“Faster, faster—”
“Hurry up and fly!”
The crew was as anxious as ants on a hot pan.
Yet the captain remained perfectly calm:
“Saturn is shifting position. Looks like the Solar System’s gravitational field is about to change. Once we get back, I’ll need to recalibrate Earth’s size and orbit.”
Hurry up and fly! We’re about to crash!
“I’m about to enter superluminal warp. Get ready to experience the wonder of extrastellar spacetime!”
In Niao Xiaomi’s view, Saturn behind them vanished in an instant.
Everything outside Peace twisted into elongated streaks, as if a giant bubble had wrapped itself around the ship.
It wasn’t Peace that was moving, but the space outside the bubble distorting, with Peace protected within.
“Alcubierre Spacetime Structure—commonly called a Warp Bubble—this is the theoretical foundation for warp travel. Earth scientists once discovered a 1-nanometer warp bubble, but Nerrifa has long since put it to practical use… Though the people of Nerrifa have never even considered the principles behind this magical technology.”
“The difference between humanity and other powerful civilizations is that we build from nothing, starting from fundamental theory. With existing theories, application follows.”
“But these magical and superweapon civilizations, they have no clue about the principles; they just use them by some means from the start.”
“They’re lucky. From the moment of their birth, they were gifted with heaven-sent, overwhelming power. But because of that, they lost the spirit of inquiry.”
Well said.
If Peace weren’t shaking and rumbling like an earthquake, Miss Nuo, your speech would be even more inspiring.
So… can someone tell me if this shaking is normal? And how long until we reach Nerrifa?
“Oh, the shaking? I have no idea what’s going on, let me take a look, maybe it’s the engines resonating with the hull.”
“As for the time—half a day at the fastest, three days at the slowest.”
So, we have to endure this rumbling and rocking for up to three days?
“Three days isn’t so bad. Judging by this roar, I should raise the crash probability by 5.5 percentage points.”
“……”
……
The Royal Family is always arrogant.
Because they enjoy a privileged life by birthright.
Simply by being born into a good family, they spend the rest of their days far from hunger, far from the threat of survival, far from the tempering of society.
So they cannot empathize with the common world.
After all, they can’t even imagine what suffering tastes like.
“Ilsha Nayi, do you swear that everything you say is absolutely true? Those shocking, history-upending so-called Nerrifa legends… aren’t they just excuses you’ve made up to shirk your dereliction of duty?”
The witch knelt, exhausted, on one knee in the center of the Palace.
She had already explained countless times.
But no matter how many times she said it, the Royal Family nobles let it go in one ear and out the other.
They simply refused to believe Nerrifa’s history. To them, all of it was nothing but the witch’s excuses for her own failings.
After all, according to the original plan, by now the Nayi Empire should have been joined in marriage with the Forest Ranger, their iron hooves already trampling the lands of Limelight.
At this critical moment, the King spoke.
The King truly looked the part, with a white beard, a Golden Crown, a deep voice, and a scepter and corpulent build.
He looked at the witch and said, “I know my daughter. She would never tell such foolish lies.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” The witch breathed a sigh of relief.
“—But this time, she is lying. Looks like she’s gotten too close to those Raiders. She probably made up such preposterous lies so we’d treat those refugees kindly…”
The King’s words instantly sent the witch’s blood pressure surging back up.
The nobles below immediately burst out in a flurry of flattery.
“We could never be like those refugees. Nerrifa is vast and unbreakable, protected by the superordinal Sequence blessed by our ancestors. We will never be destroyed by those ridiculous little meteors.”
“We could never fall into infighting like they did—Nerrifa is ruled by the wisest and most supreme of sovereigns—the Nayi Royal Family. All our people follow the Royal Family’s commands, united as one.”
“Saying those Raiders are the same as us… rubbish. They don’t even have Lingyuan. That inferior race isn’t even the same kind of being as us!”
“Their civilization compared to Nerrifa is like pigs in a pen, utterly incomparable.”
The witch pressed a hand to her forehead.
Expecting these pampered, self-important nobles to set aside their prejudice was harder than “letting Wu Xiaomi gain the advantage between inheritances.”
Yes, the witch recalled what she’d read of Earth’s history—after any regime is established, within three generations, classes become rigid and morals decay.
Nerrifa’s hierarchy had solidified over untold hundreds or thousands of generations.
In order to lead the two nations in war for generations, both sides had preserved their feudal system to this day.
People’s genes carried a curse. They didn’t desire to explore or change, they even feared the sky.
A nameless sorrow welled up in the witch’s heart.
She hated the Royal Family’s pitiful ignorance and arrogance all the more.
“If you don’t believe me, then why not fly up into the sky yourselves and see what’s beyond the clouds?”
The witch swept her gaze around.
Everyone fell silent, their eyes turning to fear and anger at her proposal.
“The sky is the gods’ forbidden domain! Are you trying to anger the gods?”
“Gods? Don’t you find that laughable?” The witch looked incredulously at those around her. “There’s no such thing as gods in Nerrifa’s legends—we worship the Spiritual Source Master!
We proclaim the Royal Family is supreme, and now we tremble before a god that doesn’t even exist in our myths?
Have you never wondered—why are we afraid of the sky? Why, when our power has long since been enough to leave Nerrifa, do we remain rooted here?
Comfort has strangled your courage! You’re not even as bold as those Raiders you despise!”
At this moment, whispers began to ripple through the Crystal Hall.
But those voices were not replying to the witch’s challenge.
Instead, they were words of pity.
“Poor Princess has gone mad…”
“She mingled too much with those Raiders, let them trick her, brainwashed her.”
“What a shame. She could have been the Nayi Empire’s finest heir, and now she wants to destroy her own power and position.”
“Pathetic.”
Pathetic?
Who is really pathetic?
The witch smiled bitterly.
“Lock her up, on charges of treason.” The King sighed and rose to his feet.
She could not tolerate the witch spreading these words any further.
Even if her own blood ran through the witch’s veins.
But now, the witch’s words were trying to shake the whole kingdom, challenging the place of all Royal Family and nobility.
She must be silenced.
“What I cannot forgive most is that you, for your own selfishness, would claim we were ever the same as those refugees…” The King looked at the witch, disappointed.
That look of disappointment had once been the witch’s most feared punishment.
But now, she gazed at him with the same disappointment.
The King walked up to the witch:
“I should never have let you take part in the plan. You got too close to those refugees, and caught their foolish thoughts.”
“Weaklings?”
The witch stood up, mocking the King before her.
“They don’t have Lingyuan, and yet they dare to reach for the sky. And you? How long has it been since you even left your own garden?”
“That is the ignorance of the unafraid.”
“Ignorance? Since the very first day they landed on Nerrifa, they have humbly studied everything about this world. And you? How many books have you read since you were born?”
“No matter how the weak struggle, they are still weak. It’s all determined by birth.”
“Is that so?”
The witch looked toward the sky.
As if something would appear there.
Just before being taken away, she declared with certainty:
“Remember your arrogance today.
Underestimating the Raiders—you will pay the price.”