The Martial Unity

Chapter 3953: The Catastrophe

Those words shook Rui to his core as he watched the light leave the eyes of his mother, his own eyes tearing up despite the blood-red suns shining with blinding brightness. Every instinct in him wanted to let go and allow her to finish speaking, even if it meant delaying the end of the battle.

And yet, he couldnʼt do that. He had a responsibility to himself, to Gaia, to his people, and of course, to his daughter, to finish the threat to the world as soon as possible. Despite the fact that he desperately desired to understand what she was saying, he couldnʼt let go.

And yet, the words kept ringing in his head.

As promised by everything.

His expression intensified. He didnʼt understand.

He didnʼt understand what she was saying. Exactly what promised her that he would grow well? What did it mean for ʼeverythingʼ to promise her that? Was it the one that was responsible for his rebirth?

He was so close to an answer.

And yet, so far.

His expression crumpled as he watched the final embers of life escape the Noosphere as he watched his mother die in front of him. He watched as his own hands snuffed the life of his own mother for the second time. She had died giving birth to him, and now she would die at his hands as they choked the life out of her.

And yet, not a single ounce of panic or resistance emerged from the Noosphere embodying the information. She simply gazed into the depths of his eyes with her brown irises with a strange mix of maternal affection and pious reverence.

Until there was nothing left.

The embodiment of the Noosphere grew lifeless, still in his motherʼs visage. Unlike the other bodies, she didnʼt return to the lake of primordial seed that her existence was made up of.

Instead, her very existence began fading away.

Just as the Martial Transcendents had.

It was not something that Rui had anticipated. If Martial Transcendents disappeared for interfering with reality, then it made sense that others would too, even if their means of doing so were different. He watched as the lifeless body of his mother disappeared, fading into reality.

WHOOSH…

Until there was nothing felt.

A single tear emerged from his eyes, crawling down his cheek as his hands balled into fists. A storm of emotion settled upon his heart as he reflected on the journey that the final battle had been. The ghosts of the past, most of whom meant a lot to him, allowed him to settle any lingering emotional conflicts he had with them.

And yet, the journey had broken his heart nonetheless. He knew very little about his birth mother, having seen her only once when he was born. She had passed away just moments after giving birth to him, a memory that had never faded away. Lashara had raised him extremely well, making him never bemoan the absence of his birth mother. As her biological son, he instinctively felt great affection and love for her, and yet, because he had never known her, her passing never agonized him the way Lasharaʼs death did.

Only now, upon coming face to face with his biological mother, did the weight of her absence in his life truly move him. He understood what he had been deprived of, what had been taken from him. The horror and sorrow of having to kill the existence of his own mother on top of that was agonizing, so much so that he wasnʼt sure he would have been able to go through with it without Gigabrain.

A maelstrom of emotional turmoil consumed his heart, clouding his mind as the blood-red suns in his eyes grew hazy.

They lost sight.

They lost sight of their true enemy, consumed by the emotions that plagued their heart.

Just as the virus had hoped.

RUMBLE!!!!!

What followed came outside of Ruiʼs awareness. The world shook violently as the chamber of creation shuddered before imploding.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The chamber of creation imploded. The walls clad in glowing, transcendent esoterics broke entirely as the entire chamber contracted, closing in on him from all directions, threatening to crush him where he stood.

His invincible reactions, especially in a state of Gigabrain, were ever so slightly deficient, consumed by the sorrow and grief that plagued his heart about the pain, suffering, and death he had inflicted upon his mother.

And thus, he was unable to foresee the incoming attack.

If not Autocorpus, he would have died then and there.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

RUMBLE!!!!!!

The world shook violently as the entirety of the world around him converged upon him with great force in a mighty explosion that sent shockwaves across the very fabric of reality itself. The collision was so extraordinarily powerful with such great pressure that it triggered nuclear fusion at the point of impact around Rui, as if it were a star, leading to even greater destruction.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

RUMBLE!!!!!!

It was an attack the likes of which no other pathwalker in the world, not even the Suneater, would have been able to survive. And yet, the blood-red suns in Ruiʼs eyes shone with blinding brightness as he barely managed to survive with Aqua Existentia.

”Rgh…!” he coughed boiling blood even as he struggled to deploy exotic pluripotent matter to restore flesh that was rapidly vaporizing in the force of the extraordinary heat and pressure.

And yet, it wasnʼt enough.

RUMBLE!!!!!!

An extraordinary amount of force, the likes of which he had never experienced in his entire life, converged on his body. He felt an unfathomable amount of weight press down on him.

The weight of the Panama Continent.

The weight of the crust beneath it.

The weight of the mantle.

The weight of a section of Gaia.

It was an extraordinary amount of force and power, and it only grew stronger and stronger.

His skin began vaporizing.

His flesh began boiling.

His bones began cracking like twigs.

One moment, he was at peak health thanks to True Water. The very next moment, the catastrophe of a planetary cave-in threatened to crush his very existence.

RUMBLE!!!!!!