The Martial Unity

While war between the major powers of the true world continued to escalate, Rui continued his deep dive into outer space, propelling himself faster and faster through the vast emptiness of space. He found himself going through the vast emptiness of space, experiencing a profound collapse in his sense of time.

The backdrop of the universe remained the same no matter how far he traveled. The beautiful art painted on the canvas of the universe with a splatter of stars was one of the most moving sights that Rui had ever seen. He wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between minutes, hours, or even days passing if not for his oxygen supply, which was thankfully high due to a combination of esoteric and elven biotechnology, supplying him virtually endless air to breathe in space.

And yet, he found himself immersed and engrossed by the vastness of the universe even as he traveled through space, using the Eye of Prophecy to try to navigate through where the Divine Doctor might be.

He compared the futures he would go through in one direction and then chose the side that seemed to have a mildly better future, indicating he would most likely find what he was looking for in that direction.

’I don’t have too much time.’

It wasn’t a matter of energy reserves; with the Blood of Solaris and the blinding light of the sun, he had access to a truly tremendous amount of light energy from the sun and even the distant starlight from the universe.

It was his mind that needed rest that served as a constraint.

’Thankfully, I have a trick.’

According to special relativity, the faster one moved through space, the slower one moved through time. One’s metabolism was known to slow down considerably when one moved at high speeds relative to other objects. He could use this property to get to his destination sooner while prolonging his own stamina considerably.

Unfortunately, the absence of an atmosphere meant that it was extremely difficult for him to generate the kind of gravitational waves he used to. After all, breathing techniques were at very foundation of a vast majority of Martial Art techniques.

Which meant that Martial Art was truly obsolete outside Gaia.

When combined with the fact that the future was in the cosmos, it bore out truly devastating consequences for Martial Art.

“This might be the doom of Martial Art as I know it.”

Rui truly couldn’t help but feel that, as he floated through space, he was exerting considerable power just to navigate himself. This was not sustainable, and it would mean that Martial Art was destined to become obsolete in their current conceptualization.

Unfortunately, Rui wasn’t sure he could save Martial Art this time. He had helped Martial Art overcome obstacles before, such as with the Hellbringer Model against the Beast Incursion. But this time, the challenge for adaptive evolution could very well be too much for other Martial Artists.

Not everyone was able to smoothly change their bodies, their mind, decision-making, their techniques, and even their very muscle memory and lifetimes the way Rui was able to.

Given that MECHAs were vastly more suited for outer space than Martial Artists, Rui couldn’t help but feel that Martial Artists would lose much of their utility as a military force.

Of course, they wouldn’t become useless, certainly not. But their value would be limited to Gaia, and as operations spread further and further beyond Gaia, to and beyond the solar system, they would become more and more irrelevant and would eventually cease to exist over time.

New trainees would much rather choose to go the MECHA route than go the ’analog’ route because career prospects for the former would be vastly greater than that of the latter, and eventually analog Martial Art would die out like a lost art, reduced to a museum exhibit or demonstrations for tourist attractions the way samurais and knights of the past on Earth became reduced to figments of the past for citizens of the modern era.

“What a sad and miserable end to such a glorious legacy.”

Rui’s voice, reverberating through space and time itself, contained a hint of melancholy.

He thought back to the Age of Martial Art nostalgically, where Martial Art was indisputably the most powerful force in the entire world without peer. No weapon nor beast was its equal.

“Alas, nothing can last forever.”

Everything needed to evolve, even Martial Art. Rui didn’t particularly regret that classical Martial Art would eventually cease to exist, but he did feel sad about it.

That didn’t mean that he intended to become obsolete himself, certainly not.

“I will adaptively evolve to everything that comes my way.” His pitch-black eyes flared with power as they glowed red.

Within the depths of his mind, he activated the Forge of Creation as he created a new technique to manipulate space at extremely high levels despite the absence of an atmosphere, breathing, and heaven techniques.

His mind churned as he went through countless possibilities before eventually settling on one.

“Singularities.”

It was an absurd choice for a solution he was creating on the fly. Singularities were one of the most intense phenomena in the universe, composed of a point where the laws of physics themselves broke down and time itself came to an end.

The only Martial Artist who had ever harnessed them before was Damian, and it had taken a long time after first discovering black holes when they had accidentally created one in the Third Great East Panamic War.

What made Rui think that he could instantly harness what had taken one of the most powerful Martial Sages before him more than a decade to do so?

“I have no limits.” His voice was one of true certainty.

He truly believed that no feat was beyond him.

He could do it all.

RUMBLE…

The fabric of space began to quake as Rui created his latest technique on the fly.

“Forge of Singularity.”

A technique that could create black holes for him to deploy as and how he pleased.