The Martial Unity

RUMBLE!!!

The world shook as Rui unleashed the full power of his Body, Heart, Mind, and Soul. Each neuron in his brain had become a star of information, twinkling brightly.

His brain had become nothing short of a galaxy of information.

He pushed himself as he wove together a new system of thought to interpret nature itself. The more he scoured the data, the more he managed to harness the very essence of nature itself.

The full truth became even clearer.

Nature was amorphous.

It had no clear boundaries between what was nature and what wasn’t.

The plants and trees, the animals, the microbes, and the chemical cycles that sustained the heart of nature.

It eclipsed even the Tree of Life in something much larger.

Rui’s eyes glowed with unfathomable power as a whisper of realization emerged from him.

“The Tapestry of Nature.”

Even as he wove the tapestry, he understood much that he had not conceived of before.

“The whole world is a part of nature. Nature expresses itself through all of us and we express ourselves in nature,” he realized. “No wonder I was never able to even detect the will of Nature in the past, even as a Martial Sage.”

He closed his eyes.

“I was too blind.”

His tone grew profoundly tranquil.

“My gaze was too narrow.”

Despite being able to sense the world at its root, he wasn’t able to truly understand the significance of what he was looking at.

Nature was change.

It was a flux of energy and information between life and unlife, material and immaterial; it was a cycle and a circle that encompassed the entire world.

It changed and brought about change.

It evolved and brought about evolution.

Gaia herself, an indomitable planet that was the very foundation of all life, was also merely an element of nature.

It was in that moment that he understood.

He understood a truth that far eluded him before.

“Nature is adaptive evolution.”

At its root, it was no more than a flux of energy and information that sustained. Before all life existed, all manner of chemical reactions and phenomena occurred, yet not all of it lasted.

Many compounds and much of the chemistry that ensued could not last.

Even if it lasted, it could not spread.

Bit by bit, the complexity of chemistry continued rising as chains of chemical compounds with the power to not only sustain their existence in Gaia, but also with the power to spread into self-sustaining chemical substances.

This was the origin of life as well as the source of evolution.

This was nature.

The very essence of nature was adaptive evolution.

It was the greatest outcome of adaptive evolution, as well as the greatest source of adaptive evolution.

“Nature is Water.”

The epiphany erupted within Rui’s mind in a profound rush of euphoria.

In that moment, he felt a profound sense of peace.

In that moment, he felt himself taking another step down his Martial Path.

Another step among many more to come towards a higher Realm of power.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as a flood of power of extraordinary intensity erupted from him, threatening to wipe everything out around him. Mother Alicia began exerting her own power to protect the Forest of War from the onslaught of information that Rui released upon the world, protecting the dark elves that simply beheld the feeling of boundless power that they sensed from Rui from far away.

His power mesmerized all those who could feel it.

The power of Water was unlike anything they had ever beheld in their entire lives.

And yet, he persevered.

He persevered even as he wove together the Tapestry of Nature.

He persevered even as he began understanding the will of nature.

The mind of nature.

It was broader than anything he had ever imagined.

It was not discrete.

It included the dark elves.

It included the trees.

The plants.

The shrubs.

Even the grass.

Even the microbes that were insignificant in their microscopic stature were a part of the mind of nature.

Planet Gaia, in all her vast magnificence, was a part of the mind of nature.

What was most shocking was that he himself was a part of the mind of nature.

They were all one.

He began understanding the elven perspective better.

He began understanding the Nature Path more.

Indeed, as he had conjectured, it was not an individualistic path like the Martial Path.

Progress in the Martial Path was born of individuality.

The more individuality a Martial Artist had, the stronger they would be and the greater the progress they could make.

However, for dark elves, they needed not individuality, but collectivity. The more collective they were, the more progress they would make down the Nature Path.

Since Nature itself was a collective, those who followed the path of nature needed to find their place in this collective. The amount of power they could harness depended on how much they could connect with this collective.

That was what the Hymn of Mind and Soul was.

It was adjusting the neuroactivity of their brain to smoothly integrate with the mind of nature.

RUMBLE!!!!!!!!

Mother Alicia began truly exerting her vast and immense power to contain the information and power that Rui unleashed, preventing his destructive onslaught from just existing to wipe out all elves in the Forest of War.

She began mobilizing her vast energy reserves while drawing on nature energy, the source of the power of elves.

The energy of the Sun, the energy of Gaia, the energy that they had generated in nature, enhanced by their biotechnology.

She also adjusted the cells in her body and her physiology to absorb his power as well, enhancing her own reserves while she siphoned the boundless energy that Rui radiated from his body.

Mother Alicia felt power unlike anything she had ever felt before as she absorbed Rui’s power, hyper-charging her energy reserves as she struggled to contain the tsunami of energy that Rui unleashed in his pursuit of the Tapestry of Nature.