The Martial Unity

Rui’s time with Kane was quite relaxing. He couldn’t even think of the last time he had had a mundane conversation about life or romance.

Most of his conversations these days tended to be related to the future of human civilization, the Beast Incursion, extraordinarily important and significant events of the past such as the Progenitor, or the fate of Amare, or the Esoterist’s plan to cripple Martial Art.

Rui genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he had sat down and had a fun and light-hearted conversation. It must have occurred years ago when Amare and Rui were still getting to know each other, but even their conversations had grown more serious as they had entered the final stages of their journey across the Panama Continent and things had started to get more serious with the emergence of the Abyssal Dragon.

It felt cathartic to have an amusing and silly juvenile conversation.

With the Enlightenment of Self, he knew that he needed this before the mental and emotional strain and stress he had been through began affecting him more severely. In particular, he knew that he wasn’t taking Amare’s condition as well as one could have. While he had faith in her, it still ground away at him for how much she was suffering because Rui was unwilling to let her die. He understood how this affected him. He had become the perfect self-diagnostician when it came to his mental health upon becoming a Martial Sage.

He stretched his arms as he felt his body relaxing for the first time in a long time. His muscles loosened up, leaving him feeling more physically tranquil than he had in a long time. “Thanks, Kane,” he remarked, getting up and stretching some more.

His expression was more relaxed. “Any time.” Kane grinned. “I’m assuming you have to go.”

“Yeah, I imagine a lot of people are itching to speak with me after what has happened,” Rui’s smile was amused. He had left in the middle of an important meeting, and then he had done something unprecedented and revolutionary that singlehandedly revolutionized the strategic outlook of all human civilization.

To say that people wanted to speak with him was, well, an understatement.

“See you late then,” Kane waved. “Drop by the house to say hi to Fae. She misses you, you know?”

“Will do.” Rui smiled at him before taking off to the air and heading straight to the capital town of Vargard, where his father was undoubtedly waiting for him. Even if he wasn’t actively using his Realms of power actively, his speed was vastly above what he would have been capable of prior. The passive power that his Martial Soul offered was far beyond that of what the Martial Mind offered.

As he surged across the Kandrian Empire, he could notice the changes that it had undergone in the years that he had been away from it. Civil engineering and planning changed in subtle but noticeable ways.

He could sense a greater number of shelters underground and otherwise.

He could detect a more fleshed-out underground infrastructure that was capable of hosting the entirety of the population of the mega-cities of the Kandrian Empire. His father had most likely borrowed more than just a page from the Nest of Terra.

This nation was the second most stable and secure nation among the powerhouses after the Kandrian Empire. The Heaven Sect and the Marinaera Kingdom were next due to the innate defenses that their geography, topography, and environmental advantages gave them.

He could sense some of the same technology in their underground tunnels and cavity systems that he had sensed in the Nest of Terra, indicating that his father had brokered deals with the new consuls of the Nest of Terra who had succeeded the late Consuls Notera and Sergenilius.

His father had surely taken these measures as precautions for the worst-case scenario once the Martial Sages departed. Even though the Kandrian Empire was the most secure nation in the entire world, it was not absolutely invincible.

The future could not be absolutely predicted, not even with his grandmother’s Eye of Prophecy, a technique he intended to now learn, having broken through to the Sage Realm. It was entirely possible that all the calculations, the estimates, the strategic analyses, the prophecies were all wrong and a disaster could occur, causing the destruction of the Kandrian Empire.

His father was too far-sighted not to take these possibilities with serious consideration. The underground systems were easily accessible and were laced with powerful anti-sensory esoteric substances, making it such that a majority of monsters would ignore the cities due to the absence of people, as they had in the void of the North-West regions of the Panama Continent.

WHOOSH

He had arrived before the Royal Palace of Vargard, a massive structure of golden and white, elegant and noble in its architecture. He slowly descended, arriving before the gates of the castle.

The Masters at the gates didn’t even dare ask for his Royal Amulet as proof of identity, which was protocol for anybody other than the Emperor of Harmony. They simply let him in without even the slightest moment of delay as Rui made his way through the Royal Palace.

The people around him acted like he had his own gravitational field, revolving around him as their trajectories altered in his presence. They bowed and said all manner of formal greetings.

They gave him the same deference they gave the Emperor of Harmony himself. He passed by all manner of people he had passing familiarity with. Top government officials, the Royal Secretary, the Royal Chancellor, and a variety of ministers of the executive government.

And even his half-sister.

Princess Ranea stiffened as Rui passed her without paying her even the slightest bit of acknowledgment.

There had been a point when the two of them were of equal political standing, roughly, but those days were long, long gone. Rui didn’t even care that this woman had tried to get him assassinated.

Her existence was irrelevant and she only served some utility by leveraging her in the seafaring solutions to the supply-chains of the Kandrian Empire.

CLACK The doors to the Royal Office opened as Rui nodded at Sage Farana with acknowledgment. He stood guard before turning towards his father, who was seated at the other end of the office.

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