I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl

The aerial journey cutting through the skies of this mutated continent provided a rather refreshing experience for Sylvia. After finishing the entire contents of her spicy hotpot pot until nothing remained, she asked the servant to clear away the trolley table and serve a pot of warm magical chamomile tea. In the corner of the room, Sol and Noir, the Rank 7 Golden Dragon and Black Dragon disguised as cats, had also finished their feast of gigantic roasted meat. Both were now sleeping soundly with rounded bellies rising and falling regularly on the thick fur carpet, occasionally letting out soft purrs that soothed the cabin atmosphere.

Day turned into night, then night turned back into morning. The VIP private jet belonging to the Hunter Association advanced at constant speed through the stratosphere, leaving a long trail of white clouds behind it. The engine driven by the combustion of raw monster cores worked without pause, maintaining the aircraft’s protective magic formation so it remained stable against the high-speed wind pressure and freezing temperatures outside.

On the second day of her journey, Sylvia felt bored and wanted to know the developments of her fleet. The moment the flight attendant left the VIP cabin, Sylvia tapped the hologram bracelet on her wrist. A glowing blue screen projection appeared, breaking the cabin’s silence. Sylvia pressed the private-contact icon and connected a special video call to the communication matrix of the Eclipse-Class Dreadnought.

The screen flickered briefly before revealing the figure of Stacia. The ten-winged fallen angel was sitting casually leaning back in the laboratory chair of her ship while holding a cup of coffee. Her black hair was slightly messy, and when she saw Sylvia’s face on the screen, the frown on her brow immediately faded, replaced by a long sigh.

"Well, look who finally remembered she has a family," Stacia greeted in a casual tone, without the slightest formality. As the elder sister, Stacia always treated Sylvia with full affection, even though this little sister of hers was the absolute ruler of Nocture feared by all the gods. "How’s your solo vacation? You didn’t level any more cities, right?"

Sylvia chuckled softly while propping her chin. "I was just taking a leisurely walk around Black Lotus City. Besides, the corrupt mayor here only got a ’small surprise’ from me."

"Your version of a small surprise usually makes people end up in a mental hospital or suffer a heart attack," Stacia teased while sipping her coffee. "Sofia’s video call yesterday alone gave me a headache. She said you ran off and left a pile of bureaucratic documents on the desk. Luckily in Nocture there’s Sofia and Alicia handling the city. Oh right, Aurellia is also busy training the fire-magic troops in Nocture, while Zark is focusing on strengthening the land defense lines and managing the tens of millions of skeleton troops at the main headquarters."

"It’s fine as long as Nocture is safe," Sylvia said casually. "Later when I return I’ll buy souvenirs for Sis Sofia and Sis Alicia. How’s the Nocture fleet over there, Stacia? The crew aren’t stressed from continuous sailing, are they?"

Stacia directed her holographic camera toward the laboratory window. On the screen appeared the view of the gigantic Nocture fleet dropping anchor around the white-sand beach of an uninhabited tropical island. The sea was clear, and the scenery was extremely beautiful.

"Following your suggestion yesterday, I ordered Celes to bring the fleet to dock at this island," Stacia explained with a smile. "The Dwarf, Elf, Beastkin, and even zombie knight troops chose to go down to the beach. Celes is currently supervising them, making a campfire party and roasting mutant fish on the shore. They look really happy to be free from the ship’s routine."

"That’s good. Let them rest for a few days first," Sylvia replied happily. "Sis Stacia herself isn’t going down to the beach?"

"I prefer the lab. The seawater samples around this island are really interesting to research," Stacia answered. "Alright then, be careful in that human capital. Don’t forget to save some monster samples or rare cooking ingredients for me."

"Got it! Later I’ll bring the weirdest cooking ingredients from the capital," Sylvia promised with a wide smile.

The video call ended. Sylvia closed her hologram bracelet with a warm feeling. The brief chat with her elder sister earlier had driven away her boredom during the journey.

The third day of the journey.

The VIP magical jet was now beginning to enter the airspace known by the Association’s pilots as the "Mountains of the Clouds of Death" , a landscape consisting of ranges of gigantic volcanic mountains whose peaks pierced the clouds and radiated strong magnetic anomalies. This region was the natural border separating peripheral areas such as Black Lotus City from the core area of the Kingdom’s Capital.

Sylvia was reading an ancient history book of Tianhua from the digital library on her bracelet when suddenly the entire cabin shook violently.

BAM!

The cabin lights that had previously been golden-yellow instantly changed to flashing red, accompanied by the piercing wail of a warning siren. The tremor was so strong that Sylvia’s teacup nearly fell from the table, yet with a single blink of her eye she manipulated the gravity around her, holding the cup and table in place as though they were nailed to the air. Sol and Noir woke from their sleep, their fur standing on end because they sensed the hostile aura from outside the aircraft.

The VIP cabin door opened roughly. Kael, who turned out to be accompanying this flight as the person in charge of Sylvia’s journey, entered with a deathly pale face and cold sweat pouring down.

"M-Miss Sylvia! Please forgive this discomfort!" Kael exclaimed with ragged breathing, holding onto the door frame as the aircraft shook again from an external impact. "W-We are under attack!"

"I can feel it," Sylvia replied in an extremely bored tone. She did not even rise from her seat. "What hit us? Another aircraft? Or a swarm of giant flies?"

"A-A flock of Iron-Winged Thunder Eagles, Miss! These are Rank 6 mutated aerial monsters!" Kael explained in panic. "Normally they don’t fly this high, but it seems they are migrating! There are dozens of them bombarding our jet’s magic shield! A-And the worst part... there’s a Peak Rank 7 Alpha leading them!"

On the Tianhua continent, where the peak of human power (Rank 9) could only level a hill, a Peak Rank 7 aerial monster was a city-scale natural disaster. This jet aircraft was indeed equipped with magical protection, but it was designed to withstand extreme weather, not to withstand a swarm attack from dozens of deadly monsters.

Outside the aircraft, the scene looked like hell above the clouds. Giant eagles with wingspans reaching fifteen meters flew circling the jet. Their feathers were made of sharp dark-metal alloy, and every time they flapped their wings, lightning flashes struck from their beaks, slamming into the aircraft’s energy dome until it cracked. The VIP security guards on the outer deck were desperately firing mid-rank mana cannons, yet their attacks simply bounced off the steel feathers of those mutant birds.

"Main shield on the left wing is broken! Core engine number three is overloaded!" The captain pilot’s voice could be heard shouting from the intercom channel, full of despair. "Hold them off or we’re all going to fall into the volcanic crater!"

Kael threw himself onto the cabin floor as a barrage of lightning struck very close to the window. "M-Miss Sylvia... please endure! The guards are trying to drive them away, but..."

Sylvia let out a long, heavy sigh. She closed her reading book, then stood gracefully, smoothing the folds of her casual gown. "Drive them away? They won’t be able to drive away a Rank 7 Alpha. Besides..." Her eyes radiated a cold light that made the temperature inside the cabin drop instantly. "...they almost made my tea spill."

"Sol, Noir, stay here and finish the rest of your cookies. Don’t make this cabin dirty," Sylvia ordered gently to her two animals. Sol meowed in understanding, while Noir laid its head back down with a bored expression, knowing that its master needed no help whatsoever.

Sylvia walked past the trembling Kael on the floor, heading toward the emergency exit door in the jet corridor. Several guards who saw her tried to stop her.

"M-Miss! You must not go there! The door must not be opened; the air-pressure difference will suck us all out!" an armored guard shouted.

Sylvia ignored them. She raised one index finger, and in that instant a small-scale Domain of Absolute Death enveloped the corridor area. The space around her turned monochrome deadly black and white. Natural laws such as air pressure, oxygen, and freezing temperatures instantly submitted to her will.

Without hesitation, Sylvia pressed the emergency lever and kicked the heavy metal door until it was thrown off its hinges. Strangely, no strong wind entered, no air pressure sucked them out. Sylvia’s Domain held all physical laws so they did not apply inside the aircraft.

With casual steps as though walking in a flower garden, Sylvia stepped out of the aircraft, standing right on the wing of the jet that was traveling at thousands of kilometers per hour.

The appearance of a tiny human outside the aircraft immediately attracted the attention of the Iron-Winged Thunder Eagle flock. Three Rank 6 eagles dived sharply from above the clouds, opening their beaks wide to spew destructive lightning orbs toward Sylvia.

Sylvia merely looked upward. Through her true eyes as the Queen of Death, she activated True Sight. Instantly her vision changed. Above the heads of the three giant birds, she saw the lines of their lifespan and life fate in the form of thin, dull-black threads.

Sylvia smiled thinly. She raised her right hand, and with an extremely light motion, she plucked the empty air.

Tring.

With only a single snap of her fingers representing her absolute Authority of Death, Sylvia severed the three threads of fate.

In that instant, the gigantic lightning orbs that were ready to strike her evaporated into harmless light particles. The three giant eagles froze in the air. Their hearts stopped beating; their souls were extracted instantly without the need to chant any spell. The gigantic bodies weighing dozens of tons immediately fell downward like lifeless stones, freefalling toward the mountain craters.

Yet before their carcasses were wasted, Sylvia waved her hand. A black spatial rift opened wide in the air; it was her personal System Storage. The three bird carcasses were sucked into the virtual storage space that possessed unlimited capacity and absolute time-stasis effect, ensuring their meat would not rot for even a single second.

"Mutated thunder-bird meat... Seems like it would taste good if fried crispy or made into broth soup," Sylvia murmured while licking her lips.

Seeing their companions die instantly without clear cause, the remaining eagle flock began to panic. However, the Peak Rank 7 Alpha, a gigantic monster with a thirty-meter wingspan and a crown of lightning on its head, let out a furious, ear-splitting screech. The Alpha folded its wings, turning into a lightning projectile that shot directly toward Sylvia at the speed of sound.

"You’re coming alone to deliver food ingredients to me? How polite," Sylvia mocked.

Instead of severing the Alpha’s life-fate thread, Sylvia decided to play a little. She did not want to damage the texture of this Rank 7 premium meat. When the gigantic lightning was less than two meters from her, Sylvia raised her palm forward.

BAMMMM!

A tremendous thunder-energy explosion occurred above the aircraft wing, creating a shockwave that swept the surrounding clouds clean. The guards inside the aircraft covered their eyes and ears, certain that the girl had been reduced to ash.

Yet when the lightning light subsided, the scene that appeared made everyone watching from inside the windows lose their minds.

Sylvia stood without shifting a single millimeter. Her small, pure-white palm casually gripped the steel beak of the Peak Rank 7 Alpha. The deadly thunder energy merely hissed against her skin without leaving the slightest mark, similar to when she had held the Apocalypse Thunder Cannon from the Thunder-Belt Tiger in the border forest previously.

The giant bird’s eyes bulged, filled with the purest terror. It tried to struggle, flapping its wings in panic, yet the grip of the girl in front of it was as strong as a cosmic dimensional clamp.

"Sleep. You’re going to become a delicious dinner dish for Sol and Noir."

With a single light squeeze, Sylvia crushed the magic-core matrix in the bird’s head. The Alpha’s body convulsed violently before finally dying instantly. Sylvia tossed the still-warm gigantic carcass into the System Storage.

Seeing their leader killed like a fly that had been swatted, the remaining Thunder Eagle flock screamed in fear and immediately scattered in all directions as fast as they could, leaving the magical jet’s airspace within seconds.

The sky became clear again. The sun shone once more.

Sylvia turned around, stepped back into the cabin, then pulled the previously detached metal door and reattached it to its hinges using a little metal-manipulation magic. She canceled her death domain, allowing the aircraft engines to take over the air pressure again.

Inside, Kael, the captain, the guards, and the flight attendants were all prostrating on the floor. They trembled from the tips of their hair to the tips of their toes. Kael now truly realized why his superiors at the center had given an S-Class warning to serve this girl. She was not merely strong; she was a God of Death walking upon the earth.

"D-D-Disaster... Your Excellency Miss Sylvia... thank you for your boundless kindness," Kael sobbed while kissing the floor.

"Clean this floor and bring me fresh tea. The previous one has gone cold," Sylvia said flatly, walking back to her red velvet seat as though nothing had happened. "And tell the pilot to speed up. I’m starting to get bored."

The remainder of the journey on the fourth day passed with absolute security. Not a single mutant bird, aerial dragon, or weather anomaly dared approach the VIP jet’s route. The faint death aura left by Sylvia on the outer hull of the aircraft acted as a god-level monster repellent.

Finally, at midday, the aircraft intercom sounded again, this time with a tone full of respect and relief.

"Attention to Your Excellency Miss Sylvia. We are descending in altitude. Please prepare, we will soon be entering the airspace of the Holy Capital of the Tianhua Kingdom."

Hearing that, Sylvia drew aside the window curtain. Her eyes widened slightly at the view below.

If Black Lotus City was called an advanced city on the border, then the Holy Capital of Tianhua was the manifestation of the peak megalomania of this continent’s human civilization. The gigantic city stretched to the horizon, surrounded by hexagonal walls hundreds of meters high made of magical white gold. Inside those walls, thousands of crystal towers radiating elemental light pierced the clouds.

The most striking was its central district, a gigantic floating land island suspended in the air, pulled by magic chains the size of ships to the earth pillars below. That floating island was filled with marble castles, hanging gardens, and high-level magic academies where the elite mage caste lived. In the city’s sky, hundreds of magical airships, gryphon riders, and flying carriages came and went, forming complicated traffic lanes.

However, the extreme inequality that was the characteristic of the remnant lands of this panda-nation was still very clearly visible. Beneath the shadows of that magnificent floating island stretched a dark and squalid lower district, where millions of commoners and refugees crowded together living on rusty rooftops and streets that never touched sunlight.

The VIP jet carrying Sylvia glided smoothly past the city’s aerial protective formation without obstruction thanks to the high-level authorization code from the Hunter Association and headed directly toward the highest landing tower on the central floating island.

The aircraft landed smoothly on the white marble runway. The sound of the core engines gradually faded until it stopped.

The VIP jet door opened, lowering a red-carpeted staircase. Sylvia, with Sol sitting on her left shoulder and Noir walking at her side, descended the stairs. She inhaled the capital’s air that felt denser with mana energy, very different from the dry air of the border.

At the foot of the stairs, a line of high-ranking officials from the Central Hunter Association branch, as well as several representative figures from the Golden Guild and the city’s military faction, already stood neatly. They bowed respectfully, awaiting the arrival of the VVIP guest holding the Unlimited Black-Gold Card who was rumored to have leveled the residence of the border mayor.

Sylvia curved a meaningful smile. She gazed at the sea of magic towers and the floating island around her, sensing thousands of auras from high-level fighters throughout the city.

"This stage is decent enough for playing around," the Queen of Death murmured, preparing to carve a new story in the heart of the Tianhua Kingdom.