Chapter 134: The Queen
The Eternal Queen Marika, the solitary true God ruling the contemporary world—what specific tier of existence did her divine vessel actually inhabit?
Lucia had turned over this profound proposition across his thoughts on more than a single watch. Within the un-written, immense power hierarchy spanning the vast expanse of The Lands Between, the absolute largest census of mortal souls concurrently occupied the weakest, lowest baseline at the bottom of the world. Elevated directly above those common masses stood the various elite knightly orders that operated as the primary military backbones sustaining the Three Great Dynasties.
These heavy lances did not merely represent basic, entry-level landed aristocrats in the traditional courtly sense, but defined formally organized, highly disciplined warbands commanding formidable battlefield lethality—the Leyndell Knights of the Golden Dynasty, the Royal Carian Knights of the Moon, and the Storm Knights serving the High Citadel of the Ancient Dragons all anchored this specific bracket. Down the calendar, across the bloody, apocalyptic chapters of the Shattering War, the Redmane Knights, the Cleanrot Knights, the Gelmir Knights, and parallel legion banners marching beneath various sovereign lords were likewise categorized within this operational tier. Nevertheless, owing to the vast structural disparities dividing the monarchs they served, the authentic combat output displayed by their respective retinues routinely varied by an immense margin.
For instance, an outrider bearing the heraldry of Godrick the Grafted and an elite paladin of the Haligtree were both technically cataloged under the broad title of "knights" across the imperial registries, yet their authentic, practical combat capabilities scored as wide apart as the sky and the mud.
Elevated above the knightly lances lay the vastly superior, highly diversified class composed of the realm's true Heroes. Broadly parsed across the historical scrolls, this classification encompassed every entity from the warring demigods of the Shattering epoch to those numerous, terrifying champions serving the Three Great Dynasties whose martial output comfortably eclipsed the limits of standard military knights.
Taking Lucia's own trajectory as a case study: his internal parameters had already cleanly crossed the threshold of the Hero-tier prior to his duel against Prince Radahn upon the waters of Liurnia. Following his mastery of the fluid, high-agility Eternal Swordsmanship and the awakening of his primordial glintstone arts, his martial output had continued its explosive escalation, yet his vessel still remained bracketed within the broad, expansive framework defining a supreme Hero.
Alternate figures occupying this exalted bracket included the twin High Priests of the Ancient Dragons, the golden scion Godwyn, the Carian Royal Knight Moongrum, the legendary dual wings of the Storm King—Engvall and Oleg—and the twin warlocks commanding the Crucible Knights, Ordovis and Siluria. Even looking ahead to the terminal watches of the Shattering War, Prince Radahn, who held the cosmic title of the Starscourge and whose physical might had conquered the absolute zenith of mortal limits, was still reverently hailed across the chronicles as the "Strongest Hero."
Tracing the timelines back to the ancient, barbaric eras preceding the War against the Giants down to the chaotic, blood-drenched Tarnished epoch cycles later, if an observer set aside those mysterious, inscrutable Outer Gods lurking behind the curtains of the cosmos, the solitary entities who had truly, fundamentally transcended the boundary defining a "hero" comprised merely a sparse handful of titans who had personally ascended the sovereign throne of Elden.
The ancient Dragon Lord Placidusax and the long-lost Dragon God of antiquity, the First King Godfrey who forged the era of Unification, the Eternal Queen Marika, and the contemporary Lord Consort Radagon—across the un-counted millennia of recorded history, there manifested strictly five such existences.
Even the supreme arch-mage of the continent, Rennala of the Full Moon, the god-slaying Gloam-Eyed Queen who commanded the Godskin Apostles during the ancient theological wars, or the shadow beast Maliketh the Black Blade—in Lucia's current structural understanding of the world, every one of those terrifying existences scored a microscopic fraction inferior when measured parallel to those five sovereign rulers.
If an observer sought a unifying baseline linking those five titans together, it resided in the reality proving that all five operated as the universally acknowledged, supreme rulers governing the absolute totality of The Lands Between. Whether their titles were recorded as living Gods or sovereign Kings, every subject drawing breath across the realm and every enemy crossing their borders was forced to bow their heads to acknowledge their undisputed supremacy. In a brutal, primitive world where the strong devoured the weak and the victor claimed the stars, such absolute, universal genuflection constituted the most terrifying proof of raw, un-assailable power.
Yet, even when set among those five supreme existences, Queen Marika stood as the single most unique anomaly.
This was because the alternate four titans had all openly, violently demonstrated their world-shattering physical and magical dominance across the field of war. Un-counted murals, stone carvings, and architectural reliefs dotting the ruins of Farum Azula archived the glorious, epoch-defining deeds of the Dragon Lord and the Dragon God as they conquered the ancient continent; even following the passage of thousands of winters, those divine carvings still accurately reflected the terrifying, un-capped power they wielded when standing at the apex of the world. War King Godfrey stood as the undisputed, absolute strongest warrior treading the earth following the Giant War, his legendary achievement of sweeping across every hostile kingdom and crushing every rival dynasty within twenty winters of campaign serving as the ultimate monument validating the peak physical might of the Golden Age. As for Radagon, while his raw physical output might score a microscopic fraction below those three primordial warlords, even deleting the secret proving he and the Eternal Queen existed as two halves of a singular divine vessel, his terminal duel upon the Stone Stage cycles later—where he defeated the returned Godfrey and stood merely a solitary step removed from total re-coronation—was more than sufficient to verify his transcendent martial standing.
In daily courtly interactions, even without consciously deploying their spiritual pressure to suppress the room, those four sovereigns naturally projected an awe-inspiring, bone-chilling presence that forced the air to freeze. Lucia had personally stood before the incandescent nebula left behind by his draconic progenitors within the deep chambers of his bloodline inheritance, and had sat across the desk exchanging calculations with Radagon. The solitary Warlord King he had mathematically never met face-to-face—Godfrey—could be clearly, viscerally conceptualized through the vivid accounts passed down by Sister Lansseax.
Those high-level experiences had granted his consciousness an absolute, razor-sharp clarity: even though his current parameters could effortlessly crush the absolute majority of legendary heroes drawing breath across the continent, he still remained as fragile and insignificant as a speck of dust when fronting the full, un-bridled majesty of those five existences, conformed to be utterly dismantled in a serious engagement.
Yet, the Eternal Queen whom his boots were currently advancing to pay homage to had mathematically never revealed even the most microscopic trace of that overbearing, terrifying aura that defined the alternate four sovereigns. This reality was profoundly, exceptionally perplexing.
It was by no means that the Queen lacked a personal history of descending onto the field of slaughter. Those ancient Giant Kings whose massive, petrified torsos had been pierced through by colossal golden incantations to be permanently pinned to the frozen earth during the Northern Campaign still lay dead across the desolate ice fields—standing like immortal stone monuments that recorded the Erdtree's absolute conquest on one flank, while forcefully suppressing the restless, bitter remnants of the giant race plotting their resurgence on the other.
Yet, those ancient war chronicles seemed to exist strictly within the boundaries of distant, fading myth. In current physical reality, the Queen Marika sitting within these inner sanctuaries presented herself almost exactly like a complete, un-augmented mortal. Even though she commanded an un-rivaled, breathtaking beauty that seemed to aggregate the absolute zenith of aesthetic perfection across the cosmos, one could fail to isolate a single, active thread of divine power radiating from her skin. When aligned parallel to Radagon—a being through whose very veins the incandescent, golden essence of the Law continuously flowed—she appeared infinitely more "ordinary."
That was precisely why Lucia had sustained the profound, erroneous illusion that she was "not a living god, but merely a human" when his eyes initial met her countenance in the feast hall.
"Your Royal Highness... our steps have reached the perimeter of the private rear gardens." Shabriri's overly respectful, sickeningly sweet baritone cut cleanly through the turbulent storm of Lucia's internal thoughts.
The two figures stood anchored outside the private, secluded garden sanctuary belonging to Queen Marika. A vast, lush woodland stretched before their eyes, where ancient, monumental trees heavily entwined with thick ivy formed a natural verdant wall, from behind which the delicate, intoxicating fragrance of rare winter blossoms drifted continuously across the cold air.
Directly fronting their path sat an elegant archway meticulously woven from blooming flora and wild vines. A tall female official draped in un-adorned, flowing linen vestments stood quietly beside the floral frame. The exact watch her pupils registered Lucia's approach, she executed a subtle, disciplined bow, her cadence dropping into a cool, slightly detached register. "His Majesty occupies the inner bowers. Your Highness is authorized to enter to deliver your respects at your leisure."
Lucia's silver-blue eyes subtly narrowed into tight slits. With his current spiritual perception and mental acuity, he might still lack the capacity to pierce through Queen Marika's seamless, mortal-like disguise, but it was an elementary task to instantly decode the highly anomalous characteristics governing the female official fronting his line. That specific, internal circulation of refined divine power—a methodology that stood visibly, fundamentally distinct from the golden prayers deployed by the Golden Saints—coupled with her deceptively relaxed, yet violently explosive physical posture, instantly triggered an entry within his strategic memory.
The Black Blades—those terrifying, shadow-bound assassins who stood as the solitary entities across the history of the realm to successfully execute the high-fatality liquidation of a royal demigod prior to the arrival of the Tarnished era. Ancient court rumors asserted every member of that shadow order comprised a woman, or that the absolute totality of their sisterhood shared the identical, mysterious Numen bloodline that birthed the Eternal Queen herself.
Whether evaluating the catastrophic Shattering War that systematically pulverized the civilizational infrastructure of The Lands Between, or parsing the even more turbulent, chaotic Tarnished epoch that followed down the timeline, the absolute initial spark that ignited the apocalypse was explicitly the Night of the Black Knives orchestrated by their silent daggers.
Lucia drew a slow, disciplined breath into his lungs, subtly, imperceptibly shifting his internal posture into an active combat baseline. Although his intellect verified there manifested zero physical danger targeting his life readouts on this night, every variable unfolding before his eyes felt like a dark, intricate thread of destiny weaving its loops across the continent, sending a cold, subtle prickle along his spine. This watch marked merely the second time his boots had cleared the threshold to stand before the Queen since his arrival in the capital ring. Their initial meeting had occurred within a brightly lit, golden banquet hall, where the family had exchanged warm laughter and light pleasantries like common blood relations. Yet, across this immediate watch, he suddenly intersected a intimate confidante of the Queen who clearly carried the mark of the Black Knives—and the macro-logistics conformed to be discussed across the upcoming hour were engineered to fundamentally, permanently shatter the political order of the world.
Exactly as Sister Lansseax had articulated brief minutes past, from the exact microsecond he resolved to choose this specific path, his steel was conformed to face obstacles and dangers a hundred times more complex than any trial he had conquered in the past—and the reality of that truth was already fully manifest.
"My thanks for guiding my carriage to the gates, Viscount," Lucia spoke, a calm, perfectly composed smile dawning across his features as he turned to face Shabriri. "If your schedule permits, pray hand-deliver a message to His Majesty Lord Radagon, confirming that my person will visit the side hall following the closure of this audience."
"Your servant strictly obeys the divine command." Shabriri offered that same, sickeningly sweet smile, bowing his spine into a deep genuflection, before pivoting his silk robes to smoothly retreat down the stone pathway.
Lucia offered a crisp, polite nod toward the silent female official, before advancing his steel-clad boots to step directly through the floral archway into the quiet bowers of the Queen's garden.