Within a fraction of a second of my perceived time, I've experienced many breakthroughs and perspective-morphing epiphanies. The battle through the membrane has spanned thousands of galaxy lengths through the void, and I've been absorbing memories from a near-infinite number of past lives.
My mental processing power has grown with this information overload, making my immortal emperor's mind capable of assimilating such an extreme input of data. Yet, there is still a small emotional human portion of my mind that hasn't fully accepted it.
I look away from the eyes of the immortal golden dragon, multiple times larger than the galaxy, and back toward the Origin Plane.
While I still don't have all the answers to what is beyond this membrane, and why Ember desires me to leave... there is one thing I know for sure.
In the Upper and Lower Realms, there are no more enemies.
When my attention shifts away, I begin to fully explore deep within the construct.
The Purple Zone is where I probe first, feeling the presence of far more purple cores present than when I left it.
All of the secretive and scattered arrays of the Outer settlements have been completely altered and rebuilt. There are no longer forbidden domains sectioned off by the demons, and the flow of pure, high-quality ether and purple threads in the air is constant throughout the entire zone.
Every one of the Ancient Primordial Trees resonates with hundreds of times more pressure than they did centuries ago when I last viewed them. However, it is not a hostile aura at all; instead, it syncs with the Emperor's Links of loyalty and enhances the rate of energy control and enlightenment.
These trees resonate and slowly pulse in sync with the enormous tree that grows out from the center of the zone.
Each branch grows all the way up to the sky, curling over like a green shadow above the entire zone. There are fast travel pathways within each branch, making direct transport routes downward to other zones. Each leaf has entire new domains built upon them, with training rooms, trade centers, and even luxury housing for new influential races that have made a name for themselves in this new budding era.
Surrounding the base of the tree, all of the Ritual Domains store Legacies for any and every race that enters. New settlements have been built around these structures, and manually built travel routes through the neutral zones have slowly connected this Inner Sanctum to the outer settlements.
In the Blue and Cyan Zones below, there is no formal barrier between them. There is only an extremely strong aura of the last Blue Wyvern that sleeps between these two zones. Towering skyscrapers that are trillions of kilometers high are built within this middle section of the Upper Realm. Many of them are storage centers for pure energy that races, businesses, or clans can rent to preserve their lineage for the future.
There are entire buildings used solely for transitioning between zones. One can pay a set fee to slowly acclimate their bodies, minds, and cores from the lowest level of the Cyan Zone up to prepare for a life within the Purple Zone.
Of course, there are battle, entertainment, and trading towers, large enough to fit entire citadels from the old Green Zone within a single floor of one of these buildings.
White, blue, and cyan clouds lightly drift through the atmosphere outside, through the green tint of the trunk of the Primordial Tree they exist in.
Many pure white pathways exist between these towers, allowing citizens to fast travel through the city, or to other zones.
There is a highly regulated dark zone between this major city and the Green Zone below.
It is where the Ravine used to exist.
Many portions of this landscape are sealed off by roots filled with Primordial Aura far too strong for anyone within the current construct to break through. This is where many of the ancient tombs and Originator artifacts are kept.
Some have been excavated from the Lower Realm and sealed here, while others are pedestals and caves filled with artifacts that Demons left behind billions of years ago.
There are no public transport routes that stop within the Ravine. All of the fast travel pathways flow right through, leading down to the Green Zone of the Upper Realm.
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Author's Note:
If you're enjoying Dungeon Diver and want to follow Jay on his journey 20+ chapters ahead of schedule, check out the Patreon link in my profile bio.
There's custom chapter art for every new daily upload too!
Thanks for reading:)
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