A careful hand covered in a skin-tone glove touched the Indigo Realm portal, its owner no doubt feeling some trepidation and apprehension.

'Temporal differential detected. Accelerated time-stream. You can go in anyway.' the glove advised Pef in a level tone.

Pef glanced at his new wife. "There will be time anomalies inside. I suspect anyone below God tier would reach their lifespan's end rapidly."

Yue shivered at the news. "Lucky I have just reached the first tier then?" she wondered in a wry voice.

"Yes. Very lucky." Pef muttered as he stepped inside the portal, hand-in-hand with the indigo-haired beauty.

The perspective shifted abruptly, and they found themselves standing on a plane of silver-blue ice, extending in all directions as far their eyes could see.

Pef pulsed a string of coresense scans, only to find them dissolve not even a hundred meters away. Immediately he changed to voidsense, his newest ability gained from ingesting the eye of a powerful Tier 4 Godbeast, back in his home universe.

However, while the voidsense did not dissolve ineffectively, it also provided little valuable information. Planes of gravity and barriers of empty voids dotted the ice plain, hinting at some hidden puzzle underneath this Realm, or proximity traps, invisible to most cultivators who would depend on qi or coresenses to detect potential dangers at range.

"Pef, do you think we should follow the black-brick road?" Yue asked out of nowhere.

Certain that he saw nothing but this strange ice and pools of churning gravity pools spread around at random, Pef shook his head. "I have no idea, sweet Yue. I can't see this road."

Yue hummed to herself while mulling over the news. "No monsters around either. I wonder why other cultivators had to run away after a minute."

This, Pef could answer instead. "There are many traps, all around. Invisible to qi or coresenses. Possibly only those that perceive this brick road can move in safety." he reasoned out loud.

"I suspect flying is also dangerous, if there is a road to walk." she deduced while frowning deep in thought.

"Makes sense. We walk then. Ladies first!" Pef pronounced with a grin, and invited Yue to take the lead with a flourish.

Yue puffed in a short laugh, then ran off, while coyly glancing back at her rather infantile husband. Pef followed her at a relaxed pace, given he was a million times faster anyway.

As expected, the invisible road meandered around the hidden traps, providing the couple an easy way deeper into this Indigo Realm.

They ran and ran for days, and Pef began getting worried at reaching the time-limit that most Mausoleum explorers mentioned.

After 3 months, almost everyone was expelled forcefully through the nearest portal and back at the entrance. As for those that didn't, well. Only a handful survived, all Tier 5 Gods, then found in a distant universe somewhere, minds scrubbed and aged immensely. Not a pleasant fate to experience, not that Pef had even reached Tier 5 anyway.

He was close to his new rank now, after battling so many powerful beasts and even a Tier 5 eagle Godbeast.

"Stop Yue." he asked as the last safe day arrived.

"We must be close, I feel...something in my soul. A yearning, maybe." she said while gazing at the infinite horizon ahead.

"It is probably only meters away, my love. Do not forget the time differential. If the sentience that controls this space wanted us, we would have reached our target in minutes. No, this lure you feel is not in anyway related with distance." Pef concluded with a sigh.

This was a test of some kind, he was certain. Possibly an inheritance for Yue or other indigo-aura cultivators, if there were any others. The glove didn't know, which was a rather convincing reason for Pef. The orange glove had a really extensive database of knowledge, and that database had tripled during their visit into this new universe. If the glove didn't know something, it was either something very rare, or hidden on purpose.

Yue slumped in defeat, turning her back on the distant destination. "Time. My Grandfather had to wait 300 million years to enter the Mausoleum again. When he came out the second time, he ascended to Elder God rank, and never returned here. He says it is death for those above Universe God rank."

Pef raised an eyebrow and scratched at his cheek with his gloved hand. 'Aren't you also a Tier 6?'

'Not yet. My original build was a Tier 5 autonomous logistical support mainframe. I will need a more powerful user to ascend me via soul-forging.' the glove muttered in a small voice, as if ashamed.

'Don't worry, my orange friend. One day, we will.' Pef mused inward.

Cultivation was never easy, although he had condensed his own experience into an add-on method for new recruits, even now they could barely reach Sovereign rank using the Taichi method. From Monarch rank onwards, cultivating the body and qi was not enough, as the soul began to become entangled with the cultivator, making ascension even more difficult and harder to organize. Dao insights were always personal and different from person to person, and perhaps from race to race.

This was also the reason his own grandfather failed to ascend and died a Sovereign, as did the majority of his own Legion or the cultivators in the wide universe who also failed to become Monarchs.

There was a conceptual barrier that was immensely hard to overcome, although strong sects or lucky cultivators sometimes received or found Dao pills or other forms of external aid to break through.

Aid like the godwine he had provided to his own family and some recruits, or the Grey Pills he himself received from Cellia and Firalli.

But such expensive aids were always in low supply, here or back home. The number of willing cultivators exceeded the availability of cultivation resources, which in turn generated resentment and conflict.

"So what do we do?" Yue asked, glancing at Pef with sad eyes.

Pef stepped forward and kissed her lips tenderly. "I am going to wait for you outside. I suspect the ruler of this Realm doesn't have any gift for me."

As he spoke, the Indigo portal appeared a meter away, confirming his suspicion.

--------------

Yue watched her husband step away and vanish, and a second later the portal winked out as well.

"There! Are you happy now? Here I am alone and weak, a toy for Gods like you to play with!" she shouted at the frozen landscape.

As if responding to her cry, indigo clouds began gathering around, forming a menacing hurricane of winds and thunder with the eye of the storm centered around Yue.

The brick road vanished as well, and the storm front closed even more, like a deadly prison of indigo smoke and violet lightning.

"I thought so. Too coward to show your face, eh? You don't scare me, Indigo! For I am now a Soldier of the Veritas Legion! We fight the goliths that come to eat us all, and this Realm will get eaten as well. We shall see where you will hide then!" Yue declared with a brave voice.

The storm froze a finger away, as if pondering her words.

A stairway formed out of the churning clouds, each step a different color of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and lastly violet. The last step ended with a violet shimmer, different from other portals before.

Yue smiled and stepped onto the stairs. She was curious what awaited at the end of the rainbow.