Vol 3. Chapter 52: The Limit of Forced Construction

Vinny suddenly thought of a question: how long have these buildings existed inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem]?

No—that won’t do. This is an alternate space; you can’t judge it by the spatial and temporal logic of the Tyrelis Continent. Is it because, from the instant these buildings were constructed, they already looked like this?

Whichever way he looked at them, they all seemed weather-beaten. Like genuine cultural relics. If you told Vinny this city-state was an undiscovered ancient city of the old Tyrelis Empire, he would believe it.

Is this excessive sense of age a defining feature of the buildings inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem]?

Vinny glanced at the Marsmo Royal Palace behind him and realized that might not be the case.

Under the rolling black clouds, the Marsmo Royal Palace still gleamed with brilliant gold. You could tell it received routine maintenance; the bricks and tiles were as immaculate as fine jade, not a flaw to be found.

Strange—why isn’t the Marsmo Royal Palace like the rest?

Vinny looked again at other structures beside the palace and found that several of the buildings arrayed near the Marsmo Royal Palace were very new—of course, only in comparison to the other buildings inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], those ancient structures riddled with cracks and the traces of time.

Could it be that the buildings inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] age just like buildings in reality, gradually growing old as time passes?

Then, by that logic, there will eventually come a day when these buildings suffer damage from long neglect. How would they be repaired? Do you bring people to fix them? Or use some other method?

Perplexed, Vinny fixed his eyes on the highest point of the ring-city—the clock tower.

The clock tower was extremely tall, visible from every corner of the city. Likewise, Vinny could see that its current state was very poor.

He had already felt the tower was abandoned and badly damaged; now it gave the impression it might collapse at any moment.

Weird. What’s going on?

Confused, Vinny’s eyelids twitched. He rubbed his eyes, struck by an incredulous feeling.

Was it an illusion? Why did it look like the web-like cracks on the clock tower were spreading at a speed visible to the naked eye? At this rate they would soon spread across the whole base.

“Creak, creak...” Before Vinny, lost in thought, could determine whether the tower’s collapse was accelerating, a series of shaking noises came from behind him.

He looked back and saw cracks appearing one after another across the wall of the Marsmo Royal Palace, rapidly spreading.

“What... is happening?” Vinny stared in astonishment.

Was the fighting inside so intense it was about to bring down the Marsmo Royal Palace that had been constructed inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem]?

“Construction degree is too low.” Just as Vinny felt he was only talking to himself without any grasp of the situation, an ethereal voice sounded beside him.

Vinny turned in surprise. It was the fully armored imperial knight who had escorted him out; the voice carried a fantastical, hollow timbre.

“Construction degree? You mean Isatia’s construction degree for the Marsmo Royal Palace is still too low?” Vinny didn’t understand. “But she’s basically read through most of the records and archives inside the palace, hasn’t she?”

“The palace itself?” the imperial knight asked out of nowhere.

“The palace? There’s a large portion we never saw. We only had a little over an hour—there was no way we could traverse the entire underground Marsmo palace,” Vinny explained.

At that, for some reason, all the imperial knights fell silent.

“Any architectural complex that has formed into a system generally belongs to a civilization, race, or power that House Lanteville defeated and then took over,” one imperial knight abruptly explained. “If you only understand—even indirectly—what you’re constructing, the most you’ll get is a few residential-type buildings; if you’re lucky you might also have several of the civilization’s totems.”

“That is the limit of building a civilization’s architectural cluster based solely on understanding.”

Isatia had not told him these details.

“Then what about constructing a palace of a civilization based only on understanding?” As he listened, a bad premonition began to spread through Vinny’s heart.

“Basically impossible—unless Her Royal Highness used the secret treasure passed down through the family,” said the leading imperial knight.

“Only then could you directly construct a civilization’s core building. But if a structure is forced into being by that method, its foundation is unstable, because many places and details haven’t been explored; the construction synchronization rate is low.”

“It’s like a building whose structural system is incomplete—collapse comes easy,” the knight explained.

“That family heirloom secret treasure you’re talking about—would it be a crown-gem encircled by an eagle’s talon?” Vinny asked, brow tightening.

Silence fell over the imperial knights.

The fact that Vinny could ask that question already said enough.

“Your princess may be in danger. Shouldn’t you be going back to help her?” Seeing the knights still standing like immovable mountains, Vinny asked, a hint of urgency in his voice.

“Our orders are to escort you out of this palace and protect you, then hold position here,” the imperial knight replied, his tone giving nothing away.

Fair enough. There were plenty of knights at Isatia’s side; adding more wouldn’t help.

At the brink of crisis, Vinny instead calmed down.

“If a constructed building collapses, what happens?” he asked.

“Only a building the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] has previously constructed can serve as the [Perennial Imperial Diadem]’s access point.”

“For example, since this palace has been constructed inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], being in this palace allows it to serve as an access point to open the [Perennial Imperial Diadem],” the imperial knight said, watching the blue-haired youth before him. He didn’t know what relationship this youth had with his princess, nor did he think the youth could help her, but he still continued to explain.

“Wherever you are, the condition to open the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] is that the same location has been constructed inside it.”

“In other words, if the place serving as the access point collapses, the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] will be forcibly lifted.”

“And that isn’t the worst of it. There’s a chain reaction.”

“Chain reaction?” Vinny asked in surprise.

“When a building collapses inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], it triggers ground tremors that make the foundation of the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] unstable, which in turn affects other buildings. Their durability will also plummet.”

Saying this, the imperial knight looked toward the towering clock tower in the city’s center.

“If one more collapse happens, the clock tower will, in all likelihood, come down with it.”

“Does that clock tower have some special significance?” Vinny had felt so from the start. That tower at the core must hold some unique meaning.

For example, the old Tyrelis Empire had the custom of treating clock towers as city emblems—a custom the Tyrel Empire inherited.

When Vinny asked, none of the knights answered.

“Time is tight, everyone. Treat me as one of your own, all right? If we drag our feet any longer, your princess will truly be in danger,” Vinny said with a long sigh.

“The clock tower is the foundation of the [Perennial Imperial Diadem]. Blades and magic cannot damage it, but once it collapses, the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] will be erased along with it. And the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] is akin to House Lanteville’s ‘spiritual world,’” the same imperial knight who had brought Vinny out explained.

“So I can take it to mean that if the clock tower collapses, Isatia’s spiritual world will collapse?”

“Worse than that.” The imperial knight gripped his weapon tightly, staring unblinking toward the tower. “In the lightest case, she becomes a living dead.”

Vinny fell silent.

He understood now why Isatia was always in a state of unshakable fatigue, never sleeping enough.

The problem lay with the [Saint’s Favor]. The [Perennial Imperial Diadem], as Isatia’s spiritual world, was in trouble; the central hub—the clock tower—faced the risk of collapse; most of the buildings were likewise dilapidated from long neglect. This left Isatia mentally exhausted, never able to recover.

That was why she had said those things earlier—“not having the [Saint’s Favor] isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” “every power has its price,” “who can tell blessing from calamity.”

Without the [Saint’s Favor]’s influence, Isatia wouldn’t be suffering like this.

As for why she had to come here, Vinny figured it out—she was taking a gamble.

Since the central clock tower of the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] was already in a terrible state, maybe erecting something on the scale of an entire Marsmo civilization would help relieve the tower’s condition.

And if it failed—so be it. Better than sitting still and waiting to die.

“Why is that clock tower in such a rotten state? Is it because the buildings keep collapsing?”

“It’s simply that too much time has passed,” the imperial knight answered. “The clock tower was forged by the first head of House Lanteville. From then till now, a thousand years have gone by. Nothing escapes the erosion of time—not even things in an extra-planar space.”

“The [Perennial Imperial Diadem] is House Lanteville’s field of sure victory. As long as we drag an enemy into here, we have never been defeated.”

Then the knight said no more.

Vinny understood.

House Lanteville flourished because of this—and, in the end, would pay the price because of it.

Perhaps this was debt being repaid. A thousand-year buff coming due.

“Crown Knight Eldery of the first head. Crown Knight Felrody of the second head... At present, the ones standing by Her Royal Highness are the strongest knights who guarded the heads of House Lanteville across generations.”

“Any one of them, taken at random, is someone in the living world who could stand against ten thousand troops. Upon their passing, the lowest of them had reached the Master realm.”

“The larger the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], the more buildings it holds, the stronger they become. And here, they can revive without limit.”

“Inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], no one dares call themselves Lanteville’s enemy.”

A cadre of knights whose lowest realm was Master, with the various boons of the [Perennial Imperial Diadem], and infinite revival—who in the world could beat that?

“That Golden Lion and his men are nothing but a rabble. They won’t be a match.”

“Then why hasn’t it been resolved yet?” Having recovered a little strength, Vinny voiced the part he couldn’t figure out.

Clearly, not only Vinny— the knights couldn’t figure it out either.

At that moment, inside the Marsmo Royal Palace—

Just as the knights imagined, that caveman Kantesius was being beaten so hard by the Crown Knights of successive Lanteville heads that he couldn’t get out of the corner, soul-shadows flying off him in a mess.

The Crown Knights who had previously stayed by Isatia’s side to ensure her safety and let other knights deal with Kantesius had now realized something was wrong; all of them had joined the fray.

Even so, they still couldn’t finish Kantesius—couldn’t even injure him.

Every soul up and down the whole of the Marsmo civilization was paying with their lives for him. No matter how powerful these Crown Knights were, no matter how devastating their magic, every bombardment on Kantesius would only knock off a single “life,” and with the invulnerability that followed each loss, there was simply no killing him.

In single combat, any one of the Crown Knights present could kill Kantesius endlessly without letting him lay a finger on them.

But if he couldn’t be killed, then it was utterly meaningless.

“Queen of foreigners, how many times must I repeat myself—you cannot kill me,” Kantesius laughed. “Do you imagine I built my hegemony on the favor of a god?”

“You’ve mistaken cause and effect. Because I achieved hegemony, the deity turned His gaze upon me—not the other way around, that the deity favored me and thus I achieved hegemony.”

“I admit that on your turf I can do nothing to you—if a god came, He could do nothing to you either. But you can do nothing to me.”

“With this Spirit Soul upon me, you cannot slay a god.”

“I can see your limit is near. Give up. You’ve already lost.” Kantesius’s triumphant laughter seemed meant to crush Isatia’s spirit.

Isatia knit her brows, face unchanged, seemingly still in excellent condition.

However—

“CRACK!” Inside the arena of the Marsmo Royal Palace, a huge section of the ceiling fractured into a single slab and fell, crashing down toward Kantesius.

Unhurried, Kantesius raised a hand and blocked; he crushed the slab to powder.

“Oh? Looks like you can no longer sustain this counterfeit palace,” he said, unruffled, smiling in taunting ridicule.

It wasn’t just the ceiling. The arena’s walls began to split and crumble in a rush, cracks spreading everywhere.

The creaking sounded like a toothache to the ears—classic signs of structural irrationality, the prelude to collapse.

Obviously, in the Marsmo Royal Palace that had been constructed, there were simply too many blanks; too many details had not been sketched in. Only by Isatia’s forceful hold had it not fallen.

Now, even with her impeccable composure, she had reached the limit.