The Martial Unity

“Hyah!” Arastia threw a swift punch as a gust of air was released with her powerful, swift fist. “Hyah!”

She threw her punches over and over with perfect form, exactly as she had been trained in a private training institution that Mana had booked for the day for Arastia to train. Around them was a series of punching pads, bags, and other striking training equipment that Martial Squires normally trained with.

She had donned a clean white Martial attire with a belt tightly wrapped around her waist. She had grown a few inches taller in the past year, having hit a growth spurt as her body fully entered puberty. Her blood-red hair was tied back in a bun, ensuring that it didn’t impede her movements.

Mana watched with a gentle expression as Arastia rigorously trained her form over and over, etching it into her muscle memory. Despite not being a Martial Artists, she didn’t abandon her Martial Training. She might not have been a Martial Artist, but knowing Martial Art was something that was beneficial to any combatant. It was useful to know how to use one’s power effectively.

While hemosapiens were different from their evolutionary ancestor, homo martialus, there was enough similarity in anatomy that Martial training still worked perfectly for little Arastia. However, Mana knew that eventually she would outgrow Martial Art training and focus more on her Blood Path and her hemonkinesis, which she had continuously mastered over the past year after she discovered it with a little spar with Rui.

Her power for her age was incredible, so much so that Mana truly looked forward to how she would develop in the future. Not a single person could truly predict where the hemosapiens would end up going in the future, not even Matriarch Nephi, who could only deduce that they would grow up strong and powerful, much, much more powerful than even Martial Art. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel✶fire.net

One of the most recent issues that had come up was whether hemosapiens could survive the Body Evolution process to the Squire Realm. Almost all research indicated that they could, thanks to their already evolved brain, which could likely do for them what the Apprentice Realm did for Martial Apprentices.

Prophecy from the Silas Clan also indicated that the outcome was not dangerous. But one of the challenging issues was at what point they were ready for the process. Each hemosapien was a living miracle, so no nation wanted to lose even a single one and had decided to delay the process and err on the side of caution.

But one day, they would evolve and their bodies would grow even stronger, allowing them Senior-level power as the equivalent of Martial Squires.

It was a terrifying amount of power.

There was no doubt that hemosapiens were categorically and genetically superior to Homo Martialus. With each passing day, they grew at astonishing rates, gaining power at incredible speeds that only the elite talents and geniuses among Panamans could possibly achieve.

As far as Mana was concerned, this was a wonderful thing.

These children, like Arastia, were brimming with bottomless potential and contained within their DNA the salvation of human civilization in a hostile world that was greedy for the land they called home. Of course, she was biased because she loved Arastia from the bottom of her heart as her very own daughter.

However, there were also those who sought to harm the young children.

More than just a few.

A nascent human supremacist political movement had begun growing from the ground up slowly as the hemosapiens grew older and stronger.

However, it was a very fringe and muted movement for the time being.

A large part of that was thanks to Rui.

Rui had announced to the entire continent that all blood children were under his protection.

That alone was enough to crush all political opposition to the blood children. Words could not describe the political power and influence that Rui had in human civilization. Much of the population worshipped him as a literal, living, breathing God in human form.

Whether it was the Faith of Dawn or the Virodhabhasa Religion, both religions were extremely dominant within human civilization, and both of them revered him as the Dawnbringer and the Antithesis, Lord Virodhabhasa. They believed the Martial Transcendent’s prophecy of their living deity saving the world from an unfathomable apocalypse had come true when Rui had ended the Beast Incursion and the Era of Darkness.

He was also the strongest Martial Artist on the entire continent and possessed political power second only to his father, the Supreme Commander of the Panamic Alliance.

Not a single person openly called for violence against the blood children after Rui announced that they were under his protection. Even the violence in the Solaris Kingdom stopped after word of it reached all corners of the continent.

And yet, Mana knew that these evil people had bloodlust in their eyes when they laid their eyes on the innocent children. She knew that Rui was the only reason that these children had peaceful lives, for now.

She clenched her fists with a serious expression.

She couldn’t protect all blood children, but she could grow stronger and offer more political protection.

Alas, she was far away from sagehood.

“Ahhh!”

Mana shook where she sat as a scream escaped Arastia. Instantly, her attention shot to the child as she got to her feet, her senses alert while her Realms of power burst to power. “What’s the matter?”

Her eyes widened as she saw Mana on the ground, gazing down at the crotch of her white Martial attire with a shocked expression.

There was a bloodstain.

Bloodstains were not uncommon with Arastia ever since she accessed her hemokinesis. Her clothes were always stained with blood, making it hardly a novelty given that her precision was not yet high enough to preserve every single blood cell.

Yet this was different.

Mana grabbed her bag, pulling out the supplies that she had kept on her all the time precisely for this very moment that inevitably came in every girl’s life, before rushing over to Arastia, trying to gently comfort her.