecting the twilight like a sea of molten metal. The guards, the ships’ crews, and even the dwarves playing cards all stopped what they were doing and cheered riotously.

“Long live the Queen! Long live the Golden Dragon!”

‘At least they know how to appreciate my dignity,’ Sol said smugly, swishing his tail.

“You’re still being used as transport.” Sylvia leapt onto the dragon’s back with her dress fluttering, sat between two large scales at the base of Sol’s neck, then patted his neck gently. “Let’s go home.”

The golden dragon shot up from the dock with a single beat of his giant wings, and the entire fleet below shrank in an instant to toy ships lined up on the surface of the crimson sea. Sol’s air-manipulation shield worked without a sound. No sonic boom, no wind slapping Sylvia’s face, only the twilight sky changing color from orange to deep purple at an absurd speed.

Not long after, a sight unfolded on the horizon.

At first it was only a thin line of light flickering at the edge of vision. Then the line widened, rose, and became an enormous expanse of lights, like a sea of stars that had fallen to earth and chosen to stay. Sylvia straightened her back atop Sol’s neck, and her violet eyes slowly widened.

The city of Nocture.

She had left it as a magnificent night metropolis, with black steel towers, crystal-paved streets, and a tall palace at the city’s center that was the heart of civilization. She remembered the city’s shape well because she herself had designed its layout. But what lay beneath her now was no longer the city she had left.

Its size had doubled.

The outer wall ring that had once been the city’s farthest boundary had now become the inner wall ring, surrounded by an expanse of new districts stretching to the foot of the horizon. The black steel towers had multiplied and soared higher, linked by crystal bridges glowing bluish between their peaks. Energy-rail lines wove through the city like veins of light, and among the dense buildings, hanging gardens of silver trees glowed softly under the night sky. The food fields on the southern edge had expanded so far that Sylvia had to squint to see their end, an expanse of gold-green swaying under the moonlight, as neat as a giant carpet.

“Twice as big,” she whispered. “In less than three months.”

‘You’re surprised,’ Sol said, flying lower so Sylvia could see more clearly.

“I… didn’t expect it to have grown this much. Sofia must have been working without sleep.”

But the sight wasn’t finished.

The closer they came to the main city, the more Sylvia began to see other points of light scattered around it, far outside the new walls. At first she took them for small villages. But as Sol flew lower, she saw that the points were neatly arranged small cities, each ringed by a low stone wall, with street lamps, food warehouses, and watchtowers. Dozens of them, even more. And between the cities stretched roads of light linking them all directly to the center, busy with energy carriages and monster-drawn wagons passing even in the middle of the night.

‘Those are… satellite cities,’ Sol murmured in awe. ‘Sofia built a network of cities around Nocture.’

“And look at the residents.” Sylvia pointed down.

On the streets of those small cities, thick-bearded dwarves were negotiating with green-robed elves, bushy-tailed beastkin ran between merchants, and neatly uniformed zombies stood guard at the gates with postures that inspired no fear at all. Children with cat ears and fox ears played tag in the squares. Zombie farmers hauled harvests together with elves in crystal-powered carts. Everything looked alive. Everything looked safe.

‘I don’t see a single emergency defense post,’ Noir commented from Sylvia’s shadow, finally awake and peeking down. ‘No troops on alert at the borders. No hastily reinforced walls. These cities were built as if no one would attack.’

“And indeed no one will,” Sylvia said quietly.

She looked up at the sky above the city, where the stars shone calmly without the slightest ripple of divine will. No angel armies from other pantheons. No shadow of Poseidon on the sea horizon. No ships of ice and bone belonging to Aegir lurking at the edge of the Outer Sea. The gods who once tested Nocture’s patience with open attacks had vanished without a trace, as if all of them had agreed that this night city was not a place worth disturbing.

“Persephone, the World Avatar, and the Chains of the Abyss,” Sylvia murmured with a faint smile. “A combination that makes even gods think twice.”

‘Or they’re just waiting,’ Sol replied, more serious than usual. ‘Gods never truly give up. They only wait for the right moment.’

“Perhaps.” Sylvia did not deny it. “But for tonight, let me enjoy this city as a homeowner, not as a ruler at war.”

Sol nodded and began to descend. In the midst of that sea of lights, at the heart of the city, the palace of the Queen of Death stood with black towers glowing silver, far grander and wider than Sylvia remembered. New gardens surrounded it. A giant crystal-floored plaza stretched before the main gate. And on the topmost step, beneath the light of hundreds of crystal lanterns, stood an eight-winged woman with golden hair in a deep blue gown embroidered with silver, her hands folded gracefully before her chest and a gentle smile that concealed nothing of the feelings welling up behind it.

Sylvia drew a deep breath, and for the first time since leaving the gate, she felt she was truly coming home.

But far beyond the horizon, in a place even her True Sight could not reach, a pair of unblinking eyes from another dimension still watched that night city patiently, waiting for the Queen of Death to let her guard down.