The Martial Unity

Chapter 4271: Return To Civilization

The Blood Arc’s return to the Arima Star System was met with a wave of cheers from the pathwalkers, whether they were hemosapien or third-party. Not a single one of them had a good time in their brief trip to Planet Amadeus III. Most of them, at some point or another, had been convinced that they were going to die there in the Strehegeld Star System.

Whether it was during the second siege from the homoarachnoids that came to fight for a rematch. Or whether it was when the virus went nuts and summoned an army of homoarachnoids that covered a solid chunk of the surface of the planet. Or whether it was when the Divine Mother had arrived.

Though most of them didn’t even have the requisite knowledge to identify what these events were, or why they happened, or what ultimately was the conclusion. They had simply done their best to focus on their immediate surroundings and stay alive for as long as they possibly could.

What they had identified, however, was the intervention of an extremely powerful entity. One who had become so insular that he was almost a living myth. Not a single person had missed the intervention of the Emperor of Water.

Very few of them actually caught a glimpse of him, though plenty of them claimed they did.

What all of them had certainly not missed was the classic tell-tale signature marker.

The ocean of water that flooded the entire world.

Even far out in the frontier, people knew of the Martial Embodiment of the Emperor. How powerful and overwhelming it was, like living in an aquatic universe while being able to breathe and live normally.

As long as he permitted it.

There was no mistaking it in anybody’s mind.

”I still cannot believe that the Emperor of Water intervened himself,” Siliscia muttered with an astonished expression, sipping some green tea. ”How did he come so far so fast?”

Misha’s blood-red eyes sharpened. ”The why is more interesting to me personally. Why would the Emperor go out of his way just to rescue frontier adventurers from an infected world?”

She turned towards Ria with a pointed expression.

”Any idea, Ria?”

Ria felt like her blood was draining to her feet.

She scratched her skin aggressively.

Ever since she had woken up, a tingling sensation had spread across her entire body.

As if ants were crawling across her skin.

Ria tried for a casual shrug as she turned towards Misha. ”Who knows?”

She hoped she didn’t give it away.

Misha’s eyes lingered on her for a moment before going back to the bartender on the other side of the counter. ”I’ll have another drink.”

”Yes, ma’am.” The man refilled her glass.

It was a question that everybody had, but nobody knew the answer to. The air around the party was filled with murmurs.

”I’m telling you!” One tekvore, some distance away at another table, muttered with a hushed, but intense tone. ”He surfed!”

”What does that even mean?” A woman beside him stared at him with a dubious expression.

”As in, he literally surfed that giant wave of water!”

”You’re stupid.”

”I’m serious!”

Naturally, most of the discourse around the matter of the appearance of the Emperor of Harmony was mostly speculative and even outright fictitious and fantastical. There was simply too much energy, interest, and excitement at the appearance of the Emperor of Water for people to resist.

The very moment they returned to the Arima Star System, the pathwalkers immediately began sharing their experiences on the interweb with others, where it only spread across human civilization like wildfire.

”He was so familiar.”

Sternon’s voice was filled with a tinge of discomfort. Dark bags hung under his eyes since he had woken up, and his expression had grown a little pale.

”Are you ok, dude?” Runark tilted his head towards the young man with a raised eyebrow.

”I’m fine...” Sternon muttered with an uneasy tone of voice. ”I just... don’t have the best memories of His Majesty.”

Every new-gen evosapien was traumatized by the Emperor of Water, in one way or another. They were simply terrified or hateful of the man who may as well have killed them. Even being in the same star system as him and feeling his extraordinary power put Sternon in a state of fight or flight, making it very difficult for him to calm down.

VMMM

A distinct shift in inertia alerted them to the rapid deceleration and halting of the Blood Arc spaceship, followed by the ring of an announcement on the speaker systems of the lounge.

”We have arrived at destination Planet Sarantel,” the pleasant, perfunctory voice of an artificial intelligence addressed pathwalkers across the ship. ”Orbital free-fall deployments will commence soon. Partnered contractors and freelancer adventurers and other personnel that wish to utilize it may begin boarding deployment hatches immediately.”

Immediately, all the pathwalkers aboard the ship got up from their seats in the lounge while the ships’s mainframe transmitted a map featuring the path to the hatches to the neural inlay of each of the pathwakers. A wave of exhausted relief washed over the pathwalkers as they made their way across the massive, expansive ship on the automated transport carriers.

It was the same kind of exhaustion and relief that one would experience after getting off a flight and exiting an airport. It wasn’t long before all of them were positioned upon the hatches in the hulls of the ships before it opened underneath their feet.

CLACK

WHOOSH

They were flung out into outer space, free-falling straight towards the brownish-gray world of Planet Sarantel. Ria closed her eyes as she enjoyed the momentary weightlessness of outer space. Simply being pulled towards the surface of the planet by gravity and the liberating sensation of it all.

Considering the burdens that she had been thrust with in her most recent escapade in Planet Amadeus III, it was an especially euphoric feeling.

The strange tingling sensations across her skin remained, however.

They even grew stronger, cutting into her euphoria, which didn’t last very long anyway. She soon hit the atmosphere of the planet.

WHOOSH!!!

The drag from the air pushed against the smooth surface of her Water Integument armor, causing her hair to flutter. They slowly reduced the speed of their free fall before eventually gently stepping back onto the land of the familiar planet.

THUD

They had returned to the soil of human civilization.