The Martial Unity

The story progressed at a high pace. After all, it was to cover at least a solid chunk of the Dawnbringer’s life in the two hours that it ran for. It sped through his time as a Martial Squire, touching up on his time in the Shionel Confederation. She saw how he used his wits to play the entire political establishment and the Merchants’ and Adventurers’ Guild to become the ultimate winner of the Shionel Dungeon Raids, along with the CEO of Bradt Distribution Service, much to her shock. She had used the service of the latter many times, including traveling to Arima III in her journey back to the frontier.

‘I need to find another service,’ she made a mental note. ‘I don’t want my dad spying on me through his friend.’

What mostly drew her attention, however, was how different he was from her as a Martial Artist. She was pure, raw, unadulterated talent concentrated into one person.

He, on the other hand, was ordinary in most ways.

Except for his mind. The sheer amount of information he processed, according to the movie, anyway, truly made her wonder if he did have a neural inlay. Even though the technology hadn’t been invented back then.

How else could it be explained? How could a normal person have such a powerful mind?

She grew immersed in the portrayals of his fighting method. It reminded her of her own, in many ways. He adaptively evolved his movements and even his body to become the kind of existence that was antithetical to his opponent, demolishing them even if they had stronger stats on paper.

Adaptive evolution and, more importantly, the application of his mind to adaptively evolve as well as he did to her opponents was at a level that was equal to her own.

She realized belatedly that they had more in common than she understood. They both saw a battle as not simply an exchange of fists, but a sequence of causality. He changed himself to change the outcome of the battle.

But Ria simply changed the battle itself.

She wondered who would win between them in a fight if everything was equalized and they were both at the same age. She had crossed the Realms much, much faster than he did, but that was partly due to the fact that she lived in an era where Martial breakthroughs were already cracked.

Her father had created those methods, and she, and every other Martial Artist in the Era of Expansion had benefited from them. He also lived in an era deprived of the kind of technology that she had access to very readily.

However, there was another difference between them that she hadn’t realized.

The sheer intensity of their drives.

This was one regard where her father, if the movie was to be believed, was clearly light-years above her. His motivation was, frankly, inhuman. It was hard to believe that a person could be so dedicated to a single goal. Did she have anything like that she was dedicated to?

Not really. Perhaps the strongest source of motivation she had was to get away from the stuffy life and destiny of a princess of the Kandrian Empire, but once she had gotten away from it, she didn’t have as much ferocity in her desire to get stronger. She did, of course, recognize that power was the ultimate guarantor.

Her father, however, didn’t seem like he was driven simply because of the power itself, strangely enough.

The movie continued on, skimming through his life as it covered the earliest phases of his life, his exile, and his road to Martial Senior. It covered the first Kandrian Throne War, in which her father partook in an ever more engaged role, fooling the other princes and princesses and managing to outwit them.

The final scene of the movie was the decrepit Emperor of Harmony declaring Rui Quarrier his son as the prince.

And that was where the movie ended.

“Cliffhangers,” Ria snarled. “Anybody who dares to write cliffhangers should be executed!”

Of course, knowing that her father was the Emperor right now, she was sure that he had ultimately gone to accept his destiny as the ruler of Kandria, surely.

“He actually did not,” Runark told her afterwards, after they left the theater. “He pretended to accept it, but actually rejected it secretly, and then went to find the Divine Doctor to heal his father so that his father could continue being the Emperor.”

“What?!” Ria turned towards Runark with a frown. “Why? He’s Emperor now, isn’t he? Why did he reject the throne?”

Runark smirked at her.

“He said he wanted nothing to do with the throne and all the burdens that came with it.”

Her amber eyes widened with shock as a strong wave of deja vu hit her. That was exactly how she felt about the throne. She wanted nothing to do with being Empress of the Kandrian Empire in the future. She would much rather her parents had more children so that one of them could take over, or Aunt Ru become the Empress if her father ever got bored with it.

“Then… why did he change his mind?”

“You really should study history,” Runark huffed lightly, shaking his head. “Aren’t you interested in learning about your father? I love reading about the tales of my dad. He’s so cool! On the run with your dad as they took on the world.”

He turned towards Ria with a grin. “Just like we are right now.”

She smiled at those words. “I suppose. I don’t like reading about my dad because… it just feels like fan fiction. He’s so different from how they describe him that I don’t even know whether to even take it seriously.”

“That’s true,” Runark admitted, having seen how much her father doted on her. “But that was who he was before he had you. You might be able to understand him more, about why he is Emperor, about why you are the Princess, if you understand who he was before.”

She pondered those words seriously, contemplating learning more about her father’s story.

His actual story.