The Martial Unity

To say that the Divine Mother was stunned at the loss of her web stinger was an understatement. She was utterly bewildered at the fact that her web stinger simply disappeared out of nowhere. The most shocking part was that she couldn’t find it when she searched the information dimension.

The Web Stinger seemed to be magically disconnected at the joint on her lower back. What was surprising, however, was that the stump on her lower back didn’t bleed, even if flesh and blood were visible.

Not only that, but she didn’t feel pain. Her body didn’t even notice it was missing. She could feel her Web Stinger through her nerves that were still connected somehow, but she didn’t know where it was.

”Where. Did. My. Stinger. Go?!” she roared with confusion and anger. ”Give. Me. Back. My. Stinger!”

Yet, when she directed her attention back to the Emperor of Water, he didn’t seem to be receptive. He hovered midair, his eyes closed. He seemed to be profoundly immersed and engrossed in something. At the same time, his Martialverse shifted, as did his mind.

Despite being able to sense and even influence both through their enhanced Webverses, they couldn’t understand what was happening.

”Capture. Him. Quick!” Divine Mother o—o roared from a distance, launching explosive web shots at him. Her muscular web stinger pointed at him before squeezing out spherical blobs of web that shot at him at almost the speed of light.

The ordnance comprised a compressed web net that was designed to explode the moment it touched its target. The adhesion was extremely potent and would be amplified by her Webverse, making sure that any target that was touched by it would get trapped within it.

Yet, when the compressed web net shot reached Rui.

BZZZT

His existence glitched once more.

The attack disappeared, just as —ooo—’s web stinger had a moment prior. The two Divine Mothers were utterly shocked at what was happening. They had never ever seen anything quite like this in their entire, long life.

They half-suspected that the Emperor had managed to hypnotize them. Based on the intelligence that their espionage campaign had gathered, they knew that the Emperor of Harmony possessed profound mastery in the domain of mind manipulation through neuro-psychological exploits.

They had dismissed this threat because their analysis revealed that this was primarily effective against lifeforms within the Gaian Tree of Life. For lifeforms outside of it, it would not work. It was why neither side was concerned about cyber warfare for the moment. Their computation technologies, the underlying hardware and its principles, were entirely different.

Yet, with the mind-boggling miracles that they were seeing right now, they couldn’t help but wonder if the Emperor of Water had managed to figure out how to hypnotize them.

”Your. Minds. Are. Not. Affected!” O-ooooo roared from behind with gritted teeth. She was straining herself to the limit, amplifying the Webverses of her two sisters. Her consciousness was essentially controlling the integrated information of their minds, so she was quite certain that the Emperor had not done anything to affect their perspective on reality.

That meant that everything they were seeing was real.

Magically, —ooo—’s web stinger disappeared.

Mysteriously, o—o’s web shot disappeared.

And for some reason, their opponent was having a hard time staying anchored in reality.

BZZZT

His existence flickered.

His body was loose and relaxed, hovering weightlessly in outer space. His eyes remained closed. His expression was immersed.

BZZZT

He flickered once more.

What was bizarre about this strange flickering was that it was not the price of the Transcendent Realm. They were extremely familiar with the fading that came from the price of the Verse. It was a smooth disconnection between the information of their existence and the quantum fields that gave rise to the matter and energy in their body.

This, however, was different.

It was a rapid-fire back-and-forth between existence and what seemed like non-existence.

Like he was trying to leave the material universe and go somewhere higher, but what having a hard time with it.

”STOP. WASTING. TIME!” O-ooooo roared from behind. ”I’M. REACHING. MY. LIMITS!”

Unlike the two Divine Mothers, o-ooooo was extremely strained. Amplifying the Webverses of two Divine Mothers at the same time was a taxing job, and her metaphysical stamina was being drained by the second.

Not to mention, she had already expended a lot of energy when the Emperor had ambushed her. She had minutes left, at most. After that, she would disappear for centuries. She desperately wanted to get her hands on the information on overcoming the price of the Verse.

The two Divine Mothers sharpened their eyes with extreme determination. They didn’t know what was happening, but they did know that if they couldn’t make use of this opportunity, then they would cease to exist for a long time.

”Get. Him!” o—o roared. ”I. Don’t. Know. What. He’s. Doing! But. He’s. Extremely. Vulnerable!”

She wasn’t wrong. She didn’t know what was happening, but his body was still extremely wounded. They were never going to get a better opportunity than this. The two Divine Mothers rushed into action.

—ooo— charged at him with gritted teeth, balling her hands into fists. Fighting without a Web Stinger was awkward for an arakai, but she made do with her fists. O—o blasted him with numerous attacks from a kilometer away to his side, hoping to have at least one attack land so that they could incapacitate him.

That was when he opened his eyes.

Within their depths was an unfathomable intensity.

A single remark escaped him as the two Divine Mothers attacked him.

”I’m starting to figure this out.”

Those words rang true when all of the attacks they threw at him disappeared just as the ones before them did. He raised his hand to his right side in a stopping gesture, causing the web shots that o—o had launched to disappear.

His other palm faced —ooo—. The moment her fist touched it, her entire arm disappeared.

Pure horror emerged in —ooo—’s mind as her six eyes widened with shock. ”WHAT?!”

”You’ve beaten me up quite severely; allow me to settle that debt.” He spoke in a voice that glitched with his body, as his hand balled into a fist, shooting out towards her head.

She recoiled, avoiding the attack, rushing away.

And yet, as if it tunneled through reality itself, his hand found its way to her head nonetheless.

PAT

WHOOSH

Her entire head disappeared this time.