The Martial Unity

The clone had known that the probability of his victory was less than one percent. That was how much stronger the original’s body and Martial Art had gotten since his victory against the Dragon Emperor. From Anthean physiology, to Autocorpus, to esoteric mastery, to chaos mastery, to mirror neuron integration.

It was almost entirely hopeless. Whatever scenario that less-than-one-percent probability of victory represented was an obscure set of circumstances that would never be able to occur ordinarily.

Unless he used Gigabrain.

With Gigabrain, he could make the impossible become possible.

He could make the most unlikely scenario a certainty.

“Cough…!” Blood emerged from the clone’s body as the strain of using all Metabody System techniques simultaneously caused him to begin bleeding internally at an alarming rate.

He simply burned his health for more power, reducing the amount of time he had left.

This was his only leverage on the original.

The original wanted the two techniques, or rather one technique, that the clone was using to become intangible to hyper-amplify his attacks. They were both based on the same principle, unbeknownst to the original. WHOOSH!

The clone phased through Rui’s fist as if his body were without substance.

And indeed, at that particular moment, it was without substance.

“Corpa Etherea.”

The technique’s principle was based on a phenomenon that had occurred in the early universe. Long ago, before the universe had cooled down, particles were massless and substanceless. Before the electroweak symmetry was disrupted by cooler temperatures.

At extremely high temperatures, the four fundamental forces of the universe merged into one, causing an entirely different kind of universe governed by seemingly different laws.

Gigabrain had allowed the clone to recreate this state with negatron matter, using it to warp the very fabric of space as it had been back in the early universe.

It allowed the clone to turn the Higgs field off around his entire body, turning parts of his body massless. He could become a ghost.

A spectre.

He could become untouchable.

An invincible technique that could not be bested by any amount of force.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

All of Rui’s attacks, no matter what they were, simply permeated through the clone’s body as if he didn’t even exist. Simultaneously, he could use the same principle to intensify his interactions with the Higgs field, giving him more mass than usual.

It made his attacks much heavier than they normally would be.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The clone’s fist struck Rui’s head with a devastating impact. Rui could have used his Poison of Yin and Yang at that moment to poison the clone and take him down. He could have used other techniques to exploit the moment of interception to try to take the clone down in a more practical manner.

But he didn’t.

His intense eyes remained focused on the clone, scouring the very depths of his being as he tried to understand the principles of the magical technique, trying to copy it.

He ignored the clone’s attacks, for his body was virtually invincible. Even if the clone’s devastating impacts were heavy, Rui could easily absorb them. The few times they did damage, he could easily heal. He grew lulled into a state of carelessness as he focused all his attention on trying to copy the clone’s technique. On top of that, the clone’s deteriorating condition made him even more hasty.

DRIP DRIP DRIP…

Blood had begun dripping from various parts of the clone’s body.

His eyes.

His nose and ears.

His mouth.

His skin began to tear.

His muscles began to snap.

His flesh began to crumble.

The reason the simultaneous activation of the Metabody System was a forbidden technique was that it caused the body to exert too much power. Each second, his health was strained tremendously, and even with his extraordinary healing and the exotic pluripotent matter fueling his healing, he could only delay the inevitable.

The inevitability of death.

Something that even the original could sense, causing him to become even more impatient and desperate to copy the techniques and defeat the clone before he died.

“Shit…!” Rui’s ethereal eyes grew profoundly sharp as he accelerated the process as much as he could. It caused the sum totality of all of his focus to converge only on the clone as he desperately copied the techniques as fast as he could. In that moment, Rui had completely lost all concentration on the clone’s offensive.

It created the one and only opening that the clone had to defeat the original. His one and only chance.

WHOOSH!

His hand shot forth towards the original’s eyes with two fingers in a blindingly fast blur. Even though Rui himself was completely absorbed in copying the intangibility technique, his body-consciousness came to the rescue, swerving his head away from the attack.

Just as the clone planned.

“Tunnel of Hope.”

The fourth technique invented by the Gigabrain-empowered Forge of Creation. It made use of the principle of quantum tunneling, allowing the clone’s attack to tunnel through reality itself and emerge at the original target.

In this case, Rui’s eyes.

SPLAT!

In one smooth motion, the clone pierced Rui’s eyes, digging deeper and deeper.

The goal was not to inflict physical damage.

No, Rui would easily heal that instantly.

The goal was to inject the gu into the one and only organ in Rui’s body that was too delicate to withstand the gu poison.

The brain.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!!!

The blood-red Suns of blinding brightness flared with triumph as the clone ruthlessly injected the original’s brain with gu poison, consuming every last bit of exotic pluripotent matter to create as much gu as possible into the original’s body!

“Die.” The clone murderously declared even as he dug his fingers deeper into Rui’s eye holes, spewing even more poison into his brain.

It should have been over.

Not even Anthea’s neurology would have allowed Rui’s brain to survive the gu.

DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP…!

The clone’s bright eyes widened as he saw the gu spilling out of Rui’s body as if simply free-falling through the air.

As if Rui’s body was intangible.

Horror emerged in the clone’s eyes as he recognized the technique.

“Etherea Corpa.”

Rui’s ethereal voice rang in the clone’s ears as he tried to leap away.

But it was too late.

“Heartcrusher.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

Rui’s fist buried into the clone’s chest, causing it to utterly crumple under the unfathomable force that Rui effortlessly blasted him with.