The Martial Unity

Chapter 3201: Deviant Trajectory

The tension in the air lingered with great peril.

The Martial Sages gazed at Rui with a dissatisfied and displeased expression, even as Rui remained resolute on protecting the blood children, no matter what.

This was the first time that Rui had ever used his extraordinary power, influence, and leverage to push for something that was against the will of almost all other Martial Sages. The fact that he blatantly warned them of their impending death was a step further than he had ever gone.

He had never been domineering or overbearing before. Even after his identity as a prince came out and he gained a measure of real influence and power, he had never quite used it to unilaterally make things go his way against the desires of those who supported him.

This time, however, marked the first time Rui actually used his political power to the fullest.

”I hope I have made myself clear,” Rui continued with a calm tone of unyielding strength. ”Not a single scratch must come upon the blood children anywhere on the continent. I will personally find the person responsible and hunt them down myself, no matter who it is.”

Sage Zentra heaved a sigh. ”Your Highness, I understand that you find the most extreme solution to be unacceptable. However, I hope you are able to understand our compunctions. Our dominance as human civilization’s Martial Sages will only last as long as Martial Art as a whole remains dominant. This is a matter that threatens our very power, the power that everybody here has spent centuries cultivating.”

His calm eyes bore deep into Rui’s.

”Power is the only thing we Martial Sages have left. We sacrificed everything to achieve this power over many decades and even centuries. It is the only thing we have left to show for all our time,” he continued with a heavy tone. ”We simply cannot allow anything to undermine this one and only fruit of our labor and penance.”

The other Martial Sages nodded along with an open expression for Zentra’s eloquent framing of how they felt.

The Flickering Elder gazed at Rui with disapproval. ”Perhaps you cannot relate to how we feel. After all, you haven’t even lived for one century. You became a Martial Sage before the age of seventy and have achieved a rate of growth that is unprecedented in the history of Martial Art. How can you possibly have the same kind of appreciation of the value of this power when you achieve with a snap of a finger, compared to all of us who struggle and toil away for centuries to finally achieve just a fraction of your power?”

Those words had an impact on Rui, whose expression grew soft.

Indeed, Rui had diverged so much from the average Martial Artist and Martial Sage that he found it difficult to relate entirely with Martial Sages.

It was indeed true that his Martial progress vastly exceeded anything else ever, with perhaps the sole exception being Amare and Ieyasu in some aspects. He was in a dimension to himself and his expectations of growth and power were also greatly divergent from the average Martial Sage.

While they would delight with every step of growth they could make, this was just normal for Rui.

He was growing almost every second by some small amount of power in some way or another.

He didn’t feel the need to celebrate each tiny step because it was his normal and status quo, completely different from the Martial Sages around him, who had to struggle in training to take a single step forward.

Indeed, he couldn’t relate to how they felt, not entirely, when they felt deeply threatened by something that threatened to undermine their precious power. In his mind, he had no problem with the blood children vastly surpassing Martial Artists because he was confident that his never-ending growth would allow him to handle it.

In fact, the pressure they would eventually put on him would make him grow stronger and stronger, so he looked forward to the blood humans because they benefited him.

He directed a softened gaze across the Martial Sages around him as he heaved a sigh.

”I apologize if I came across as callous,” he offered a gesture of amicability. ”I do indeed understand and sympathize with your sentiments. However...”

He shook his head. ”I cannot go back on my prior warning. That is not negotiable. Even if I put aside the heinous evil of wanting to exterminate a new race of millions of innocent children, I simply cannot allow it because human civilization needs their power. At the end of the day, power is the only thing that matters. After all, power is how Martial Artists came to be as dominant as we are. Power is the reason that we had an entire era of almost six hundred years named after us. But now...”

His tone was severe.

”That age is gone. The Age of Martial Art is gone forever.”

His words inflicted visible wounds on the Martial Sages around him as they winced at his words with grim bitterness.

Indeed, they hadn’t had time to fully process this inevitable revelation.

The truth was that many Martial Sages had harbored the hope that they would be able to go back to the Age of Martial Art after the Beast Incursion ended.

That after the Era of Darkness was over, they would be able to restore the glory and dominance of Martial Art in human civilization. In fact, they hoped to use the Beast Incursion as an example of the fact that Martial Art were still the most dominant.

Not even MECHAs and the blood children, initially, could dampen this confidence.

After all, the concept of other ’paths’ existing was unfathomable back then.

They had thought that blood children would simply be stronger Martial Artists back then.

Then, the Unfolding happened.

The true world was unveiled.

The six paths of power were exposed to human civilization, and now, the Martial Path had faced even greater tribulations than it ever had in the past.