The Martial Unity

While Ceeran had been having a tough time, Sage Zentra had clearly been favored much better in this new age.

”The introduction of the Corporeal Realm has introduced entirely new possibilities for me,” the Martial Sage replied. ”Although I had been considering beginning my long ascent towards the so-called phenomenological uniformity, I ultimately decided to go for the Corporeal Realm first.”

It made sense that the man had taken to the Corporeal Realm quite well. After all, his Martial Art resonated with it quite well. He specialized in biological change more broadly. He could change his physiology and anatomy to a level that rivaled Rui, and he could do it extremely well.

The Corporeal Realm was the perfect fit for his Martial Art. Rui could scarcely imagine just how powerful his Martial Art would become once he mastered the Corporeal Realm. Once he grew more exposed to the information dimension, becoming a Martial Transcendent would be a little easier, albeit not by too much.

”It’s time.” Ru’s voice interrupted their conversation as they made their way to the teleportation portal, entering it, before promptly being teleported straight to the Gaian Space Station.

The perks of being Emperor were that he could skip queues and lines and get straight to his destination.

WHOOSH

Their environment changed as they found themselves in a boarding compartment at the very edge of the planetary space station. The windows in the compartment revealed a grand spaceship waiting immediately outside.

It was the Golden Chariot. A spaceship meant to serve the Emperor and the Emperor alone, for his interstellar travels, although it was seldom used since Rui didn’t like drawing attention.

”Your Majesty,” the captain and the vice-captain of the ship knelt before him as they entered the ship. ”It’s an honor to crew a ship that carries Your Grace.”

”I look forward,” Rui simply replied, earning an even more zealous response from the captain.

It was moments like that that reminded him that, for many people in his civilization, meeting him was considered the zenith of what was possible to be achieved in their fields. The captain who had been selected for the Golden Chariot was the best of the best, having been selected after a long and exhaustive screening process with many different, highly competent rivals, each determined to get the honor of commanding the ship that carried the greatest human in their civilization.

Just that one meeting was the crystallization of everything the captain had worked for his entire professional career. Rui took a few minutes to interact with him in a more personal manner before he finally went away.

”Alright, let’s get going already,” he heaved a tired sigh. This was why he liked doing things by himself. There was too much of a fuss when he tried doing things the official way.

The Greater World Bridge Gate rapidly activated as the Golden Chariot made its way to it. A massive amount of negatron matter was pumped into place while space and time themselves began warping as a tunnel rapidly formed.

Although the Greater World Bridge Gate was nowhere near as impressive as the Gate of Conquest that the arakai used, it was still a highly impressive construct that had a massive amount of resources directed towards it. It was nominally being used for war at the moment, but the armadas on standby moved away to allow the Golden Chariot to pass through and enter the wormhole.

Rui knew, of course, that this was an extremely eye-catching event. He had no doubt that there was live coverage from multiple news channels, and that the entirety of the Space Force was curious as to where the Emperor was going at this point in time.

This was another reason he liked doing things discreetly.

WHOOSH

The Golden Chariot passed through, eventually emerging on the other side.

The destination was a star system that all parties had agreed upon ahead of time; a star system that the humans called Carmaester III. It hadn’t been easy finding a location where they could meet, since the arakai occupied most of the stars between the dessandrites and the humans, but they had managed to pick a highly remote star system at the very edge of the Orion Star Strand.

WHOOSH

They entered the star system, and immediately the world around them had changed.

The star system had three white dwarf stars orbiting each other at the center. The environment of the star system was radically different from that of the Solar System, filled with an abnormal amount of dust and gas, as well as a continuous field of debris. It was the by-product of an ancient supernova, undoubtedly.

”Your Majesty,” the captain’s voice reached Rui in the compartment that he rested in. ”We have detected a small fleet of spaceships of alien origin gathered between the three white dwarf stars, consistent with the details of the meeting. The threat level of the fleet itself appears to be low to moderate. We have not detected any battleships or heavyweight warships. But we cannot attest to the contents of the fleet.

In other words, it was entirely possible for the ships to be carrying a dozen administrators ready to ambush them the moment they arrived.

”Continue,” Rui said with confidence.

He had already used Eye of Prophecy to foresee any traps, and his Primordial Instinct didn’t warn him of any danger. Of course, his recent realizations about how skewed his vision could be meant that it was entirely possible he was being deceived or just failing to sense the threat, but some margin of error would always be present.

They made their way to the destination for the meeting, a rather intense field of space being bombarded with radiation from three white dwarfs.

Yet, even for the humans, such an environment could be handled with the right technology. Taming stellar environments was a prerequisite to crossing Type-II on the civilization scale.

WHOOSH

They waded through a sea of dust and gas, eventually joining their fellow conference members at the epicenter of a triple-star system.