The Three Great Empires in the Star had extensive territories. Almost every empire had countless colonial star areas. After the interstellar situation stabilized, the three empires proactively adjusted their domain coverage areas, causing an overlap between the star zones of the three empires. This overlapping area was referred to as the "Star Area".
Since ancient times, the Star Area had always been a strategic hot spot contested for by military powers. All important conferences of the Three Great Empires were held here. It can be seen as the center of cosmic civilization. If the universe is seen as a ring with the Star Area at its center, the Milky Way would be comparable to the distant outskirts, with Earth being located in the suburban area of these outskirts.
Despite its important strategic location, a large number of civilizations did not exist here as its primary function lay in politics and diplomacy.
When it comes to the most prosperous place in the cosmos, one has to mention the Great Delivery Portal Star Area of the Shi'a Empire.
The Shi'a Empire was the civilization with the most developed teleportation technology in the entire universe, excluding the Nine Major Kingdoms, of course. The races here had not yet stepped into the interstellar society and therefore, were not included in the statistics.
Even if the Nine Major Kingdoms were taken into account, the teleportation technology of the Shi'a Empire still had its merits. The Shi'a Empire, which grew into prominence due to its racial integration and business exchanges, had a civilization nature that made it necessary for them to have an extremely convenient mode of transportation. The Great Delivery Portal was a wonder of the universe that could not be ignored.
Although this teleportation portal had many drawbacks, such as being completely immobile and unable to evade targeted attacks, rendering its maneuverability essentially non-existent, it far outdid the portals of the human race with its terrifying throughput.
It's hard to tell how many interstellar civilizations exist throughout the universe, but at least 80% of them conducted their commercial trades through the Great Delivery Portal. This portal, which had stood here for hundreds to thousands of years without halting operations, had already become an indispensable part of the economic development of the interstellar society.
The capital star area of the Shi'a Empire was not far from the Great Delivery Portal. Its structure was similar to the Solar System, revolving around a star and expanding to the entire star system, comprising of 19 planets. All of these planets had been adaptively transformed, with the best-located one being the Imperial City of the Shi'a Empire, Ferocious Feather Star.
The largest city on the Ferocious Feather Star, known as Imperial City, was home to the palace where the Queen of the Shi'a Empire and her husband resided. It was also the location of the Xi'a Empire Parliament and the political and economic center of the Shi'a Empire.
Plentiful races existed within the Shi'a Empire, but the Royal Family was all from the Ferocious Feather Tribe. They were descended from a prehistoric bird species native to the Ferocious Feather Star and the Ferocious Feather Tribe still maintained avian characteristics to this day.
Male tribe members usually had gorgeous feathers draped over their heads, necks, and shoulders, somewhat similar to the feathered headdress worn by Indians on Earth. They were accustomed to carefully grooming their feathers to maintain their beautiful and eye-catching luster to attract female attention.
Female tribe members had slightly shorter feathers and their colors were not as vibrant. Female members of the Shi'a tribe usually wrapped their feathers in light metal armor, resembling a triangular metal helmet. They only displayed their feathers to their chosen mate during courtship.
In the hallway of the foreign affairs department outside the Imperial City, a female member of the Ferocious Feather Tribe dressed in silver armor and a blue cap was briskly striding through the hallway.
The Ferocious Feather Tribe loved to adorn their buildings with a variety of colorful gemstones. Their grand council's residence, the Palace of Savage Wings, was even directly constructed in the shape of a shining gemstone.
The intense light of the adult star refracted through the semi-transparent surface of the gemstone, illuminating this lady diplomat of the Ferocious Feather Tribe, and radiating a brilliant glow.
The bloodline of cold-blooded creatures made the skin of this female diplomat look cool-colored, but her countenance was even colder, clearly in a bad mood.
She quickly passed through the hallway, turned a corner and arrived at a conference room. Before entering the conference room, she took a deep breath and made an effort to adjust her expression to appear as though she was smiling. Obviously, there was someone difficult to deal with waiting for her inside the conference room.
"Hello, Prince of Asgard, your presence at our Palace of Savage Wings is an honor. I am glad to meet you here. I am a First-Class Diplomat of the Shi'a Empire. You can call me by my general language name, Atu."
The female diplomat took a step forward, briefly touched her forehead with her four-fingered hand, then touched her right shoulder and gently bowed to Loki as a sign of respect.
"Hello, Miss Atu, it's been a while since I last visited. The Shi'a Empire is flourishing as always." The black-haired girl smoothed her hair, stepped forward, and lightly thumped her left breast with her fist as a form of Asgardian etiquette.
"Senator Bole is already waiting in his office. However, my superiors wanted me to ask if you needed anything from him?" Diplomat Atu asked as she led Loki on their way out.
Before Loki could answer, she explained, "Oh, please don't misunderstand. Her Majesty the Queen is very interested in the Interstellar Exhibition Asgard is about to hold. We are just not sure how His Majesty the New King will arrange for the exhibition…"
"You can rest assured that the detailed schedule will be sent over soon. I am here to see Senator Bole over a personal matter. Her Majesty the Queen need not concern herself with this, I will request a separate audience another day."
A look of resignation flashed across the eyes of the female diplomat. She really wanted to say, 'I hope you don't come, as trouble seems to follow your visits', but she dared not.
Loki, known as the God of Mischief, was a notorious trickster. But whichever empire she visited, everyone had to receive her courteously, because of her privileged birth and influential brother.
Leading Loki through the hallways of the Palace of Savage Wings and across two teleportation portals, they finally arrived at the offices of the senator. After leading Loki to a door, the diplomat introduced, "Senator Bole is inside. If you need anything else, feel free to let me know."
Loki smiled at her before entering the door. As soon as her silhouette disappeared, the female diplomat's face turned cold.
She gently touched the earrings in her ears and turned to walk briskly downstairs, saying, "Attention all Ferocious Feather Palace Guards, by the order of the Queen, keep a close watch on Loki. Every word she speaks tonight needs to be on the Queen's desk!"
Meanwhile, Loki walked into the room to find a very robust male Shi'a standing behind the desk. He had a beautiful crest of orange and golden feathers that shone in the sunlight like a strong and majestic eagle.
"Oh, Bore, my old friend, long time no see." Loki warmly embraced the male legislator known as Bore. Bore smiled and replied, "It's been a long time, indeed. I was surprised that you came to see me."
"It seems I have bothered you." said Loki, batting her eyelashes with a smile.
"Don't say that. We had a few phone calls, and I got a lot of news about the new King of Asgard from you. Please, have a seat."
Both of them settled on the nearby chairs. Bore poured Loki a drink. Loki got straight to the point, "Let's not beat around the bush. I heard that you made some new progress with your dimension slice and movement device?"
Bore's brow furrowed imperceptibly, a look of understanding flashing in his eyes. But his expression remained unchanged, he said with a smile, "Oh, it's just a convenient moving tool, can't compare to the weapons of Asgard."
But Loki was not let off by his evasive response and continued, "The Great Delivery Portal has been there for so many years, becoming an indispensable part of interstellar commerce. Yet all these years, you have been wanting it to play a bigger role."
"But the act of getting the portal moving is also a challenge for the Interstellar Science Community. Traditional methods do not work. So, you want to approach by cutting the dimensions around the delivery portal, turning it into a mobile weapon much like Asgard's Rainbow Bridge, right?"
Bore's face seemed to freeze for a moment. He gave Loki an awkward smile before replying, "The Shi'a Empire has always been a peace-loving nation. We're not interested in manufacturing weapons. The location of the Great Delivery Portal conflicts with our current star region planning, hence we just want to relocate it to a more convenient place. This would be beneficial to everyone. Isn't it?"
"Great thinking, but impractical." Loki took a sip of her drink, shaking her head and cryptically said, "On a wrong path, no matter how far one walks, it's useless."
Bore scrunched his brow very tightly. He opened his mouth wanting to inquire more but decided against it due to caution.
Actually, the Three Great Empires' wariness of Asgard is not entirely because the Divine King is formidable, but also because Asgard has its ultimate weapon—The Rainbow Bridge.
The Rainbow Bridge is wondrous because it's an engine, a weapon, a delivery portal, and a summoning object. It can accumulate divine power for a destructive strike, can transport others, and can transport itself. It's absurdly powerful.
The Rainbow Bridge is powered by the divine power of Asgard. As of now, the Three Great Empires can't decode this power, hence they have no countermeasures against the Rainbow Bridge's transportation capability.
The arms race works this way: if there are no countermeasures, they must research similar weapons. For many years, the Three Great Empires have been studying transportation portals. If you can transport quickly, I need to transport even quicker. Only in this way can they maintain a strategic advantage.
But maybe all the skills related to transportation in the universe have been claimed by the races of the Nine Major Kingdoms. After the Three Great Empires conducted half of their research, the throughput of their portable transport portal was too small and the larger throughput portal can't be moved. It still couldn't compare with the Rainbow Bridge's ability to directly transport the entire Asgard Fleet.
The most frustrated among them was the Shi'a Empire. They had started their transportation technology development much earlier, but were always hindered by a technology barrier. Hundreds of years ago, they wanted to modify the Great Delivery Portal to make it like the Rainbow Bridge, capable of appearing over enemies. But after so many years, the portal has not moved.
Thinking about this, Bore felt a bit disheartened. It was just like a mediocre student who had put in great effort by studying day and night, but still couldn't achieve as well as a lazy, high-intelligence student.
Asgard doesn't even need to answer the question. They were just born with the ability to use the cosmic power.
Asgard virtually had no scientists, yet their technology tree developed naturally and was the only one in the universe. Convenient, user-friendly, and powerful- who wouldn't be jealous?
"Twilight of the Gods, Twilight of the Gods, Twilight of the Gods..." Bore muttered several times in his heart to suppress his jealousy. Unexpectedly, Loki laughed and said,
"I heard that some technological collaborations have started among the Three Great Empires…" Loki said, dragging out her last syllable.
"Now is a critical time for Asgard's return to the interstellar community. We also hope to establish mutually beneficial cooperation with other powerful countries, especially in terms of teleportation technology cooperation and joint research…"
Bore felt his heart pounding.