The Martial Unity

Mothers of Nature held a much greater position in elven civilization than Martial Sages did in human civilization.

They weren’t just the strongest combatants, no.

They were also spiritual and political leaders within light elven civilization.

The death of a Mother of Nature was a deep wound that would traumatize the light elves for years to come.

It also cracked the specter of domestic invincibility that the light elves projected and even themselves believed.

The truth that elves were invincible in their homeland would now begin to be questioned. The failure to annihilate a target that they had teleported into an ambush after spending months of preparation refining it to counter him would bring about a new wave of skepticism about elven power.

It would undermine the deterrence.

The same was true even for the dark elves, who would also suffer from the failure of light elves to succeed and even from the death of Mother Mara, one of the oldest and most powerful Mothers of Nature of elven civilization in Genora.

The true world would begin to wonder if these elves were truly this powerful.

Of course, in the eyes of the true world, their opponent was far from weak. He was the man who had defeated Supreme Commander Anthea. Still, the fact that they had lost their leader in the operation was simply more proof that they were lacking in some way or another and weren’t as fearsome as history suggested.

None of them could even give imagine just how strong Rui was when he brought out his absolute best.

Of course, that day, which would go down in history as the Day of Drowning, was not forgettable due to Rui’s Martial Embodiment that spread throughout the entirety of the world for the duration of the battle.

The powers of the world had felt just a fraction of his power from across the world.

It was enough of a clue that something truly extraordinary had unfolded in East Genora.

Because Genora’s anti-satellite technology was extremely powerful, satellite data alone could not give them anything more than a few pieces and clues. For example, explosions with an energy signature far exceeding anything ever sensed in recent history were something that shook the powers that had gotten their hands on the data.

It showed that the light elves had not slacked off in their effort to kill Prince Rui Quarrier.

They had truly pulled out all stops to utterly annihilate any trace of him.

And yet, the news that spread throughout the highest echelons of the true world indicated that they had thoroughly failed to annihilate him.

“Where is my son?”

Emperor Rael’s tone was intense.

It was laced with displeasure.

He leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his table while he steepled his fingers.

His golden eyes brimmed with a powerful determination as they bore deep into the sapphire eyes of Mother Alicia’s vessel, seated opposite him across the ebony wood table in the Royal Office, illuminated by the gentle light of twilight.

Behind him was Sage Sayfeel, protecting his charge with extreme wariness of the dark elf, while two more Martial Sages behind her directed all their attention to her, ready to react in the blink of an eye to even the slightest hint of a suspicious movement.

She suppressed her discomfort, not just from the pressure that the Emperor of Harmony and the Martial Sages put on her, but also from the lifeless wood that was before her, being used as a dead object.

It was a disgusting piece of furniture as far as the Western Mother of Nature was concerned. While the elves also used flora for all kinds of objects, they were living objects with living tissue that actively worked with them through their nature manipulation.

The wood before her and the wood that comprised the arms of her chair were both dead, and were the equivalent of a human body being dismembered and used for different purposes on a day-to-day basis.

Yet, she suppressed her disgust, facing the Emperor of Harmony with clear eyes.

“We are trying our best to locate him, Your Majesty,” she replied with a composed tone. “We have been actively infiltrating the East Genoran Flora Network, scouring it to gain any ounce of information that we can get our hands on. Right now, we know that he has escaped the execution forest where he was ambushed after killing Mother Mara, the leader of ’Operation Demonslayer.’ He is currently on the run across the East Genora and is attempting what appears to be a more covert escape from enemy territory. Right now, from all the data that we have gathered from infiltrating the East Genoran Flora Network, I can say with confidence that he is slowly making his way back to West Genora.”

Her hand changed to wood as sheets of paper emerged from it with an intelligence report printed on them, before handing it over to the Emperor of Harmony.

Emperor Rael heaved a deep breath as he read through the intelligence report with sharpened eyes.

“…It says here that he still has a long way to go before he returns to West Genora.” Emperor Rael’s tone was one of displeasure.

“That is correct, Your Majesty,” she nodded. “His rate of progress is truly extraordinary. He has overcome a truly unfathomable amount of resistance with his sheer individual power alone. It is a level of combat prowess that I did not even know existed.”

Her tone was earnest.

She couldn’t have even fathomed how powerful Rui Quarrier was at his strongest. She felt embarrassed for ever having even sized him up in the past, wondering how well she would fare against him when he successfully turned the tide in a battle that was absolutely hopeless for him, and even successfully killed the leaders of the operation.

It was a deep blow to the confidence of the dark elves in containing any threat within their continent. One of the reasons that they hadn’t batted an eye at the humans sending their strongest warrior to the continent was precisely because of this confidence.

And yet, now they realized that they might not have been able to stop Rui had he attempted something in West Genora.

Such was the caliber of power that Rui had displayed that day.