The Martial Unity

Chapter 3140: Love

The darkness of the night sky above the mountain outside the Town of Hajin didn’t help either.

It almost encouraged negativity.

Kane heaved a sigh after several seconds.

”To be honest, I can understand not loving a brand-new identity merged with an old identity that you did love,” Kane remarked. ”But, I’m surprised...”

He turned towards Rui with a raised eyebrow.

”Because the solution to this is easy.”

Rui frowned as he turned towards Kane with squinted eyes of confusion.

”What?”

Kane smirked mischievously as his eyes lit up with amusement. ”This might be the first time I thought of something that you didn’t.”

Rui glared at him. ”What the hell are you talking about?”

Kane grinned. ”Now I almost don’t want to tell you. It’s not often that I’m the one with the solution and not you.”

The pitch-black darkness in Rui’s eyes stirred perilously as they bore deep into Kane’s eyes.

”Kidding!” he leaned away, raising his hands. ”Sheesh, you don’t have to direct that Lord Virodhabhasa glare at me. But coming back to the point...”

He gazed at Rui meaningfully.

”If you don’t love Esil, then why don’t you fall in love with her as well?”

Rui shook where he sat at those words, his expression crumbled with shock. ”What...???”

”Think about it, man,” Kane tapped the side of his head. ”If you don’t love Esil, and that’s completely understandable, then why don’t you just adaptively evolve who you are to love her?”

Rui stared at Kane speechlessly.

”I’m serious,” Kane said, even as he grinned mirthfully. ”Project Water is about adaptively evolving to any force that opposes you, right? In that case...”

He shrugged exaggeratedly. ”Then you will need to adaptively evolve to Amare’s changes, otherwise I hereby declare that you will never fulfill Project Water.”

Rui glared at Kane. ”You asshole...”

Kane grinned mischievously.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

By bringing Project Water, he was forcing Rui to take it seriously, since Rui was extremely driven and serious about Project Water, he couldn’t dismiss those words as a joke.

Rui shook his head, heaving a sigh. ”That’s not what Adaptive Evolution means—”

”Isn’t it?” Kane interjected before he could even finish his sentence. ”In fact, compared to the things that you have done, it doesn’t even seem that hard. Think about it...”

He raised a finger. ”You adaptively evolved your entire life history with Soul Retcon to alter your mastery. That seems even more extreme. Not to mention...”

He raised another finger. ”You once adaptively evolved what you were sexually attracted to against that Maneater Martial Senior who assassinated male Martial Artists by seducing them, right?”

Rui found himself unable to even respond to other words.

Kane heaved a sigh.

”Rui.”

His tone was uncharacteristically serious.

”I have known you since we were thirteen.”

He gazed at Rui with a heavy gaze.

”I have seen your journey from the very start and I know you better than anybody else in this whole wide world does. That’s why I know...”

He shook his head.

”There is nothing you can’t adaptively evolve to,” Kane remarked. ”And why wouldn’t you want to if you can? Isn’t that the whole point of your voyage to fulfill Project Water?”

He turned to Rui with a knowing expression.

”When you adaptively evolve, you change to achieve a desired outcome, right? Well, that’s what falling in love is, isn’t it? It’s a change. Change in how people feel about each other. A type of change we experience to fulfill our soul’s desire. It’s a change that is adaptive to the other person. It’s a change that evolves over time. And so, in a way...”

He shrugged.

”Love is Adaptive Evolution, isn’t it?”

Rui’s eyes widened with shock at those words.

”Love...” A whisper escaped him. ”...is adaptive evolution?”

He closed his eyes.

RUMBLE

The world shook.

It shook unsteadily.

It shook as Rui’s Realms of power shuddered.

They shuddered as his Martial Path opened up.

It opened up.

One moment, he was sitting on a rock beside Kane, brooding in the darkness of the night sky.

The very next moment, he found himself standing on a path.

One he had traversed across lifetimes.

A path he was driven down by the very causality of who he was.

A path he had traversed a great majority of.

A path that whispered to him.

It called out to him.

It called out to him to walk it to the very end.

And yet, it was a perilous path.

RUMBLE!!!!!

It was surrounded by all manner of catastrophes and calamities.

It wound about through the perils of the Panama Continent and through the mysteries of the true world.

Through the universe.

And beyond.

Countless beasts and monsters of great power and great peril roamed the path in their primal frenzy.

And yet, when they beheld him standing on that very path, they bowed to him.

They bowed to the Emperor of the Beast Domain.

And yet, that wasn’t what changed.

He didn’t even acknowledge the beasts and monsters.

He didn’t even acknowledge the countless disasters and apocalypses that drowned the path.

No.

His gaze was fixed on far, far away in the distance.

An almost infinite distance down the path he traversed.

He saw something he had never seen before.

A Realm of power.

A new Realm of power.

The sheer amount of power it contained was unfathomable.

It was infinite.

It was the power of a God.

It awaited him.

It called out to him.

It was the end of the Martial Path.

And then, he opened his eyes.

”RUI! RUI GODDAMIT!” Kane was shaking him where he sat.

RUMBLE!!!!

The world stopped shaking when Rui’s awareness returned to reality.

Suddenly, Rui found himself back in the material world.

”My man!” Kane glared at him. ”You can’t just up and go into your own dream world and start shaking the world with your power subconsciously!”

Rui gazed at him with a stunned expression. ”I saw it...”

Kane frowned.

”Saw what?”

Rui’s eyes grew hazy as his tone grew engrossed.

”I saw a higher Realm of power,” Rui whispered. ”I saw the higher Realm of power.”

Kane’s eyebrows rose. ”You mean the Transcendent Realm?”

”No...” Rui’s tone grew certain. ”I saw the true Realm of power that succeeds the Sage Realm.”

Kane frowned.

”What? That doesn’t even make any sense. The Transcendent Realm is the higher Realm, right?”

And yet, Rui was too engrossed in his own world to answer him.

”Love is Adaptive Evolution.”

It was a truth that he hadn’t even fathomed before.

And yet, the realization of this truth allowed him to just barely catch a glimpse of a higher Realm of power.

In that moment, he understood what he needed to do.

”I just need to Adaptively Evolve...!” His pitch-black eyes lit up with enlightenment.