The Martial Unity

The final Omni-Heaven Rend descended down with ferociously devastating power and speed, threatening to erase Rui’s existence from the battlefield.

And yet, this was the moment he had been waiting for from the very start.

Rui’s eyes flared with power as he leaped right towards his opponent, even as the Omni-Heaven Rend swung down on him. An apocalyptic amount of power converged upon him through the Heavenly Karmic Bond that Sage Sekiei had forged between the two of them. And yet, even in the face of absolute death, Rui surged forth fearlessly as a single whisper escaped him. “Body of Water.”

Suddenly, his body went limp.

It lost every ounce of tension.

It lost solidity.

It lost form.

It became water.

Liquefaction.

The process of making a solid or gas behave like a liquid.

Nobody had ever successfully applied this principle to the human body.

And yet, with a combination of destroying connective tissue, applying vibrations, an electric current and alternating electromagnetic fields, it was possible to make the human body behave like a liquid, especially with seventy percent of the human body being comprised of water.

And then, the Omni-Heaven Rend struck.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!

For the first time in his entire life, Rui had been truly struck by a Sage-level attack. He felt power, unlike anything he had felt before colliding into his body like a meteorite, imparting an astronomical amount of force and momentum upon his body.

And yet, he was water.

The impact was extraordinarily elastic.

What would have otherwise been a gruesomely devastating impact ended up resembling a balloon being compressed

And yet, it was what followed that truly shook all those who bore witness to it. It happened in the span of nanoseconds.

The attack compressed Rui’s liquid form, creating an astronomical amount of internal pressure within Rui’s body with nowhere to go. Until he gave it somewhere to go.

“Void.”

He created a momentary vacuum in between his fist and Sage Sekiei, giving a channel of escape for all that internal pressure.

It was like popping a balloon.

His fist surged forward at astronomical velocities towards Sage Sekiei, viscerally accelerated by all the internal pressure that rushed forth at the opening. A Sage-level attack born from the absorbed power of the Omni-Heaven Rend.

A Sage-level attack that surpassed it.

It struck the Martial Sage before he could even react to it. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!!!

CRACK CRACK CRACK!!!

The impact shattered his ribcage, digging deeper into his body, accelerating further and further as it ground his flesh, crushing his internal organs, and even displacing so much flesh that the impact made a dent on the other side of the body.

The onlooking spectators shook as Rui unleashed a horrifyingly powerful attack that far surpassed the power of the Omni-Heaven Rend that he had absorbed from his opponent.

It was the single most powerful attack he had created in his entire life. “Convergence of Casimir.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!!!

“AAARRGHHHHH!!!!!” the Martial Sage howled in pain as the attack dug deeper faster, as though propelled by an astronomical force.

And it was.

The technique leveraged a quantum phenomenon known as the Casimir Effect. A phenomenon occurred when there was an imbalance in quantum fluctuations due to a vacuum. Nigh-perfect thermodynamically and electromagnetically isolated vacuums like the one that Rui had created between himself and his opponent were greatly deficient in quantum pressure born from quantum fluctuations.

This created an extraordinary imbalance compared to the outside which had far greater quantum pressure from quantum fluctuations that accelerated and converged his attack and Sage Sekiei’s body.

It was precisely because of the acceleration of this quantum pressure, known as Casimir pressure, that allowed the attack to blast the Martial Sage before he could intercept it with his heavy and slow greatsword.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!!!

The attack drove deeper and deeper, mangling his entire body.

RUMBLE!!!!!!

The world shook with turmoil as a Martial Master unleashed a tremendously powerful Sage-level attack.

A day that would go down in history as the day that redefined the limits of what was possible.

One that ravaged his opponent where he stood.

The Martial Sage had struggled with all his might.

And yet, it was all in vain.

By the time the impact finally concluded, the battle was already over. THUD

The Martial Sage’s unconscious body fell at Rui’s feet.

For a moment, nobody could move.

Not a single person could so much as even breathe.

Not even Elder Diana, in all her detached arrogance, could maintain a stoic facade as her expression remained paralyzed with shock.

“YES!!!” Amare cheered. “He won! He did it!”

She froze when she realized that none of the others were cheering. “…What happened?”

Bodhisattva Maitreyi closed her eyes.

“He did not win.”

Amare’s eyes widened with shock as her gaze shifted back to the battlefield.

Towards Rui.

He was still standing.

And yet, his eyes were rolled back.

He had fallen unconscious where he stood.

The Body of Water was not invincible. It could not simply magically absorb an attack without any consequences. An elastic collision didn’t mean that he was completely immune. His body and his cells had still undergone an astronomical amount of compression in a very short span of time.

He was lucky that he had managed to dish out the attack fully before he lost consciousness.

He was unfortunate that he hadn’t lasted long enough to claim victory.

Elder Diana heaved a deep breath.

She had forgotten to breathe, like all those who had spectated the battle.

“Simultaneous knock-out for both contestants,” her tone was heavy. “I declare this battle a draw!”

Her voice echoed across the entire battlefield and beyond as a profound sense of finality washed over all of them. A battle unlike any they had ever beheld in their entire life.

A battle that carved itself in history.

A battle that carved itself in their memories.

A battle that had such a profound impact on their souls that the Martial Sages needed to exert themselves in pursuit of self-enlightenment to ensure that they didn’t lose their Martial Soul.

Such was the power of Rui Quarrier Silas Kandria.

Such was the power of the Dawnbringer.

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