The Martial Unity

After a complete failure to take Rui Quarrier down, NOVA had readjusted her estimates of Rui’s power. She understood what he had done to his body and why that had produced such a powerful outcome, although she didn’t understand how Rui displayed such mastery of his evosapien side, as if he had been using it for an entire lifetime.

’It doesn’t matter. Martial Artists have absolute stamina limits, unlike other pathwalkers. The price of the Martial Mind and Martial Soul isn’t something that even the Dawnbringer can avoid. If we keep pressuring him over a sustained period of time, then we can take him down.’

She had completely abandoned any idea of defeating Rui through a dominant, overwhelming offensive initiative.

Even when they had Tokugawa Ieyasu on their side, they weren’t able to inflict any meaningful damage on him. He had managed to ignore the attacks of two top-ten powerhouses and focused entirely on Ieyasu before he eliminated the traitor.

In other words, as hard as it was to believe, it meant that Sentinel Prime and Suneater combined were insufficient to defeat Rui actively.

That is why NOVA had decided to switch to a passive defensive strategy where they outlasted him, and once he had weakened enough, they would take him down.

She could restock Sentinel Prime’s antimatter reserves remotely using teleportation, while Suneater possessed virtually infinite stamina despite how much energy he consumed.

Together, they merely needed to outlast the Dawnbringer for half a day before he was weak enough for them to crush him once and for all.

’I am not ending this war before Rui Quarrier is dead.’ NOVA’s determination was unyielding.

She realized, belatedly, that out of all the dangerous and terrifying aspects of the Panama Continent, the most dangerous and terrifying of them all was none other than Rui Quarrier himself.

’I must eliminate him!’

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as Sentinel Prime kept his distance from Rui, instead sticking to the Suneater like a mosquito buzzing about its target. He sought to ensure that they could pool their power as much as possible to keep Rui at bay and ensure that he couldn’t hunt them down individually with his immense power.

And it worked.

Rui’s eyes sharpened as he activated his teleportation technique.

The very fabric of space and time began bending under the weight of the micro black holes he had created.

It was within NOVA’s prediction.

“Raghhh!” Sentinel Prime unleashed a powerful pulse through space at precisely the right time, disrupting the wormhole creation technique.

Inadvertently, NOVA had spontaneously discovered a method to halt even negatron wormholes, even if it was highly flawed and impractical to implement.

It was not possible to stop wormholes from the destination end, but it was possible to disrupt them at the point of creation, which was normally hidden. But given that they were in the middle of a battle out in the open, there was no place for Rui to possibly hide the wormholes and the black holes with which he created the wormholes.

“Tsk,” Rui tutted with irritation. “How annoying.”

Disrupting wormhole creation with gravitational waves was an extremely wasteful affair, as far as energy went. Because gravitational waves grew weaker with time and distance, one had to pour an astronomically greater amount of energy than wormhole creation took.

However, with the turbulence created by Suneater combined, they began turning the entire battlefield into an impenetrable fortress where creating wormholes was extremely difficult.

’They’re trying to seal my mobility so that they can maintain their annoyingly tough defensive formation.’

By they, he was referring mostly to NOVA; he highly doubted that the titanic giant of a moron had a sophisticated battle strategy in his head, but NOVA could predict him so well that he may as well have been cooperating with her actively.

Rui charged forward as he hunted Sentinel Prime, who maintained his distance, keeping away from Rui as he circled around the enormous body of the powerful giant, unleashing a destructive onslaught of shockwaves and other wide-scale attacks.

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM!!!

Each attack was omnidirectional, making it impossible to evade even if its potency had been diluted, but it did slow Rui down like they were speed bumps, making it impossible for him to attack Sentinel Prime up close.

“You must think I’m incompetent at long-range battle.” Rui’s ethereal eyes flared with bloodlust as he unleashed a myriad of powerful sonic bullets, pooling them together in powerful construction resonance.

“Transverse Resonance.”

It was a technique he hadn’t used in a long time, but he instantly upgraded to the Sage Realm.

He further amplified the technique by altering his genetics to become hyperelastic and conductive to sound, allowing him to generate an immense amount of power for each attack, far outstripping his natural limits.

BOOOOOOOOM BOOOOOOOOM BOOOOOOOOOM BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

And yet, even those were within NOVA’s prediction.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Sentinel Prime, despite the bulk of his body, easily evaded the powerful attacks as he weaved through them, evading the destructive onslaught of attacks that Rui mounted.

“Neo Godspeed.”

He activated the Metabody System as he reached even greater heights, sacrificing power and defense for speed as time slowed down in his eyes.

He amplified the technique with evosapien half, altering slow-twitch muscle fibers to become fast-twitch, increasing his short-term speed and power, while editing his genes to get rid of the lactic acid build-up.

Anthea’s mastery had reached such a high level that he could almost design himself the perfect body and obtain it in the blink of an eye.

And Rui had inherited the mastery and merged it with his own in a highly constructive manner.

WHOOSH

He arrived before Sentinel Prime in the blink of an eye, much to NOVA’s shock, before blasting him with a flurry of attacks, each more powerful than the next.

BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM!!!!!

His blows were at Transcendent-Candidate level power despite the sheer amount of power they had sacrificed. He had laced his fists and his entire skeleton with invintium, allowing him to inflict tremendously powerful blows.

And yet, Sentinel Prime’s body weathered all of the attacks, committing all of his power solely to defense and nothing else.

Powerful energy shields negated each and every single one of Rui’s attacks, and before he could even adaptively evolve to the powerful defense, the Suneater intervened, launching a powerful attack that could not be ignored.

“Water!” his giant arm shot towards Rui with a tremendous amount of momentum.

Once more, Rui’s initiative had been halted for the umpteenth time.

“Tsk!” Rui halted his attack as he evaded the attack, glaring at the Suneater. “It’s you.”

His ethereal eyes sharpened fiercely.

“It’s you I need to deal with.”