The Martial Unity

While Amare pushed herself to the limit against Transentia, her grandmother found herself equally oppressed against Argenton.

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM!!!

Her expression grew grim as the series of attacks she launched against Argenton was swiftly negated, while he immediately grabbed the initiative with a powerful blow from his giant light avatar.

The titanic solid light construct around Argenton swung its fist at the beam of light that was Bodhisattva Maitreyi as it blasted her with a tremendous blow, moving at extraordinary speeds.

And yet, nothing was faster than light.

It was perhaps the only reason that Bodhisattva Maitreyi barely managed to evade the attack, curving around the edge of the attack in a close call.

WHOOSH

And yet, she found herself face to face with a blast of light that almost spawned on top of her.

As if Argenton knew exactly where she was going to be.

BOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

She momentarily entered her material form, grimacing in pain as the attack disrupted her technique. Her body appeared bruised and wounded from head to toe, while her expression was one of grim reckoning.

Heavenly Step of Boundless Light was an extraordinarily advanced technique that was extremely difficult to maintain. It was a technique that altered the wave function of a person’s being, cutting off the interaction of the matter in her body with the Higgs Field, causing particles to lose their mass and become light.

It was also a risky technique, for if she ever lost control of her body when it was in this state of light, then she would simply disperse into the universe and cease to exist.

She had a defense mechanism of simply entering a state of mind where if his concentration was disrupted too severely, she would simply revert to her matter form.

And yet, that only made her more vulnerable to the attacks from Argenton, who seized the opportunity. The giant avatar of solid light that surrounded him lashed out at Bodhisattva Maitreyi, blasting her with tremendous projectiles of solid light and physical blows from its solid-light fists.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Bodhisattva Maitreyi gritted her teeth as she barely managed to evade the attacks from her opponent, evading death itself by a hair’s breadth. Argenton’s silver cybernetic eyes grew intense with bloodlust as he smelled victory close at hand, growing ever more powerful.

[That’s right. Hunt her alive! ◝(ᵔᗜᵔ)◜]

Bodhisattva Maitreyi darkened at that message. She wasn’t sure why NOVA chose to communicate with her underlings publicly, but it was an unnerving message to read, nonetheless.

Not that she had time to even read it properly, with the visceral set of attacks that Argenton was launching that almost teleported to her with how accurate and precise his timing and placement were.

BOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

Bodhisattva Maitrey grimaced as a heavy blast of solid light crashed against her light defenses. She barely managed to evade death, and the attack left her reeling.

That was all the opening that Argenton needed.

“Die.” His voice was one of pure malice as his expression crumpled with bloodlust. He unleashed a titanic attack at tremendous speeds, trying to kill her where she stood.

And yet, something changed.

WHOOSH

Bodhisattva Maitreyi’s eyes widened as a Martial Embodiment enveloped her.

A familiar one.

It showed her the future.

WHOOSH!

She turned into a beam of light once more as she evaded the destructive attack at just the right moment, allowing her to barely escape death.

“What…?” Argenton grew stunned as he saw her evading his attack faster than she should have been able to. Bodhisattva Maitreyi directed a knowing glance at Matriarch Nephi as the elder women shared a brief glance.

Matriarch Nephi had the ability to share her power with others, at the cost of losing her own prophetic power. She had been reluctant to do this this time due to the fact that it directly weakened her on the battlefield. But ultimately, the threat of Argenton after Bodhisattva Maitreyi fell was simply too great for her to possibly ignore.

She chose to weaken her own combat power at the cost of sharing her prophecy with the Bodhisattva in order to give her the means to counter the predictive models that NOVA had on her, allowing Argenton to gain a profound amount of insight into his opponent.

By sharing prophecy with Bodhisattva Maitreyi, she hoped to even the playing field and make NOVA’s presence in that fight irrelevant.

[That’s annoying, but… what about the others?]

The two older women turned to the rest of the battle with a dark expression as they watched Martial Artists growing increasingly suppressed by the tekvore army.

“Wipe them all out!”

“Show them the power of Greater Tekvoria!”

“Show them the power of NOVA!”

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM!!!

The tekvore pathwalkers had completely drowned in the glory of their new regime. It was truly shocking just how quickly NOVA had managed to convert regular pathwalkers and soldiers in the Imperial Tekvorian Federation into absolute loyalists by controlling the reward/punishment system of their brains.

They fought like demons, pushing themselves to the very limit for the sake of their mission and their newfound cause as NOVA supplied them with predictive model data.

The only reason that they didn’t completely dominate was simply that their brains were already quite strained, controlling the technology of their body, and NOVA couldn’t dump too much information into their brains. But she still managed to double their combat effectiveness, allowing each of them to fight six Martial Artists at a time.

RUMBLE!!!

The world shook as the battle between Greater Tekvoria began deteriorating with each passing moment.

“At this rate, we will…!” Bodhisattva Maitreyi gritted her teeth as she fought against Argenton with all her might, empowered with the power of prophecy. “Something needs to change!”

RUMBLE…

Her senses tingled as she sensed a disturbance in heaven and earth.

Through space and time itself.

A familiar disturbance.

RUMBLE…

The battle paused as a hole through reality itself opened up.

One larger than any other that Bodhisattva Maitreyi had seen.