The Martial Unity

Chapter 3729: A Fulfilled Promise

”He spontaneously created a sustained wormhole...?” Sentinel Prime gazed at him with shock.

NOVA knew just how difficult it was to create a sustained wormhole spontaneously mid-combat.

Space-time teleportation was an application of a momentary wormhole.

It was momentary precisely because of how difficult it was to sustain.

It had a limited flux because of the limited time, but it was easier to generate, which was why Rui was able to generate it spontaneously mid-combat even in the past.

But a sustained wormhole was a whole other beast entirely. The fact that Rui was effortlessly maintaining one and was even able to leverage it to bypass Tokugawa Ieyasu’s MECHA was a whole other matter entirely.

”AAARRRRGHGHHRHRRRHHHH!!!” Ieyasu’s horrifying roar broke the inertia that had settled in the battle.

Dark streaks began emerging across his body as he began thrashing within his own MECHA, screaming in pain.

His skin and flesh began turning black.

”Rghhh! What... what is this?!” The stoic composure in his voice was long gone, making way for a level of desperation he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

”Ah, you weren’t there for this,” Rui remarked with a calm voice. ”No wonder you don’t know. It’s a shame, really, you would have loved assimilating the gu if you had chosen not to betray Kandria. But now...”

Rui poured even more gu into his body along with several of his own evosapien white blood cells.

The evosapien white blood cells were an absolute menace.

Ordinary white blood cells were quite badass themselves; they were warrior cells who could attack and kill any other cell.

Evosapien white blood cells went even further; they could adaptively evolve to defeat any microorganism in the entirety of the Gaian Tree of Life. They were also immune to the gu, which meant that the two could work together to defeat an enemy target.

Rui had even programmed them to consume more flesh and reproduce more, causing an aggressive white blood cell cancer to work alongside the pitch-black gu. While the gu rampaged across the body, causing mass cell death, the white blood cells consumed the nutrients of dead cells in a process similar to autophagy, and multiplied.

White and black worked side by side to mount the most lethal poison and cancer attack that the world had ever seen up until then.

This was Rui’s upgrade of the gu poison with Evolutionary power.

”Poison of Yin and Yang.”

Its lethality exceeded even the original gu that the Demon of Asmodeous wielded.

Twenty-eight years after Rui had acquired a smidgen of gu from the Demon Asmodeous, he had finally surpassed the original in his own field to become the true demon of death.

”ARGGHHH!!!” Ieyasu howled with agony as the gu and evosapien white blood cells rampaged across his body.

He tried everything.

He tried healing, but it didn’t work.

His healing was too slow and weak compared to the speed of death that the gu spread across his body.

On top of that, the white blood cells that rampaged across his body like a cancer also crushed his healing as they began systematically executing the stem cells that existed in his body, crushing the origin of new cells.

Ieyasu tried assimilating the gu.

Assimilative Evolution was his Martial Path.

Perhaps he would have succeeded with the gu alone under other circumstances, but against the Poison of Yin and Yang, he simply didn’t stand a chance.

”You might have succeeded had you not replaced your foundation with a MECHA,” Rui remarked with a chilling tone. ”You might have succeeded had you not replaced your foundation with that of a MECHA. A MECHA cannot assimilate things easily. A MECHA is not compatible with classical Martial Art principles. There is a reason that other Martial Artists of the Upper Realms have not leaped towards adopting MECHAs, including myself. And now, the price of your greed...”

His ethereal voice glinted with reckoning. ”...is death.”

Ieyasu had already stopped screaming.

His larynx was dead.

He struggled hopelessly as his life began flashing before his eyes.

’Ah... this... this is death.’

A sense of relief overcame Tokugawa Ieyasu.

He didn’t like that he was being killed by Rui Quarrier of all people in such an overwhelming manner.

But he didn’t fear death.

He welcomed it.

He welcomed it, for in death, he would be free from his fear.

The fear that had plagued him his entire life.

The fear that was the source of his greed.

He sought power because he was afraid.

Terrified, even.

Rui’s ethereal eyes widened as he sensed the fear.

It was a familiar fear.

”You...” A tone of realization crept into Rui’s voice. ”You once told me you would divulge the truth of what you fear if I defeated you in battle.”

Tokugawa Ieyasu’s cybernetic eyes stirred as he thought back to the promise he had made to Rui before their prior battle as Martial Masters. He had indeed promised Rui that, but because he had defeated Rui in that battle, he had never told him the truth of what he feared.

”You never specified which battle; you simply said defeat,” Rui smirked. ”You are about to die, so why don’t you fulfill your promise and tell me what you fear?”

Tokugawa Ieyasu stirred.

He couldn’t talk, for most of his body had already died.

His brain probably had a minute of life left.

He could choose to snub Rui and die, taking the secret with him.

But... he decided against that.

’I fear everything.’ He thought to himself, knowing Rui could read his mind. ’From the moment I was born, my instincts told me that there was something out there. Something dangerous. Something omnipresent. Something... alive. It was a horrifying realization and one that haunted me for as long as I could remember.’

Rui’s eyes lit up with interest.

He hadn’t heard of anybody experiencing the Fear from the moment they were born.

Of course, it was entirely possible that Ieyasu was born with a mental disorder that caused him to develop excessive fear. But these people tended to be highly unstable temperamentally, while Ieyasu acted on his fear in a relatively rational manner, choosing to pursue power.