The Martial Unity

RUMBLE…

The Strehegeld Star System smoldered in the aftermath of the battle between two Transcendents. The sheer ferocity of the conflict had completely scarred every inch of the star system, destroying every single planet, eviscerating the asteroid belt that revolved around the binary star system.

It reduced a red dwarf star into a black hole.

It scarred the other remaining star, causing it to flare and boil unstably.

The gas and the dust in the star system rapidly lost their heat through radiation as their glows began dimming. The sheer energy that spilled across the entire star system, however, had yet to escape. With the laws of reality returning to their previous integrity, the speed of light’s absolution had returned.

Waves of radiation and low-energy plasma washed over every single spaceship in the entire star system. If not for modern insulation and defense technology, every single electronic device would have been fried, and every living being would have been irradiated to hell and back. It was because of the advancements of electromagnetic forcefield technology that the ships and their occupants had managed to remain completely stable.

RUMBLE…

The trembling, however, didn’t cease. The hulls of the many frigates, crafts, and ships never stopped quivering despite the vibrational stabilization systems, a testament to the sheer onslaught of radiation and plasma that swept over the many ships.

The light of the star system was still blindingly bright to anybody who tried to peer through the windows of the star system. Any normal human being would go blind in the blink of an eye, while even Martial Artists would experience heavy strain. The sheer intensity of the light that traveled minutes across the star system also blinded the sensory apparatus of every ship.

”Infrared, UV, radar… they’re all completely blinded, Madam President.” Commander Helsia spoke with a grim tone of voice. ”We can’t navigate our way through the star system if it is in this condition, Your Excellency.”

Arastia studied the reports coming from the crew in real time with a heavy expression. Her blood-red eyes were serious, drowned in thought.

The battle that had unfolded had weighed heavily on her.

It had dented her confidence.

Not that she was ever an extremely confident individual to begin with. She was probably more humble than most of her peers who ranked alongside as some of the most powerful pathwalkers in the world, but she did have pride, self-esteem, and confidence, certainly.

They had been completely shattered by the battle between two Transcendents. She realized that the power that she possessed, exceptional as it was, was simply meaningless in the face of a Martial Transcendent or alien Transcendents.

Something that she didn’t even know existed. It made her realize that she was not as secure as she would have liked to think.

’I need to get stronger. I need to find a way to the Transcendent Realm through the Blood Path.’

Her elder brother had been very helpful, of course, but he couldn’t show her the path forward. He could only help her by sharing his understanding of Transcendence, which he certainly had. But it was up to her to understand how to get to the ultimate power.

’Phenomenological uniformity…’

Frankly, it was something that she found to be very strange and abstract. Like it was beyond words. And before Rui, it had been beyond words. Only Rui had the understanding of philosophy, metaphysics, and information, along with the necessary nomenclature to be able to explain it in words. But she still had absolutely no idea where to begin.

”Madam President?”

The commander’s voice broke out of her reverie, bringing her back to reality. Important as it was, she had more urgent and immediate matters to tend to. Her attention returned to the environment of the command center of the Blood Arc.

It was noisy, filled with the sound of urgent, tense voices. The hum of the ship and the tremors that swept through its structure also made the air feel busier, as did the sounds from the hologram interfaces, the commpads, and even the stream of data to her neural inlay.

”Our priority, for now, is to get the hell out of here,” Arastia repeated, as if reminding herself. ”What are our options if our sensors are blinded by the aftermath of the supernova?”

”The only pair of sensors that we have that remain functional are our gravitational sensors,” the commander said with a grim tone. ”However, the resolution of their feed is, unfortunately, degraded by the fluctuations of space-time from the supernova. We will need to wait at least a day before the gravitational waves have swept past the star system before we can detect the exact location of the Lagrange point.”

”Then so be it,” Arastia spoke with a serious tone of voice. ”What is the status of our allies? Have we managed to get in touch with them?”

”The environment is too volatile for broad bandwidth electromagnetic transmission, but it is possible to establish a micro-wormhole communication system if you would like.”

”Do that right away,” Arastia remarked. ”If we’re going to have to wait before we can leave, then I would rather have an understanding with our allies about the current situation. The events that have happened in this star system will…”

Her blood-red eyes sharpened.

”…likely alter the future of human civilization.”

She wasn’t exaggerating with her evaluation, of course. She knew that the civilization that they had encountered in the Strehegeld Star System, on Planet Amadeus III, was an ordinary civilization. It was certainly not a planetary civilization that simply happened to be one of the worlds that got infected with the virus.

There was a relationship between the homoararchnoid civilization and the planetary civilization that she didn’t quite understand. It was the only explanation for why the homoarachnoids responded to the call of the virus.

Then there was the fact that there was a whole civilization within an inner surface inside the planet. It was only after her elder brother destroyed the planet into fragments held together by a city of web on the inner surface of the planet that she fully understood just how advanced the homoarachnoids truly were.

They were no mere planetary civilization.

They were likely a civilization more advanced than human civilization, from what she could tell.