The Martial Unity

“No…” Horror appeared in Kane’s eyes. “No! It’s impossible! There’s no way he managed to copy that!”

“Master Kane…?” The Masters around him frowned. They didn’t entirely understand what was happening but Kane recognized what he saw from Ieyasu. He had seen it from Rui countless times. “When he failed to copy the VOID algorithm twenty years ago, I thought it was impossible.” A faint murmur escaped him. “But now…”

His eyes grew more severe and grave. “Now he has succeeded.”

A wave of shock spread across the spectating Masters as they beheld the endless wave of darkness emerging from the depths of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s mind as his very existence changed.

An infinite void.

“You have shown me the way.” His blood-red eyes pierced into Rui’s severe eyes. “I failed last time. I failed because I lacked the mind and the means. Over the course of this battle, from the very inception, I mapped your system of thought by subjecting it to stimuli after stimuli, circumstance after circumstance, force after force…”

His voice grew more intense. “All for the sake of mapping your VOID algorithm.”

Tokugawa Ieyasu wasn’t simply able to copy and memorize one’s Martial Mind just by looking at it. A Martial Mind was embedded in a deeper part of the brain and often contained too much data for him to simply memorize and then execute.

That was where his second system of thought came into picture—the Mirror of Logos. By subjecting his enemy’s Martial Mind to different circumstances, he could get them to consciously execute it step by step in the forefront of conscious thought, where he was able to memorize each step, protocol, and element. The more circumstances he was able to subject his opponent to, the more of their Martial Mind he was exposed to.

It was no different from taking pictures of a three-dimensional object from many different directions and angles in order to fully map the surface of the object.

“…That was why you spent the entire battle exposing me to every single Martial Art in your arsenal.” Realization dawned on Rui. “This entire battle, your main goal was to map my system of thought.”

Rui had wondered why Ieyasu didn’t bother copying his Martial Art and why he kept deploying the sum totality of his versatility, individually and assimilated together, against Rui.

“It was astronomically more difficult than any other Martial Mind I have ever mapped in my entire life,” A euphoric greed flashed in Ieyasu’s eyes. “It was only after I finished mapping it that I realized that even with my Martial Mind, I did not have the means to copy your VOID algorithm for my cognition was too feeble to ever execute the VOID algorithm. And then…”

His blood-red eyes grew more intense. “You showed me the way.”

Rui’s expression turned more grave. “…The Megamind technique.”

“Correct.” Ieyasu’s stoic tone was unable to hide the enthusiastic excitement within. “With the power of the Megamind technique that you have gracefully given to me, I managed to obtain the cognition needed to employ your VOID algorithm in its entirety.”

A hint of displeasure flashed across Ieyasu’s face as he tried sensing Rui’s emotions in his greatly heightened cognitive state.

He was still unable to.

It meant that even with the full power of the Megamind technique, Rui’s cognition greatly surpassed his. Considering it took the Megamind technique and the entirety of his cognitive capacity to host just the VOID algorithm alone, it was no surprise that he was still some ways behind Rui who could effortlessly deploy the gargantuan VOID algorithm as well as other similarly heavy systems of thought like the SOUL System, Angel of Laplace, and the Tree of Life.

STEP

“All in good time.” A determined whisper escaped Ieyasu as he walked towards Rui with deep battle intent. “Now, time to evolve what I have copied.”

Rui’s eyes sharpened at those words. WHOOSH!

In the blink of an eye, he appeared before Ieyasu with ferocious velocity.

BOOOOOM!!!

A thundering blow crashed into Ieyasu.

Yet, with a single graceful movement, he absorbed the power of the impact, redirecting it to the grounds.

Flux Earther.

“You’re going to evolve my system of thought?” Rui’s eyes flared with indignance as his fist ground against Ieyasu’s guard. “You’re not qualified.”

BAM BAM BAM…!!!

A deep barrage of blows blasted into his opponent’s guard, only for it to be dispersed into the environment.

“That system of thought was created with cutting-edge data science, statistics, and probability theory, as well as state-of-the-art chaos theory and game theory.”

BOOOM!!!

A devastating Flowing Canon crashed into his guard, flinging him away.

“I certainly am unqualified to evolve the system of thought itself, but…” Ieyasu’s eyes narrowed. “What about evolving the tools with which I execute the system of thought?”

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM…!!!

Rui’s expression grew grim as he struggled to disperse the sheer power in each of Ieyasu’s attacks.

He could feel the change.

He could feel the fundamental change in his opponent’s attacks.

Each attack was made with foreknowledge of what was to come. There was absolutely no lag in the follow-ups that came after an attack had been launched in response to something that had yet to actually unfold.

Each response came in the brief moment that existed before his opponent moved but after it was too late for his opponent to change his mind.

Rui knew because this was exactly how he fought.

He didn’t fight in the present.

He fought against the future.

And now, Ieyasu had reached that same realm of foresight.

POW POW POW POW POW!!!

Rui barely managed to block a blinding rush of swift blows, each aiming for his head. Yet, by the time he blocked the final blow, he found himself face to face with Ieyasu’s foot flying at his temple.

WHOOSH!

Rui ducked, barely managing to evade what would have been a devastating kick to the forehead, only to find three sound bullets converging on his position.

As if Ieyasu knew exactly where and when he was going to be.

–