The Martial Unity

Chapter 2903: The Power of Death

Even as Sages came and went, Rui lasted for a long time, displaying a stamina that gave even the Sloth Sage, a Martial Sage specialized for stamina. The Blood of Solaris displayed an especially strong effect after he broke through to the Sage Realm, allowing him to absorb light energy from an unparalleled scale and scope.

Without Gigabrain, or resurrection, or Genesis, or any of the extraordinarily tiring Sage-level techniques that he had used upon breakthrough, he could last a long, long time as a Martial Sage.

And yet, it wasnʼt his stamina that shocked people the most.

No.

It was his eerie, chilling ability to kill.

The deathly tint in his body surged with intensity as Rui drew on the Gu poison that he had absorbed and integrated into his body. The same Gu poison that had instantly killed twenty-one Martial Sages and other Sage-level monsters in the Gu.

”SSS!!!”

Before him in the distance lurked a massive serpent enveloped with flames, its reptilian eyes dilating as it lunged forward with tremendous momentum and speed. RUMBLE!!!

The world shook under the sheer momentum of the devastating attack.

And yet, Ruiʼs entranced eyes remained fixed on the creature as he leaped forward headfirst into the collision.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

A thundering collision ravaging the entire ash continent emerged as the Sage-level forces clashed with each other. The inferno serpent handily overpowered Ruiʼs momentum with the sheer mass of its body and the sheer leverage it had with half a body still buried within the ashes.

In one gulp, it consumed him with its massive jaws, swallowing him.

One moment, he was there.

The very next, he was gone.

”RUI!” Kane gritted his teeth as he surged forth, unleashing a flurry of attacks at the serpent. ”Spit him out now!”

The other Martial Sages grew alarmed at what had happened, instantly abandoning their battles as they surged toward the serpent that had consumed the Dawnbringer, eager to kill it before it killed him.

And yet, they were too slow.

They froze as a chilling aura of death emerged from within the serpent.

One that made their skin crawl.

As though the very concept of death had descended upon the material world.

Their expressions grew grim as they watched the serpent freeze before writhing violently, shaking the very world around it in its death throes.

RUMBLE!!!

”SSS!!!”

The ash continent quaked as the serpent began changing One by one, the scales across its body began shutting down in their temperature and heat, growing pitch black. A chilling darkness swallowed up the entirety of its body, covering it whole as the spark of life within the creatureʼs body was soon snuffed. Black blood began emerging from the creature as the creature began bleeding from across its entire body.

And just like that, the creature was dead.

Its gargantuan mountainous body sprawled across the continent of ash like a mountain range.

The Martial Sages and even the other Inferno Serpents remained frozen where they stood, gazing at the horrifying death of the creature with fear in their eyes.

For a moment, nothing happened.

SPLAT!!

A hand emerged from the body of the creature as Rui pulled himself from the depths of the creatureʼs corpse. A wave of darkness emerged from the corpse of the serpent, returning to Ruiʼs body.

The deathly tint returned to his skin, growing stronger than it was before.

STEP

Rui staggered unsteadily atop the Inferno Serpent, drowned in its black blood, as he felt relief suffusing through his body at the return of the poison that was the very embodiment of death. One that had now become a part of his life.

He heaved a deep breath, feeling more alive as he gazed at his hands with narrowed eyes. He was starting to understand more about the very nature of this poison and the fundamental truth about how it worked. After he survived the gu by integrating it into his biochemistry, he could no longer survive without it. He heaved a deep breath, feeling more alive as he gazed at his hands with narrowed eyes. He was starting to understand more about the very nature of this poison and the fundamental truth about how it worked. The more he used it, the stronger it grew.

It was so potent that even the little ounce of the poison that he had inherited from the Demon of Asmodeous was enough to kill a massive quasi-Transcendent beast and monster.

Unfortunately, Rui didnʼt know how to control the poison the way that the Demon of Asmodeous did. Aside from being eaten alive, he wasnʼt sure how to inflict this poison to attack his opponents.

Poison was its own field of Martial Art that required just as much training as any other. And it was a field that Rui had never had any luck or experience with, leaving him entirely in the dark on how to deploy it.

”Just another thing to work on in this long mission.

His gaze shifted to the silent battlefield, with both the serpents and the Martial Sages gazing at him with strange eyes.

”Iʼm finally out of gas,” Rui remarked, having broken from the trance. ”I will be heading back to recuperate.”

He left the silent ash continent, deep in thought, as he considered how his first battle with the inferno serpents went.

”This will definitely take time.”

The rate at which they killed the inferno serpents, relative to their populations, was extremely slow. The constraints of stamina, protecting their hideout, the disadvantage of environment and their population meant that they had a tremendous resilience even when facing the Martial Sages of the Kandrian Empire.

Exterminating all the serpents was something that would take a substantial out of time when one accounted for their ability to reproduce.

”Thatʼs fine by me.”

He needed time to train his puny, nascent predictive power into a powerful prophetic power. He also needed time to understand how to deploy the gu poison at his disposal. While poison was not his specialty or focus, death was a part of Adaptive Evolution, and being able to inflict it on his opponent was important in many battles where there was no other choice.

Rui had no idea how long the beast extermination mission in the Central Highlands would take, but he hoped that it would take longer than he needed to master what he needed to.

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