The Martial Unity

”Civilization. Undergoing. Lots. Of. Changes.”

In the depths of outer space, a jellyfish-like alien hovered in the vacuum of space, gently and gracefully. A network of light flashed within the depths of its body, reflecting the active state of its consciousness.

Rui smiled as he hovered some distance before the Tendril of Light. They were alone this time, without any bodyguards or convoys accompanying. They had built a little bit of a rapport with each other over the past month. And the exchange of information that the two sides had conducted with each other had helped deepen their relationship.

Rui had shared in-depth information on the seven pureblood races of human civilization and their traits, with the consensus of the Gaian Alliance, of course, in exchange for the priceless intelligence that the laminar integument had shared about the Milky Way.

The only regrettable part about the intel shared by the Tendril of Light was that it didn’t have information on the alien civilizations that belonged to the Orion Star Strand, for the Orion Star Strand was detached from other star strands and was its own little star strand floating about in the middle of two other star strands.

They would have to explore their own star strand by themselves for that.

However, that didn’t mean that his engagement with the Laminar Civilization was complete. ”You’ve been paying attention to the changes in our civilization?” ”Always. Studying. Civilization. From. Afar,” the Tendril of Light replied honestly. ”Gathering. Research. Data. Impressed. By. Interstellar. Missions.”

”Yeah, we’ve run into a few hiccups here and there, but nothing too severe. Most of the missions have been extremely successful,” Rui remarked. ”The missions that we did run into some speedbumps in have received emergency reinforcements, so they’re holding on fine for now.”

The Tendril of Light glowed a little brighter as it broached a topic that it found to be of great interest to it. ”Source. Realm. Accessed. Information. Altered. Once. More.”

The air, or vacuum, rather, grew more serious.

”Well, I had to,” Rui remarked with a calm tone. ”I couldn’t allow my people to just die in a distant star system so far from home when I had the power to help them.”

”But. Still. Here. Still. Exist. Not. Disappeared.”

Rui directed a pointed gaze at the Tendril of Light at that question. ”Well, yes. I told you before, I have my ways.”

Ever since he wiped out the nebulars over a month ago and somehow still managed to remain in reality, the Tendril of Light had obsessed over this contradiction. The fact that the Tendril of Light knew that accessing the information dimension and altering its contents was cause for disappearance from reality was proof that it had run into many information dimension wielders for this reality to become established truth.

That made him very wary. Just how many beings were there in the galaxy who could manipulate the information dimension?

How could such beings exist if paths were clearly a phenomenon unique to Gaia?

He suspected that there must have been other beings in the galaxy who had obtained the power to alter the contents of the information dimension. However, given that not even the Laminar Integuments had figured out how to achieve this power, it was likely not a technological feat.

Perhaps it was one that was unique to certain species. For instance, the fundamental condition of the information dimension was phenomenological uniformity.

In human beings, that meant that their mind and subconscious mind needed to be united, the Martial Soul. And on top of that, their experience of the world needed to be uniform.

It was possible, theoretically speaking, for such a being to exist without paths. For instance, there was probably one in a trillion human beings who were born with a unification of mind and subconscious mind, simply because of some neurological defect, or boon in this case. Similarly, there were probably one in a trillion people born with such a severe mental illness that their phenomenology was uniform.

What if one person possessed both these traits?

Theoretically, they would be born with the power of Transcendence.

Of course, this was very unlikely, and only one in a trillion trillion human beings, that is, one in octillion human beings, would come to possess the power of Transcendence naturally. However, if there was a species with different kinds of consciousness where the probabilities for such a thing were not as astronomically low, and if said species conquered thousands of stars to make their population much larger, then… it was not impossible for such a being to be born.

A Transcendent at birth.

Perhaps it would even be possible to induce such a state, although it was still very unlikely and would require tremendous sacrifices.

Regardless, he was the first person that the laminars had run into who could continue to exist despite having altered the contents of the information dimension. And that clearly violated what they considered to be a very fundamental law of reality.

”I can’t reveal my method,” Rui remarked with a calm tone of voice. ”I’m afraid I will have to leave you wondering.”

This clearly frustrated the laminar integument. It had run into so many anomalies in this one backwater solar system surrounded by a worthless red dwarf that it beggared the imagination.

Paths, as far as the laminar integument was concerned, were a miracle. For a species to possess an information-phenomenon path that allowed them to pursue a steady path to the information dimension, gaining great individual battle prowess, so much so that they could challenge warships by themselves.

The fact that Rui was unwilling to reveal the method by which he remained despite altering the information dimension was proof that he understood the value of it, as far as the laminar integument was concerned.

The reality was that there were forces that, if they understood what he had done, they would invade Gaia right that very moment. ”Final. Word. Of. Advice,” the laminar integument offered. ”Do. Not. Abuse. Source. Realm. Power. More. Abuse. More. Detectable. Draws. More. Attention. Across. Galaxy. Across. Universe.”

Rui’s expression grew serious. ”I… will keep that in mind. I hope that I won’t have to use it in our upcoming operation.”

Those words caught the interest of the Tendril of Light.

”Operation?”