The Martial Unity

The words of the Divine Doctor were chilling.

If they were true, then it meant that there were still too many things about the very nature of the universe and reality that he didn’t understand. This was especially unsettling because Rui was a Martial Sage who had a tremendous understanding of reality and the universe.

He had gained many enlightenments throughout his life that enhanced his understanding of reality itself. The most important being the Enlightenment of Self that allowed him to understand his place in the universe and his role as an agent of cause and effect. He could see the flow of causality through the universe and could sense reality distilled at its finest.

And yet, the Divine Doctor’s hypothesis insisted that they understood very little about reality.

“There must be some truth to that, I suppose.” Rui gazed at his hands with a knowing expression. “I can only feel the fear when I activate Gigabrain, where my mind is elevated to a vastly greater state of power. Which means I’m lacking in my normal state.”

He turned to the Divine Doctor with an impressed expression. “You managed to experience the fear through pure comprehension without any personal power of your own, unlike everybody else. That’s something.”

Rui’s tone was sincere.

It appeared that it took nominally Transcendent-level power or a Transcendent state of existence of some sort to achieve being able to sense the fear. However, the Divine Doctor had proven that one could experience the existential soul-wrenching dread through pure comprehension achieved by the pursuit of understanding.

“This ’virus’ you speculated about…” Rui murmured. “How connected do you think it is to the fear that you experience?”

“…I cannot say,” the Divine Doctor replied with a more clinical tone, growing more and more composed. “I suspect that there might be some connection. But I do not think the state of Gaia by itself is enough to explain the fear that the Martial Transcendents, you, and I have experienced.”

Rui nodded in agreement.

He had experienced the Transcendent Fear twice now, once in his battle against the East Genoran Mothers of Nature and the second time in his battle against the Dragon Emperor. Each time, it was a terror that emerged from the depths within his heart from a source that felt like it covered every inch of reality itself.

If this ’virus’ or ’parasite’ that the Divine Doctor hypothesized was inside Gaia, then the threat that Rui felt from deep within his heart, emerging from everywhere, would most likely not be so omnipresent.

“That doesn’t mean this ’virus’ is not a threat, either,” Rui remarked with a serious expression. “It might even be a greater threat to us than the Transcendent Fear due to its immediate proximity and perhaps due to being a more acute danger to us.”

“It all depends on what the ’purpose’ of this virus is,” the Divine Doctor reasoned, deep in thought. “Of course, it may not have a purpose as shocking as that sounds.”

Rui raised an eyebrow. “You mean it is a naturally occurring lifeform?”

“Possibly,” the Divine Doctor replied. “It might also just not be a singularly cogent lifeform but rather some sort of complex inorganic, esoteric agent that isn’t alive but has naturally integrated with our planet without any ’intent’ attached to it even if the events that have happened in the Panama Continent feel like they were intended.”

Rui heaved a tired sigh as he took a seat at the command room beside the Divine Doctor, turning his attention to the control panel and the many screens featuring data that the sensors of the research ship collected on Gaia.

He couldn’t help but marvel at how beautiful his home world was from afar. It was nothing short of a work of art, one that stood out from the rest of the solar system and universe.

“I won’t allow anything to happen to her.”

The Divine Doctor’s tone was unusually serious.

Rui turned to the man with a knowing gaze. “You… you have changed. Did this vessel of yours undergo some kind of mutation? You aren’t supposed to be this affable. You’re supposed to be an unfathomable creep.”

A small smile cracked at the edge of the Divine Doctor’s mouth. “I think it’s because of how long I have spent in this vessel. It has led to the eventual development of phenomena widely known as emotions within me. Discovering immortality, inspired by your breakthrough in that regard, has allowed my brain to correct for the unnatural state of mind I normally possess. This body has undergone accelerated maturation from infancy to adulthood, like all other vessels, which is why I have never developed emotions. But after a hundred and sixty-eight years…”

He gazed at his hands with a serious expression. “…My brain has corrected for the extreme divergences in its normal trajectory. I have become more… human.”

Rui’s eyes lit up as he studied the man. “…I actually think this version of you is much better than your old versions. The old you gave me the creeps.”

The Divine Doctor smiled with a forlorn expression. “I used to believe that emotions were a liability. That even fear was a liability. Primitive constructs and vestiges from an evolutionary heritage that we have long out-evolved. And, to some extent, I still believe that. However…”

His hands balled into fists. “…Having experienced them once more after almost one thousand years, I would not let them go for anything. It feels as though I have lived my life, my lives, as half a person, and only now have I regained what I lost after my first death.”

The Divine Doctor’s eyes shifted back to Gaia.

“I have one final mission in life. I will fix Gaia. I will heal her. I will rid her of the parasite or virus that has violated her very being and threatens us all. It is the least that I can do after everything that she has done for us.”