After scanning the entire lower and upper realm, I grasp what has transpired over the last few hundred years in an instant.
All of the live spectate feeds from every living being are still viewable, recording the passage of time from almost every single point of view in the galaxy.
However, watching memories alone is not what I want to see.
Instead of floating in the membrane, with my mind moving trillions of times faster than any living being within the construct, I lift a finger and send a small pulse of energy down toward the Origin Plane below.
Maria lifts her hand and follows my actions, while Ember does not bother to move.
Once these fragments of consciousness effortlessly phase through the barrier held together by laws, two red and blue flashes of light fall down from the sky in the Purple Zone of the Upper Realm.
They hit the ground between two legacy inheritance domains, right in front of a main transport platform that leads upward through the growing branches of a green Primordial Tree.
There are two lines of purple-cored Lords waiting to use the fast travel functions to travel to the domains atop the leaves in the tree above. One line is smaller than the other; these Lords are waiting to use the fast travel resources to visit the zones below.
Even in this form, if I use too much of my perception, I accidentally peer through every zone of the Upper Realm and right through the Origin Plane below. It takes a moment to seal off the proper amount of power to only experience the single zone we stand in.
Though, this bit of time is still less than a billionth of a second. The far more difficult adjustment is slowing down my thought process.
I can feel Maria's mind shifting and adjusting at the exact same rate.
Instead of frozen lines of monsters waiting about, the sounds of casual conversation and the imagery of fast travel orbs moving through the air at a visible rate start to make up my senses.
We seal off an enormous amount of our intellect and processing power, hiding the fact that these avatars are made entirely of a tiny droplet of Emperor's Essence held together by silver threads.
To the eyes of any onlookers, we appear as two ordinary purple-cored humans.
I admire the architecture connecting the ring of legacy domains, and the purple and white pathways that connect domains all throughout the base layer of this zone. My original craft of the ritual domains has not been altered, but the rest of the zone was clearly crafted with the dryad's protection and illusionary arrays.
Even the style of the structures themselves, built into the landscape, I have many fragmented memories of these builds from the ancient legacies I absorbed in this zone.
"Abby did a pretty good job fixing this place up after the mess we left, don't you think?" I point off into the zone. Then, we both stare upward to watch the white and green pulses of light continuously traveling from leaf to leaf among the upper layers of the Primordial Tree.
Maria's gaze wanders from leaf to leaf, embracing the false realm of power we've sealed ourselves at, and the corners of her mouth turn up.
No more than five seconds pass before dozens of streams of dark green aura, tethered together by purple threads and advanced primordial aura, come pouring down from the trees above.
They give off an oppressive glow, and many of the Lords in line turn their heads at the sight.
"It's the Enforcement Team!"
"What could they possibly be doing here? Everyone knows it's impossible to make trouble near the Legacy sites."
"They're heading toward those two humans."
Whispers fill the open plaza as these beams of energy touch down in front of us.
Viewing these beings on the surface, they all appear as fair-skinned women with armor made of jade green vines. Their hair and eyes match their gear, shining bright green and flickering with the fluctuations of the primordial tree this entire zone rests within. Each one carries their own soul weapons and has extremely strong true purple cores resting in their chests.
A single one of these women feels stronger than every one of the Lords in this plaza combined.
On the surface, it looks like an entire squad of ancient Dryads has miraculously come out of extinction.
Two of them step forward and point their spears forward, speaking in unison.
"Identify yourselves. You have been marked as unauthorized travelers in the Purple Zone."
Many of the women behind them begin lifting their weapons as well, in a practiced mechanical pattern.
The natural reaction of everyone in the vicinity is to move away from the commotion. There are countless safeguards and automatic arrays that activate to shield weaker Lords from the pressure of their auras.
No one is physically hurt by the pressure coming off these dozens of Dryads, but the infused killing intent still seeps through many of the arrays to make everyone watching feel uncomfortable.
Maria and I are naturally not protected by these commodities that citizens are granted, yet neither of us flinches, even as the tips of advanced primordial aura-infused blades rest against our throats.
Instead, wide smiles grow on both our faces, and Maria breaks the silence. "It looks like she's created quite the intricate security system too... these avatars are pretty good. I think they could have fooled me back when we were fighting in the Purple Zone."
I nod in agreement and watch as a shocked expression ripples through all the eyes of the Enforcement Team staring at us. The shock morphs to an expression of disbelief, then realization, then acceptance, and eventually all of the Dryad's before us freeze like they've momentarily been ordered not to move a muscle. Their eyes are the only thing left expressing anything, shifting from an automated program of body-doubled clones to the gaze of a familiar teammate from centuries ago.
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Author's Note:
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