The Martial Unity

Chapter 4258: A Tale of Two

The Divine Mother froze.

Ria’s eyes opened.

Within their amber depths was the faintest of sense of hope.

A glint of recognition.

”...Papa?”

RUMBLE!!!!!

It was not the world that shook.

It was not the debris, the asteroids, the planets, or even the dwarf stars that shook.

It was not even space and time.

It was reality itself.

Reality itself quaked in a manner beyond the realm of material causality.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The roaring rumble that echoed through the information dimension was distinct.

It was not the seismic bellows of earthquakes.

It was not the booming collision of a meteorite.

No.

It was closer to the distinctive roar of a waterfall.

The churning rumbles of a mighty river.

The cacophonic orchestra of heavy rain.

It was all of them.

It was water.

It was Water.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as the entirety of the Strehegeld Star System was drowned in a flood of water.

A tsunami that consumed the entire star system.

The very sky, the very depths of outer space, frothed as an ocean consumed the entirety of the star system.

A display of power that was unlike anything that the Divine Mother had ever seen. She spotted the information dimension shifting. She spotted a consciousness so mighty that the webs that composed it exceeded her fathoming. She spotted it washing through the information dimension with a profound phenomenology unlike anything she had ever seen in her long, long life.

It wasn’t that a region of H2O the size of a solar system had spontaneously entered the Strehegeld Star System.

Such a thing wasn’t even possible.

What was happening was even more extraordinary.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The water flooded Planet Amadeus III, rushing across the surface of the planet, covering every corner of the world. It consumed the entirety of the no-longer-infected world.

It washed over Kane, freeing causing him to wake up.

It washed over Arastia, unshackling her from the binding webs of the Divine Mother.

It washed over Sage Sayfeel, causing him to gasp for air despite being drowned in water.

It washed over Ria, whose expression grew ecstatic. ”Hahaha!”

The water gushed about her protectively.

Affectionately.

Paternally.

Lovingly.

It evoked a flood of memories from the phase of her life when she was happiest. When she was a child who hadn’t quite yet grasped the truth of her status and her family. She would sit perched in her father’s arms as he would take her anywhere she wanted.

All in the warmth of his arms.

The Divine Mother experienced something else.

The Water didn’t brush past her.

It didn’t certainly didn’t caress her.

No.

Every drop of water.

Every iota of the tsunami of water that swept the Strehegeld Star System.

It converged upon her.

It converged upon her with the force of supernova.

A single voice of unfathomable power rang in her ear just a moment before the attack struck.

”Get away from my daughter.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!

The world shook violently as an impact so unfathomably power that it would have shattered reality itself if not for the mercy that he had for it. The force, both physical and ontological, struck the body and the information of the Divine Mother.

His fist crashed into the abdomen of the homorachnoid with so much force that it launched her body into FTL.

She zoomed out of the planet at speeds vastly exceeding the speed of light.

A phenomenon that should have been impossible without highly engineered negatron warp fields.

And yet, Everything was Water.

Including the permittivity and the permeability of free space.

THWOOM!!!!!

The attack launched the Divine Mother so fast that she had moved millions of kilometers in less than a second, zooming through the vast expanse of the Strehegeld Star System at extraordinary speeds.

WHOOSH

Ria’s eyes widened as a familiar figure arrived in front of her. .

”Ria.”

Her eyes widened as she heard his powerful, yet gentle voice behind her. She turned to find herself gazing at none other than her father.

It had been less than a month since she last saw him.

And yet, it felt like a lifetime.

Rui Quarrier had changed in the past thirteen years.

His ethereal eyes had become calmer and wiser than they had ever been. His body language was relaxed. His expression was gentle. The smile on his face was soft.

His very existence was ethereal.

As if he were a god from a higher dimension.

An existence beyond the reach of mere mortals.

He was more powerful than she had ever remembered. It was only as she beheld him in his true state of power that she finally understood what the fuss was all about.

He was in a Realm by himself.

Literally and metaphorically.

She realized that her entire life, he had suppressed his power to the absolute maximum in her presence so as not to cause her discomfort. So as to make her feel like she had a normal father.

Yet, as she beheld his presence, she understood that he was anything but normal.

She had been exposed to great power in just the past twenty-four hours, allowing her to understand the realms of power beyond her.

He was so, so far above that she couldn’t even begin to even begin to fathom what he was. Just what had he gone through to acquire this power? How much had the man they called the Emperor of Water gone through to get to where he was today?

She knew that she would never understand it.

Power that was a product of a lifetime of battles.

A lifetime of tribulations.

A lifetime of the pursuit of the Martial Path.

Of Martial Art.

Of Water.

Of Project Water.

And yet, in depths of his ethereal eyes was reflected one and only one person.

Her.

His daughter.

Ria Quarrier.

In that moment, as she beheld the true chasm that existed between them, she couldn’t help but feel unworthy.

”You have grown.”

His voice was one of profound wisdom.

His ethereal eyes glinted with severity.

”I have so much to say, but...”

He turned, gazing into the depths of space knowingly.

”It will have to wait.”

RUMBLE!!!!!

A web of power consumed the entire star system as an enraged Divine Mother charged towards Rui with boundless fury in her six eyes. The two Transcendents faced each other in a battle of webs and water that would scar the entire world.