The Martial Unity

Hemokinesis as a field had evolved tremendously in the past thirteen years. Gone were the days when the best hemosapien pathwalkers could manipulate blood to create a few blood spurts here and there. Instead, the cutting edge of the field had learned to manipulate one’s blood in ways that were beyond simple projectile infliction.

Rather than simply flinging her blood at her enemies like a tsunami, Arastia changed the very state of her blood from liquid to gaseous, allowing her to rapidly disperse the blood with a tremendous amount of force. The internal energy of the gaseous flood created a powerful form of thrust that, with just a little bit of manipulation, allowed her to fling the expanding gas in the direction of the incoming army.

But that wasn’t the main attack.

The main attack was the detonation of each and every blood cell that she had generated as the powerful cloud of gaseous blood struck the homoarachnoid army.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The tremendous explosion covered a large section of the planet, threatening to ravage the surface of the world, melting it into molten lava. The sheer power of the attack underscored the potential for destructive power that the hemosapiens had that vastly outstripped their Martial Artist equivalents. Because Martial Artists had a fixed amount of biomatter that could not be increased or replenished and wasn’t bolstered by external sources of power like most other paths of creation, there was a very concrete upper ceiling of power that they couldn’t cross, which made it difficult for them to generate truly vast amounts of destruction, even if they could ravage entire nations with just a single attack.

In comparison, people like Arastia possessed enough power to destroy everything on a planet if they truly wanted to. RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook violently as the sheer power that Arastia unleashed against her enemies was proof of everything that had been promised with the miracles that were hemosapiens. They were a cosmic fluke. Just one out of countless Martial Squires in the Panama Continent that possessed genetic and reproductive compatibility with homo martialus and thus could spawn an entirely new race of superhuman descendants of human civilization.

They were powerhouses in every sense of the word.

RUMBLE!!!!!

Planet Amadeus III refused to stop shaking as the detonations of each and every single blood cell erupted upon the homoarachnoid army that charged towards the settlement of pathwalkers of the Blood Humanist Society. The heavens and the earth below their very feet were so violently shaken that the vibrations could be seen from outer space, where space ships and space crafts began to move away from the planet in fear of the tremendous power that she had unleashed.

And yet, Arastia was unapologetic. Her blood-red eyes sharpened as she ensured that the reactions and the detonations continued without even the slightest hint of holding back. After learning that they were dealing with a potentially highly advanced civilization, she didn’t dare to hold back against them, lest they found themselves dealing with a force that exceeded what they would be able to handle otherwise. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

It should have been the end for the homoarachnoid army, as far as she was concerned. Even if there was an individual among them who was capable of taking her on, with the entire army exterminated, it should have stood no chance against the pathwalkers of the Blood Humanist Society. And yet, once the explosion ended and the world began to calm down, her eyes widened with shock. The dust cleared to reveal an unharmed homoarachnoid army that was entirely intact.

Not a single homoarachnoid had suffered so much as a wound on their body. Not a single one of them had suffered as much as even a bruise. They stood in perfect rank with each other in a highly organized manner that contrasted sharply with the way in which they had been when the human explorers first arrived at Planet Amadeus III.

They were protected.

They were protected by a web that transcended mere material bonds. A strange web-like shield had formed seemingly midair, not connected to any physical structure that supported it by any means, but rather seemed to be abstractly structured, making it very difficult to try and pin exactly where the webs began and where it end.

And yet, it wasn’t just the webs.

It was as though there was an invisible structure of... something more than just energy. A structure that not only redirected Arastia’s attacks, but also seemed to redirect the light of the world around them as it traveled across the surface of the planet.

Arastia, a blood sage, quickly understood what it was, with the extraordinary senses that allowed her not only to inspect matter at its very root, but also to trace the fabric of reality itself. That was why she knew with a single glance what she was looking at.

It was a web that altered the very geometry of space and time.

Arastia could scarcely believe what she was looking at. The creature at the very front of all the homoarachnoids had woven a web that... clung to the very fabric of space and time. It was made up of a very powerful esoteric substance whose adhesion was not with material substances, but rather with the space-time continuum itself.

Immediately, she understood she was dealing with an extremely formidable opponent. The creature that protected the homoarachnoid army smiled chillingly in a manner that was eerily human and also alien at the same time. As if the gesture was associated with different emotions than it was within people of her civilization.

Arastia’s expression tightened as she realized her worst fears were manifesting. She had assumed that her presence in the convoy would prevent the worst from unfolding. There had been a number of infected worlds in the past that were extremely dangerous, with creatures with a power level that vastly exceeded what ordinary pathwalkers could deal with. Oftentimes, she and other peak pathwalkers from different paths would be called to take on these threats.