The Martial Unity

His body enlarged, pushing back against the pressure of the Great Void Ocean, crushing down on him as he activated a state of being that he had never once needed to use before.

“Overdrive mode.”

This was a mode that removed the safety limiters in his mitochondrial cold fusion reactors in his cells, allowing them to go all out, more than doubling their output, even at the cost of damage to his cells. It allowed him to temporarily overcome his limits by a huge margin.

RUMBLE!!!!!

A tremendous surge of energy flowed through his body as his body began shining with a volatile light released by his burning cell that struggled to remain intact. His reptilian yellow eyes grew set ablaze despite being underwater, while his body quaked, growing larger and larger unsteadily.

Rui’s eyes widened as he foresaw the future, leaping away.

And yet, with a single flap of his wings, the Dragon Emperor emerged before him, unleashing a devastatingly destructive attack of unprecedented power.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

The sheer force with which Lord Shenlong blasted him was so great that not even a perfectly-timed Wall of Water was able to protect him from the destruction that Lord Shenlong inflicted upon him. If the dragon was frenzied before, then he was now nothing short of a maelstrom of chaos. Overdrive mode fundamentally altered the chemistry of his body and of his brain, causing many of the patterns and some of his SOUL System to falter, disrupting his foresight into the future.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The surge in power only accelerated the destruction that spread through the ocean flood of the Great Void Ocean. Lava began to spew out of the holes in the ocean more aggressively as the pathways leading to all the magma within the depths of the planet grew larger and larger.

Earthquakes spread across the entire world as Lord Shenlong continued to unleash a maelstrom of destruction upon Rui with a wild desperation. Overdrive mode wasn’t something that he could use for a sustained period of time, especially in an environment that was antithetical to him.

One minute was all he had.

“One minute is enough!”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

CRACK CRACK CRACK!!!

Rui’s bones began crumbling like twigs before the boundless intensity of the Dragon Emperor’s attacks. The disrupted foresight affected his ability to defend, making him sustain more and more damage.

On top of that, Overdrive Mode enhanced the Dragon Emperor’s power tremendously while Gigabrain reduced Rui’s physical power greatly. The gulf between them in raw output was astronomical.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT…!

Rui’s skin began tearing at an alarming rate while his muscles crumpled, his skeleton began breaking, entirely fragile before the tremendous might of his moment.

The Dragon Emperor’s eyes began lighting up with delight as he rapidly pushed Rui to his physical limit, before unleashing a truly horrific level of gamma radiation, threatening to destroy Rui’s entire body in one fell swoop.

VMMM!

Rui coughed blood copiously as not even his Hydro-Lens technique was able to protect him. The single attack poisoned his entire system with immense radiation poisoning, breaking down his condition even more while the Dragon Emperor blasted him with ever more attacks, one after another, unwilling to allow him to recover.

Lord Shenlong knew that if he gave Rui even a moment of reprieve, he would instantly restore his body just as he had the first time.

“Fall to my attacks and be consumed by me!”

Despite his failing defenses and plummeting condition, Rui remained eerily calm and composed. The blood-red suns in his eyes shone with blinding brightness, bearing deep into the Dragon Emperor’s eyes.

The moment had finally arrived.

WHOOSH

He evaded an astronomical blow that created tsunamis across the entire world, charging closer to the Dragon Emperor, his palm turned black, soaring towards Lord Shenlong as Rui unleashed all the gu he had within him into the Dragon Emperor.

“ROOOAAAAARRRRRRR!!!“ The Dragon Emperor convulsed in pain as the gu entered his body, greedily consuming his entire life. His flesh began growing a pitch-black underneath his scales.

And yet, he persevered.

Even his yellow-turning-black reptilian eyes bore deep into Rui’s, his maniacal ferocity and aggression remained undeterred.

Unlike almost everybody else who had been hit by the Gu, the Dragon Emperor remained incredibly stable despite the fact that Overdrive Mode had set his body on fire, destroying his cells from the inside out.

The reason was rather simple.

The Dragon Emperor’s life was simply too great.

His body contained the mass of ten thousand mountains. His flesh was extraordinarily dense, second only to a neutron star. The sheer amount of organic life packed into every square millimeter of his body was extraordinary.

Rui’s gu, while powerful, was not as plentiful as the amount of gu that the Demon of Asmodeous had had, who himself was only as strong as a Transcendent Candidate, a level of power that paled in comparison to the Dragon Emperor.

“Your pathetic attempts to consume my life will fail, Rui Quarrier. It is you who shall be consumed!”

His roars were manic while his body continued deteriorating, accelerated by the gu that slowly coursed through his dense flesh.

And yet, it was Rui who drew closer and closer to death with each passing moment as he pushed his mind to the limits, searching for any and every option that was available.

And yet, it was to no avail.

The Forge of Creation failed him when he needed it the most.

His systems of thought, while recovering their models to deal with the Dragon Emperor lagged behind on the necessary data to fully remodel. The pace of the progression was too low for him to possibly deal with all of them. His only solace was the Eye of Prophecy, which was perhaps the only reason he was still alive, amplified by Gigabrain.

And yet, the Dragon Emperor was significantly faster than he was due to the astronomical gap in their physical prowess. His larger body meant that evading was even harder than before.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook even as the rabid Dragon Emperor pushed Rui towards death at an alarming rate.