The Martial Unity

The sheer force of the impact launched the clone flying away across the battlefield, landing into the ground in a titanic crater.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

RUMBLE!!!!!

Blood spewed from the clone’s deformed chest as he struggled to breathe. His vision grew blurry as his heart stopped beating.

He should have died.

But much to his shock, his body began healing.

His flesh began mending itself as new blood was spontaneously generated within his body; his bones began snapping back in place in an excruciating process.

His internal organs began stabilizing as his Weaving Blood technique grew empowered by a strange external force.

STEP

STEP

STEP

Rui emerged from the dust, leaping into the crater as he arrived before the clone’s devastated body with a knowing expression.

“That was pretty close,” he admitted. “If I hadn’t copied and mastered Etherea Corpa at the very final moment, you might have actually killed me.”

The clone stared deep into Rui’s ethereal eyes with the pitch-black depths of his own eyes. “I deactivated Gigabrain with Heartcrusher,” Rui continued with a serious tone of voice. “I also injected your body with my blood, programming it with Weaving Blood to ensure you didn’t die from your reckless abuse of a forbidden technique.”

The clone closed his eyes with finality.

He had tried his best, but he could not surpass the original.

“I have no intention of dying, so you’re never going to see the light of day ever again,” Rui informed him with a tone of reckoning. “Any last words?”

The clone opened his mouth, struggling to speak. “…Fulfill Project Water for me.”

Rui nodded. “I will.”

“…Protect Ria.”

“I will.”

“…And,” the clone’s eyes grew hazy. “Beware of the Fear. It is… everywhere.”

With those words, the clone’s eyes closed as he fell unconscious.

Rui’s eyes sharpened at those words. He knew that the clone must have experienced the Fear while in the state of Gigabrain, which was why his warning bore heavily on Rui as he fell into thought.

If the Fear was everywhere, then… what was in the point of maximal fear identified by the Ieyasu Machine?

He didn’t know.

But he would soon find out.

Rui’s ethereal eyes flared with determination as he gazed at his translucent hands. “I achieved my goals.”

He had managed to copy three new powerful techniques. The first was Outer Divergence, a soft defensive technique that relied on redirection combined with the quantum gap between objects to redirect any and all attacks regardless of power.

He had also managed to copy the more prized Etherea Corpa.

An excited smile emerged on his face. “This technique is priceless.”

It made him intangible or hypertangible, serving as an extraordinary defense and offense, respectively. It definitely made him much stronger than he was before, making this entire venture of trying to get stronger by copying his clone’s Gigabrain techniques completely worth it.

“My defense is currently truly invincible,” Rui remarked knowingly. “I have Aqua Existentia, Outer Divergence, and Etherea Corpa.”

He also had esoteric solutions that he wasn’t able to deploy in the battle due to having to maintain the Garden of Salvation with all of his exotic pluripotent matter.

If not for that handicap, among other disadvantages, Rui would have won much sooner, Gigabrain or not.

“Still…” He turned towards his clone with a serious expression. “Gigabrain is stronger than I imagined, having faced it for the first time myself. No… It’s more accurate to say that its power is contextual.”

Gigabrain thrived in complex circumstances. It also grew stronger the stronger the user was, which would explain why it was able to close such a vast gap in disparity.

“It’s also beyond just simply improving processing power by a great degree, it’s a… trance, as if I’m possessed by my Martial Path itself,” Rui murmured. “I didn’t think he would be able to innovate so many techniques that I couldn’t have even fathomed.”

They were so powerful and complex that even with a Mirror Mode that gave him Ieyasu’s power, he wasn’t able to copy them instantly, something he had been able to do ever since he developed Mirror Mode.

He heaved a deep breath as he directed a gaze at the environment within the Garden of Salvation.

Everything had been reduced to a powdery dust due to the fact that the energy from their attacks and battle wasn’t allowed to escape the domain. The forest had been utterly obliterated to the point that it was hard to imagine there ever had been such a thing. The bright light of the afternoon sun still hung over them, illuminating the destruction they had spread.

He heaved a deep breath, undoing the Garden of Salvation before walking over to his unconscious clone. He teleported both of them to the Divine Doctor’s biolab. WHOOSH

The Divine Doctor turned towards him with an indignant expression. “You damaged my lab.”

Rui smiled at the man helplessly. The Divine Doctor’s gaze shifted to the unconscious clone he carried with one hand. “Looks like you did quite the number on him.”

“He almost got me,” Rui remarked with an appreciative tone. “What can I say? I’m just so strong and amazing.”

“Put him back in the pod for stasis, if you are done. I don’t want to risk him waking up again.”

Rui nodded, teleporting him into the pod. “He’s unconscious from Gigabrain abuse; he won’t wake up for several months, even without stasis. But still, you should transfer him somewhere more secure. Perhaps the manifold.”

“Will do. What are you going to do now?”

Rui’s eyes sharpened.

The clone’s final words have reminded him of what all of this was for in the very first place.

“All the preparations have been made,” he replied with a solemn tone of voice. “I will have the seven nations activate the civilizational shield soon and then…”

He clenched his fists.

“…It will be time to commence the probe.”

And the extermination, he added silently. While he respected the fact that this threat supposedly terrified the Transcendents, he didn’t intend to back down from a challenge.

The Divine Doctor’s eyes grew serious. “After all these centuries. The time has finally come to put an end to all of this.”

He closed his eyes.

“I only pray this does not lead to something bigger.”