The Martial Unity

The ground shook as land beside the Terrampager erupted.

It erupted to yield a clone of the Terrampager.

“I was going to go easy on you because you have yet to commit any crime.”

The Terrampager’s eyes bristled with wrath.

“But I have just confirmed that you are attempting to genocide the people of not just the Nest of Terra but of other nations that may also be within the range of your Martial Embodiment.”

His eyes glowed with power as both he and his clone took the same charging stance.

“I hope you’re ready for the consequences.”

The blood-red Suns in Rui’s eyes shined with blinding brightness.

A single remark escaped him. “Come.”

The Terrampager didn’t require any more coaxing.

The two projectiles shot themselves at Rui with tremendous speed and power.

And yet, they missed.

RUMBLE!!!

The ground at Rui’s feet shook as he exerted himself to crack the domain of the Terrampager, exerting greater and greater power as he relied on constructive seismic interference to produce a truly immense.

Gigabrain was particularly tremendously synergetic with his Scriptures of Terra as he rapidly identified the most optimal path of action for each pulse of seismic radiation. It allowed him to treat the earth as a medium that obeyed his commands, reaching a truly stupendous level of mastery of earth-bending, unlike anything he had ever seen.

Cracking the domain of a Martial Sage was an impossible task for a Martial Master. And yet, the Scriptures of Terra showed him the way. With Gigabrain’s empowerment, he could perform calculations that would have been far too mentally intensive, allowing him to maximize the effectiveness output.

Simultaneously, he needed to watch for the railgun charge attacks. WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!!!

BOOOOOOOM BOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

With twice as many attacks as before, the mental burden of avoiding the Terrampager and his clone from capturing Rui also reduced his progress against the information barrier domain that the Martial Sage maintained.

Balancing out offense and defense took everything that Rui had to offer.

Unlike Sage Himari, he was unable to use his most powerful forbidden techniques like Sun because the Terrampager didn’t use cold techniques to protect Rui from his own techniques. He had been blessed with a tremendous compatibility advantage against the Sekigaharan Sage, one that he didn’t have against the Terran Sage.

And yet, he had a circumstantial advantage against the Terran Sage.

He had already deduced that the Terrampager cared more about ensuring no harm befell his people than capturing Rui. He would not forsake his people to get his hands on Rui, and that was precisely why Rui hammered away at his domain, forcing him to divert much of his power.

The more power that he diverted to his domain, the more power he diverted away from Rui.

However, that wasn’t the only advantage that Rui had.

Although he wasn’t certain, when he gazed into the Terrampager’s eyes, he sensed urgency.

Assuming he wasn’t wrong, why would he feel urgent even though less than half a minute had passed since the battle had begun?

There was only one answer under the circumstances.

And yet, the answer was unpleasant to him as well.

A hint of irritation appeared the blood-red Sun shining with blinding brightness.

“Don’t interfere.”

The Terrampager’s eyes widened with shock as he understood what the Dawnbringer meant.

The fact that he was not only battling a Martial Master without being able to gain the upper hand was shocking enough by itself.

The fact that that Martial Master was unwilling to be rescued by a friendly Martial Sage was even more bewildering.

“Don’t grow conceited,” he growled at Rui as his eyes flared with anger.

“I’m a Martial Sage.”

BOOOOM!!!

He stomped his leg into the ground as dozens of clones of the Martial Sage emerged from the ground.

They surrounded Rui in a ring in the little underground space that had formed at the bottom of the Nest of Terra.

“Sabotage this,” the Terrampager growled.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as the Terrampager and his clones launched themselves at Rui with tremendous velocity and power.

And yet, a small smile cracked at the edge of Rui’s mouth.

“You will sabotage yourself.”

The Martial Sage widened his eyes with shock as his own projectiles ended up crashing into each other, bouncing away with a thundering impact.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!!!

One after another, they each missed Rui.

Dozens of projectiles, bouncing into each other and away from each other, all smoothly evading him, almost as if it had been choreographed ahead of time. “Impossible…!” the Terrampager’s eyes widened. “How could you sabotage all of them?!”

Rui gazed at the real Terrampager with blindingly bright Suns in his eyes.

“Your patterns are childishly simple.”

So much so that Rui realized he actually did have an advantage over the Martial Sage, given how much of a simpleton the Sage was in both sophistication and strategic intelligence.

His patterns were so elementary that Rui could foresee the trajectory of his attacks from light-years away, even with a dozen projectiles, while his Martial Art was extraordinarily simple. The predictive models that Rui had created with the VOID algorithm were also quite small and robust despite being extremely powerful in their predictive power.

Any sane Martial Artist would have ceased the endless charging after the first couple of times when it became quite clear that Rui was able to sabotage it extremely well. However, the Terrampager not only didn’t stop doing the exact same thing but even doubled down, going all out in this approach by creating many more projectiles.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH…!!!!!

BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM…!!!!!!

RUMBLE!!!

The world shook as the battle raged on with a tremendous onslaught. The Terrampager’s face grew strained with effort while Rui grew increasingly comfortable in the battle. The predictive model only grew increasingly refined as Rui sabotaged many thousands of attacks each millisecond.

Simultaneously, he continued drilling away at the isolated domain that the Martial Sage had created, exerting even greater psychological pressure on the Martial Sage.

The blindingly bright red suns in his eyes remained fixed on his opponent, waiting for the one moment when he would crack expose a crucial opportunity.

That was when Rui would strike.

RUMBLE!!!

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