The Martial Unity

Chapter 3338: Repaying Debt

”Woah!” Rui got up, leaping away from her in the blink of an eye as he studied the elderly light elf before his eyes shot about the empty cavity. ”What the hell? Where am I? How long has it been since I fell asleep?”

His hand shot to his head as he felt his head ache, trying to remember what had happened.

His memories were sometimes temporarily foggy as his consciousness booted slowly, having done so for the first time in a while.

”I was using Gigabrain to search for some place safe to teleport to...” he murmured, recollecting what had happened. ”And then...”

His eyes widened as his attention returned to the elderly light elf grandma who slowly got up from the ground, dusting her gown, woven from organic fibers fashioned from thin vines.

Rui’s pitch-black eyes bore deep into her powerful, wise, elderly eyes.

”You...” he murmured with realization. ”You are the Mother of Nature I chose, aren’t you?”

Mother Maeria simply nodded, regarding him with soft eyes.

”Rui.”

She called him simply by his name, unbothered by any honorific that one normally attached to him.

”Tell me, why did you choose me?” she asked with a curious tone. ”Or was it simply a choice of desperation? Or perhaps a random choice?”

Rui gazed at her with intense eyes.

He knew that she hadn’t killed him.

He could sense her incredible power.

She was on a different level compared to Mother Mara.

She could have easily killed him billions of times in how much ever time had passed since he had fallen asleep. If she harbored malice for him, it would have been game over.

Yet, he couldn’t simply trust her, full stop, because of that.

He had simply chosen her because his Gigabrain-enhanced Eye of Prophecy had told him that he wouldn’t die if he teleported there. That didn’t strictly mean that she was his ally or his friend, just that she had reason not to kill him.

”Then let me ask you this,” Rui replied with another question. ”Why did you keep me alive? You are a Mother of Nature of the light elves. Ostensibly, a leader of a race that hates outsiders and finds my very existence revolting and disgusting. Yet, you didn’t kill me. You hid me from your sisters, who have undoubtedly been searching for me. And you even fed me, ensuring that I didn’t starve to death in however many months it took for me to recover. Ah...”

His expression softened.

”Sorry, I am grateful for what you have done for me. So thank you for saving me, hiding me, and keeping me alive. I am indebted to you. But...”

His expression grew serious once more.

”I need to understand why.”

Mother Maeria studied him silently.

She had been staring at him for three months continuously, but studying him when he was awake was very different.

The dim glowing flowers in the cavity brightened as she illuminated his body to get a better look at him.

His power felt even greater than she had recalled.

It meant that he had somehow grown meaningfully stronger during the span of a single battle.

Her elderly eyes lit up with an optimistic hope at that realization.

The fact that he was still growing stronger by significant degrees despite the altar of power that he had reached was extremely good news for her. It meant that he did indeed possess the potential that she sought from him.

”I saved you out of self-interest, if that makes you feel better,” she replied. ”And in this case, it’s in your interest as well. We have a common mutual interest. An interest of fear.”

Rui furrowed his eyebrows. ”...Fear. Whatever could you possibly mean?”

”Do not play dumb with me,” she replied with an unamused tone. ”I know you experienced the Fear as well when you were in your state of heightened mind. With shining eyes. That was no ordinary fear. It was... Fear itself. Do you intend to deny this truth?”

Rui simply gazed at her with an amazed expression.

He had simply tested her to see if she really knew what she was talking about, but it was clear that she did.

”To think that a non-Transcendent would feel the Transcendent Fear,” Rui murmured. ”Then again, I felt the fear as well, even if only with Gigabrain.”

It meant that one didn’t need to strictly be a Martial Transcendent to sense the fear.

There was also Jormungandr, who experienced the fear as well.

He was Trancendent-grade in power, however.

He studied the Mother of Nature with a curious expression.

”Do you experience the Fear at this very moment?”

She shook her head.

”No. I only experience when my consciousness is in a very special state of existence,” she explained. ”Where I resonate with nature itself to an extraordinary degree, partially blurring the lines between myself and nature.”

”That...” Rui’s eyes widened. ”That’s Resonance of Nature, no? Mother Mara used it against me in our battle.”

”Her resonance was vastly weaker than mine,” Mother Maeria stated clinically. ”I suspect that the reason that none of the other Mothers of Nature are able to sense the Fear that I sense is that none of them can resonate deeply enough with nature to possibly sense it. I had thought that only elves could possibly sense it through nature, but it appears that I have been deeply mistaken.”

Rui fell into thought as he processed the revelation that the elder Mother of Nature had given him.

It would mean that one didn’t strictly have to be a Martial Transcendent, but just that Martial Transcendents fulfilled a more specific condition needed to sense the Fear.

”It might just be a power condition, but just that the threshold is lower than I expected,” Rui speculated. ”It would still be high relative to the Sage Realm if it takes me, of all people, to need Gigabrain to sense it. And that too only after I have grown this strong.”

Perhaps Gigabrain and Mother Maeria’s Resonance of Nature were both enough to elevate their consciousnesses to a certain level where they could sense it. Or perhaps they were both strong enough to sense it as a result of power alone. Perhaps different races or even different individuals had different conditions to sense it.

He didn’t know.

Regardless, his gaze returned to Mother Maeria.

”I owe you my life. I will tell you everything I know.”