The Martial Unity

The tug of war was dead still.

Neither side was able to make a permanent dent. While the Tide of Samsara had done an extraordinarily good job of adaptively evolving to the changing circumstances, the extraordinary factors in favor of the virus were just as powerful.

The Tide of Samsara continuously adaptively evolved using the natural selection technique. It had cells divide with minor genetic variations from generation to generation, allowing countless potential solution improvements to be tried before adopting the most successful solutions across the entire board and continuing the process.

It meant that the Tide of Samsara wasn’t merely adaptively evolving at the strategic level; it was also improving at the micro and technical level thanks to this.

However, while under ordinary circumstances, the continuous and ever-growing adaptive evolution would have brought it closer to victory at a faster rate, this time, it only allowed it to maintain parity. The heightened intelligence and the interference into reality from the information dimension were so powerful that even the most powerful non-metaphysical solutions could only do so much.

However, it also showed that the Tide of Samsara’s adaptive evolution was so extraordinary that it could rival a power that could defy the laws of reality itself.

Regardless, it didn’t change the situation for Ria.

’I need to get out of here soon.’

Not only because her friends needed help, but also because she had no idea how much time had passed out in the real world. She was certain that she hadn’t wasted too much time in case time flowed a hundred and forty-four times faster than it did in the outside world.

At the rate this battle was going, she knew that it would take time. Too much time. More time than she and her friends could afford to wait. She needed to take her friends back home to Gaia Prime to her father immediately.

She considered releasing the manifold even though the virus was not yet defeated, but she ultimately decided against that. With the manifold open, there was a much greater chance that the virus could get an SOS out first. It was why they had developed the protocols to ensure that the virus was exterminated before they thought of any other action, all in order to minimize the risk of the virus being able to communicate with its other branches.

Something needed to change.

A variable that could shift the balance between the virus and the Tide of Samsara in favor of the latter. Something that was on its side and something that was powerful enough to make a difference.

There was only one thing, or person rather, in the manifold that was capable of that.

”Stay here,” she whispered to her friends. ”I’ll be right back.”

She breathed heavily, manipulating her breathing currents to create a protective domain of heaven around them. Then, she unzipped the exit of the cavity before stepping out and immediately shutting it again.

The sheer amount of environmental turbulence that struck her was unlike anything she had ever felt before.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as if it was the end. Land cracked and fissured while winds became whips that could cleave through rock and reduce it to smithereens. The extraordinary amount of information and energy flux that flowed through heaven and earth was so intense that even she needed to exert herself in order to maintain her balance.

But her focus was downwards into the depths of the planet where the two mighty forces fought. The Antithesis cells of the Tide of Samsara and the macrobe deep biosphere. They were in a fierce deadlock that spanned the entire manifold, perhaps even more.

She could sense all of it.

Not only could she sense all of it, but she could also see it.

She could see the cascade of dominoes that lined up together. Dominoes that started at her and ended at the countless macrobes of the deep biosphere. Her Martial Mind, Soul, and even her Martial Body revved with power as her Martial Embodiment consumed the entire battlefield.

No, it consumed the entire manifold.

RUMBLE!!!!!

Ria’s amber eyes blazed with unfathomable power as the extraordinary power she wielded became a singularity of a presence in and of herself. She raised her hand high up, balling it into a fist, before swinging it down with an extraordinary amount of force. A flood of materia prima gushed through her entire body.

She inflicted a truly calamitous amount of force upon the ground.

Yet, an attack that looked like it would have merely created a meaningless eruption of destruction didn’t lead to the catastrophic boom that one would have expected. Instead, all the power from her fists was cleanly transmitted downwards through channels of seismic conductivity.

She had inadvertently made use of the principles of the Scriptures of Terra that described the cleanest and the most efficient flow of mechanical power through land. She didn’t need a scripture to tell her how to move.

Her mind processed the information around her, allowing her to see not just the mechanical weaknesses, but also how to make use of them too. She wasn’t merely throwing her fists down for no reason, however.

She deployed her power to help with targeting and destroying deep biosphere macrobe enclaves, making it easier for the Tide of Samsara to make progress.

It was one step at a time with Ria’s attacks supplementing the damage sustained by the Deep Biosphere.

Each of her attacks struck with a truly extraordinary amount of power. The amount of materia prima she was able to generate vastly exceeded that of any other Martial Sage immediately upon breakthrough. She allowed those dominoes to fall smoothly, allowing the power that she generated to flow through the channels of seismic conduction across the world, using vibrations to permeate the impact to profound depths.

All in order to target the macrobe deep biosphere.

She tipped the precarious balance that hung in the air.

She tipped it in her favor.

That one variable was enough.

It was enough for the Tide of Samsara to seize and pounce.

RUMBLE!!!!!