The Martial Unity

It had always lurked beneath the surface of his skin, locked in a silent, yet violent battle against the cancer in Rui’s body.

He hadn’t wanted to use it within this forest, because he knew that this forest was disposable and was intended to be self-destructive with the purpose of destroying him.

On top of that, having sensed the unfathomable amount of antimatter there was within it, it was truly ill-advised to unleash the Gu upon such a volatile weapons and energy system, potentially destabilizing it and blowing himself up.

But if he was being blown up anyway, then there was one point in holding back.

Rui never used it lightly, for he had seen what even a single drop of it was capable of.

And yet, there were the right circumstances where he could use it.

One where he was confident that nobody he cared about would get afflicted.

And where only the people whom he wanted dead were subject to it.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as Rui unleashed the Gu upon the forest around him.

One moment, he was simply curled up in a defensive stance with Body of Water and Anti-Spiral desperately, along with Nemean Blossom, desperately protecting him against the astronomically destructive forces that the forest unleashed on him.

The very next moment, his body grew pitch black as a deathly wave of pure black emerged from within him, spreading across the entire forest in the blink of an eye.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The trees in the entire region seemed to mourn as the world shook violently. The pitch-black wave of darkness swallowed much of the forest in the blink of an eye, consuming it with a voracious appetite.

Their magnificent invintium-laden armor and their rich dark green flora were turned to black in the blink of an eye.

One moment, all the trees in the area were lively and full of vigor in their bloodlust for him.

The very next moment, they were all dead.

His Tapestry of Nature system of thought allowed him to sense their mourns as they cried out loud, cursing him within their final breath.

’AAARGHGHHH!’ Mother Mara’s screams of pain echoed across the East Genoran Flora Network as she felt the pain of the forest as her own.

The other Mothers of Nature joined her as they mourned the death of countless trees.

Having become flora themselves, they experienced a much greater sense of loss than any elf did.

They had lost daughters, sisters, sons, and brothers.

And yet, the Gu was just getting started.

RUMBLE!!!!!

It spread a huge distance, covering countless trees over dozens, hundreds, and eventually thousands of kilometers.

Everything within thousands of kilometers of Rui had experienced spontaneous death.

The trees that were touched by the gu had been reduced to pure, pitch-black darkness.

Everything within the circle had become a part of the dominion of death.

RUMBLE!!!!!

It was the first time in his entire life that Rui had used the Gu to such an extent.

It reminded him of the Gu, the land of death created by the Demon of Asmodeous himself.

In the past, Rui’s gu had not been strong enough to do anything of the sort. However, he had continuously evolved over a span of eleven years, using it against all the quasi-Transcendent beasts and monsters in the Central Highlands.

It had grown stronger and stronger each time it converted life into death.

It had grown stronger and stronger with each passing day inside Rui’s body.

After eleven years of continuous and aggressive growth, it had reached a stage where it was capable of creating its own domain of death.

His eyes illuminated as a profound realization dawned on him.

“Death is adaptive evolution.”

He had an inkling for the relationship between death and adaptive evolution, but only as he gazed upon the full might of the gu domain he had created did he truly understand just how intertwined and woven they were.

Evolution by natural selection could not function without death.

It was only thanks to the death of those who were unfit that the fittest survived.

And it was only thanks to the death of that which was unevolved that those who were most evolved could survive.

Without death, there could be no adaptive evolution.

This realization bloomed within him in blissful euphoria that enveloped his entire body protectively.

It spread from head to toe, from every cell to every other cell as he felt his Martial Path deepen.

He had taken one more step down his Martial Path.

The continued spreading even as it stretched itself thinner and thinner.

Its power was not infinite.

Once it was stretched thin enough, it would come to a halt.

And it did.

RUMBLE…

Trees that had merely been touched by the tiniest of specks of the gu poison managed to survive.

In a matter of seconds, half of the forest of execution that had been prepared to annihilate Rui Quarrier had been killed.

They had been made dead.

And now, the consequences of doing so unfolded.

The death of the flora biotechnology also meant the death of the highly secured antimatter chamber, made of once living organic tissue.

The death of the antimatter chamber meant that the antimatter was released.

And once released, it inevitably made contact with matter, which, in turn, converted the mass of both the antimatter and matter into pure energy.

An annihilation reaction.

One that unfolded countless times within the domain of death.

Rui flew up as fast as he could, curled up in a ball as he directed all of his power to Nemean Blossom while simultaneously activating Body of Water and Anti-Spiral as he summoned all the Gu back to his body in the blink of an eye.

Yet, he knew that there was no escape from what was to come.

And come, it did.

An explosion of unparalleled power emerged from the forest, threatening to destroy everything everywhere.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!

A flood of materia prima of boundless might emerged from the annihilation reactions, swallowing Rui and everything within the dead forest as Planet Gaia was illuminated with a new star upon its own surface.

RUMBLE!!!!!!