Chapter 2556

2556 - Final Touches - 1

At the same time, Planet Nihari.

Clamor, clamor.

"Move, move, move!!" Emily shouted loudly, her voice nearly lost amid the noise filling the square.

Not far from her, a group of soldiers carried a massive glowing pillar on their shoulders, quickening their steps slightly the moment they heard her shout.

"One, two! One, two!!"

Sweat poured from their faces and bodies as they struggled to keep the pillar balanced, then they finally stopped and erected it in its designated position, at a perfectly equal distance from its counterpart that had been installed earlier.

The pillar rose tens of meters, its surface carved from a brilliant white material veined with fine golden threads, while a calm glow emanated from within, making the engravings etched upon it seem to move slowly. It was clear that each one of them represented a treasure of resources in its own right. And it was but one of hundreds of pillars being installed along both sides of the main passage leading to the Imperial Palace.

"You there!" Emily pointed toward a number of Vulture-Human race members circling above the square. "Is preparing the light effects going to take all day?!"

"Right away!!"

They beat their wings rapidly and moved to the new pillar, then began installing the array atop its peak, while others busied themselves linking it to the neighboring arrays to form a single network stretching along the corridor.

At that moment, Emily had slightly disheveled hair, as if she hadn't stood before a mirror in a whole year, and red eyes from lack of sleep—so much so that the veins in her neck had begun to stand out from all the shouting and issuing of orders.

But no one paid any attention to her appearance.

Everyone around her was not in much better shape than she was.

Before the Imperial Palace stretched an immense plaza, so vast that standing at one edge did not allow one to clearly see the details of the other edge. Its floor was paved with massive slabs of white marble interspersed with broad golden lines that, when viewed from above, formed interlocking imperial ornaments, while the polished surfaces reflected the glowing columns and hanging banners, so that some parts of it seemed covered with a thin layer of water.

At the heart of the plaza, a wide, straight ceremonial corridor extended, beginning at the main gate of the palace and cutting through the entire plaza until it reached its far entrance. Along its sides, rows of luminous columns were gradually taking shape, connected by towering white arches from which hung enormous imperial banners, woven with golden threads that made the emblems of the True Beginning Empire glitter whenever the fabric stirred in the wind.

Along both sides of the corridor, immense ceremonial terraces rose in tiered levels—some reserved for the empire's senior commanders, planetary rulers, and delegations arriving from the various Sectors, while others accommodated vast numbers of attendees. Wide walkways separated their sections, interspersed with private balconies projecting toward the plaza to give their occupants a direct view of the coronation platform.

The preparations did not stop at ground level. Dozens of hanging gardens were being raised and secured above the edges of the plaza, bearing massive trees and basins of rare flowers, with thin waterfalls cascading from their rims, flowing down from towering heights before gathering in suspended basins below, while arrays kept the water and plants in place.

And between those gardens, other teams were working on installing colossal white and gold statues, some representing warriors bearing imperial weapons, and others embodying majestic beasts with outstretched wings or bodies coiled around their bases, all crafted with such precise detail that an observer standing at close range could distinguish every feather, every scale, and every fold in the armor.

Directly in front of the palace's towering gate, the main coronation platform rose above dozens of broad steps, at whose center lay a vast circular space where artisan teams were still working on decorating its floor. The edges of the steps were clad in gold, and along their sides stood rows of massive imperial statues, while behind the platform stretched the palace's immense façade with its white columns and soaring towers, forming a majestic backdrop for the place toward which all the attendees' eyes would turn.

The platform was not merely a raised structure that everyone could see, but the focal point around which all the plaza's arrangements revolved; the walkways, seating positions, column placements, and even the hanging gardens had been designed so that gazes would turn toward it naturally, as if the entire square had been built to affirm the importance of the person who would stand upon it.

At carefully calculated distances from the platform, slender towers rose above the stands, dedicated to mounting the recording and broadcasting arrays, while other balconies were prepared for the photographers and supervisors of the event's transmission. Some recording positions were even suspended in the air above the plaza itself, so they could capture the scene from above without obstructing the view of those present.

These preparations alone were a massive undertaking, for what was required was not merely recording the coronation ceremonies from multiple angles, but transmitting them in a manner befitting the grandeur of the occasion to the planets and sectors belonging to the Empire, so that those watching from afar could see the details of the platform, the attendees, and the surrounding decorations, as though they stood within the plaza themselves.

But this majestic scene was not yet complete.

Large portions of the ground remained exposed, some columns had not yet been erected in their places, and the side platforms teemed with craftsmen and soldiers, while above them all circled groups of winged races carrying tools, components, and decorative pieces, and in the sky the paths of dozens of transport vehicles crossed, bringing more materials and workers.

In one area, a group of sculptors was putting the final touches on a colossal statue of Robin with his arms spread wide, representing the moment he broke the isolation zones, while the supervisors of one of the hanging gardens argued about its appropriate height. In another area, a number of array experts were testing a waterfall whose water had not yet settled into its course, so large quantities were spilling from it before they readjusted the array and began the test anew.

There were hundreds of thousands of humans and non-humans everywhere, each one an expert in a particular craft, and these had been summoned from thousands of planets belonging to the True Beginning Empire. Some were among the most skilled builders and sculptors, some specialized in arrays and light effects, others in arranging decorations or constructing platforms or preparing passageways, and each one bore a task that under normal circumstances would require months of work, but it had to be finished today!

As for the more important matters—such as preparing the defenses, installing the arrays for animating inanimate objects, actually operating the plaza, and overseeing the main arrays that would connect its various parts to one another—these were undertaken by a large number of the Burton Family's Soul Masters, who worked quietly amid all that chaos, each one responsible for a specific area that he had to deliver completed within a few hours without fail.

Some of them stood atop the raised platforms supervising the construction and installation work, while others sat before complex arrays testing their interaction with the columns, statues, and hanging gardens, in preparation for the moment when the entire plaza would begin operating as a single unit.

Everyone was working at full tilt, and everyone was well aware that they could not afford the luxury of slacking off or making mistakes.

No one dared fail to give his work its due, and no one dared deliver anything less than the best he could achieve—some craftsmen even redid entire portions of their work the moment they discovered a minor flaw in them, despite the tight time that was all but choking everyone.

And if the pressure on one of them intensified until he fainted from exhaustion, he was immediately carried away and another was summoned to complete his task. And if one of the tasks allowed for more manpower to be shared, Emily did not hesitate for a moment to summon more experts and workers to speed up its completion.

Money was not the problem, nor the number of workers, nor even the scarcity of materials used in construction and decoration—for the resources of the empire had been placed at the disposal of those overseeing the preparations. But the real problem was time, which dwindled with every passing moment, as though the task grew larger by the second.

And with every column erected, every platform completed, and every array activated, the chaos receded a little to reveal the true features of a plaza the likes of which Planet Nihari had never witnessed—a plaza where imperial architecture intertwined with hanging gardens, waterfalls, statues, and lights, such that one who saw it while still under construction could scarcely imagine how magnificent it would be once all its parts were complete.

Today, this plaza must become the most luxurious spot on the planet—no... the most luxurious spot in the entire universe.

For this is the spot where His Majesty will stand to be crowned a cosmic emperor... in twenty hours.