The Martial Unity

Even as the two Transcendent-grade entities picked a fight with each other, Garg couldn’t help but feel frustrated at the intense resistance it would have to overcome to reach its goal.

Garg had marked Gaia the very moment he had seen her through the wormhole that Rui had created. The planet had been looking for a suitable target to reproduce with, since there were, well, conditions. The reality was that it wasn’t possible to terraform just about any planet in the cosmos into a member of the gargantian species.

The reality was that extremely high-pressure gas giants or extremely hot or cold planets simply wouldn’t fly. A planet needed to be in or close to the Goldilocks zone for it to possibly become a subject for reproduction. When it saw Gaia, it grew deeply attracted by the prospects of creating a new gargantian through her.

It sensed she was already alive, thus it was more than Garg would try to morph her into one of their own species. What especially made Garg deeply attracted to Gaia was the sheer scale of her planetary body. She was a titanic planet that wasn’t comprised of just gas, the way that gas giant planets tended to be. He sensed that she had been infected by the alien virus and that she had somehow managed to overcome it, the same way their progenitor had.

The progenitor of the gargantian species had been blessed with a flawed virus seed, one that endowed it with esoteric matter, but perhaps because the seed was damaged, it never gave rise to the alien virus. Instead, it gave the planet full control over its esoteric power. Garg sensed that Gaia was another of that kind. A world that the alien virus had infected, but one that had managed to break free from its grip. It was truly worth reproducing with such a fine specimen.

Unfortunately for it, it had underestimated the hurdles that it would have to overcome in order for this plan to succeed. The first one was, of course, the very extraordinary existence it sensed the very moment it teleported to the solar system. An organic creature so small that Garg could barely perceive it. But it could sense the tremendous power that the biological organism possessed. The power that it possessed over reality was immense, making the very fabric of reality feel like the surface of water. The very moment Garg had arrived at the solar system, it knew that it wasn’t going to be very easy to reproduce with Gaia with all of these impediments in place.

Still, it was determined to succeed nonetheless, even if it came at the cost of its life. The reason for that was simply because planets like Gaia were extremely rare to come by and were extremely great assets for the gargantian hive if they could be terramorphed. It was a mission worth sacrificing one’s life for.

And yet, rather than facing the minuscule but extraordinary existence that held open a wormhole and even negated the gravity field that Garg had generated, it found itself face to face with a titanic organic lifeform that was even greater than it in volume.

It knew it had no choice but to overcome it if it wanted to achieve its goal.

RUMBLE!!!!!

Jormungandr and Garg charged at it with each other violently. The serpent lashed out at the smoldering planet in an uncoiling strike that was typical for vipers, while the molten planet charged towards Jormungandr like a flaming cannonball.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The sheer destruction that their collision unleashed created a rocking gravitational wave, one that would have wiped out much of the solar system with the extraordinary power they mobilized.

If not for Rui’s intervention, of course.

His ethereal eyes sharpened as he stuck his other hand out, deploying all of the materia prima at his disposal to warp the very fabric of space and time to calm down the very fabric of reality.

The Martialverse amplified the power of the technique, allowing him to calm space-time like he was pacifying rocking ocean waves. He protected Gaia and the civilizations aboard her from the destruction that the two titans unleashed in their battle with one another. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Jormungandr and the Garg began blasting at each other with tremendous impacts as the two lifeforms tested each other’s durability. The sheer force with which they collided into each other would have crushed entire planets flat. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Jormungandr lashed out at the gigantic planet, its mouth opening to reveal two fangs that dug into the planet, injecting a truly malevolent poison deep into the planet.

Rui’s ethereal eyes lit up with a hint of intrigue as he studied the poison formula with his Transcendent gaze. “Powerful. It’s second only to my Samsara Tide.”

However, unlike Rui’s poison, the poison that Jormungandr used was designed for a very specific kind of biology, an organic biology that possessed a nervous system and other carbon-based metabolism.

Garg had no such thing.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The planet shook as it shone brightly with energy, unleashing an omnidirectional laser beam that incinerated the inside of the world serpent’s mouth. Jormungandr recoiled as a glint of pain flashed through its serpentine eyes. The creature hadn’t experienced the sensation of pain in a truly long, long time, making it unused to the tormenting sensation. The inner lining of tissue within its mouth had withstood enough light energy to vaporize planets, causing even its tremendously tough tissue damage.

Garg, on the other hand, wobbled through space as it began expelling the poison that the serpent had injected into it. Rui grew surprised that the conscious planet appeared to be affected by it. Did it have organic tissue deeper within its body? Or was the serpent’s poison more powerful and general than he had expected? Rui’s Samsara Tide was able to affect all life equally. It was able to affect all complexity equally. Even though he was curious about Jormungandr’s poison, he was much more interested in Garg at the moment, since the creature’s reproduction was the key to his ambition of interstellar conquest.

His ethereal eyes bore into the information dimension, particularly the information describing the mighty planet. “Let’s see… I’m curious to see what the secrets of your body are.”

The battle raged on as he spectated from afar.