The Martial Unity

2897  Consuming Ash

Several hours passed in a deafening silence in the jet

None of the Martial Sages in the craft were in a particularly talkative mood, knowing that they were soon going to be plunged into the most brutal war of their lives. The vast landscape of the Human Domain could be seen in the distance through the windows of the jets at the altitude they were at.

They could see the diverse assortment of colors amid the exotic green overtaking human territory.

With each passing month, the Panama Continent returned more to nature than it ever had. Centuries of progress in the humanification of the Panama Continent had been undone in the span of four years, as not a single person could even recognize the Human Domain anymore.

The vegetation had spread so far and wide that it had fractured human civilization, leaving it in large pockets and bubbles across the continent rather than a single continuous territory like it once was in the past.

It gave beasts and monsters more room to recover and recuperate, as well as plenty of room to breed and reproduce, ensuring that the population of beasts and monsters ravaging the human domain in beast tides would never go down.

The air grew heavier as they approached the Beast Domain.

The atmosphere tingled with a faint tension.

“…We are now entering the Beast Domain, Your Sagehoods.”

The distorted voice of the pilot emerged from the speakers, informing them that they were getting closer and closer to their destination. None of the Martial Sages needed a heads-up, of course.

They could each feel it. They could feel the air changing.

They could feel any lingering influence of human civilization falling behind.

They could feel the sophistication of human establishment, or at least what was left of it, disappearing as they entered pure, raw nature itself. When they gazed out the window, they beheld what may as well have been another planet.

The skies were gone with the absence of the scattering of blue light that gave the skies their color. In its place was the breathtaking beauty of the cosmos that managed to shine in spite of the Sun’s overwhelming glare. The Martial Sages, in particular, were reminded of the astronomical scale of the universe as they beheld the billions of stars that comprised the galaxy they were in. Gravity may as well have ceased to exist as islands, water bodies, an entire bedrock formations of tectonic plates floated in the air in a profoundly three-dimensional environment that beggared the imagination.

The flora was beautiful in its exotic luster, shining with a spectrum of colors and lights that mesmerized any who beheld it. It was a fantastical world that seduced one’s imagination, crippled by the uniformity of human civilization.

And yet, amid its beauty lurked a profound sense of darkness and fear.

The Beast Domain was a realm of mysteries and the unknown. Despite having been explored by adventurer Martial Artists who traversed its depths, not too much was known about the Beast Domain.

Nobody understood why such a gradient of power existed, with escalating power and danger the deeper one went.

Nobody understood why the beast moved towards the center of the Beast Domain. Nobody knew what waited for them at the very epicenter of the Beast Domain.

It was a realm that not even the strongest of Martial Sages dared to easily enter. With the Beast Incursion and the exact location of the Beast Who Roared, they knew that they were likely to face a monster, unlike anything they had ever faced in their entire lives. They knew that they would have to look at an abomination of a creature with horrifying power.

It was a chilling realization.

RUMBLE…

The very fabric of space and time seemed to tremor as they got deeper and deeper into the Beast Domain. They felt their nerves and instincts picking up a profound sense of danger that was unlike anything they had ever sensed before.

“We are arriving at the Central Highlands of the Beast Domain, Your Sagehoods. Please prepare for dispatch in accordance with protocols.

The Martial Sages grew more severe as the moment was arriving.

A moment that they had known would be coming since the very moment the Emperor of Harmony had proposed it at the Human Summit four years ago.

And it came sooner than they realized.

In the distance, they could sense a profound degree of danger that inspired greater wariness from them, increasing their heart rate by a second.

A dark, shadowy haze in the distance that barricaded all light and sound from emerging from within drew closer and closer to them.

The Central Highlands.

The region that occupied the very center of the Beast Domain.

“Preparing dispatch in three… two… one…” CLACK The floor of the aircraft opened up as the Martial Sages leaped out of the aircraft with fierce ferocity into the dark haze of the Central Highlands while fifty-five other aircrafts entered the Central Highlands simultaneously from several other points of entry and angles.

A massive perimeter of Martial Sages, each and every single last one that humanity had to offer, were dropped into the very heart of Beast Domain.

The air was almost opaque, pushing even the extraordinary senses of the Martial Sages to their limits. The environment was unlike anything they had ever experienced before, with skies that were transparent to the very cosmos, lighting up the land beneath their feet.

A frosty and icy cold consumed the entire environment, sending chills across their skin. THUD

They landed on a soft, gray landscape, one that seemed to crumble and dissolve into the air with a single gesture.

It was a landscape comprised entirely of ash.

An ominous realization.

As opaque as the atmosphere and environment were to their senses, they could sense it nonetheless.

They could sense the presence of extraordinarily powerful creatures. The ash shifted beneath their feet in an organic fashion.

As though something was beneath it.

Something alive.

RUMBLE!!!

The world shook as the ash erupted violently, consuming all of them alive.