The Martial Unity

A force that threatened to crush Rui where he stood.

Rui’s eyes flared with power as his Realms of power bloomed with energy. The Forge of Creation blazed with life as Rui spontaneously created a domain to curb the endless converge of sound that converged upon him. “Sound of Silence.”

It destructively overlapped sound, causing overlapping voices to negate each other.

The Martial Transcendent smiled as he opened his mouth.

“Impressive.”

This time his voice was singular and undistorted with its soothing and serene luster.

Rui’s eyes widened with shock as a profound realization dawned on him. That word that he had just uttered had traveled into the past, allowing to have heard the future from the past. His voice seemed to have swum against the flow of causality, disregarding the most fundamental law of material reality.

To him, the law of causality appeared to be closer to a guideline, rather than an absolute rule.

It was miraculous feat that defied Rui’s very fundamental fathoming of reality.

All the miraculous feats that Martial Artists had ever performed.

As miraculous as they seemed, they weren’t really miracles.

They were exertion of human potential. They were feats performed by efficiency granted by cognitive attainments combined by tapping into powerful principles of physics, biology, and chemistry.

In other words, they were akin to technology.

They harnessed what was possible.

And yet, they never accomplished the impossible.

They never violated the fundamental laws of reality.

Rui stood frozen with shock that permeated his entire being, reaching his very soul as he realized that Martial Transcendents did not appear to be subject to this limitation.

They didn’t simply harness the laws of reality.

They went beyond it. “Reality is ours to command.” Rui heard his voice reach his ears without the temporal distortion. “Reality is whatever we want it to be.”

He smiled Rui knowingly. “Reality could be whatever you want it to be, should you achieve Transcendence.”

Rui stared at him with an unfathomable gaze.

“What is the secret to obtaining such power? What is the secret to… the Transcendent Realm.”

It was a deeply inappropriate question.

He was a mere Master.

Someone who had yet to find his own Martial Soul. Someone who had yet to gain Enlightenment of Self.

He had absolutely no business knowing what the conditions to Transcendence was. “Allow me to answer your question.”

Rui shook where he stood as his eyes widened with shock.

“You see…” his mouth opened. “The secret to the Transcendent Realm is…”

Rui’s raw astonishment only grew as the man’s voice disappeared even though his mouth kept moving.

He could even see that the man was exerting his breath and his vocal chords were generating sound.

Yet, the moment his words escaped his mouth, they seemed to suddenly disappear.

They disappeared in a manner that violated causality once more, seemingly escaping reality itself.

“…That is the secret of the Transcendent Realm,” the Martial Transcendent smiled knowingly. “My words will reach you when the time is right.”

His wise gaze deepened as it focused on Rui. “And you know very well in the depths of your heart that the time certainly isn’t right.”

Rui lowered his head.

“…You’re right. I was being… greedy.”

The Martial Transcendent nodded wisely. “You have shown more restraint than most Martial Sages. Seeking fruit before it has ripened will deprive of you of its sweetness, leaving with you an upset stomach. Things have their time and their place. And you, dear Virodhabhasa, are at neither.”

Rui’s eyes widened with shock as the Martial Transcendent gazed at Rui with an unadulterated bewilderment.

“What…” a whisper escaped him. “What did you just call me?”

An amused smile emerged on the face of the Martial Transcendent. “What is that modern phrase these days? Was it ‘I simply call it like I see it’?”

Rui remained frozen.

“Well, dear Rui Quarrier Silas Kandria, descendent of mine…” His smile grew certain. “‘I simply call it like I see it.’”

In that moment, Rui’s mind grew blank.

His thoughts short-circuited.

He had visualized this meeting countless times in his mind, exploring all kinds of potential scenarios. He even considere the scant few possibilities where he ended up dying in this meeting due to an astronomically unlikely turn of events.

And yet, of all the possible futures that he had considered, not a single one of them accounted for the possibility that the Martial Transcendent would readily proclaim him as the Dawnbringer.

Previously, when he didn’t even fully understand the power of Martial Transcendents, he still imagined it to be almost impossible to deceive these fellows. Now, after beholding the presence of a Martial Transcendent, he knew that there was a precisely zero-percent chance that he could possible deceive a Martial Transcendent.

And yet, the man had proclaimed him as the Antithesis nonetheless.

He had openly declared him as the divine Lord Virodhabhasa.

He didn’t know if the man was joking or if he had a sense humor at all. “Hoho, I do indeed have a sense of humor,” a hint of mirth appeared in his voice. “…But I do not jest about important matters.”

His gaze remained fixed on Rui.

“The more I gaze at you. The more I behold you… the more certain I am,” he remarked as his voice reached Rui without his mouth so much as moving. “You are the Antithesis. You are Lord Virodhabhasa. You are the answer. You are the solution. The key. You are he who will protect this world upon the advent of the Unfolding, Rui Quarrier. Or should I say…”

He directed a knowing gaze at Rui. “…John Falken.”

In that moment, Rui understood that no amount of preparation could have ever prepared him for this conversation. No amount of speculating, theorizing, consultation, strategizing, or thought could have ever prepared him for the words that the Martial Transcendent had uttered to him in the conversation thus far.

He simply gazed at the Martial Transcendent as his mouth slowly opened.

A single question escaped him. “Who am I?”

–