The Martial Unity

And yet, the attacks were within his predictions, allowing him to smoothly absorb and redirect them with the help of Autocorpus. Even as an onslaught of attacks converged on him from all directions, his eyes never once shifted away from the laminar integument.

“Why do you seek the power to intervene in the information dimension?”

The creature’s consciousness was completely transparent and visible. Meaning that it couldn’t hide its thoughts from him. Thus, even if it didn’t want to answer his questions, it would naturally do so when the associations associated with his question would activate.

“Seek. Power. To. Affect. Source. Realm. For. Victory.” It was revealed with an ominous tone. “Seek. Power. To. Defeat. Alien. Virus. Cannot. Defeat. Alien. Virus. If. Not. Have. Source. Realm. Power.”

It seemed to experience a bout of what could only be described as frustration, its light growing more intense and a little volatile as it unleashed an onslaught of devastating attacks meant to utterly ravage his body.

Nearly a dozen whips phased upon his body, threatening to wreck him in one fell swoop.

And yet, the Prophecy of the Void and the Light of Soul allowed him to predict each and every single one of them ahead of time.

WHOOSH

The slightest of shifts was all it took for him to redirect an attack with Outer Divergence, relying on the quantum gap between objects to redirect the attack, only to find several more converging on him from all directions.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

He began evading them despite the fact that they phased on his body, relying on timing that was just perfect to make sure that the attacks never so much as touched him. The blood-red suns in his eyes never once moved away from his opponent.

“Why do you need the information dimension to defeat the virus?” He asked with the flickering light in his eyes. “I defeated the virus consciousness in my world without it. You’re as powerful as I am, if not even more, you don’t really need to tap into the information dimension, do you?”

That was what he didn’t understand. The alien virus was not as much of a threat to warrant this powerful civilization to go to such extremes to try to defeat it.

And on that note, the alien virus truly didn’t seem powerful enough to be responsible for the Fear. Was it dangerous? Undoubtedly. It almost defeated him successfully, and he would have ‘lost’ for all practical purposes if not for the intervention of Gaia herself. However, was it truly terrifying to the point that even a Martial Transcendent would experience heart-wrenching fear?

Was it truly terrifying that it would justify the Fear he was experiencing even at that moment because he had Gigabrain active?

“No.”

It didn’t add up.

He hadn’t had time to process this realization since the alien invasion had started very shortly after he destroyed the virus, but truly, the alien virus that he fought was not powerful enough to justify the Fear that he felt.

What kind of entity he defeated could possibly terrify him to this extent?

VMMM

A pulse of bright light emerged from the laminar integument as it shone brightly for a moment.

It was the laminar integument equivalent of a scoff.

“You. Know. Nothing.”

Its thoughts were ominous.

Even as it couldn’t help but think those thoughts about him, it continuously bombarded him with an onslaught of phasing attacks. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

“You. Know. Nothing.” It repeated itself. “Threat. Not. Planet. Exploding. Planet. Exploding. Merely. Spread. Seeds.”

“What threat is there beyond the possibility of your home world being destroyed?” Rui asked with a hint of concern. “Your home world was destroyed. Ours came close, but I ultimately prevented that. Now, there’s an alien monster army coming to conduct the reseeding, but ultimately, all of that boils down to the alien making your planet explode, right? There is no other threat.”

“Wrong.”

Its response was unequivocal.

“Seeds. Do. More. Than. Exploding. Planets.”

The light that radiated from within its body grew what felt like it was more somber.

“Seeds. Affect. More. Than. Planets.”

His eyes widened with realization as he recalled everything that had changed in this solar system.

It wasn’t just Earth.

He didn’t recognize any of the planets.

And more chillingly, the sun was different too.

It had grown bigger, too.

He teleported away from the attacks of the laminar integument, directing his attention towards the Sun. It burned with a blinding brightness, radiating white light. It was the source of all life on Earth and Gaia. On the other side of the sun that faced Gaia, there were quasi dyson sphere, absorbing most of the light that the sun emitted.

It was a technological masterpiece; it proved that they had gone far beyond the limits of a type-one civilization and were much closer to fully being a type-two civilization. And yet, now the life-bringing light of their sun sent chills down his spine. “Is the sun… going to explode?” His words reverberated through the very fabric of space and time.

The question sent shivers across his skin.

If the alien could do to the sun what it had done to Gaia, then… they had no hope in this solar system. There was nothing that he or anybody else could hope to do about a star’s life being accelerated if that was the case.

“No.”

The laminar integument responded to his very Gaian words, having managed to decipher the native language to an extent. “Your. Star. Infected. But. Not. To. Explode. Only. Planets. Explode.”

He turned back around in the vacuum of outer space to the laminar integument that hovered weightlessly and gracefully as his eyes bore deep into the epicenter of its body.

“The virus does explode suns?” Rui asked with a hint of confusion. “Why not? Wouldn’t it be able to spread more seeds even farther if it got the sun to explode?”

“Star. Not. Explode.” The laminar integument explained. “Star. Is. Goal. Galaxy. Is. Goal.”

Rui’s eyes widened with shock at those words. “…what?”