"Hey, Mira."
"What is it, Jay?"
"How strong are Ikerth's servants on this planet."
"Mostly Superior Legendries, Sovereigns and some Transcendents."
Miranda replied as she readjusted her body's position, moving her head over to Jamie's stomach and resting on it as she stared at the star in the sky that was beginning to dip towards the horizon.
The two of them had had their fun, going around all the stalls in the festive city and were now taking a short break in one of the city's parks, relaxing on the green grass, and enjoying the soft breeze.
Jamie's hands combed through Miranda's hair as he scanned his entire being and analysed his current level of power objectively.
"The current me can easily defeat Superior Stage Legendary Realms, but I'd have a bit of a hard time against Inferior Stage Sovereigns.
I can win, but not 'easily'."
Only nonstandard beings like Jamie could casually talk about being able to defeat other beings who were in higher existence realms with straight faces.
"If we want things to go our way, I'd have to get stronger."
Jamie acknowledged that if he and Miranda fought together, the current him would not be able to assist her as much as he'd like to.
Of course, the Miranda he was making this analysis with was the one who had reduced her power to the Level of Transcendence, not her at full power.
A patch in space appeared in the air, from which a grey orb fell out and towards Miranda who caught it reflexively.
"This…a Knowledge law Crystal."
"Yep. An artificial one I created years ago. The power I stored within it would be enough to boost my current strength to the Superior Stage."
"But you have to be careful so you don't absorb too much knowledge law energy or it might trigger your Knowledge Origin Core."
The man nodded in affirmation as Miranda tossed the crystal back into his subspace, after which the two of them fell into silence for a while.
Eventually, Jamie broke the silence with a question that he would have asked long ago if they hadn't spent the past few days crossing over 500 light-years inside a spatial tunnel.
"Hey, Mira.
How were you in the past 12,000 years?"
"…"
Miranda who was playing with some purple butterflies which were attracted to the fascinator in her hair momentarily froze when she heard his words, but then she heaved a sigh and flicked the wasp that tried to attack one of the butterflies before answering.
"I would not deny the fact that I was lonely, and very angry too. After all the circumstances surrounding our parting were strange."
She remembered that they had just finished handling an important matter regarding one of the threats to Estea's Interstellar Colony when Jamie suddenly said that he wanted to discuss something with a certain witch.
He said he was going back to Estea first and that she should come over later, something she had zero problems with.
However, by the time she got back a few weeks later, she could not find any trace of the Hybrid, and all his acquaintances stated they had not seen him come back.
It had never occurred to her that he had gone into one of his slumbers because he had never done so without telling her, so she hadn't bothered checking the Blue Moon Castle he usually had his body placed in.
Only after a day had passed did she finally discover that he had been desiccated already.
"Ah…about that. Let's just say I made a particularly hasty decision."
"Why?"
This was a question that Miranda had on her mind ever since that day over 12,000 years ago. She had tried finding the witch he wanted to discuss with but had not been able to discover a trace of the woman, not even after perusing Estea's records.
It was as if the person she was looking for did not even exist.
"Let's just say it had to do with me finding 'Daniella'. I had to remove myself from the equation completely so things could go as I wanted.
The plan was for me to be resuscitated right after things worked, but given that I spent 12,000 years desiccated, it could be seen that it was a miss."
Miranda's eyes narrowed with light annoyance as she felt there was something that Jamie was not telling her about the whole situation.
'Especially about that Strange Witch that I could not find any trace of.'
But just as she wanted to ask that, Jamie suddenly slammed a fist into his palm, the light of remembrance flashing through his eyes as he questioned.
"Speaking of which, how's our Empire?"
Given how many years they had lived, it'd be stranger if they hadn't gotten bored and suddenly decided to become rulers over countries.
Jamie for example had been different kinds of rulers, from a good one, to a wise one, to a naive one, to a tyrannical one, to a foolish one, and he had done this so many times.
His latest attempt was an Interstellar Empire on the same level as Estea's Interstellar colonies that he and Miranda built in a different realm somewhere else in the Galaxy.
It was located in the Orilan Realm, and the name they had given it was 'Argent'.
As for how the name was decided; Jamie and the other Hybrids were playing darts while blindfolded, and the most darts that missed the board landed on the position of a city on the World Map posted on the wall behind the dart board.
This was on the day he and Miranda had officially formed the empire so they just ended up picking the name based on that, regardless of how unrelated it was to the actual characteristics of the Empire and the Realm it was in.
Anyway, Jamie and the other Hybrids who had decided on this name, were known throughout the Orilan Realm as the 'Six gods of Orilan.'
"To think they called us gods of all things…quite funny, considering I had a hand in the fall of the gods in our universe."
Jamie recalled an unforgettable memory, of the day that a certain being whom he had met thousands of years before, came into their universe from the greater cosmos and wreaked havoc on the gods who were tyrannically ruling multiple galaxies across the universe.
"It's been a while since I saw him last."
Putting away the memory of a certain Progenitor, he continued talking with Miranda about their Empire, successfully diverting her attention from the matter of the witch whom he had let desiccate him in the first place.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Alright, Jamie. All you have to do is go through the same process you went through a few days ago."
The Hybrid muttered to himself as he looked at the floating Knowledge law crystal in front of him, but his attention was quickly captured by the fact that Miranda who was beside him a second ago was now a hundred metres away.
"Why?"
"In case you mess up and blow yourself to bits. I'd be away so your blood does not get on my dress."
"…"
The reply she gave him had Jamie momentarily dumbfounded for more reasons than one, but then she suddenly pointed at the late afternoon sun and continued speaking.
"Don't forget we have to check into our hotel by 5 pm, and we have to meet our informant by 5:30!"
Jamie and Miranda were here to mess up the plans of someone whose roots on this planet stretched back thousands of years.
No way they were gonna do that without getting all the necessary information and having a proper understanding of the power balance between the forces of Dragon King Ikerth and the other powers on this planet who all teamed up to just barely be able to resist Ikerth.
According to Miranda, this planet even had an indigenous being who had reached the level of a Race King, and said person had subordinates that were as strong as Junior Race Lords.
Anyway, Miranda had long planted a few spies in the forces of both sides, for reasons she had not yet told Jamie about.
The informant they were going to meet soon, was one of said spies.
"I'm here being shocked by your lack of faith in me, and yet you're hurrying me up for a meeting we can postpone whenever we want?"
"Lack of Faith? Impossible!
I have more faith in you than anyone else in the universe. If I didn't, would I have ever left you in that Succubus' lair with the confidence that you wouldn't dare cheat on me?"
"That's clearly not the kind of faith I'm talking about now!"