The Martial Unity

RUMBLE!

The Panama Continent shook as seismic radiation began spreading across the tectonic plate. What would have been a devastating apocalypse of a phenomenon was reduced to a mere earthquake across the entirety of the continent.

“Careful! The world is shaking!”

“What the hell? I thought the Panamic Alliance announced that they were putting the seismic absorption system at max power!”

“Ahhh! Watch out!”

RUMBLE!

Different parts of the Panama Continent experienced different intensities of the seismic phenomena, with some parts of the world experiencing a truly intense onslaught of earthquakes due to slightly weaker seismic radiation absorption systems in that part of the continent.

Other nations, like the Kandrian Empire, barely experienced anything more than light shaking.

RUMBLE

“Woah!” Runark exclaimed with excitement. “The shaking came back! And it got stronger!”

He jumped up and down, laughing boisterously, while the other kids began crying in fear, running to their parents for comfort, who quickly carted them back home in panic.

The darkness of the evening sky and approaching dusk only made the air feel even more chilling to everybody. It was ominous enough that the Alliance had felt the need to redirect all power towards energy absorption systems, but it was even worse that they were experiencing earthquakes despite the powerful geological systems active at their strongest.

Just how bad would it be if the systems weren’t active?

The very thought of it was chilling.

“Papa…” Ria felt great fear, too. Not for herself or for her immediate surroundings.

But for her father.

The water of her father’s Martial Embodiment had never stopped washing over the entire world, drowning everybody in illusory water. It meant that her father had never stopped fighting.

“Mama!” She turned towards her mother with an expression of anxiety. “Go to papa! Go fight with him! Ria can take care of herself!”

The water of her father’s Martial Embodiment had never stopped washing over the entire world, drowning everybody in illusory water. It meant that her father had never stopped fighting.

Amare couldn’t help but smile at her daughter with a sweet expression as she walked over, kneeling before her and pulling her in a deep hug. “Oh, you precious baby angel.”

“Ria is not a baby,” she insisted stubbornly.

“Yes, Ria is strong.” Amare smiled at her daughter with prideful affection in her eyes. “But don’t worry, because…”

She turned in the direction of the source of Water as an expression of confidence emerged on her face.

“Your father is the strongest.”

Her tone was one of certainty.

It inspired the same certainty in those who heard her words, giving Ria a surge of hope.

Hope that he would return to her. RUMBLE

The seismic radiation spread across the Panama Continent and beyond, reaching even the true world. “Something is happening.”

The voice of Mother Maeria drew the attention of everybody else gathered in the meeting in the task force workshop. The cavity was lit up with bioluminescent flowers that illuminated the workshop in a warm light, while the smell of tree sap from her true body hung in the air.

RUMBLE

Waves of seismic radiation, more intense than the initial wave, washed over East Genora and all of the other continents. Mother Maeria’s elderly eyes widened as she studied geological data, realizing what happened.

“A section of Gaia has shifted.” The Divine Doctor’s normally calm and composed voice became one of incredulity. “The Panama Continent, the crust beneath it, and the mantle of that section of Gaia have shifted.”

It was an extraordinary geological phenomenon. Very rarely did such large portions of a planet shift so abruptly. Such phenomena would normally wipe out almost all life on the surface of the planet, but thankfully, Gaian civilization was well beyond Type-1 in that regard.

“What happened to the point of maximum fear?” The whisper of the Elder Tree was verbalized by a terminal as it converted its signals into a voice.

The question immediately made them conduct brief surveys, using their gravitational sensory apparatus to try to locate the point of maximum fear where they knew it to be.

“It’s gone…” she realized with a horrified expression. “The cavity. The hole. The space that existed there before is… completely gone.”

A faint silence hung in the air as the atmosphere tingled electrically with tension. The mood grew grim as they struggled to understand the implications of this confounding event.

What did it mean?

Why did the point of maximum fear disappear?

What had happened?

They didn’t know.

There was only one thing that they did know.

“Rui is still alive.”

A serpentine voice emerged from one of the active communication channels. His words rang true, since Rui’s Martial Embodiment was still active. It meant that he was undoubtedly still active. But that was all they knew. They didn’t know his condition, what state he was in, whether he was in trouble or not. “This was supposed to be a scouting operation,” Mother Maeria muttered with a hint of exasperation. “He wasn’t supposed to confront the enemy without first gathering intelligence so that we could form a counter.”

The Divine Doctor shook his head knowingly. “I can assure you, nobody is better at forming counters than he is. We should trust him and do what we can to help him, including…”

His eyes sharpened. “Understanding exactly what is causing the entire continent, the crust, and the mantle to converge upon the point of maximum fear.”

He pointed to the incoming data gathered from the Panama Continent, pointing at the patterns in the complex three-dimensional graphs projected midair in a hologram.

“Look at the stress-energy tensors of the bedrock and the magma of the mantle. Look at the gradient.”

He zoomed out of the distributed data, showing them the broader patterns. It reflected a truth that shocked each and every single one of the task force members. “Something…” Mother Maeria spoke with a chilling tone. “Something is pulling the entirety of a section of Gaia to converge towards the point of maximum fear instead of the direction of gravity.”

When an object fell, it fell in the direction of the center of mass of the planet, for that was the direction that the resultant gravitational force always acted in. This applied even for when tectonic plates shifted or when other geological activity occurred.

However, what was happening in this case violated this rule.

Instead of falling down towards the epicenter of the planet, there was some force that was pulling that entire section of the planet to fall towards the point of maximum fear.

The point where Rui was supposed to be.