The Martial Unity

Far away in West Genora, Rui opened his eyes.

“I’m going to be attacked.”

His statement came out of nowhere.

There was no one around him to even register it.

He found himself in a somewhat enclosed space of wood with little branches covered in glowing flowers, illuminating the space he was in.

The wood was endlessly thick, spreading hundreds of kilometers in diameter.

He was inside a large tree.

Inside the body of a Mother of Nature.

’What does that mean?’ Mother Alicia’s voice reached into his head with a hint of confusion.

After the treaty was signed, Rui immediately requested Mother Alicia to begin training him in the Nature Path. He had shifted his residence from the assigned cottage that the dark elves had especially prepared for him and moved to living within the Mother of Nature as other elven warriors above a certain level did when training with her.

“I’m going to be attacked…” Rui murmured. “It’s a good thing I checked the future for danger.”

Each night, he used the Eye of Prophecy to monitor the future for danger. It was a habit he had resolved himself ever since he had left the Kandrian Empire, one that was worth using his Realms of power each day.

Although it wasn’t as frequently as how often his grandmother used the Eye of Prophecy, it was still useful enough.

In the ten days that he had spent away from home, this was perhaps the first day that he had sensed imminent danger in the future.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to pry any other details.

The Eye of Prophecy lost its precision and clarity the deeper he looked into the future.

Looking several seconds, minutes, and perhaps even hours into the future generally yielded extremely clear images of what was going to unfold. But when he searched even deeper into the future, the clarity fell aggressively.

He could only feel imminent danger.

He could feel an imminent danger to his life.

“Interesting…” he murmured. “I didn’t sense anything like this until today. Which means that something happened today that made this danger imminent.”

His eyes sharpened knowingly.

“The treaty.”

It was far too striking for him to possibly dismiss as a coincidence. Whatever danger he was facing was a danger that had been accelerated by the ratification of the Genora-Panama Alliance Treaty. Which meant that it was likely not a natural phenomenon by any means and was, in fact, the reaction of some party out there to the human-elven treaty.

Rui heaved an exasperated sigh. “The point of the treaty is to deter an attack on humans, not provoke one. What madman decided to pick a fight with human civilization after we entered an alliance with the dark elves?”

He had no idea, however, he highly doubted that this decision to attack him was the result of some sane, rational, and logical analysis of one’s interests. He was likely dealing with some highly irrational third party.

“The fact that they decided to attack me after we entered an alliance with the dark elves…” Rui’s mind began processing the information. “…Do these guys hate elves? Did we inherit the hostility of the dark elves’ enemies? Tsk, what a pain in the ass.”

It was also possible that he was being attacked in a much larger offensive initiative, but he didn’t get those vibes.

He felt like he was the target.

In these circumstances, any sane person would take preventative measures to protect themselves.

Perhaps some would retreat entirely and head back home to the Panama Continent after learning of this incoming danger.

Others would bolster their defenses by having a protective detail of Martial Sages with them at all times.

Some would maximize surveillance and focus on smoking out the threat ahead of time.

Not Rui.

An excited smile emerged on his face.

“Bring it on.”

It was not easy to make him feel danger. His power had risen to such great heights at his current altar that very few things could truly inspire fear from him.

It had become a sensation that Rui had come to covet and yearn for.

It made him delightfully excited.

“I don’t know who you guys are…” His enthusiastic grin deepened. “…But you better make sure you plan this properly.”

He would be extremely disappointed if this were something that he could deal with effortlessly; he wanted to be pushed to his limit once more. To feel that even if he used every ounce of power to fight his opponents, he could potentially lose.

It was this uncertainty that made battles the most fun.

Of course, he didn’t want to take measures to make this even less likely to happen; thus, he decided to do nothing.

He would simply wait for the attack to come.

Of course, he wouldn’t waste time by any means; this revelation from the Eye of Prophecy had given him an even greater motivation to master the power of nature as soon as possible. Thus, he would undoubtedly begin training very hard.

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what the identity of his attacker was.

News of his victory against Anthea had undoubtedly spread throughout the entirety of the world by this point, which meant that whoever had decided to attack him had a lot of power to even consider attacking him, much less actually decide to go through with it.

“…It surely must be a superpower,” Rui mused. “And it is likely a party that we can’t have peace with. It is also likely not a sane, rational, and logical third party.”

There were several candidates who fit the bill.

The first candidate that came to his mind was the Evolutionary Army.

They were strong, without question, and they hated him specifically because they viewed him as an evolutionary who had betrayed the Army. They had enough reason to try and kill him.

However, one inconsistency was the fact that they had made the decision to launch an attack after the alliance was made.

This didn’t make sense to Rui.