Hearing the sharp dissatisfaction edging the Tsaritsa's voice, Arlecchino felt her heart sink.
Her sovereign was genuinely displeased. The apparent lack of reprimand upon her arrival last night had merely been a consequence of the chaotic battle on the ramparts; now that the dawn brought quiet, the reckoning had arrived.
Arlecchino rose swiftly to her feet, inclining her head in a formal bow of contrition.
"Forgive me, Your Majesty. This time, there will be no failure. Upon reaching Mt. Tianheng, I established contact with the rear divisions; their vanguard has already crossed into Liyue territory. So long as they maintain the designated transit corridor, they will reach the portal the day after tomorrow without fail."
The Tsaritsa's expression softened slightly, though a faint pout lingered at the edge of her lips.
"You made that exact promise before."
Arlecchino felt a strange, subtle sensation stirring in her chest. For some inexplicable reason, her supreme sovereign sounded almost like an aggrieved young lady venting petty complaints.
Regarding genuine rage, Arlecchino could tell the Cryo Archon was not truly furious.
This demeanor... could it merely be an affectionate grumble?
It seemed the boundless bounty of this universe had lifted an immense weight from the Tsaritsa's shoulders, allowing her tightly guarded heart to relax.
Yet this was undeniably a blessing. For centuries, her sovereign had sealed her emotions in frost to prepare for total war against Celestia; seeing her unburdened was a relief.
Rosalyne glanced toward Arlecchino, letting out a soft, amused chuckle before stepping in to smooth the rough edges.
"Your Majesty, Arlecchino truly cannot be faulted for every delay; she strove with all her might. The crisis erupted without warning, orchestrated entirely by Pierro's schemes. She had little room to maneuver."
"When your urgent summons arrived, she was forced to gamble on uncharted shortcuts, encountering territorial apex beasts that delayed her march."
With Rosalyne providing an elegant bridge to retreat, the Tsaritsa had no desire to press Arlecchino further.
In truth, she had merely wished to vent a little lingering frustration.
Watching the other allied courts welcome thousands of fresh recruits week after week while Snezhnaya scraped by with a tiny handful of personnel had been intensely grating. Every allocation had required agonizing calculation, weighing whether shifting three soldiers to one sector would paralyze another.
The Tsaritsa was sick of counting pennies.
Now that an end to their personnel shortage was finally in sight, giving voice to her past irritation was only natural.
In truth, she remained deeply pleased with Arlecchino's loyalty; had she not been, she would never have handed her a casting staff the moment she stepped across the threshold. Even Scaramouche had been forced to scour the wilderness to claim his own weapon.
After a brief pause, the Tsaritsa let the reprimand drop, her cadence shifting to an airy, casual register.
"Have you grasped the operational mechanics of your staff?"
The mention of the weapon brought Arlecchino to instant attention.
"I comprehend the baseline principles, though deeper nuances elude me. The staff granted an overwhelming surge to my elemental authority, yet fully charting its parameters requires further field experimentation."
Candace had briefed her on the suppression and sudden amplification of elemental leylines in this world. While experiencing it firsthand had been shocking, she could accept the reality without badgering her sovereign with trivial questions.
The Tsaritsa nodded gently.
"Has its progression bar reached maximum proficiency?"
Arlecchino hesitated, shaking her head.
"A small margin remains."
The Tsaritsa let out a soft, exasperated sigh.
"You failed to cap a single wand, while Rosalyne maxed out two of hers during the same watch. You must accelerate your pace tonight."
"Cap its progression points immediately. Ryen and the allied council are already organizing trading parties to secure Tomes of Arcana."
"An Advanced Wand is merely an intermediate vessel; a Master Staff is where your true path begins."
"A Master Staff provides an unprecedented amplification to your innate elemental force, elevating your combat capability straight into the threshold of godhood, while unlocking reality-bending spells."
"Temporal deceleration, instantaneous spatial translocation... cap your progression as swiftly as possible. Everyone else commands multiple staves; you cannot afford to lag behind."
Listening to her sovereign recite feats of temporal manipulation, Arlecchino could not help but click her tongue in silent awe, engraving every syllable into her memory.
The Tsaritsa tapped her fingertips against the armrest, continuing her counsel.
"Once this forty-nine-day cataclysm concludes, fresh modules will deploy, and the leadership will shift their attention away from the Wizardry module. Seize this window."
"Furthermore, spend your daylight hours touring Redstone Tech City. Have the soldiers you brought along explore the districts as well, integrating into municipal labor under Dashi's direction."
"Redstone Tech City is constructing extensive defensive rings every single day to weather this siege; observing their engineering will grant you an intuitive grasp of municipal construction."
"Naturally, do not obstruct their duties if they are occupied. Should complications arise, return here and I shall explain the principles to you."
"Unlike past months, every court is mobilized for total war; no one has the leisure to walk you through basic orientation. You must rely on your own initiative."
"Crucially, ensure your soldiers observe mandatory sleep rotations during the day. Under no circumstances may they skip sleep, or they will provoke the airborne horrors known as Phantoms."
"Do not cause unnecessary headaches for the allied garrison. Do you understand?"
Arlecchino nodded with absolute precision, noting each directive in her journal.
After a brief pause, she inquired further.
"Your Majesty, when the remaining divisions arrive in two days, how shall they be deployed?"
The Tsaritsa pondered for a moment, speaking in a calm, measured tone.
"In a planetary siege of this scale, a few thousand fresh troops can accomplish little on their own, especially when they remain utterly ignorant of the laws of this world."
"Disperse them among the allied regiments. Let them work alongside veterans from Liyue and Mondstadt, observing their protocols and learning through direct exposure."
"Assign one thousand men to the subterranean drop chambers beneath the walls, rotating with allied units to temper their SlashBlades."
"We entered this realm late, meaning our cavalry cannot yet mount tamed dragons, but our blade units and firearm corps can accelerate their combat readiness through live engagements."
Arlecchino recorded the commands diligently.
Once her pen stopped, the Tsaritsa continued.
"Direct our officers to study the municipal layout of Redstone Tech City, particularly their automated redstone grids and defensive architecture."
"It stands as the most sophisticated and complete metropolis in this universe, so fully realized that it triggered an existential trial from the world itself."
"Study its blueprints. Understand what you can; what you fail to grasp, commit to rote memory."
"This year, Snezhnaya must fulfill its own colonization quotas across the Main Continent: a primary metropolis supported by several satellite hubs."
"Many of the arriving troops will be assigned to municipal engineering; they must familiarize themselves with the craft in advance."
Arlecchino let out a slow, amazed breath.
"Is our homeland truly preparing to claim permanent territory and raise our own cities in this cosmos? The pace of change is astonishing."
Calculating the timeline, barely four months had elapsed since Snezhnaya first crossed the portal.
In that brief span, their sovereign ambitions had reached across dimensional boundaries.
Four months ago, the Tsaritsa had been wrestling with the agonizing diplomacy of securing Gnoses from the Seven Archons to stage a desperate rebellion against Celestia.
Now, the Heavenly Principles were treated like a secondary concern, while their court prepared to lay sovereign foundations in a new universe.
"That is hardly an achievement worthy of boasting," Rosalyne remarked, shaking her head with zero self-satisfaction.
"Liyue, as the very first pioneer, already commands over a dozen fortified forward bases across the Main Continent, the grand Redstone Tech City, an agrarian settlement across the plains, and numerous satellite cities currently under construction."
"Their sovereign territory encompasses three-fifths of the known Main Continent."
"Mondstadt has completed its coastal capital, while Inazuma and Sumeru are actively laying foundations."
"Across the western sea lies the New Continent, an expanse whose surveyed acreage matches the entire landmass of Teyvat."
"Khaenri'ah intends to enact their national restoration upon its soil, having already broken ground on their royal capital with plans to migrate their entire surviving population into this realm."
"A massive deep-water port is currently being erected there through the joint labor of the five nations and Khaenri'ah."
"Compared to our peers, our development is agonizingly sluggish, despite Snezhnaya being the third nation to join the pact."
"We have been thoroughly outpaced by Inazuma, and even Sumeru breathes down our necks."
Arlecchino blinked in sheer disbelief before letting out a soft sigh.
"All because of our deficit in manpower?"
Rosalyne nodded with deep, weary frustration.
"Liyue, Mondstadt, Inazuma, and Sumeru can effortlessly deploy four to five thousand seasoned workers across the threshold at any hour."
"They can advance multiple industrial projects simultaneously, a luxury we could never afford."
"Dividing our tiny cadre between Twilight Forest expeditions, Nether excavations, End harvesting, base maintenance, and standard mining depleted our roster in an instant, leaving nobody to build cities."
"It was an inescapable bottleneck of living hands."
Arlecchino understood completely, her jaw tightening with cold disdain.
"That cursed Pierro... had he not sown discord, our homeland would have flourished far swifter..."
At the mention of the Jester, the room cooled visibly.
The Tsaritsa scoffed softly, her cadence turning icy and dismissive.
"Speak no more of that clown. Now that you have brought our vanguard through, our operational bottlenecks will dissolve, while Pierro is hunted through the shadows by the Abyss Order."
"Back in the capital, Pulcinella's administrative burdens will ease considerably; I have instructed him to accelerate military recruitment and funnel fresh cohorts through the gate."
"Once our expeditionary forces are outfitted with modded arms, neutralizing Pierro will require only a tiny detachment."
"A petty jester dancing on a thread demands none of our concern. Our absolute imperative is expanding Snezhnaya's footprint across this universe."
"At the start of the year, Ryen established our civilizational roadmap: before the year concludes, the Main Continent must be transformed into an orderly, civilized world."
"Urban development is the primary symphony."
"You likely remain unaware of what manner of divine reward Liyue will claim once Redstone Tech City overcomes this cataclysm, correct?"
The mention of rewards instantly piqued Arlecchino's curiosity, fixing her sovereign with an attentive gaze.
The Tsaritsa let out a soft, longing breath, a rare expression of wistful desire touching her eyes.
"Though Ryen has yet to state it plainly, the outcome is obvious. When the dust settles, Zhongli, Ningguang, and Guizhong will be anointed as the server administrators of Redstone Tech City."
"Do you comprehend what a server administrator truly represents?"
Arlecchino shook her head, thoroughly mystified. Her sovereign was rarely given to riddles, making the suspense all the more profound.
The Tsaritsa spoke with hushed, reverent intensity.
"To state it in common parlance: an administrator is the absolute sovereign of the world."
"Within the defined boundaries of Redstone Tech City, they exercise the authority of the Creator on Ryen's behalf, essentially acting as the attendant gods to the primordial master of the universe."
"You may understand it thus: within that metropolitan domain, those three individuals are the Heavenly Principles."
"Furthermore, upon crossing back into Teyvat, that administrative mantle permanently solidifies a quarter of Ryen's absolute physical constitution into their mortal frames, rendering them entirely immune to the natural laws of Teyvat."
"A quarter of Ryen's physical constitution is more than sufficient to physically batter the Heavenly Principles into dust."
Other esoteric concepts might have flown over Arlecchino's head, but that final comparison landed with the weight of an exploding star.
Who understood the terrifying supremacy of the Heavenly Principles better than the Fatui Harbingers?
Those three mortals and gods were about to become the localized Heavenly Principles of this realm, carrying home physical resilience that could physically crush Celestia in open combat.
Such a reward... was something no living being could ever refuse.
It was no wonder the allied courts had mobilized every scrap of steel to hold the fortress walls, refusing even to contemplate tactical retreat before an apocalyptic horde of millions.
The prize awaiting them was so monumental that turning back was unthinkable.