Less than two hours have passed in the Green Zone, but below in the Lower Realm, time moves much faster.
Over a week has passed.
There is no visible Realm Wave in the Origin Plane, so other than a select few that have higher access within the World Wide Connectivity interface, the majority of living beings have no idea of this shift.
In order to communicate and track the passing of time, Bri and Ava send messages back and forth in a similar fashion to the first Realm Wave when the generals were cultivating to compress and saturate their true cores.
Updates of mass information gathering, and the extermination of Demons sworn to the 5 Great Families’ throughout the Lower Realm have begun. Receipts and some recordings of Fisher and Lydia taking over hundreds of worlds that have been captured by Thrones are sent up, as well as many confirmations of Knights clearing labyrinths on worlds that were soon to be harvested.
There are many star systems with more than one planet with life, so in addition to hunting Demons, many Knights reach out to make peaceful relationships with new worlds and offer them a connection to the growing empire.
A report is sent back on the 3rd day of a small 5th-class goblin world that swore loyalty to the rising emperor. Once over 50% of their awakened citizens linked to the system, the entire world was claimed and received the perks of being fully connected, even without a Throne or representative in the Upper Realm.
This realization added another great talking point to the Galactic Trade Commission’s meeting led by Bri and Alveron, as they hosted a conference to outline what this new era has in store for over a billion World Leaders. Using 1% of the borrowed stats and enhanced mental calculation speed, Alveron is able to split his mind into millions of parts and hold basic conversations with individual planet leaders to do an in-depth personalized Q and A after the talk.
The number of linked worlds slowly rises after this meeting as the Rising Emperor’s reach spreads through the galaxy by word of mouth.
Yet, no one, not even the admins or generals, can sense his presence in the system any longer.
To many of the new citizens that swear their loyalty, he is almost a godlike figure, where many do not even know if he truly exists, or if this is just how the system itself works, and they’ve finally gained access to another layer after being in the dark so long.
Pluto returns to the Demonic Realm and fabricates a report about a failure at the Great Belt of Brymia to the leaders of the other four families, just as ordered.
The chaos of the Vermillion Family’s tower going dark, and the confirmations that many squads all over the galaxy are being targeted and hunted down, make what he is saying very believable.
As days pass, it is not out of the ordinary for many squads to come back using emergency teleportation devices with horrible battle injuries and most of their squads wiped out—or just none to come back at all.
Pluto finds himself slowly moving up the ranks and sitting at the table of Generals in the Vermillion Family’s army now as a permanent soldier, as they are losing troops and need all of the True Cores they can get.
Little do they know, he is patiently waiting and following orders, leaking battle plans and sensitive information whenever he can get his hands on them to Bri through an advanced Administrator channel.
Even as over a week passes after the Green Vermillion Tower went out, there has still been no communication from any of the 4 remaining family heads yet. They have all gone silent, and the entire Demonic Realm has gone on edge because of it.
–
While hours have passed in the Green Zone, and over a week has gone by in the Lower Realm, over a year passes in the Ravine of the Cyan Zone.
After jumping off the edge of the first staircase’s platform, we fall back down into the abyss where we came from.
Using small amounts of Celestial Energy wrapped in layers of Royal Vibrations, we’re able to step on the air and slow our fall with ease. Flying upward in small sprints is even possible, but it drains a considerable amount of Celestial Energy.
Unlike divine threads that are abundant in the atmosphere, and Vibrations that can’t actually be exhausted, Celestial Energy that leaves our bodies is lost from our pools.
The bottom of the Abyss is a few kilometers below, as expected, reinforcing the fact that the map carved into the stone above by a mysterious, lighter-carved handwriting is telling the truth about the placement of these pedestals, and also that there is a temple at the end of all this.
Though… it also means they know something about Ember, “The Fallen One,” and somehow, my Rising Emperor’s system is related to all of this too…
I certainly have time to think about this as we explore the darkness, using the Orb to lead us in the right direction.
It works as not only a compass through the bottom of this ravine, but also as an enemy detection system. There are demons lurking all throughout the darkness, appearing every few kilometers as we walk. Most of them are commoners and 3rd Class, but occasionally stronger 2nd and 1st Class pairs appear.
The majority of Demon and Dragon pairs we find are covered in battle scars and look tired and hopeless, as though they have been down here all their lives.
The horrific battle instincts and shattered memories I receive after every one of their kills make me believe it’s true.
Every new massive staircase we challenge is met with the same exact pattern.
Atop it, there is a strong Noble Demon, and on the steps leading up to it, hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of weaker Demons try to overcome and challenge the aura.
Every battle ends the same.
These Noble Demons give up their lives to protect the artifacts sitting atop these ancient towers, even if it’s for only a few seconds.
They all look exactly alike, small black orbs about the size of a human head, and point toward the nearest living creatures, with a single larger white point leading off in the same direction. All of them have the simple message of “Map to the Temple” below them when I lift them off their pedestals.
We kill tens of thousands of Demons, and dozens of Nobles.
Every Noble’s horns are used to craft and strengthen new armor, covering our bodies and enhancing our strength, speed, and defense.
All of the 1st Class and Noble Grade weapons are absorbed into my sword.
Our Royal Vibrations are refined to such an extent that we don’t even need to be at the peak of our cycles, and can slice through Noble Demons in one shot, or freeze them entirely to ice in an instant.
It is clear that we are higher lifeforms, once the Celestial Energy in our bodies is equivalent to and eventually greater than our enemies’. Noble Vibrations cannot compare to the maturity, density, and weight of influence carried within our auras.
Even a single layer of our Royal Vibrations begins to easily conquer and break through dozens of layers of Noble Demon defenses. A long shot, using a high-powered swing of my sword from hundreds of meters away, is enough to slice through hundreds of swarming demons and kill the Noble Guardians after dozens of these pedestals.
I’ve tested variations of my craftsmanship skill to hone and perfect the ideal armors, and have even awakened a version of my item storage skill.
Using the mental ether commands that were used in the citadels of the Green Zone, and the energy pathways that I would normally activate with mana through my system to open up my item storage skill, I become capable of opening a small space within my soul to store items.
It is similar to how my soul sword falls back into my body, but with a far less intimate connection, it is more like a pocket of space opens up on the outer edges of my soul to store items.
This is where I begin to plunder every one of the black orbs left behind at the pedestals.
Not only do we leave the sludge and broken lower-class horns of Demons littered across the ground, but we steal dozens of these artifacts.
Exploring the endless dark ravine, and killing every demonic being we see is exhilarating, and we are climbing closer to our goal with every pedestal we conquer. We fall into a flow-state, similar to our first few weeks in this darkness when we couldn’t even move and had to cycle energy through each other to survive.
Time is passing, but the events that flow around me all blend together like I am in a half conscious state of meditation. I cannot tell if this shift is because of the new effects of Celestial Energy on the mortal mind, or a Cyan Core lifting me to the state of a higher lifeform. Or… potentially the fact that we are trapped in a soundless, senseless void; and the suppression of my mind’s perception of time passing by is a natural defense mechanism.
There is no way to prove any of my theories, so I begin to believe it is a combination of them all.
Our Vibrations become more and more honed and alike with every Demon we kill and step through the ravine we take.
It isn’t necessary to look in any specific direction in order to move a certain way. Our goals and actions become so aligned that it becomes second nature and instinctual, there is no other direction to logically take.
With one hand interlocked for so long, we almost become one being.
Our ether senses expand to reach over 500 meters in every direction, and our Celestial Energy cycles only grow faster and more efficient. We can cycle the massive amount of energy through each other about once every half a second now.
However, it has been that way for the past few months…
We have plateaued in our progress.
It becomes very clear once we climb up another flight of steps after slaughtering the usual waves of Demons.
The added Celestial Energy from the few hundred souls is only a drop in the bucket compared to the Celestial Energy we have.
Our facial expressions don’t even move, nor do we act surprised when a Noble Demon near a High Noble breakthrough comes out from the dark to protect another glowing orb.
However, there is a small blip in our mental harmony once I absorb its demonic essence.
This happens every time we kill one of the exceptionally strong Nobles. It is because a tiny fluctuation in my Demon’s Core reminds us both that there is still one small secret within our souls that the other does not know.
This time, it is an exceptionally large blip, but we suppress it like usual to stay focused on our end goal.
When we lift the orb from the pedestal and store it away to follow the thin markings to find another map, the disruption of our harmony is broken twice in less than a minute…
That is because, for the first time, at the top of this carving, it is not cut off with only an arrow pointing into the void. This time, there is an end to the map, and it is an extravagant picture of a raised tower with multiple stairways leading up to it on all sides. The single symbol that translates to “Temple” is above it.
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