Defiance of the Fall

Zac would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous. The memory's restoration wasn't as magical as Sendor winding back time to erase another Supremacy's attack. It was closer to a large-scale blessing of a support class. Still, the power required to stabilize a whole world was no joke. Roan had gone from a taciturn child to an existence that Zac couldn't handle.

Escape by waiting out the scenario was impossible now that the Earth Child kept the realm on life support—which was worrying in another way. Zac had tried to figure out just how much the 'Earth' knew since Roan called him a distant traveler. The current situation indicated they knew more than they previously let on. Did they know about the continent being used as a trial? Could they be directly involved?

There was no time to figure out how to best approach the reborn Roan. The child's relaxed stride belied his speed, and he appeared before Zac in no time. Certainly, it wasn't accurate to call Roan a child any longer. He now stood a head taller than Zac, and only a few immature features remained to remember the Earth Child by. Roan hadn't just grown up, either. The transformation made him look more Ent than human.

Roan's skin was unnaturally coarse, like bark or overturned soil. Draped in a simple robe covered in grime, he was dressed the same as the many farmers they'd passed over the past days. Golden strands of wheat had replaced his light, wispy hair. Their rustle as he moved over was indistinguishable from that of the fields. The makeover should have made Roan look odd or even ugly to Zac's human sensibilities. However, the intense holiness radiating from his gaze barred such blasphemous thoughts.

It was difficult for Zac to focus in his presence. Roan naturally exuded a vast aura different from that of powerful cultivators. The sensation was closer to the mental pressure Zac had felt when forced to take in Starclad's projection or the Void Mountain's incomprehensible scope. Roan was no longer a normal being. He was a physical representation of the Left Imperial Expanse.

Zac steeled his resolve. Whether Roan had become an Apostle or God, or he had an obligation to uphold. The good news was that these high-grade existences generally upheld balance to avoid Karmic entanglement and Heaven's attention. Roan seemed content to stay silent, so Zac eventually held out the [Fuxi Mountain Gate].

"Your turn."

Roan slightly nodded, and a pedestal of compressed soil rose from the ground. Zac placed the Holy Relic atop it before stepping back. The soil became a conduit that drew tremendous amounts of Faith Energy from the ground, again making Zac ponder how the memory lanterns worked. The amount of faith pouring into the mountain gate would have been able to keep Tam's lantern going for years.

Seeing as the scenarios were connected, it seemed more likely that the lanterns acted like teleporters. The lanterns took trial takers directly into the continent's communal memory while the gathered faith of memory domains brought pieces of it to the surface. The personal faith stored in the lanterns only maintained the connection, not the memory realms themselves. That came from the earth.