Everything that followed was a blur. The trio left behind the Upper Battlefield, and were brought to a massive city in the Greater World where they were allowed to get accustomed to their powers, and were taught the basics and general knowledge affiliated with being an immortal.
In the few days that took, the Celestial Immortal, as promised, caught everyone involved in targeting Karev. It all happened so easily that it felt like a dream. The whole thing was, apparently, planned by a group of influential immortals.
The group consisted of elves, dwarves and even angels. Up until now, River and Pearl had never encountered any angels, because low level angels all resided in Eden. Only at the Immortal level did they start to spread out across the universe.
Not only were they all captured, they were executed publicly! It was less about getting justice for Karev and Pearl’s family, and more about how they broke the rules of the alliance, but the result was the same!
Up until the very end, Karev could not believe how easily the situation had been resolved. Was that really it?
Of course not. Lex did not need to put any effort at all to see that a few people had escaped getting caught as a result of their background and influence. The few immortals of this group, while guilty, also served as convenient scapegoats for some others.
The Humanoid Alliance was not nearly as just or clean as they had presented themselves to be to Lex, not that he cared about this either way. Now that this matter had attracted the attention of the Celestials, all the games would disappear.
Whether it was the elves, the dwarves, the vampires, the Oolin, or whoever. Once they stepped in front of a Celestial, all they showed was the utmost deference and obedience. As the de facto leaders of the Humanoid Alliance, their might could not be questioned.
The more and more that River and Pearl were exposed to such an environment, the more that they naturally began to revere the Celestials as well. It was inevitable. After all, they were a mere Vassal race, looking up to the very peak of a Noble race.
There were even rumors that the Celestials had what it took to become an Elder race, but purposefully avoided adopting that mantle.
Lex only shook his hands.
"Respect others, but there is no need to push it to reverence or worship," Cliff’s voice rang in Pearl’s and River’s ears. "Respect the strong, but do not automatically become subservient. Protect your hearts from viewing yourselves as below them, or that is what you will become."
For reasons they couldn’t understand, his words suddenly woke them up, and made them feel as if a certain veil had been removed.
They couldn’t understand what it was, but Lex knew. It was the natural effect being very high up on the Cosmic Ascendance Spectrum had on those far down below.
Once all those breaking the Alliance’s rules were punished, the three of them were sent to Joro, as promised. But things were very different from before.
Though they were immortals, and though they had not been conscripted into an army, they had to follow the alliance’s directions. As humans, they had no choice but to go to Joro. Over there, they would have some extent of freedom, but they had to obey the rules of the alliance, and so basically to do anything at all, they would need to first contribute to the alliance’s efforts with that ongoing war.
At this level, the conspiracies became too complex for Lex to see through at a glance. He could not differentiate whether this was genuinely meant to help humans, or if the alliance had some ulterior motives in play. It did not matter.
River and Pearl could not help but wonder just how strong Cliff really was. They were now immortals and were beginning to realize that... even now, they could not even glimpse at the extent of his power. They did not have even an ounce of his insight and knowledge.
Thus, it was in the midst of all that confusion that they arrived in the Joro realm. More specifically, they arrived in a certain portion of the Joro realm where the Humanoid Alliance had carved out a battlefield for Earth Immortals.
The flow of time here was ten times faster than a Major realm. The resources here were abundant, and more importantly, there seemed to be ancient human legacies here that could only be discovered and unlocked by humans. These legacies, apparently, were all at the Dao level!
The new rulers of the realm, the Gon race, did not take kindly to that news and were fighting furiously to find out why they hadn’t been able to discover these legacies before.
As River, Pearl, and Karev arrived at their destination, they were amazed at the scale of the city, and of the fight. There were billions of Earth Immortals in front of them - something they couldn’t properly even fathom.
The cities, the forts, the armies, they were all on a scale that the trio could not come to terms with so quickly. Yet the young couple’s shock was interrupted by a familiar stream of information. Cliff had handed out a new list of quests, and just as before, offered many rewards.
The difference was that this time, alongside techniques, he even offered insight into the various laws. River and Pearl could not understand just what was happening.
They had only recently been exposed to how grand laws were, and they could not even properly manipulate a single law!
Like most normal humans, they would most likely focus on a single law and spend the next many centuries simply learning how to manipulate that properly and effectively. Unfortunately, Lex wasn’t interested in waiting that long.
"I’ll give you fifty years to reach the Heaven Immortal realm," said Cliff, but then paused for a minute as he did the math. Fifty years would be equal to five years in a normal Major realm. He could afford to wait a little more.
"Okay, never mind. I’ll give you sixty years to reach the Heaven Immortal realm, otherwise... well, by now I’m sure you know how this works."
One of the reasons he gave them so much time was because he could tell just how many valuable resources were available here. The journey to getting his revenge could finally begin properly in this place.