The Martial Unity

“Dragons…” Rui continued, “Jotuns, basilisks, phoenixes, golems, inferno serpents…”

His pitch-black eyes grew more certain with confidence.

“We have defeated all of them before.”

His eyes slowly swept across the Martial Sages of human civilization. “We have defeated them once before, and we can do it once more.”

The rationale inspired confidence among the Martial Sages.

It was indeed true that they had defeated almost every species, group, and impediment that they had come across. And now, with all the Martial Sages uniting in a single battlefield, they were stronger than they had ever been on the battlefield.

And yet, their expressions darkened with profoundly painful memories of the few times that they had failed miserably.

The few times that they had failed miserably against overwhelmingly powerful beings.

Creatures that were among the most powerful species known to man.

Rui sensed the growing hint of fear among many of the Martial Sages who had been deployed against them, only to fail miserably and watch their peers perish like they were ordinary humans.

The Martial Artists of the Hive and the Marinaera Kingdom shivered.

Half a dozen of the Martial Artists of the two nations had perished a decade ago in their battle against the jormungandr and the abyssfeeder respectively.

Monsters of such unfathomable power that it beggared the imagination. The jormungandr had dominated the Martial Artists of the Marinaera Kingdom with its absurd power and durability. After it wiped out half of them in a long and intense battle, it flickered with displeasure, retreating deeper into the Beast Domain after its peace and quiet had been dispelled.

The abyssfeeder trampled over the famed and vaunted mastery of coordination of the Hive as well as all subsequent follow-ups from the Martial Sages, before it, too, voluntarily dove deeper into the Central Highlands.

They were extraordinary monsters in and of themselves, reaching the very pinnacle of beasts and monsters beneath the Transcendent Grade. And yet, they weren’t the only hurdles that the Martial Sages had encountered.

The Golem King had also pushed back against the Nest of Terra despite the acquisition of two peak Sages among its ranks. The massive living moon forced the Martial Sages of the Nest of Terra to retreat, before voluntarily retreating to the depths of the Beast Domain. The sheer scale of the creature was so astronomically massive that even the tremendous attacks of Martial Sages were impervious against it, boasting the greatest defensive power out of any monster they had ever seen.

The Shadowcrawler, a monster with extraordinary speed and power, had proven to be too difficult for the golden Martial Sages of the Solaris Kingdom to overcome, single-handedly defeating all of them. It, too, retreated to the depths of the Central Highlands.

It was an eerie degree of coordination.

What was even graver, however, was the fact that all four of the most powerful quasi-Transcendent monsters and beasts were very much alive.

“We will have to overcome all four of them if we wish to reach the very epicenter of the Beast Domain,” Rui remarked with a solemn tone. “Given their extraordinary combat power, I have decided to divide these four difficult objectives among our most powerful combat assets.”

He turned towards the Devil with a knowing expression. “Damain will take on Golem King. With its extraordinary defensive power, you are the most equipped to deal with this creature of unfathomable proportions.”

Damian grinned with murderous excitement. “I will have fun using that boulder as a punching bag.”

Rui wordlessly turned towards Bodhisattva Maitreyi, who sat among her fellow Bodhisattvas. “Boundless Light, you will have to take on the Shadowcrawler. With your light, you are the most optimal opponent to deal with it.”

She nodded with a weary expression.

She had grown noticeably older in the span of ten years.

Her disposition had grown more reserved and darker upon Amare’s absence from her life for the past ten years.

Her eyes were tired.

Yet, she remained committed to the mission.

Rui’s eyes lingered on her knowingly for several seconds, before turning towards the Reverend Reckoning sitting alongside his fellow Namgung Martial Sages. His chin remained as raised as his chest was puffed, gazing at Rui with a hint of arrogance in his eyes.

“Sage Jinryong Namgung,” Rui remarked, “You will have to slay the jormungandr. Of course, if you don’t think you can do it, then I can reassign it to someone else.”

“Nonsense,” the Martial Sage grunted. “I will vanquish the jormungandr myself.”

Rui nodded. “Then…”

His eyes sharpened.

“I will slay the abyssfeeder myself.”

He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice.

The abyssfeeder was a creature of adaptive evolution. One that Rui has fought before in the past when he was but a Squire.

Nobody disputed that Rui was fit to take on the abyssfeeder by his own self.

Over the past ten years, his combat lethality had grown tremendously as he trained in real, life-or-death battles that allowed him to make use of richest and most useful kind of experiencing, growing more familiar with the Sage Realm and everything that it had to offer. Nobody even knew what his full power looked like.

“The four of us will tackle these four targets while the rest of you will simply fight with the objective of slaying as many quasi-Transcendent beasts and monsters,” Rui instructed all of them. “As always, keep in mind protocols of retreating for recuperation, always announce and make sure that you are clear for retreat after ensuring that it isn’t a liability for your fellow peers. Additionally…”

Rui covered all mission protocols once more.

With more than three hundred Martial Sages, the rules and guidelines on how to operate needed to be completely and entirely clarified, completely ironing out every detail. Failure to comply on the part of any of the Martial Sages could result in the death of their peers or the compromise of their recuperation pods.

The Martial Sages prepared themselves for the final battle against the quasi-Transcendents of the Beast Domain under the leadership of Rui, ready to complete the task that they had spent an entire decade warring for.

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