The Martial Unity

Chapter 3150: Best-Case Scenario

Rui, Max, and Mana smiled as they watched Arastia playing with her newfound power, trying to experiment and understand what she was capable of. The light of dawn illuminated the dark skies as the morning Sun began emerging from beneath the horizon. And yet, despite the refreshing warmth of dawn, none of them could quite get over the implications of blood humans having their own Blood Paths.

”...The goal is to breed the two species of humanity and ensure that the blood of the Blood Goddess disperses across human civilization, right?” Mana turned to Rui with a hint of concern. ”If your hypothesis is true, wouldn’t that mean that future generations of human beings will be a hybrid between two species?”

”That is correct,” Rui nodded. ”They will be hybrids possessing the traits of both species. They will inherit a portion of the superhuman power of the Blood Goddess and will be categorically superior to baseline humans of the current generations.”

”Then... what about the Path of these hybrids?” Max raised an eyebrow. ”Based on the differing paths of the six pureblood species of the true world, we can assume that the Martial Path is unique to our species, and hybrids of the future between us and the blood humans will not entirely be us. So what path will they pursue?”

”Good question,” Rui remarked. ”I think there are a few possibilities based on the existence of hybrids in the true world. The first possibility is that our human blood simply overwhelms the blood of the Blood Goddess. Ultimately, it’s only a few million eggs at most and that’s compared to the hundreds of billions of human beings that exist. Even if we do our best to spread her blood wide and far, it’s possible that the baseline human genome will simply retain too much DNA and overwhelm the DNA of the Blood Goddess, making it so that all future generations will still follow the Martial Path. However...”

He turned towards Max and Mana. ”It will still leave a mark on the nature of the Martial Path, and most likely leave a slant towards blood-oriented Martial Art like the Blood Cult. This is probably the best-case scenario for the preservation of Martial Art.”

Max and Mana winced as their expressions grew complicated.

Nobody liked the Blood Cult.

It was a creepy and eerie organization that did all manner of strange things with blood and created Martial Artists who had an affinity for blood-oriented Martial Art. The idea that all future Martial Artists would become like them was not a very pleasant notion.

”In some ways, this is undoubtedly part of the goal of the Blood Cult,” Rui remarked. ”It’s no wonder that they wanted to spread the Blood Goddess’ blood far and wide. Converting all Martial Artists of the future into blood-oriented Martial Artists is an ultimate victory that will allow them to trounce all other fields and Martial Art and all other sects, including my own Water Sect.”

Speaking of which, he was reminded of yet another place that he needed to visit.

”Isn’t that... bad?” Mana’s eyes widened. ”Are you ok with Adaptive Evolution being defeated by blood Martial Art?”

Rui smiled wryly.

”My considerations of adaptive evolution are more selfish.”

He closed his eyes. ”I care about my adaptive evolution more than anybody else’s. I am the strongest Martial Artist, and that means my adaptive evolution is the strongest. That is what matters most to me. Whether other sects overtake the Water Sect or not, or whether adaptive evolution becomes the most important field of Martial Art in the Martial World or not, is none of my concern.”

This was one of the fundamental differences between Rui and John Falken.

John Falken had conceptualized Project Water as a goal for everybody else.

He wanted all martial artists in combat sports to adopt adaptive evolution, and he had sought to transform Bruce Lee’s water philosophy into a universal fighting system that was systematically superior to the mixed martial arts that was the norm in his time. The fruits of his labor would benefit everybody except himself.

It was a selfless goal.

However, the same could not be said for Rui.

Rui pursued Project Water for himself and only himself.

Even the Water Sect, which had helped countless Martial Artists tap into the field of adaptive evolution, was a selfish organization that was meant to help itself, rather than help the world.

He didn’t care whether the world adopted adaptive evolution or not.

The only thing that mattered was his own personal achievement of Project Water.

That was why Rui had no problem whatsoever if all future Martial Artists were identical to the Martial Artists of the Blood Cult. He didn’t care if the Blood Cult grew more powerful and influential with this, eventually surpassing even the Kandrian Empire. That was something for his father to worry about.

Max and Mana, on the other hand, were deeply conflicted with this.

They weren’t eager to be part of a Martial World that became demented with blood hysteria and strangeness. On the other hand, having spent twelve years with Arastia, they understood exactly just how superior she was to a human being and how she had to offer to human civilization.

From superhuman physicality to superhuman intelligence and learning capacity.

Even now, she rapidly gained mastery in a matter of minutes what might have taken normal Martial Artists days to learn. They watched her rapidly understand how to manipulate blood, generate it, restore it, and return to normal, all in the span of minutes.

It was truly incredible.

She had virtually infinite potential.

How powerful would human civilization be with her blood flowing through the entire species?

Mana turned to Rui with a mixed expression. ”...Maybe human beings evolving to have a blood-oriented Martial Path if the benefits are very high. However, you said that that was the best-case scenario.”

Her expression grew a little more apprehensive.

”What did you mean by that?”