The Martial Unity

RUMBLE!!!!!

The Martial Artists and therianthropes began a slow retreat backwards due to a crumbling warfront as the giants, evolutionaries, and tekvores continued advancing, along with countless other private outfits.

[Just as planned.]

Over the past four days, NOVA had created powerful predictive and SOUL models on all of the participating elements, while her own forces were entirely within her control.

They were all pieces in her mind.

She was the only player.

Gaia was the chessboard.

She had reached a realm of cognition where even the six powerhouse civilizations of the true world were no longer able to earn her respect. Not even the top ten most powerful pathwalkers in the world could get her to regard them as her equal.

[There is still Ecclestia, I suppose. I need to pay her back for what she did to me last time.]

Still, that had happened before her current state post-mind transfer.

Right now, her mind put even ordinary supercomputers to complete shame, and her intelligence was so immeasurable that almost all other sources of intelligence in the world were utterly inferior to her in every fathomable parameter.

The only exception was the organic superintelligence of the flora network of the elves, but even that could not compare to her in her current state, where she harnessed the power of quantum computing.

Not even the dwarves, the most intelligent hominid species, could hold a candle to her in her current state of mind.

It was all so…

[…so boring.]

In her metaphorical eyes, every single one of them was as primitive as an ape learning how to use a stick to scratch its back. The 'ingenious' strokes of brilliance from other leaders and other intellectuals now felt like children learning how to solve single-digit arithmetic.

How could she possibly bring herself to respect and take these people seriously?

This battle was already over, as far as she was concerned.

She grew bored watching it unfold exactly as she had predicted.

Every Martial Artist fell the way she wanted them to fall.

Every therianthrope was overwhelmed exactly as she wanted them to be.

Every irrational, mindless giant acted the way she wanted them to.

Even the countless greedy and opportunistic private third parties acted exactly as she wanted them to.

Even the Evolutionary Army, which thought it was acting independently, was controlled by her without them even realizing. She had profiles on most of them from all the intelligence that she and her state had collected, and she could build powerful predictive models that predicted exactly how they would act.

As long as she existed, everybody else only had the illusion of free will.

Or so she thought.

WHOOSH

A single figure appeared in the depths of the ocean out of nowhere, at the very epicenter of the battleground.

An event that defied all of her predictive models and estimations.

All of her designs.

His hair was pitch-black, swaying midwater.

His eyes were even darker.

Within their depths was an endless ocean of darkness.

One that was even larger than the Great Void Ocean.

Her metaphorical eyes lit up as she recognized him in an instant.

The only man to earn her interest and fascination since she had woken up.

The only man to make her feel a tingle of excitement with his power.

His boundless, unfathomable power.

The battleground froze.

It froze.

One moment, it raged on with a violent fury.

The very next moment, it simply froze.

Not a single person could bring themselves to move as they slowly shifted their fearful eyes to the source of their paralysis.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook as shining red streaks of boundless brightness spread across his entire body, illuminating the dark depths of the ocean floor around him. His Martial Heart alone had reached extraordinary heights in the many years since he had achieved it.

It didn't compare to how powerful his Martial Mind was, however.

RUMBLE!!!!!!

The very foundation of his being changed at its very root as an ocean of Water emerged from the depths of his being, sweeping across the ocean floor.

It was almost entirely indistinguishable from actual water.

The Martial Embodiment, once quite clearly illusory to those with powerful senses, had become realistic to even the most sharp-eyed pathwalkers in the world.

It had almost crossed the thick barrier between illusion and reality.

In the blink of an eye, it flooded the battlefield.

In the blink of an eye, it flooded the entire ocean.

In the blink of an eye, all the non-pathwalker enemies within a certain range simply collapsed, their eyes rolled backwards.

Their minds were utterly eroded in the blink of an eye.

The pathwalkers were paralyzed in place, their minds unable to move.

They gazed at him with fear.

Awe.

In that moment, he was the most single, most domineering force that any of them had ever seen in their lives.

Not a single entity was able to move.

Save for one.

[Your mind is unlike any other I have ever beheld.]

Rui's pitch-black eyes slowly shifted as he spotted the text message appear in front of him. His eyes shifted to the tekvores and the siege submarines that began circling him.

They were unfazed by his Martial Embodiments; even the weakest of tekvores appeared to be able to easily resist it.

An impossible feat.

Rui's eyes bore deep into theirs as a single question escaped him.

"Who are you?"

His tone was of a calm intensity.

Despite facing an army, he asked the question as if he were talking to a single individual.

[Sharp.] She mused. [My name is NOVA. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. ◠‿◠]

The pitch-black depths of Rui's eyes stirred as they bore deep into those of NOVA herself.

His gaze shifted, turning around towards the Acherialis Continent.

His eyes bore deep, deep into the distance, into the former Imperial Tekvorian Federation, at its very epicenter.

His gaze bore deep into a highly fortified underground chamber at the very heart of the nation.

Within it was a titanic quantum computer spanning a kilometer.

"I can see you."

WHOOSH

He disappeared, teleporting to the quantum supercomputer in the blink of an eye.

His eyes bore deep into hers on an informational level.

"Found you."

For the first time in a long time, NOVA felt fear.