I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl

On the outer main bridge of Dreadnought Nocture, the atmosphere that had previously been filled with tension from the battle of two god-scale monsters had now shifted into a calm that almost felt surreal. The night wind, carrying the lingering cold aura from Jormungandr’s eternal ice, blew gently, while the colossal fleet slowly maneuvered away from the shattered waters of the North Sea Trench.

Sylvia sat back in her lounge chair, while Persephone and the World Avatar sat in elegant velvet-covered seats deliberately created by Stacia’s spatial magic. A small round table with a porcelain teapot that steamed with the aroma of jasmine and golden honey stood between them.

Although the ocean outside still churned from the residual giant tsunamis, the area within Sylvia’s Domain of Absolute Death remained as stable as the firmest solid ground. Not a single drop of tea spilled from their cups.

"So, you truly plan to map this entire new Earth from scratch?" Persephone asked, sipping her tea gracefully. Her dark eyes, which held the essence of night, gazed at her adoptive daughter with full affection, yet a hint of curiosity also lingered. "That is not a task that can be completed merely by sailing in a straight line, Sylvia. This hundredfold expansion of the landmass is not simply the tectonic plates growing larger."

The World Avatar, seated across from Persephone, nodded slowly. Its slender fingers, which radiated a green glow of life, tapped the tea table lightly, creating small ripples of pure energy that spread through the surrounding air.

"Let me explain the structure of this planet now," the World Avatar said in a serious tone, taking over the conversation. "When I swallowed Gaia’s divinity and forced this planet to evolve under duress in order to withstand the pressure from the arrival of the ancient gods, I did not merely create land and water from nothing. I pulled in thousands of pocket dimensions, secret continents that had been sealed before the Primordial Era, as well as fragments of mythological worlds that had been discarded into the inter-dimensional void. I dragged them all in and stitched them into this single primary plane of reality."

The World Avatar projected a glowing holographic globe of the Earth above the tea table. The hologram rotated slowly, and its shape no longer resembled the Earth once known to humanity. The old continents such as Eurasia, America, and Africa had now shrunk in size, appearing only like clusters of small islands amid gigantic oceans and new continents whose vastness defied reason.

"As a result of this forced fusion, the laws of physics, the flow of magic, and the structure of space-time in the new regions are extremely unstable," the World Avatar continued, pointing to several areas that flashed with warning red on the hologram. "There are oceans whose waters can burn the soul instead of cooling the body, barren lands where time runs backward, and unclaimed territories where gravity obeys the laws of thought rather than the mass of objects. Mapping these places is the same as navigating the chaos of the universe’s own creation."

Sylvia listened intently, propping her chin with one hand. Her heterochromatic eyes sparkled with interest rather than fear. "It is precisely that chaos which makes it so fascinating, Miss Earth. The Nocture faction needs new territories of dominion, unlimited resources, and of course, fresh experimental materials for my alchemy department. The maps left behind by humans and the old gods have become worthless scrap paper. Whoever succeeds in mapping the layout of this new world for the first time will be the one who controls the logistics routes, the flow of magic, and the trade monopolies of the future. I will not allow any pantheon of ancient gods to claim these new lands before my undead fleet plants the banner of Death upon them."

Persephone smiled gently at that ambition. An aura of a mother’s pride radiated warmly from her. "A conquest ambition most fitting for a Queen of Death. If that is truly your absolute decision, Mother will certainly not hinder you. In fact, Mother will look forward to whatever gifts you bring home later."

The Primordial Goddess who had absorbed the existence of Nyx then rose from her seat. Her galaxy gown rustled softly, scattering stardust around her. "The Underworld is also undergoing a massive restructuring because millions of new souls from those secret lands have begun pouring in like a flood. Mother must return there to restore order before the River Styx overflows. Do not forget to drop by the Underworld for dinner if you miss Mother’s cooking, dear."

"Of course, Mother. Take care on your journey," Sylvia smiled sincerely, nodding her head respectfully.

The World Avatar also stood from its place. Before stepping away toward its own dimensional gate, the earth entity tossed a small object that Sylvia easily caught in her lap. It was an intricately carved ancient compass, made from interwoven roots of the Tree of Life and pure crystals from the Earth’s core.

"Take this compass with you, Sylvia," the World Avatar said. "It is the Ley Line Compass. Its needle does not point toward magnetic north, but instead tracks the direction of the greatest origin energy confluence point in the area around you. In places where the laws of nature have completely collapsed, that compass will guide your fleet through the deadly labyrinth of spatial anomalies."

"Thank you very much, Miss Earth. This is an extremely useful farewell gift," Sylvia lifted the compass, examining it with a satisfied smile.

In the blink of an eye, reality behind Persephone and the World Avatar split open without a sound. The two transcendent existences stepped into their respective dimensional rifts, vanishing from sight, and left Sylvia once more alone with the silence of the night and the rumble of her fleet’s engines.

The moment the presence of those primordial goddesses disappeared, the main bridge door slammed open roughly. Celes ran in, breathing hard, closely followed by Stacia who carried a stack of holographic grimoires flashing with warning red.

"Your Majesty! Our spatial mana radar has detected extremely abnormal fluctuations in the northwestern sector!" Celes reported quickly, pointing toward the night horizon outside the bridge windows. "There are no signs of sea monsters or god-level fluctuations, but... the space ahead of us seems to be overlapping and twisting!"

"The compass the World Avatar just gave me is also reacting," Sylvia turned the object in her hand. The needle of the glowing root compass spun wildly out of control before finally locking hard in the direction Celes had just indicated. "Stacia, what is the analysis from your science department? Don’t tell me we are about to crash into another storm."

Stacia immediately pushed up her reading glasses that had slipped down, her eyes sweeping over the rapidly scrolling numbers in the air. "Not an ordinary storm, Your Majesty. We are about to enter one of the absolute anomaly zones created by the Earth’s expansion. The gravity index at the coordinates ahead of us is completely chaotic. If we force our way in using the standard fleet sailing formation, the support ships on our flanks could be twisted apart by the colliding gravitational pressures."

"In that case, change the formation," Sylvia ordered casually, returning to stroking the back of Sol the dragon-cat who was purring. "Activate the Space-Time Anchors on every ship hull. Link the shields of the five Hunter-class Cruisers directly to the hull of the Primary Dreadnought using high-level Shadow Chains. We will enter together as a single island of steel."

"Immediately executed, Your Majesty!" Celes shouted, turning around at once and broadcasting the order through the fleet command telepathy network.

In only ten minutes, the Nocture Eclipse-class Fleet had completely changed its configuration. Thick shadow chains shot out from the main ship’s hull, binding the five support vessels on the left and right flanks, forming a gigantic protective net that united them physically and magically. The reactor towers beneath the decks radiated an extremely stable golden light as the fleet advanced unstoppably, piercing through the thick magical fog that covered the anomalous horizon.

However, when that dense fog parted, the scenery beyond truly defied every form of logic known to any mortal race.

The entire crew of Beastmen soldiers and Elf officers on the decks gasped in horror and wonder. The knees of several of them even trembled violently. The blue night ocean they had been sailing was suddenly severed. In front of them, the seawater no longer flowed horizontally, but curved upward, climbing toward the sky, forming gigantic rivers of saltwater that floated in the air like colossal ribbons.

Clouds that radiated copper-red and purple colors were instead located far beneath the surface of the sea, while massive landmasses and province-sized islands floated inverted in the sky. Gigantic waterfalls flowed from those floating islands in defiance of nature; their water fell upward, piercing the atmosphere toward the void. This was a region whose gravity and space had been torn to their limits, the Inverted Gravity Archipelago.

Dreadnought Nocture shook violently for several seconds as its iron hull crossed the boundary line of physical law. Thanks to the Space-Time Anchors and the chained shield formation that mutually supported one another, the ships were not flung into the air or flipped over. They continued sailing miraculously atop the current of water that floated high in the air. This surreal scenery made the crew feel as though they were navigating a sea of stars in the middle of a shattered galaxy.

"G-God..." muttered a radar operator of the Elf race, gripping the edge of his desk until his knuckles turned white. "Beneath our hull... there is no seabed. None at all! Only an endless void of storm clouds!"

"Focus on your monitor screen, Soldier!" Celes barked in warning, although the face of the Supreme Commander herself appeared slightly pale from spatial disorientation. "Her Majesty Queen Sylvia is with us on this ship. Even if the sky itself collapses, the Nocture Fleet will never sink!"

While the organic living crew members struggled hard to calm their heartbeats and vertigo, the Elite Zombie Knights outside on the decks remained completely unaffected. Their glowing red eyes stared blankly toward the inverted waterfalls and floating lands without a single trace of emotion. Dead creatures that no longer possessed internal organs to feel nausea, and that had no reason left to recognize terror, proved themselves to be the most perfect soldiers for navigating hellish anomalies of this kind.

"Your Majesty the Queen," Stacia’s voice came clearly from the personal communication speaker near Sylvia’s tea table. "The Ley Line Compass needle is pointing very strongly toward one of the largest floating islands in the central sector. And... my long-range alchemy radar is detecting the presence of precision geometric structures on that land. It is not a natural formation. It is a city... or more precisely, a massive ruin."

Sylvia narrowed her eyes, shifting her gaze in the direction indicated by the radar. Far in the middle of the swirling purple clouds and the intersecting rivers of air, there was a mini-continent floating in a tilted position. Upon that land rose the remnants of architectural civilization that had never been recorded in the long history of humanity, the Elf race, or the ancient records of the Dwarves.

Those buildings were made of pure white marble stone that radiated a glow of starlight from within. Geometric towers floated without any physical supports, and bridges of light stretched interconnecting, crossing bottomless chasms. It was the ruin of an ancient city that radiated a level of absolute majesty, as though the city had once been inhabited by celestial beings from a transcendent civilization that existed long before the primordial gods were born.

"An ancient civilization discarded from the flow of historical time, and pulled back intact by the World Avatar," Sylvia murmured slowly. She licked her reddish lips, feeling an adrenaline of excitement she had not experienced for a long time. "Perfect. The first map we create will not merely contain empty territorial points, but a fortress of a lost civilization. Celes! Direct all ships toward the giant white plaza at the edge of that tilted continent! We will dock at that sky harbor."

"But Your Majesty!" Celes responded with a tone of hesitation and full of warning. "We have absolutely no idea what magical traps or prehistoric curses await us there! A place with energy this dense is very likely still inhabited by monsters from the ancient era guarding their territory!"

"If there are monsters hiding there, we kill them, skin them, and turn them into reactor fuel. If there is a curse blocking the way, we shatter it until nothing remains," Sylvia answered with an arrogant smile that froze the blood. "I am the manifestation of Death itself, Celes. There is not a single dead thing in those old ruins that has the right to frighten me. Advance now!"

Following the absolute, irrefutable command of the Queen, the colossal fleet maneuvered with great difficulty, fighting against the crazily distorted gravitational pull, slowly but surely approaching the giant stone plaza that appeared to have once functioned as a harbor dock for celestial airships.

A harsh grinding sound echoed as the Black Star Steel hull scraped against the ancient white marble stone. Colossal anchor chains were fired from the ships’ muzzles, embedding firmly into the glowing stone pillars on the plaza to stabilize the position of the five vessels.

Sylvia rose to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her black gown that fluttered elegantly in the wind of the ruins. "Celes, gather the entire unit of the Elite Zombie Knight Forces and place the Shadow Assassins on standby within our shadows. You will come down with me. Stacia, you remain on the main bridge and continuously monitor the energy scans. Inform me immediately if any flying object, no matter how small, approaches the fleet."

"As you will, Your Majesty!" Celes immediately drew her holy sword, leading the formation of thousands of thickly armored Elite Zombie Knights who lined up neatly behind Sylvia as the Queen stepped down the ship’s energy staircase, setting her feet upon the dusty white ruin plaza.

The air within the ruins felt extremely ancient, rigid, and extraordinarily sterile. There was no scent of decay that usually accompanied abandoned places, no green moss, no climbing vines, or even signs of weather erosion. There was only an absolute silence that oppressed the chest. The sound of Sylvia’s high-heeled boot steps echoed loudly, bouncing off all the towering stone pillars on their left and right.

However, that empty silence did not last long.

When Sylvia, Celes, and their thousands of zombie troops reached the center point of the giant marble plaza in the heart of the ancient harbor, the Ley Line Compass in Sylvia’s hand suddenly radiated a green light that blinded the eyes. Simultaneously, secret energy lines engraved into the white marble floor instantly lit up brightly. Those geometric patterns spread with extreme speed like a gigantic electrical circuit that had just awakened from a deep sleep lasting billions of years.

WHOOOSSH! WHOOOSSH! BOOOOM!

Pillars of pure white light erupted from the floor. From within those blinding pillars of light, mechanical figures of gigantic size slowly emerged, each as tall as a three-story building. They were not cheap stone golems or organic creatures resulting from mutation at all. They were ancient guardian machines, celestial automata made from interwoven noble white-gold metal that was completely unknown, not rusted in the slightest. Each of those giant machines possessed six mechanical jointed arms, each holding a sword made of pure energy. The mechanical eyes on their expressionless faces radiated a cold, deadly blue starlight.

The most terrifying thing was their energy fluctuations. Each of those machines emitted a mana wave pressure equivalent to a Pseudo-Rank 7 monster. And their numbers were not merely one or two, but more than a hundred guardian machines that had been awakened simultaneously in the plaza, surrounding the Nocture forces.

"INTRUDERS DETECTED. ENTITY IDENTIFICATION: ORGANIC AND NECROTIC. ABSOLUTE PURIFICATION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED," a synthetic, toneless voice that echoed like a death knell thundered from those giant machines. They spoke in an ancient primordial language that was strangely automatically translated by the magical communication necklace worn by Celes.

"Damn it! They are all radiating pure purification energy on the level of a Low-Class God!" Celes shouted loudly, channeling her holy aura into the blade of her sword. "Death Knights! Form a circular shadow shield formation right now!"

Thousands of Elite Zombie Knights immediately responded without the slightest delay. They leapt forward with synchronized movements, slamming their iron shields into the ground, releasing dense death miasma that formed a multi-layered steel shadow defense dome. They prepared to collide with those executioner machines.

A deafening KINETIC IMPACT exploded as dozens of holy energy sword blades from the front line of the Automata smashed into the zombie shields. Their destructive power was extraordinary. Several Zombie Knights in the front rank were immediately flung backward until their bodies shattered into fragments of bone and armor, yet the alchemical essence of their living corpses immediately fused back together thanks to the shadow mist that continuously pumped their regeneration. The battle between hundreds of soulless killing machines against thousands of unstoppable living corpses erupted at once, creating a destructive storm between the collision of holy light and dark miasma that pulverized the ancient marble stones around them.

Celes shot forward, using the speed of light. She swung hard at one of the Automata’s leg joints with her holy sword. However, a sharp metallic clang rang out; the ancient white-gold metal was far too hard and dense. Celes’s slash, which normally cleaved sea dragons, was only able to leave a small scratch that sparked hot embers.

In the middle of that noisy chaos of the battlefield, Sylvia did not retreat a single step. She remained standing upright with extreme calm at the epicenter of the battle. She was instead observing the movement patterns of those machines with sparkling eyes, looking exactly like a genius scientist who had just discovered a new construction toy.

"Autonomous machines driven by compressed stardust cores to such a degree..." Sylvia murmured full of admiration, a wide smile blooming on her lips. "An extremely beautiful and perfect creation technology. If the Dwarf Zark were here with us, that old grandfather would surely sob while prostrating, begging me for the blueprints of these things."

Seeing Celes and her troops gradually beginning to be pushed back due to being outmatched in raw power by the unlimited physical destructive force and purification energy of more than a hundred celestial Automata, Sylvia decided that the time for playing around and observing had been more than enough.

"Hold your positions, Knight Forces. Stop attacking," Sylvia ordered lightly. Yet her voice, layered with magic, spread and cut through the roar of the battle explosions.

All the zombies and Celes immediately leapt back slowly. Sylvia stepped forward, passing through the front rank of her Zombie Knight forces. Her heterochromatic eyes flashed sharply, radiating a dominance that endangered anyone’s life.

"These guardian machines may be made of special metal, possess no soul to be destroyed, or no flesh organs to be rotted by miasma," Sylvia said in a soft voice that nevertheless reached every ear. She raised her right hand high into the air. "But everything that has ever been created in this universe... whether it is an inorganic object, a holy energy shield, an eternal machine, or even the brightest shining star in the galaxy... in the end, all of them will always submit to one ultimate law. The Law of Absolute Decay. Entropy Death for the Inanimate."

The Domain of Absolute Death exploded violently from the point of Sylvia’s body, but this time its color was not merely the standard black-and-white shadow. The dominant color of her domain changed into a void gray that killed the color of everything it touched. The law of universal decay was applied directly to the physical structure of the environment in that plaza.

The dense gray wave swept forward like a fine dust storm.

The instant that conceptual wave touched the hundreds of six-armed Automatons that were rampaging forward, everything changed horrifyingly. The movements of the giant machines that had previously been agile and unstoppable suddenly slowed as though moving through thick mud. The blades of the holy energy swords in their hands flickered erratically, dimmed, before finally extinguishing completely, swallowed by the void.

The eternal ancient white-gold metal that covered their entire skeletal frames, which had been immune to the scratches of Celes’s holy sword, impossibly began to rust thickly, oxidized by time accelerated millions of times over in only a matter of seconds. The stardust cores within their chest cavities, which had been theoretically designed to continue burning for billions of years, were forced to age instantly, dimming as they exhausted their entire existential energy under the authority of death commanded directly by Sylvia.

"PROTOCOL... ERROR... DAMAGE LEVEL 99%... ENERGY... CRITICAL... SYSTEM... FAILURE..." the voices of the machines sounded fragmented and wailed sadly like broken cassette tapes, before finally dying completely.

In less than ten seconds since Sylvia raised one of her hands, more than a hundred Pseudo-Rank 7 guardian machines toppled and collapsed onto the marble floor. The sound of the impacts was soft, because the metal of their bodies had become as fragile as dry leaves. They crumbled with a crackling sound upon touching the floor, turning into piles of rust dust and scrap without being able to offer any counterattack whatsoever.

The magnificent plaza that had previously been filled with the chaos of explosive warfare now returned to silence, covered by a stretch of gray dust and piles of dead ancient machines.

Celes stood panting in her place, lowering her sword with a slightly trembling hand. She stared at her Queen’s back with a mixture of respect, admiration, and extremely deep psychological terror. "Applying the concept of Death directly upon soulless inanimate objects... You truly are an existence that is completely unreasonable, Your Majesty."

Sylvia lowered her hand slowly, brushing the residual gray energy from the cuff of her gown. An elegant smile of victory was clearly carved upon her pale, captivating face.

"Gather all the remaining stardust cores from the debris of their scrap and send them to Stacia’s laboratory for dissection," Sylvia ordered lightly.

She no longer paid attention to the scrap machines she had conquered. Instead, Sylvia shifted her gaze straight ahead, toward the gate of a gigantic white palace that rose arrogantly right at the center of that floating city. The gem-encrusted palace gate now opened slowly of its own accord, scraping against the floor with a heavy sound, as though it had just acknowledged her power and was inviting the Queen of Death to step further inside.

"Come, let us see what secret treasures the old Earth has hidden for us in there," Sylvia whispered with eyes full of enthusiasm.