The Martial Unity

His eyes opened as his expression grew groggy. A discomforted groan escaped him as he felt pain the first thing he woke up. A headache and a migraine washed over his entire mind, halting any and all mentally strenuous thought processes he had been indulging in.

He glanced around the room he was in with a confused expression.

A spacious medical ward for him exclusively, numerous medical instruments and machines were beside him, measuring his vitals through measuring instruments attached to his body.

What was odd, however, was its composition.

It was made from clouds.

“Ah…” A faint murmur escaped him as he recalled where he was. The Heaven Sect.

They must have taken care of him after the conclusion of his battle.

His attention was drawn to a familiar presence next to him on the bed. Amare was soundly asleep peacefully in bed next to him.

A small smile emerged on his face as his hand slowly brushed across her soft cheek.

“Mmm…” Amare stirred, slowly opening her eyes and meeting Rui’s affectionate gaze.

Her eyes lit up with ecstasy. “Rui!”

She lunged at him with a deep embrace, hugging him with everything she had.

Rui felt like he was being squeezed under a mountain.

After all, everything was Martial Art, including hugs.

“…I can’t breathe,” he managed to squeeze out.

“Ah! I’m sorry,” she immediately released him from her death grip. “How are you feeling? Are you hurting anywhere?”

He gazed at his body, balling his hands as he felt a tremendous surge of power. “Physically, I’m feeling great, but…”

He winced as his hand pressed against his temple. “…mentally, I am in pain.”

He probably should not have strained his mind with the large soul model during a period when he was healing from Gigabrain. But in return, he had a period to make tremendous progress with the large soul model, approaching the conclusion of the project.

“You shouldn’t stress yourself with mentally burdensome stuff,” she told him with a worried tone. “Yeah,” he winced. “I will keep it down for a while. By the way…”

He turned towards her as his eyes burned with an intense curiosity. “I won, right?”

She heaved an exasperated sigh. “The first thing you ask after three months of sleep is whether you won a fight.”

His eyes widened with shock. “Three months?!”

That was far longer than any of his previous Gigabrain comas. He had slept for thirty seven days after his battle with Sage Himari, and had slept for a mere three weeks after his battle with the Terrampager.

“Those had been much shorter battles, but even then…” A mutter escaped him. “Three months?!”

“It was much longer than anything before, so I had no idea if you were going to wake up,” her tone grew shaky with relief. “Please don’t ever sleep for so long ever again!”

“…I guess it was because the battle was much longer?” A faint whisper escaped him. “I didn’t think the recovery time would scale so linearly. Damn.”

He really needed to stop using Gigabrain this often.

“I need to stop fighting Sages, is what that really means.”

No Master aside from Amare had ever forced him to use Gigabrain, and she, too, managed because of truly extraordinary circumstances. He would only use Gigabrain if he had to fight Sages.

He heaved a sigh, shaking his head before turning back to her with a raised eyebrow. “Well? I did win, right?”

She shook her head with a resigned expression. “Draw by mutual knock-out.”

His eyes widened. “A draw?! Seriously?”

Draws were very unusual among Martial duels. Mutual knock-outs, in particular, were extremely rare and only happened ever between symmetric and equally matched opponents. That, too, is a very small percentage of the time. Rui and his opponent were extremely asymmetric in that regard.

One was a Martial Master, and the other a Sage. The fact that this match-up didn’t manage to end decisively with one victor and a loser was rather shocking to Rui.

“A draw…” he murmured once more as reality set in. “Damn, I was so close.”

He was truly very close to having won. He was also very close to having lost.

An ordinary person would have been extremely satisfied with having extracted a draw against a Martial Artist an entire Realm above them. But not Rui.

He had fought to win.

Even though his opponent was a Martial Sage, he had fought with every intention of winning.

And yet, he had failed.

That was not disheartening. The only relief and consolation that he could take home was that he hadn’t lost, either. His prior two battles with Sages were definitive defeats, after all.

The first battle was inevitably a defeat as he simply didn’t have the stamina to last with Gigabrain.

The second battle was closer, but he still would have died if not for Amare.

This battle, however, was not like that. In this battle, he had fought back and denied his opponent victory, even if he hadn’t managed to get his hands on it either.

He had to admit that it was a good affirmation of the progress that he was making as a martial artist.

His ability to adaptively evolve had grown tremendously stronger since he began on the journey around the world. He had made so much progress with Project Water that it reaffirmed his belief that the Kandrian Empire was too sterile and safe of an atmosphere to stimulate him. There was great power out there in the world, waiting for him to claim it for himself.

CLACK

The door to his medical ward opened as a familiar face walked in. Sage Sekiei glared at him with a dirty expression. Clearly, the man had asked to be notified of the very moment that Rui would wake up.

The air boiled with peril as the atmosphere tingled electrically under the wrath of the Martial Sage.

Rui’s eyebrows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“That final exchange!” he gritted his teeth. “How did you survive my Omni-Heaven Rend?! How did you unleash such a powerful Sage-level attack?!”

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