The Martial Unity

Even as East Genora ravaged Rui at every step he took, a single thought entered his mind.

’This can’t continue any longer.’

His mind was approaching its limit.

He could feel his brain strained far, far beyond what it normally would be due to the excesses of Gigabrain. His body shook, begging for relief and refuge in safe harbor so that it could rest.

Even as he defended with every ounce of his power he could muster from his body, he knew that this couldn’t continue any longer.

There was a limit to the amount of materia prima that he could conjure by converting his body mass into energy. He had made up for that by digesting more mass from nature through his nature manipulation, but even then, he was pushing his limits.

Just sustaining the materia prima needed each second to protect himself from the incoming attacks was beyond anything he had ever done.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

Even as he weaved about and guarded against the countless colossal collisions and laser attacks, he activated the Tapestry of Nature and the Nature Interfacer, manipulating nature itself.

RUMBLE!!!!!

Even as the Mothers of Nature leveraged their own control over nature to prevent him from tapping into their power, they found that they had underestimated him.

’His mind… It’s powerful enough to allow for extraordinary cognition and thus a large bandwidth of communication!’

’And our distance from him means that it is difficult for us to seal nature from him.’

’To think that this filthy demon actually managed to master nature manipulation… it makes me shiver with disgust just thinking about it.’

’Kill him before he taints the flora of East Genora with his filthy touch.’

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

And yet, Rui’s nature manipulation remained steady, manipulating nature to come to him directly as trees, leaves, and vines grew to reach him, even as the destructive onslaught of the attacks ravaged them.

They managed to reach him.

He had evolved his nature nutrient supply technique by making it so that they poured the necessary nutrients directly into his bloodstream, avoiding the digestion process. Not only that, he even had them release the chemicals into the air through the atmospheric chemical dispersion systems that the vegetation of East Genora was equipped with.

This way, he could recover all the nutrients and compounds that he needed through the air.

Just by breathing.

With every breath he took, nature nourished him with nutrients and chemical compounds.

It was a new breathing technique that sustained his stamina.

Nature Breathing.

And yet, not even a continuous supply of nutrition and organic matter dispersed into the air was enough to ameliorate his stamina problems. Only rest and deep sleep could fix his stamina issues, and until he did that, he would not be able to remain awake for too much longer.

’Forget trying to manually escape, the chances were slim, but now they’re basically non-existent.’ His shining blood-red eyes sharpened. ’I will need to teleport out of this place if I have any hopes of getting out of here.’

It became clear that there was no help coming.

The dark elves could not intervene for the same reason that light elves had to teleport Rui into their territory in the first place; elves were much weaker outside their primary territory.

The Mothers of Nature of the dark elves were all too far away from him to intervene in any serious capacity.

He knew for a fact that there were no Martial Sages who could save him in his current predicament. Not even all three hundred or so Martial Sages of human civilization could overcome the onslaught and destruction that the light elves unleashed upon humanity.

While the sheer power that they outputted on him was still less than that of the eldritch chimera, the fact of the matter was that Rui hadn’t consumed a healing fruit against them the way he had against the eldritch chimera, largely because he had sought a challenge that pushed him to his absolute limits.

It was why he didn’t expect or even want help from the dark elves or from the humans.

He didn’t want anybody else to take the fall for an attack that he himself had sought out and allowed.

’I will need to rely on teleportation to get out of here.’

The biggest problem was that it took too much time and energy to teleport all the way to the other side of the continent.

The light elves would detect any attempt to do so and unleash an onslaught of destruction so intense that he would be annihilated before the teleportation could commence, forcing him to abandon the teleportation and return to defense, where they would slowly wear him down with a sustained offensive before eventually killing him.

’Then let me forget about directly teleporting away to West Genora.’

There had to be other alternatives regarding teleportation.

’Maybe I can do three or four separate teleportations to West Genora. This way, it takes less energy and time, and reduces how easy it is to sabotage.’

His mind churned as prophecy, intuition, and thought evaluated the strategy.

He shook his head.

’It doesn’t work. The moment I commit the first or the second teleportation, they will instantly know what is up and unleash their maximum destruction against me the second time.’

In other words, he had only one shot with the teleportation strategy.

’A single teleportation that can allow me to end this and get some rest.’

He pushed his mind to the very limit as he sought a location or a space that was close enough for him to teleport fast enough to, and also a location where he could obtain some refuge.

Unfortunately, the only locations he could teleport without sabotage were those within East Genora.

’Still, East Genora is absolutely massive. There must be some place where I can hide without being found out.’

Even if such a place existed, he had know knowledge of it since he knew nothing about East Genora territorially.