36 Graycastle’s Preparation Phase for the Final Stand

The sound of ceramic shattering was heard inside a beautifully decorated garden within a dome-shaped glass-paned enclosure. The gigantic enclosure was floating in space with only a single dock, indicating that it was a private space-lodge. A couple of spaceships were parked at the dock.

The charming ladies who were accompanying a refined looking young man shivered in fear. Their coquettish murmuring banters were abruptly stopped. They knew the tea party was over and quickly excused themselves with random reasons and bolted like startled little birds. Most of the spaceships docking at the artificial garden went off within ten minutes.

Everyone was extremely proficient at giving the young man the privacy that he needed even without being prompted. They knew how callous and fickle the young man could be when he was placed in a bad mood and what will happened to them if they stay longer than expected.

The handsome man's face was clouded with anger as he stared at his subordinate without speaking while waiting for the remaining guests to disperse.

The eerie silence followed made the subordinate sweated profusely. He knew he had done a dismal job but was helpless with his current predicament. After a while, the subordinate cleared his throat and try to defend himself out of fear, "Young master Wales, I had done everything I could to lobby the individuals involved with extraordinary compensation, as per your request. Half of them had already sided with us until this hotblooded fellow, Prosecutor Aidern takes over the case. His background is as solid as yours---"

Blood gushed out of his neck. He quickly held the wound on his neck in an attempt to stem the gushing blood from flowing out like a torrential river but to no avail. As his life faded away with his blood drenching the artificial grass, he realized the main artery in his neck had been stabbed with a broken teacup although he had never seen the young master moved even a little. Regret clouded his eyes, but no one had the chance to know anymore as he stopped breathing within seconds..

Wales removed his gloves expressionlessly. A maid hurriedly poured a new cup of premium tea into a new porcelain teacup with steady hands. Another was clearing the table and replacing freshly made pastries with high efficiency. It seemed that they had been too accustomed with the same scenario that happened today.

A butler walked in with a set of gloves on a silver tray and stood just beside the young man. He bowed low to deliver the new pristine white gloves with reverence. Wales took the new set and wore them nonchalantly.

"Incompetency has its price." He stood up and walked a few paces towards a large bioluminescent blue rose and inhaled deeply, "That damn Aidern had barred my path a number of times since the olden days. I have given him some face as we were friends and ignored it before but now he needs to know the consequences."

"Young Master, you need to consider this further. He is after all, the successor of the Velasquez family; one of the founding fathers of the Empire, just like you."

"Astron, I can't touch him now as you say. Yet. Once this operation is successful and my position in the family solidifies as the main heir, I'll be able to extinguish him."

Wales took the time to ruminate something in his mind in silence.

In three days, fifty percent of the main family's personal army was mobilized towards the sector harboring the Energy Harvesting Wheel. They numbered at a hundred thousand. This shows the importance of the mining operation to the Estrella family. As the head of operation this time, the young master of the Estrella Conglomerate himself led the army to show his dedication to the family. The higher-ups had unanimously agreed to publicly approve of his right as the sole heir once the operation succeeded.

...

After the first attack from space, all the attackers' spaceships wreckage was salvaged by the Research Institute for the sake of research. Within two months' time, the Witch Union had managed to achieve a significant breakthrough in space technology with the help of physicists, engineering experts and industrial giants after they had joined hands to study the newfound technology and the principles used together.

A new revolutionized FTL 2.0 engine was developed together by the experts. Additionally, hundreds of stable Quarters with the ability to perfectly support life in a sustainable cycle were made every week, but they were simply not enough due to the overwhelming number of inhabitants waiting to enter the bunkers. At the same time, streams of spaceship models were introduced in tandem with the advancement of livable Quarters. New space carrier models with large capacity, fighter jets and recombinant suits were manufactured en masse once they had passed a series of tests.

With the finance of the many races cooperating with Graycastle, monetary asset had never been an issue. Only, the high consumption rate of raw materials and natural resources had exceeded the planet's overall production, worrying the masses. It was only a matter of time before they exhausted their planet's resources following this trend of unbridled consumption.

…

In a secret metallic room deep underground, Alethea heard a series of knocks on the reflective dark screen on one side of her room. The ex-Elder Witch had been incarcerated inside the room for a little more than three months. She had no means to know what was going on the surface nor what was the current progress.

The only thing she was sure was her being alive meant that the current government was still standing and well. She knew it was just the calm before the storm.

"There is no need to knock. I'm the prisoner here." She harrumphed with disdain.

Truthfully, she had not been ill-treated even for a single moment since she was apprehended not too long ago. In fact, her living standards were not far from what she usually had. Only the lack of freedom to move, subordinates and means to collect information had made her felt stuffy and frustrated, just like a frog in a well.

"You look well, Alethea. How was life here?" A familiar but annoying voice sounded from the other side of the dark screen. After a few second, the screen slid to the side revealing a smiling face that was so familiar to her. She noticed Roland was carrying a slim metallic briefcase and three identical-looking intricately-carved silver bracelets.

Alethea's eyes narrowed as she didn't miss the tiny details. Their immortal king was not a person who's fond of jewelries.

"It's like being in a retirement home. I'm going to die out of boredom." Alethea shrugged unhappily. Deep in her heart, she was very surprised with Roland's appearance.

"What do you want, your Highness? Just here to stop and chat? Or you want to hear me to say I'm sorry?"

Roland's expression turned serious. "Enough with that attitude, Alethea. I'm here to discuss an important matter with you. Shall we have some tea while discussing or you prefer coffee?"

After spending six hours inside Alethea's incarceration cell, Roland left. The briefcase and the silver bracelets were gone from his hands.

Not long later, a ray of astral light emerged from the depth of Sanctuary 3. No one noticed Alethea's disappearance nor her departure towards the open space for the second time except for Roland.

...

Six months after the attack on Neverwinter airspace, a reshuffling in the military's chain-of-command was executed out of the blue. To the shock of the public, the ex-leader of the Military Faction which was supposed to be incarcerated indefinitely was pardoned by the Immortal King. Another bombshell fell when the pardoned ex-elder witch had been appointed with the title of Grand Marshall to a newly created space-military division.

Grand Marshall Alethea Silverstrom has been given the highest position in the space-military regiment, equivalent to the most prominent position in the military of Graycastle which were currently being held by three other persons; Grand Marshall Dennington Louis for land-military, Grand Marshall Sharvina Shavi for airforce, and Grand Marshall Hammad Asklanni for navy. The decision was vetoed by the Immortal King Roland Wimbledon, despite the voice of dissent from the masses. However, due to the majority of the main government body which was fully controlled by the Pacifist Faction, the Witch Union, and Sanctuary 3 supported the immortal king's decision unanimously, no one could stop the granting of military power to the fourth newly appointed Grand Marshall. Everyone could only place their trust in the wisdom of the Immortal King.

The new Grand Marshall did not waste her time and make a worldwide announcement of large-scale recruitment specifically for the space-military division. She emphasized the need of fearless warriors who weren't afraid to die in space as her main criterion of choice.

A lot of hotblooded Graycastle military men and women, guest generals, and other races who entered the military applied for a change in division just so that they could enter the space-military regiment, tipping the balance in the distribution of personnel to skew towards the space division. Similarly, the population of able bodied males and females in bunkers reduced significantly, leaving only a small number of them maintaining peace and caring for the old, the sick and the young. Many unaffiliated witches and experts in seclusion from other empires emerged out of nowhere, as they answered the new Grand Marshall call-to-arms.

Shockingly, the new Grand Marshall's networking and connection was so vast that even the other races such as the Orcs, Dwarfs, Elfs, Onis and Treants enlisted. An influx of more than two million orcs had further shocked the whole world; it was practically every person of their race banded together including the young and old!

Understandably, no news from the crown princess of Graycastle's exploration team for a few months had nearly extinguished the hope of the people. The waiting had been arduous and had grated on everyone's nerves even how restraint they were. They now could do something besides pray. If they should die, then they should at least drag their enemies with them! The new Grand Marshall's division was exactly the channel for them to do something rather than nothing with their puny personal power.

As the space battalion increased in numbers at an alarming pace, they immediately performed rigorous space-related drills and exercises with the newly appointed generals under the new Grand Marshall. They were then immediately transported out with space carriers to distant locations unknown to the public. Money, assets and military equipment kept on being pumped into the space-military division as the government seemed to forgo other options and choose war.

...

Roland read through the underground highway construction progress report delivered to him in his Cerebral Connector seriously. Both Roland and Anna had the technology installed with a small operation when they had the chance previously. After extensively studying the internal workings of the empire-wide telecommunication system, Roland had finally merged it with Sanctuary 3's VIRCOFF network system in tandem, further increasing its functionality and stability. All of these were done while he was working on the upgrading of the Recombinant suits for the exploration group and all space related combatants.

Since the day they had exited their seclusion, they didn't even have the chance to take a breather. There were simply too many matters to attend to. Roland and Anna even rarely meet each other nowadays.

The Immortal King scrolled through the information seriously; not missing a single detail. 98 % of the highway linking all the bunker hubs to the teleportation artifact has been done. Just a little more on the finishing touches were left. The idea had come from Taquila's devouring worms, although no real worms were involved; unfortunately, all of them had gone extinct after three thousand years. The boring of the earth to create tunnels and reinforcements were done purely with machineries and some help from the assistant witches of Witch Union.

Roland chose not to divulge any information about Linneia's exploration team to the public to prevent panic from spreading. Only a small amount of key individual knew the truth. They worked together to prepare for the return of the princess. She will ultimately become the savior of the people with the new coordinates of a habitable planet.

What irked Roland the most was his inability to notify Wentilakh about the problems from the other side of the Interstellar Gate Ancient Artifact. Without his realization, one day, the whole tribe was gone just like that. Nobody knew where they went. Some said they had left the planet with a spaceship, but no credible information was obtained. He hoped that they would be able to go through with the ordeal when the time comes.

...

A large group of spaceships appeared at the edge of the galaxy harboring the dying sun. Nobody would've realized that these spaceships of various sizes had just performed multiple high-powered long space-jumps. However, the conditions of each spaceships were still excellent, as they had been equipped with the latest technology, from the latest power shields to the body structures, built from Sector R's most sought after milliasteel.

Ten thousand kilometers from them, a small recon lightcraft obscured behind a large floating rock started sending encrypted intel, "Unknown spaceships numbering at five thousand appear at point 31.5-14. Most probably the vanguards of hostile encounters, fully equipped with artillery. Estrella Conglomerate Logo detected. Alerting the Dragon Lance Squad to enter alert mode."

…

Linneia placed the last metallic stone properly after double-checking the diagram she perceived from her master, Grandmaster Olfalfas. It was the mechanics of a large teleportation portal, simplified and explained by her great grandfather, step by step. The information was abstruse and involved a lot of foreign concepts she had never came across in her studies in Neverwinter. Nonetheless, becoming an important disciple to the Kohiten's legacy as well as Roland's vast amount of experiences had helped her tremendously. She found that she could naturally comprehend the abstruse foreign concept once she merged herself completely with the heavenly cloud inkbrush. She was glad she studied hard before.

For months, Linneia had been performing extremely long random teleportations in the bid to find a new land for her people to relocate. Her quest to find the most suitable planet or stars had been fraught with dangers beyond her wildest dreams. Oftentimes, after every jump, her psyche and her body were extremely exhausted, she had to recuperate for a few days before she could perform the next jump. During the rest period, she had been nearly eaten by random gigantic animals, almost killed by poisonous gas, hunted by large groups of indigenous locals and almost died multiple times from being crushed by harsh environments. Linneia had persisted courageously and pulled through every single time with the help of her suit and her magical inkbrush.

Every single time, she would trace back her location to her great grandfather and reported the coordinates without fail. They had discussed and had settled for a planet after her 38th teleportation attempts; a planet named as Verdant by Linneia herself. The planet was full of life with one sun and three moons, thick vegetation and ancient arboreal forests. She had not come across any civilization at the moment. However, the planet was extremely large and was separated by very large turbulent oceans which might impede water-based transportation in the future. Additionally, the majority of the wildlife in the vicinity were huge and carnivorous in nature!

It was simply too hard to find a suitable planet. 95 % of the planets she visited was unfavorable to human life.

Once the selection was fixed, she immediately started to survey for a suitable location for the teleportation gate. She went far and wide to find the necessary materials and was supported by both Professor Rogers and the ailing Professor Newton with the help of her great grandfather linking them together. Luckily, she still keep some materials that the exploration team brought as well as some additional ones given by Grandmaster Olfalfas.

Linneia worked tirelessly on the lake portal while clearing out the surrounding wildlife threats intermittently.The choice of using a lake stemmed from the Demon's Salvation Lake portal proposed by Professor Newton. Since the old professor was very close with Senior Elder Wentilakh, naturally, the old demon had discussed and shared information with him. The lake portal needed minor modifications while being more user-friendly and could accommodate large capacity teleportation as compared to the Ancient Artifact found in the Extreme North. Linneia had been informed that the artifact on her home planet's side had been similarly upgraded too after they have cleared the nests of the beasts in the valley.

Linneia reported to her great grandfather, [Great Grandpa Roland, I'm done on my side.]

Nervously, she waited for the new portal to activate.

A faint silver ripple appeared in the middle of the huge lake. The viscous-like ripple grew wider and wider. Finally, it encompassed the whole lake's surface!

Linneia shed tears of joy and jumped in.

As she appeared on the other side, she was enveloped by a warm embrace of her tear-stricken mother, the Queen of Graycastle. Right now, the strongest Extraordinary who's cold, duty-bound and calculative had turned into a simple mother who missed her daughter dearly, especially after her husband's death.

A hand grabbed her shoulder firmly from the side. "Welcome home, Linneia. Leave the rest to us and get some rest first. Thank you for your hard work." The Immortal King smiled with appreciation to his descendant.

Finally, this descendant of his had truly grown up and bloomed.

…