After the system command activates, for a moment, it feels like even the flow of time within this mind palace has slowed to a stop too.
The [Rank Up] alert disappears, and a refreshing feeling starts to spread out into the mental manifestation of my body.
It pushes out all of the distractions that were still tickling the outer edges of my mind. All activity in the rising Emperor's interface fades away, all of the events that are happening inside the central domain where my actual senses can touch, even these completely disappear.
My range of thought is limited to the two mind palaces for a moment, then slowly, even they are blocked out of my mind.
The only thing I can sense in that black void is Maria.
As this refreshing aura completely spreads out into every bit of my mental body, even the thought of her starts to fade.
Yet, in a state of perfect concentration, it is not complete without another mind to bounce off of.
At the most raw and intimate point, at the deepest depths of my mind, Maria is still here, and I am still present in hers as the same reaction takes place.
The rank up begins, and all of the Advanced Primordial Aura outside our bodies begins to flow inward, creating a strange reaction of gravity and energy waves in the outside zone.
It compresses and grows more and more mature as it floods into the invisible pocket realm within our minds created by this skill.
This is a completely automatic and unconscious function.
The outer membrane of the linked mind palace becomes saturated in our auras, and it leaks through, reaching both of our internal mental manifestations. They flow into our backs and grow thicker, stronger, and more mature as we fall into a trance and allow the preset system commands to guide us through the rank up.
This would normally be over in a flash of white light, but my perception is strong enough now to witness the entire thing happen in real time.
The two human manifestations in a strange chamber, devoid of physical matter, and just barely stimulating the passage of time around them, begin to glow bright red and blue in the center of this void.
All of the Advanced Primordial Aura these two minds control is compacted into small orbs and refined millions of times faster than the outside realm.
The fabric of the system itself that is activating these commands bends under the pressure, like it is attempting to manipulate energy that is strong enough to resist, or at least warp, the underlying commands.
Even the membrane of the Mind Palace starts to melt and bend inward from the pressure.
The perfect lines of bookcases behind me start to follow the flow of aura in the air, and the neatly placed crystal pedestals behind Maria bend like they're melted glass.
The memories we walked away from to sit alone in this void start to pour into us.
Even the thrones at the far back side of this mental realm feel as though we're sitting on them right now.
Every single one of my life memories plays in my mind, all at once. My consciousness is connected to Maria right now, and I see every moment of her life too, flash before my eyes in perfect clarity. No time passed, but I feel as though I lived it second by second beside her.
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All concepts of time and space start to become muddy, as the outside of this membrane droops and melts so much, it touches the outside of our mental manifestations.
Every time it does, a flickering flash of the outside zone bursts into my mind in real time, but simultaneously, I absorb the Advanced Primordial Aura that makes up the outside of this skill.
The activation of this Rank Up is using an absurd amount of power. So much so, that every time my mind touches the outside zone again, all of the soul ties connecting me to the Lower Realm flash in my consciousness.
The shared Primordial Aura I've granted all of them creates an even more strange feedback loop, making parts of their subconscious activate a mind palace skill in the backs of their minds.
It is nowhere near as vivid as when I watched Maria's life flash before my eyes, but I do see quintillions of memory fragments burst into my mind. It is an assortment of epiphanies and moments that spiked the greatest amount of emotions or leaps in understanding in their lives.
This burst of memories speeds up the process even more, and triggers the final set of commands in the system to activate the rank up. The entire outer membrane of the Mind Palace skill collapses in on itself, and is absorbed by the red and blue humans in the center of it all.
The thrones, and the memories inside, flow with it, disappearing into our backs.
The black void we sat above is completely gone, and now there is only bright white space left behind. I can feel it with my senses, but do not physically see. It is exactly what usually flashes in front of my eyes when I watch a rank up.
This time, I'm watching it from the other side.
My eyes open, and the white flash triggers all of the commands left in place, deactivating the mind palace skill and unleashing our auras to the outside zone.
Dangerous waves of black and red metallic fire flood out from my soul again and fill my body.
They pulse outward, and I can instantly feel a meteoric shift in my control over reality around me.
Before, we were once inside an enormous wide-open forest that spread far and wide to the edges of the central domain. Sure, I could sense everything within it, but in order to aim or block, many calculations had to be done. Tracking Ember and Marcellus through the air took a large amount of mental power to produce.
It's like instead of weak waves of mist brushing up against the walls of the domain, now a tidal wave of pure liquid pours out and crashes up against the inside of this dome.
It feels like a small closed room that I can feel and move toward any position inside of it.
Half of the domain fills with that blood red and abyss black metallic fire, and the other half saturates with liquid icy mirrors.
The impact shatters the Entire Central Domain to pieces.
Every bit of structural integrity that was left is now obliterated to dust.
Our auras would be blasting outward, into the ritual domains, past the neutral zones, and most likely flood even the outer settlements covering the entirety of the purple zone—but it does not...
Around the edges of the domain, there are countless strands of silver threads holding the domain together.
My eyes are fast enough to grasp a clear view of Ember's movements, and he still circles around the dome. His clawed hands in his Hybrid form are finally clear to see, as he weaves and manipulates the domain barrier further, even as the high-quality ether glyphs that made up its core are now shattered to mist.
There is another layer of commands beneath it that hold our aura inside.
Ember does not weave these commands near the top of the dome, but our aura does not pour out this way either.
This is because there is a force strong enough to hold us back now erupting out from Marcellus Imperial.
The cracks in his purple crystal body all glow so bright orange and blue, that the chaotic aura consolidating in them fills his entire form. The Demon's body starts to glow entirely the color of his Advanced Primordial Aura, and the glyphs that covered his horns and eyes before now seal up all of the cracks and float around inside him.
It feels like a limiter was shattered in his soul. The system that displays all of his levels and buffs no longer feeds back properly to my system when I scan it. There are not the usual errors or strange characters of a protected higher-level shield. Instead, there is a void, like the system itself is not strong enough to understand what is being produced.
It's like he broke a limiter and is letting his chaotic aura take control of his mind, body, and soul. I do not see a possible path for him to deactivate this strange ability.
A dark orange, purple, and blue pulse of energy pours down on us, and it becomes stronger and stronger with every passing moment.
Marcellus lets out a chaotic roar, and the bright orange demon kicks off the shattered ceiling to launch itself back down at us.
In response, I activate the brand new buff that has appeared on the bottom of my status, and finally start to feel my sword trembling with hunger in the depths of my soul.