The Martial Unity

For the first time in a long, long time, Divine Mother o-ooooo experienced agony. She was not primarily a combatant; she was a progenitor. The arakai were not mammals, and arakai eggs were single fertilized zygotes, which meant that even the birthing process was painless.

When was the last time she had trained? It had been thousands of years, so she didn’t even remember. Her power as an Administrator was so extraordinary that nobody aside from other Administrators dared to attack her, but the arakai were extremely good at hiding themselves, so the Divine Mothers had never faced an ambush in their own territories.

That was when Rui’s boot blasted into her head with the force of an exploding planet; she was utterly dazed by the agony. She didn’t have experience maintaining her focus through pain, causing her six eyes to tear up involuntarily, flashing about in dazed pain.

BOOOOOOOM….!!!

When she flew through the crust of her planet, then through the mantle, core, and all the way to the other side, her body, which was armed with Transcendent-grade esoterics, experienced pain all over. It was so debilitating that her Webverse was almost completely dispelled.

”No!” she gritted her teeth, using her Webverse to alter her mind web.

After all, integrated information was a Web, like most things. The brain and the mind of most lifeforms were fundamentally a dense web of neuron-like cells that used either electrical or light pulses to communicate. The Webverse was very much compatible with the mind, allowing her to tinker with her mind freely compared to even Rui, who had to be extremely careful when messing with his brain.

She shut off her pain, regaining her focus.

When she finally regained her consciousness, her six eyes widened with shock at what she saw. Planet Nest VII, the crown jewel of the Colton Nexus System and of her entire Fallen Rain Cell, was completely destroyed.

RUMBLE

Despite the vacuum of space, the scattered atmosphere and dust allowed her to hear the faint death of her planet. The world was shattered into hundreds of distinct pieces that floated away from each other at visible speeds despite their sheer size, which spoke to just how much force the Emperor of Water had attacked her with.

Every single lifeform, barring the ascended arakai, had died an instantaneous death. Her expression crumpled with horrifying grief. Her pincers clashed against each other violently; the arakai equivalent of a guttural scream.

”Getting distracted on a battlefield means death, you know?”

SPLAT

Her six arachnid eyes widened. She didn’t feel the pain because she had deactivated it, but she did feel the alien’s jab piercing through her back, emerging right out in front of her. She slowly turned down to gaze at his arm, covered in blue blood.

She hadn’t even sensed his ambush.

She slowly turned around towards the Emperor of Water, her six arachnid eyes finally revealing the terror she felt in the depths of her body.

His ethereal eyes were calm. This little conflict hadn’t even been enough to get his heart pumping. He couldn’t even be disappointed, because ooo—o- did tell him that this Divine Mother was weaker than the ones he had faced.

His battle with o-o-o-o was novel, because it was his first true Transcendent battle. His battle with -o- and —o-o— was intense because it was a two-on-one. But this one was weak, caught off-guard, and also… just not even remotely battle-prepared. He felt like he was looking at an ordinary middle-aged mother getting her hands on the power of Transcendence.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK…

”If. You. Kill. Me. You. Will. Earn. Your. Civilization. War!” She tried to fuel her rage to drown her fear.

Rui tilted his head at those words, with a hint of confusion.

”We are already at war.”

She glared at him, gritting her pincers as blood started trickling down her mouth. ”You. Will. Earn. Complete. And. Total. Annihilation!”

Rui scratched his head. Hadn’t they already earned that? Clearly, this Divine Mother didn’t have much experience negotiating for her life. He felt a bit awkward. She was so weak that he already had her life in his hands just thirty seconds after the battle had begun. He still had some time before the other Divine Mothers came to her rescue, if at all.

”Might as well try to scour her mind for intel while I have time,” he remarked, pressing her hand against the back of her head.

Her six arachnid eyes flared with genuine outrage this time. The fact that this human dared to ignore her threat and challenged her in the domain of the mind where she was strongest rankled her pride.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK!

”You. Have. Made. A. Grave. Mistake! I. Shall. Conquer. Your. Mind. And. Turn. You. Into. My. Slave!”

If he wasn’t going to kill her immediately, then she had an opportunity. She thought he was being profoundly arrogant by holding off on her death. At this close range, he was more than within her range for mental manipulation. Defiance flared on her face as she launched her full power at the integrated information of his consciousness, seeking to subvert it with her Webverse.

BANG

A crashing sound rang in her mind as her eyes widened with shock.

The sound was not physical.

It was metaphysical.

It was the sound of her consciousness crashing into the Armor of Flowing Wisdom. For the first time, she paid attention to the halo of fractal geometries of matter-energy that hovered around Rui’s body like an aura.

CLICK… CLICK CLICK CLICK?

”What… what is this?” she grew astonished.

In all her life, she had never heard of a barrier that could halt Verses. Yet, not only did it simply halt her; she could feel it actively defending her opponent’s mind.

’You are a fool if you think you can infringe upon my wielder’s mind.’

Her astonishment grew as she realized that the armor was conscious. ”What—”

Rui’s eyes widened at the information he found within her mind.

Secrets that he had never come across.

A non-frozen mind was much easier to peruse than a frozen one.

One of her memories was of special interest to Rui.

It was a memory of the galactic core of the Milky Way with a thought-label that caught his attention.

[Galactic Node of the Universal Web]

”Interesting.” he dove deeper without hesitation, his eyes lighting up with intrigue.