The Martial Unity

Just a single glance at his grandmother’s fiery mood was enough to help him understand exactly how pissed off she was at Tokugawa Ieyasu.

She wanted him dead.

And understandably.

The man had killed all but one Martial Master of the Silas Clan, depriving them of their important members and their next generation of Martial Sages. For someone who was so overprotective of her people, Matriarch Nephi was undoubtedly going crazy with wrath and bloodlust.

And now, she sought from Rui revenge for their family.

The air grew electric with tension.

The atmosphere darkened despite the bright light of the morning Sun illuminating her little cottage.

Her fierce eyes bore deep into the depths of the pitch-black darkness of his eyes.

Rui truly would have wished not to kill Ieyasu.

He was perhaps the only equal Rui had ever had in his entire life. The only person who shared a Martial Path and Martial Art that was as powerful as Rui’s. The only person who experienced the kind of growth and had the kind of potential that Rui had.

Each time they had crossed paths and crossed fists, it had been among the most fun and exciting battles that Rui had ever experienced.

And yet…

“Very well.”

His tone was clear.

His eyes opened with a hint of steely determination.

“I swear to exact justice and vengeance for the Silas Clan.”

Matriarch Nephi gazed deep into his eyes before eventually nodding with a hint of satisfaction.

“Good. Remember your oath and remember your commitment to your family.”

Rui nodded as his dark eyes grew hazy.

As much as he would have preferred Tokugawa Ieyasu to live, if only to serve as a whetstone for his own power, he didn’t have a choice this time. A Martial Sage could not be allowed to commit the highest of treason and simply desert the Kandrian Empire without any consequences.

If that were allowed, it would set a horrid precedent for the Martial Sages of the Kandrian Empire. Even if they wouldn’t commit treason, it would send a signal that they wouldn’t be held accountable for gross violations of even the few rules and regulations that the Kandrian Empire had for their Martial Sages.

It would unravel the balance of power that his father had carefully established centuries ago.

“I would hunt him myself, but I have foreseen that I would simply perish in a battle against him,” she growled. “Despite him having broken through to the Sage Realm just a month ago. The bloody rascal. Copying the Eye of Prophecy has undoubtedly given him far greater power than ever before.”

Rui fell into thought about the man with mixed feelings.

What was he thinking?

What was he thinking when he mutinied and copied his prized technique?

Considering that he had broken through to the Sage Realm with that little stunt, he couldn’t help but wonder what Tokugawa Ieyasu had learned about himself.

Regardless, if the action had led to his breakthrough to the Sage Realm, then it meant that the man simply could not be trusted fundamentally because of who he truly was. In that case, he was an absolute liability not just to the Kandrian Empire but also to the entirety of human civilization.

He knew too much.

He had far too much strategic intelligence about human civilization.

And now that there were other continents out there in the true world and other civilizations who were hostile to the Panama Continent, they would be willing to pay gold for the information that he had to offer them.

“I will need to hunt him down before he can do too much damage.”

Rui’s tone was unyieldingly clear.

“I highly doubt that he’s still on the continent,” Rui mused with displeasure. “If he has any sense, he would have departed from the continent long before I woke up. If he made use of the chaos of the invasion of the true world, then he would have been able to easily depart from the Panama Continent without anybody picking him out.”

Tokugawa Ieyasu must have known that the betrayal of the Kandrian Empire would mean that most of the continent would be unsafe for him, considering how powerful the Empire had become. Although he could have possibly known about the true world ahead of time, he wouldn’t have had to.

From the very moment he copied the Eye of Prophecy, he would have been able to navigate his way out of the Panama Continent and get to wherever he thought was most fitting for his most immediate needs.

“The question is, where would he go?”

It was possible to narrow it down when considering his inclinations.

“Considering that he has a MECHA, there’s a good chance that he would want to go to a technologically advanced civilization,” Rui noted with a knowing tone. “He is probably low on fuel. Not to mention, he would probably need a new MECHA because the true world would not be able to service the esoteric technology of his MECHA.”

They still didn’t know all the polities of the true world, having been exposed only to the ones who had chosen to approach them in the first month, which certainly was not everybody. However, of the ones that they knew, there was no doubt that the dwarves, the tekvores, and the evolutionaries were the most able to provide him with the services that he sought.

The elves didn’t seem to have any non-botanical technology, while the therianthropes relied exclusively on zoological biotechnology, neither of which was relevant to his MECHA.

Of those three that could service him, Rui figured that it was likely that the man would choose civilizations that were more attuned to him.

“…The Imperial Tekvorian Federation.” Rui realized. “He must have gone to the tekvores.”

That polity was the first that the Panama Continent had ever gotten a visit from. There was a good chance that Ieyasu had managed to get a glimpse of them and realized that their path shared some fundamental commonalities with his.

“The Cybernetic Path is a very specific application of the concept of assimilation when it comes to technology,” Rui realized. “He has much to gain from them.”