The Martial Unity

Time passed as Rui devoted himself exclusively to the development of Muspelheim and Niflheim.

Their importance could not be understated.

These domains were one of the few things that stood between him and death. Of course, he had many things going for him, but most were not truly effective against creatures of the magnitude of power that he was facing.

The predictive models he had developed on all species, the SOUL models he had developed on all species, and temperature domains to go for the most antithetical temperature he was able to. These were the cornerstones of any hopes for survival he had against the Master-level guardian of the Mellow Dungeon.

That was why he poured his heart and soul into the two new domains. Over the next year, as he proceeded to completion, Rui completely cut himself off from anything else. The only thing his mind thought about every waking moment was the two new domains that he was working on.

Simultaneously, his flesh grew tougher and more resistant to heat and cold. With each passing day, it stung and burned less.

Yet, no matter how much it did, he never so much as twitched or flinched.

This was perhaps the sole good impact that had come from the mental damage that the inheritance had had on his mind.

Ecstasy and surrounding emotions certainly had come to require a far higher threshold to be activated, yet the same was true for agony.

His skin blistered. It singed and burned.

Yet, he was unfazed.

It could not bring him suffering. The fortitude he inadvertently forged from the inheritance was something that greatly aided him in the conditioning training that happened simultaneously with his domain training. He could overload far more than most Martial Seniors could ever tolerate.

It allowed him to condition far better than they ever could.

Unbeknownst to him, he had gained a much higher affinity for conditioning after he underwent the torture of the inheritance for half a year.

What would have otherwise taken three years soon was shortened to two. Just two years after he embarked on Project Muspelheim and Project Niflheim, Rui reached a stage of passive mastery.

He stood atop a flat land, atop a place that once used to be a mountain. Two years of constant wear and tear from Rui’s domain training had reduced the large mountain to a flat, barren land at sea level.

An unfathomable aura radiated from the depths of Rui’s body.

His eyes sharpened as a single whisper escaped them.

“Muspelheim.”

One moment, the environment around him was calm and peaceful.

The very next?

RUMBLE

Heaven and Earth burned.

The air crackled as flashes of plasma sparked across the entire domain as a hemisphere of pure fire enveloped him and his environment, the pressure from Heavenly Convergence acting on the entire domain only drove the temperature higher and higher by the second. The land beneath his feet rapidly surged in temperature as the rocks and gravel grew red-hot in a matter of seconds!

Rui’s body vibrated at a tremendous yet imperceptible frequency, heating the bedrock up through acoustic conditioning and friction while his breath-bending turned the heavens into a sharp furnace.

The air ionized rapidly as bolts of plasma flashed across the entire domain with even greater violence while the molten land beneath his feat melted, becoming a bright ocean of lava.

What was once a normal patch of land had now been turned into a hellish fiery landscape that looked like it had come right out of Dante’s Inferno.

Yet, faster than anybody could have ever imagined, it began to shift.

“Niflheim.”

His tone was as cold as the cold, frosty blizzard that soon ensued.

Lava sizzled as it solidified to molten rock before slowly returning to its original temperature in less than a minute.

Yet, it only surged and spiked further colder.

WHOOOSH!

Water condensed at an extraordinary rate before freezing over as temperatures surged far below the freezing point of water, surging towards absolute zero at a terrifying rate. Within a minute, the gases in the air struggled to maintain their gaseous forms as droplets of the most common constituents in the air began forming across the entire battlefield, further cooling.

Matter grew extraordinarily brittle as the extraordinarily low temperatures reduced its elasticity, causing it to crumble with a fraction of the force needed at room temperatures.

The drastic temperature and pressure differentials inside and outside the domain caused tremendous wind currents and torrents, and a mini blizzard formed within the domain under the sheer coldness of Niflheim. “I have arrived.”

WHOOSH!

The domain was dispelled as a tsunami of external heat rushed into the domain, rapidly increasing its temperature.

A profound surge of peril oozed from his very being. He had reached a threat level so high that merely calling him a Martial Senior may as well have been an act of deceit. The power that the two domains bestowed unto him was power that no Martial Senior ought to possess.

This was the power to adaptively evolve to all life, for all life possessed a temperature that was antithetical to their very survival.

It struck at the heart of all who beheld him.

The biosphere of the Mellow Manifold shifted. Aquatic life moved away from the region of the coast where Rui trained. The demographics of the Mellow Dungeon had shifted drastically.

All life diverged from the being known as Rui Quarrier Silas Kandria.

The sense of self-preservation, the fear of death, the instinct of danger. These forces drove all life, from the tiniest of microbes to the mightiest of angels and dragons, away from him.

He had become the antithesis to all of them. Neither the SOUL System nor the VOID algorithm could have ever allowed him to reach such a stage of adaptive evolution against the very Tree of Life that he was an alien to.

His eyes opened.

Endless clarity and certainty surged from within their depths.

“It’s time. It’s time to get out of this place.”

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