The Martial Unity

Rui was many thousands of kilometers away.

It should have been impossible for him to have learned of what had happened.

It should have been impossible for him to have understood what NOVA had just done.

It should have been impossible for him to have felt what was taken away from him.

And yet, a profound instinct deep within him stirred.

It stirred with dread.

With grief.

He felt like his heart was being crushed in a vice as it began beating harder and harder against his ribs. A profoundly intense tension built up in the cavity of his chest as his breathing grew labored.

“What…” A chilling whisper escaped him. “What… has happened?”

“Hahaha…” A vindictive laughter escaped Sentinel Prime even as NOVA lost full control over the body. “HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!“

Rui glared at the sentinel leader with gritted teeth. “Why are you laughing?”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!” The sentinel keeled over as his vindictive and contemptuous laughter grated on Rui’s nerves.

“What… what have you done?” His ethereal voice crackled with ferocious wrath as his eyes bore deep into the sentinel’s with unearthly bloodlust. “What did you do?!”

RUMBLE

The world shook under the weight of his emotions.

A final remark escaped Sentinel Prime as the vindictive sneer on his face deepened.

“It’s a shame I won’t be there to see the expression on your face when you find out

.”

Rui’s ethereal eyes widened as a horrifying realization dawned on him. “You…”

He immediately turned towards the Kandrian Empire as a single whisper escaped him.

“Father.”

In the blink of an eye, he abandoned Sentinel Prime, whose body hung in the air loosely, still maintained midair by the autonomous flight systems. Rui directed all of his attention in the direction of the Kandrian Empire as his heart began pounding heavily.

WHOOSH

In the blink of an eye, he teleported to the Kandrian Royal Castle at the capital city of Vargard.

STEP

He arrived right into the Royal Office out of thin air.

A single person stood before him in the room.

One he recognized.

It was his father’s secretary.

The Royal Secretary.

Her normally perfectly schooled, inscrutable expression was gone.

In its place was an expression of pure horror as she gazed at the communication device in her hand.

He could feel the pure dread, shock, and even grief radiating from her mind.

The air curdled with misery.

The atmosphere grew suffocating with dread.

Despite the light of the breaking dawn, the room couldn’t be darker than it had ever been.

THUD

The books and pad she carried in her hands fell from her hands as she collapsed to the ground, her eyes teared up.

With just a single glance, he already knew.

He already knew what had happened.

Rui knelt before her with a dark expression. “Where is my father? What happened to him?”

His tone was urgent.

Yet, it was also one of reckoning.

She gazed up at him with a lost expression even as tears streaked down her fair skin.

“His Majesty… Rael… has passed away.”

Rui’s ethereal eyes widened with shock and horror as his expression slackened. “…what?”

“He was found dead… in his isolated compartment in the secret, hidden underground facility he had taken refuge in.” She spoke with a quivering voice and a lost, shell-shocked voice. “He was… impaled through the chest and his heart… was ripped out, according to Prime Minister Edward.”

Rui’s heart sank at those words.

A deep, gaping pit formed within his chest.

One of deep pain, grief, and misery.

He gritted his teeth as his expression crumpled with a grave severity.

“Where?”

His voice was intense.

“Where is he?”

She seemed lost, uninterested in his words.

“I asked you a question.” Anger crackled in the undertones of his fierce voice.

It broke her out of her stupor.

She listlessly gave him the location with a voice reduced to that of a whisper.

But before he could teleport, she grabbed his shoulder with a quivering hand.

A rude gesture, considering his status as a royal and otherwise.

But her haunting eyes of desperation bore deep into his nonetheless.

“Bring him back.”

Rui’s ethereal eyes darkened. “…what?”

“You…” Her voice shivered even as a glimmer of hope emerged within it. “You can bring him back… right?”

Rui’s expression crumpled as he pushed her hand away wordlessly.

WHOOSH

Rui teleported to the location and then underground to the secure fortress of a facility meant to protect his father.

WHOOSH

In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the room his father was in.

His ethereal eyes widened at what he saw.

The room was small.

Meant to be insignificant compared to the rest of the layout of the underground facility that would redirect the attention of any intruder from the actual location of the person it protected.

It was small enough that the entire floor was covered in blood.

His father’s body was collapsed on the table before him.

His golden eyes had lost their lively luster, while half of his resplendent golden hair was caked in blood that trickled down the table, falling to the blood that pooled on the floor around a ripped, dead heart.

The hole in his chest where his heart used to be was gaping, and blood continued to trickle down from it, pouring to the ground in a steady stream.

DRIP DRIP DRIP…

Around him were several doctors, Martial Artists, and other officials responsible for managing the facility.

They were frozen.

Frozen in horror.

Shock.

Despair.

Grief.

Rage.

Reckoning hung in the air as their heads hung, their grim gazes pointed at the blood-laden ground.

“Angel of Laplace.”

In his eyes, he rewound time itself.

His mind stretched out against the flow of time, reaching for the forbidden past.

He could see exactly what happened.

His father had been seated at the table, talking to a hologram, a projection of Prime Minister Edward.

His father had smiled at a projection, the details of which Rui couldn’t see properly.

“That’s my boy.”

Rui’s eyes widened at those words.

And then, it happened.