The Martial Unity

Their eyes widened with unadulterated shock as an ocean of water erupted from his very being. It consumed all of heaven and earth in the blink of an eye, eroding away at their very minds with a tsunami of information flux, unlike anything they had ever experienced before.

Chills crawled across their skin as they realized that the Dawnbringer had undergone a truly revolutionary increment in his power at a very fundamental level in his Martial Art. Shivers ran down their back as they realized that he was on an entirely different level than he had ever been before.

The Martial Embodiment was no more than the sensory associations connected to the information influx that came from their Martial Mind.

It was a representation of their entire Martial Art.

And Rui’s Martial Art, once a solid and structured system had been broken down at a very fundamental level to no more than a sea of principles, fields, muscle memory, patterns, and actions.

Everchanging.

Like Water.

“I’m impressed.” Rui’s voice was calm. “You are holding up better than I expected.”

He gazed at Master Kokuho with respect.

The man gritted his teeth, quivering with effort as he struggled to withstand the extraordinary Martial Embodiment that weighed down on his mind like a mountain, paralyzing him where he stood.

All his information flux conditioning was rendered useless and sorely lacking before the weight of Rui’s Martial Embodiment, even though he hadn’t even used Megamind yet.

“I…” Master Kokuho gritted his teeth. “…am still standing.

Rui gazed at him calmly.

“You still have yet to win this battle.” His eyes grew fierce with determination. “My defenses are impenetrable-!”

WHOOSH!

In the blink of an eye, he appeared before him.

“Phantom Pain.”

BOOOM

A thundering Reverberating Lance blasted the man’s head before he could even react.

Ordinarily, such a weak attack wouldn’t have barely registered as a sting. With Phantom Pain, however, the pain was enhanced by several orders of magnitude. Even then, this blow would not have been decisive under ordinary circumstances.

What truly made it a finisher was the fact that Master Kokuho’s mind had already been strained deeply by the sheer unprecedented weight of Rui’s new Martial Embodiment. Together with the pain that he experienced, it was too much for his mind to bear.

THUD

The Master collapsed, unconscious.

Rui deactivated his Realms to save as much power as possible before each round while the rest of the Masters spectating gazed at him with shocked expressions. They could not have imagined that even after the extensive mental conditioning that Master Kokuho had undergone, they would not be able to handle his Martial Embodiment very well.

“Hm,” Rui fell into thought. “This is boring. Tell you guys what, I will do you all the favor of restricting my Martial Embodiment’s oppression to the bare minimum so that this is more competitive. I don’t enjoy fighting statues.”

They gritted their teeth with humiliation as Rui activated the Forge of Creation to spontaneously create a hypnotic technique that would sabotage himself. Martial Embodiments were passive hypnosis, where the misdirection occurred by the Martial Art, and the actual information flux to the unguarded subconscious mind was done by the Martial Mind.

Thus, Rui simply needed to create a new technique that prevented the passive misdirection that his Martial Art did. It was as simple as that, really. And hypnosis was something that he hadn’t even needed Ieyasu’s help to develop a powerful foundation in; it was easy for him to spontaneously create a new technique that was suited for his purposes.

And while the CREATION System helped him acquire the best technique for that, the Sekigaharans simply struggled to control their sense of humiliation.

It was bad enough that they were fighting him in a gauntlet where he couldn’t recuperate stamina or heal damage.

What was worse was that he was even willing to actively sabotage his active Martial Art to restrict what was shaping one of his most powerful weapons!

And the worst part was that they couldn’t even bring themselves to stop him due to how much they obviously needed this handicap.

Too much of their roster would be completely or partially paralyzed by his Martial Embodiment.

It was at moments that their self-confidence truly fell.

How were they supposed to maintain their self-esteem were ungodly monsters of a talent walked Gaia?

“Alright, I’m done,” Rui cheerily continued. “I call this technique the Embodiment Firewall. Don’t worry if that name doesn’t make sense to you.”

He activated his Realms of power and tested them out, but no Embodiment occurred. “Nice. But man, this does drain my stamina a little and is uncomfortable.”

He turned to the gathered gallery of Martial Masters with a hint of eagerness. “Alright, who’s next?”

“I am!” one Martial Master leaped down from the spectating gallery. “Your arrogance is far too great, Rui Quarrier! I, the mighty Axe Lord, will put you in your place.”

Rui bit back the temptation to make fun of that name.

The man was a high-mid-grade Martial Master with a giant axe attached to his back. The blade of the axe was reputedly made from Dark Soulsteel. A Sage-level metallic esoteric ore that was known to be extremely durable. This particular weapon had been forged under the weight of a mountain over the span of five years, slowly shaping the extraordinary metal into the weapon that gleaned against Rui.

“Behold my Skullsplitter axe!” He bellowed.

Admittedly, Rui found the weapon to be quite impressive. If that hit him, he would definitely

die on the spot.

Unfortunately for the axe Master, it never even came close.

Once the battle began, the man leaped at Rui with a powerful swing.

He lost consciousness before the attack even began.

STEP

Rui arrived behind him with a graceful land.

He turned to the rest of the Masters in the spectating stands.

“Next.”

With the Angel of Laplace giving him a preliminary predictive model on his opponents, any Martial Artists who weren’t adequate would simply be overcome with a single attack beyond

their capacity to defend.

Rui overcame the first two battles with almost no loss in stamina.