The Martial Unity

Chapter 4006: Diverging Fate

For several moments, there was silence.

Nothing happened.

The original Rui had simply disappeared, devoid of a mind, while the clone Rui was still unconscious and unmoving.

Then, the clone opened his eyes.

His pitch-black irises were filled with an ocean of darkness.

WHOOSH

He teleported out of the tube in the blink of an eye, leaving all the medical apparatuses behind, merely wearing a pair of medical shorts. The artificial light of the ceiling from the chamber he was in reflected off his opaque body, devoid of Anthean physiology for the moment. He gazed at his wet hands for several moments in silence.

Then, a big, wide grin emerged on his face.

”I did it.”

His voice broke through the shackles of reality.

They broke through the chains of causality, permeating through time itself. It propagated into the past, present, and future, overlapping across reality in a trans-temporal fashion.

All of his mind, his consciousness, and his memories were transferred to the clone, at the cost of the cloneʼs own mind and memories that were created after it woke up. Rui felt bad that he had essentially killed Rui Quarrier, but it wasnʼt the worst thing in the world, either, considering he had just managed to avoid disappearing who knew for how many decades or perhaps even centuries.

He couldnʼt afford to be gone for that long. And he knew that it was probably impossible for him to avoid using the Martialverse the moment he woke up. Thus, he pondered contingencies for when it happened.

He had considered planting seeds comprised of his cells, taking a page from the alien virusʼs book. But ultimately was against it. When he got back, he and his clone would have to fight, and that was not something that he looked forward to.

Also, even if he did create a ʼRui seedʼ from his own cells containing his mind and memories in compressed form, it would still disappear because it was created from his own body.

He would need to create it from another body, ideally a clone.

But if he went as far as that, then it was logical to just transfer his consciousness through destructive creation and bypass the price of the Transcendent Realm entirely.

Of course, he cut it very close this time, so he wasnʼt eager to let that happen.

But still, thanks to the nature of information, he had managed to emerge from the ordeal quite well, all things considered.

”T̸h̸i̴s̷ ̷b̶o̷d̸y̶ ̵i̶s̶ ̷t̵o̵o̴ ̴w̷e̷a̶k̷,̵ ̴t̶h̶o̶u̷g̵h̵,̵ ̸a̷n̴d̷ ̷p̶e̸o̶p̸l̸e̵ ̷w̵i̶l̶l̵ ̶n̶o̴t̶i̵c̷e̵ ̷t̶h̸a̴t̸ ̶I̸ ̸s̸h̷i̴f̶t̶e̷d̶ ̸b̴o̶d̵i̷e̸s̴,” Rui muttered, gazing at his own opaque flesh. He had definitely grown too used to the power of the Gene Realm that he couldnʼt tolerate not having it. Thankfully, his brain was filled with Anthean neurology, so he had the genetic base to recreate the rest of his biology.

The process was much, much quicker than it had been last time. Last time, it had taken him sixteen years to integrate his entire body with Anthean physiology.

This time, he didnʼt even need a single day.

He closed his eyes as he rapidly accelerated the process. Even without the active intervention of the Martialverse, simply having access to the information dimension was good enough to astronomically speed up the process, as he had with his healing upon breaking through to the Transcendent Realm.

WHOOSH

Within minutes, his body had slowly begun growing more and more translucent as more and more of his flesh was replaced with Anthean physiology. Because he also had all the lessons from his first time, he could skip over the lengthy and tedious processes that he had taken that time to ensure maximum safety and caution; he didnʼt even need a sterile environment this time.

WHOOSH…

His body rapidly began growing exactly as it used to; he could see the information dimension, where the information of his original body was still intact, so he could carve himself at a molecular and atomic level to be exactly how he used to be.

He even reconnected with his body-consciousness, giving it the same information as it used to have with the original, recreating Autocorpus on the spot while he was at it.

Within an hour, he had restored himself to his former self, identical in every single way.

When he opened his eyes, they were ethereal once more.

His body was translucent once more. ”B̸u̴t̷ ̴n̷o̵w̶ ̵I̸ ̴h̴a̵v̶e̴ ̸n̶o̸ ̶c̷l̸o̶n̶e̸,” he muttered to himself. ”I̴ ̷n̸e̸e̸d̶ ̶t̶o̷ ̷c̴r̸e̷a̸t̴e̷ ̸a̷ ̵n̵e̷w̸ ̸c̷l̵o̸n̶e̸.̵”

He turned towards the medical suspension tube, pricking a single finger of his as a single drop of blood leaked out.

But instead of falling, it teleported into the tube, hovering in the water.

It didnʼt mix with the water, as one would expect blood to do, but instead, it coalesced, forming a single solid, blood-red, fleshy ball.

It resembled a fetus. Rui had implanted it with all of his mind and memories in compressed cellular form. At the same time, he ensured to remain in quantum entanglement with the cells of the seed, to continuously update the information of his mind and memories, ensuring that even if he did have to disappear once more after using his Transcendent power, he wouldnʼt have to rush to transfer his memories on the verge of disappearing, cutting it close as he had.

With this, he had permanently overcome the price of the Transcendent Realm.

STEP

He turned around, thinking about his fellow colleagues. ”D̷i̷d̶ ̸t̸h̴e̸y̸ ̸r̴e̷a̷l̸l̸y̶ ̵n̸o̶t̸ ̵t̵h̴i̶n̸k̵ ̸o̵f̴ ̷t̴h̷i̵s̶ ̶i̶d̸e̸a̷?̷ ̸I̴ ̴m̶e̸a̷n̷,̵ ̷c̵o̵m̴e̵ ̵o̴n̴.̸ ̸R̵e̴a̸l̵l̸y̶?̷”

Then again, he was also the only Martial Artist to overcome all the other prices of Realms as well. It was clearly not something that he could expect from everybody else. He heaved a deep breath, shaking his head, before returning his attention to the outer world.

Their world had changed forever with the events that had occurred in just the past several hours.

The very trajectory of the destiny of Gaia had gone haywire.

They were exposed to the truths of the universe.

The forces that wrestled over its fate.

And they had no choice but to tread through extremely dangerous waters as their destiny grew more uncertain than it ever had before.