The Martial Unity

The air grew extraordinarily tense as the Divine Doctor stepped away, not particularly eager to get caught up in whatever was about to happen. A faint silence hung in the air, save for the hum of machinery in the biolab.

The clone gazed at his hands, his pitch-black eyes sharpening with sharp displeasure. Rui remained silent, allowing the clone to get a bearing of where he was and more importantly what he was. Causally, this was his first conscious experience, even if Rui had given him all of his memories, muscle memories, and his mind.

The clone’s movements, body language, and nonverbal communication were uncanny. They unnervingly identical to Rui, so much so that even someone who knew him intimately well would not have noticed, had he been placed with her in the past. Everything about his expression, his pitch-black eyes, the way he carried himself, were all identical to Rui.

The clone’s dark eyes shifted towards Rui with a deep, knowing gaze, studying his translucent and his ethereal eyes. A hint of understanding dawned upon him, along with an intensely deep displeasure.

“I am Rui Quarrier.”

His voice was identical to Rui’s before he had integrated Anthean physiology into his body. He uttered those words with conviction.

With certainty and an unyielding intensity.

He uttered those words as a challenge.

Rui simply smiled at his clone. “Indeed, you are.”

Clone Rui’s pitch-black eyes sharpened.

The ocean of darkness possessed unfathomable depths. They stirred ominously even as they remained fixed on their creator.

“You are Rui Quarrier.” The clone remarked with an intense tone of voice.

“Indeed, I am,” Rui replied with a knowing tone.

The clone’s expression darkened.

“No, you are not.”

WHOOSH

In the blink of an eye, the clone teleported in front of him, using Void Step, before unleashing a tremendously powerful blow at him.

And yet, it didn’t so much as touch the original.

WHOOSH

Rui’s movements were smoother than the fabric of space itself.

The slightest of shifts.

The smallest of twitches.

That was all it took. That was all it took for the original to evade the clone’s attacks. Not a single thought had flashed through his mind. His body had moved on its own, instantaneously evading a teleported attack.

Clone Rui’s expression grew severe as he threw several more blows, activating the Eye of Prophecy and SOUL System. He also activated his own Enlightenment of Self, using it to predict his opponent’s, the original’s, movements.

And yet, it was to no avail. WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH

Rui’s ethereal eyes remained as calm and composed as always, allowing his clone to unleash an onslaught of attacks at him. His body moved on its own without requiring his tardy control, smoothly dodging his opponents attack.

A flash of sharp displeasure emerged on the clone’s face as he pushed himself to his physical limit even more, trying to land even a single blow on Rui as his movements grew ferociously intense.

And yet, not a single attack so much as touched Rui as his smooth and graceful evasions kept him beyond the clone’s reach. Rui’s ethereal eyes glinted with a knowing expression as he watched his clone’s highly familiar movements.

They were slow.

They may as well have been in slow motion, as far as he was concerned. The integration of Anthean physiology had vastly improved his raw physicality, since Anthea had evolved his physical prowess greatly shortly before he had died.

It meant that his clone, who was merely homo antithesis, could never so much as lay a finger on him using ordinary means.

The clone gritted his teeth as he charged forth with a tremendous intense attack of intense power and speed.

This time, Rui did not evade.

No.

He chose to lift a finger, placing it on the clone’s fist as it slowly approached him, fully halting the attack in its tracks.

Clone Rui’s expression hardened as he bore witness to the fact that all power in his body was unable to surpass the power Rui possessed in a single finger. With such a vast disparity in power, there was no point in even engaging in ordinary means of resistance.

Clone Rui’s eyes bore deep into the original’s. “You…”

“I understand how you must feel,” Rui remarked with a calm and composed tone of voice. “Frankly, if I were in your position, I would be equally volatile. You’ve inherited all of my memories and my mind up until your creation. Which means…”

Rui sharpened his ethereal eyes. “…From your perspective, you were just about to create a clone and then suddenly you opened your eyes found out that you were the clone.”

Clone Rui’s expression crumpled with ashen reckoning. His pitch-black eyes were filled with a profoundly intense unwillingness to accept this reality. It compelled him to attack the person he knew was the original.

Who he knew was his creator.

And yet, that didn’t change anything.

Even if he was a clone, he was still Rui Quarrier Silas Kandria.

“I will fulfill Project Water,” he declared with even deeper conviction. “I will usher the Kandrian Empire and the Panama Continent to greater heights. I will eliminate the Fear that threatens all of Gaia and more importantly…”

His tone burned with an intense conviction.

“I am Ria’s father.”

His pitch-black eyes bore deep into Rui’s with boundless conviction in the depths of the ocean of darkness.

“Ria is mine.”

A smile emerged on Rui’s face. “I wouldn’t expect anything short of this from myself, but…”

A glint of anger emerged on his face. “Ria is my daughter, junior.”

Clone Rui’s eyes widened as he leaped away.

But it was too late. Rui’s hand balled into fists, thrusting forth at blinding speeds that not even the clone could hope to evade.

BOOM!!!

Clone Rui barely managed to scrap together a hasty, incomplete guard that allowed him to survive the blow, even if it launched him through several walls.

BANG BANG BANG!!!

The clone Rui uncontrollably broke through wall after wall, until he finally emerged outside the facility, managing to bleed away his momentum.

“Huff… huff…” Clone Rui panted, glancing at his healing, broken arms with a grim expression.

WHOOSH

Rui appeared before the clone with teleportation as the two exchanged intense eyes.