The Martial Unity

Chapter 4423: Unveiling Truth

At a physical level, he was taken aback by the silent, smooth, but tremendous flood of materia prima flowing through her body.

"How pristine."

Martial Sages were messy. Materia prima was like a shackled beast that desperately struggled and writhed, trying to break free of its shackles. It took many, many years of experience and training to truly subjugate the beast well.

Yet, the beast within her body was not shackled.

It obeyed her unquestionably.

"You’re going to die if you don’t stop holding back, Dad," her amber eyes blazed with an unfathomable amount of power.

"So it would seem." An enthusiastic smile emerged on his face.

WHOOSH

In the span of nanoseconds, Ria’s fist arrived a centimeter away from his face.

Even with all of his might, trying to tank an attack that could shatter a moon with his face with just his Martial Body was suicide.

That was why he chose to dodge it.

WHOOSH

Even before he could react, his body had already moved.

It moved on its own.

As if it possessed its own intelligence.

"What?!" Ria’s eyes widened with shock. "How can your body move like that without your mind? No, wait, how can you react that quickly?!"

It was instantaneous.

The only time she had actually witnessed a body move by itself.

"Surely you’ve seen Kane use the Corporeal Realm," Rui remarked with a puzzled expression.

"Is that what that is?" Her expression morphed into one of curiosity. "Uncle Kane is too fast for anybody to see anything."

"I suppose that’s true," Rui mused with a smile. "But yes, I thought I would demonstrate the path forward to you, rather than simply give you a simple explanation."

He took a stance. "This is my Corporeal Realm. The Body of Water."

Ria’s eyebrows furrowed as she studied his body. "...Your body is violating the law of causality."

The causality of thought preceding action, even if subconscious thought or reflex, was something that she regarded as absolute. In all her life, she had never seen any Martial Artist or pathwalker truly violate this. Yet, as she studied her father, her Martial Body’s causal sensors told her that her father’s motions weren’t preceded by the corresponding thought.

"I’m impressed that you’re able to even sense that from me when I’m hiding it from you." Rui’s expression was one of appreciation. "But your conclusion is mistaken. My body is not violating the law of causality. It’s just a realm of causality that you don’t quite yet understand."

"...What does that mean?"

In response, her father merely took a stance. "Come and find out for yourself."

Her eyes sharpened. "You’re on!"

WHOOSH

She rushed towards him, pushing herself to the very limit. She thought surely her father couldn’t possibly beat her when he wasn’t using his Transcendent power, his Soul, Mind, or even his Heart. Yes, he was the strongest, but even the strongest had limits with how strong they could be if they were extremely limited.

Yet, her father’s performance begged to differ.

He managed to hold on.

Despite his output being vastly lesser than hers, he managed not to explode upon contact from her attacks. He somehow managed to evade her attacks despite being in slow motion to her.

His movements were simply unfathomable.

Rui, on the other hand, chose to use only the Corporeal Realm and the Gene Realm.

He wanted to show her power beyond her comprehension and beyond her awareness. He wanted to show her that the Realms of power of the Martial Path weren’t absolute. They were simply lakes of potential through which the river of the Martial Path passed.

Lakes could be reshaped.

He could tap into his potential with just the Gene Realm and the Corporeal Realm.

It wasn’t long before Ria collapsed to the ground, drenched in sweat and drowned in exhaustion. "Huff... huff... huff..."

Her Realms of power flickered before eventually extinguishing.

"This... this violates everything I was taught in Martial Academy," she complained amid her heaved breaths. "This is absurd; it shouldn’t be possible!"

Rui smiled, sitting down beside his daughter, handing her several potions. "You shouldn’t be so close-minded about what is possible. After all..."

He turned towards her knowingly. "...You are an example of the saying that anything is possible."

"I certainly don’t feel that way after getting my butt kicked so hard," she muttered, inhaling some rejuvenation potions. "If you’re so strong, then does human civilization have anything to worry about?"

"Don’t overestimate me. I’m not invincible," Rui calmly replied. "I can be overwhelmed. And I recently had the opportunity to fight two Transcendants at once, and..."

He shook his head. "I don’t think I would have won if not for having ambushed them with the element of surprise."

"...Even though you’re so strong without using even your Martial Heart?" she raised an eyebrow.

"There are other kinds of power," Rui replied calmly. "And that’s the point of this little spar. The Corporeal Realm is a tangent in the Martial Path that I initially created merely to get stronger. I later realized that it was a brilliant crutch to expose Martial Artists to the matters of the information dimension before they start their journey towards Transcendence in earnest."

"Crutch for Transcendence...? Information dimension? I don’t understand."

"You soon will," Rui began explaining the details of the path forward to his daughter, what had now become a standard explanation of the information dimension, what it was, and what it could do.

He explained the relationship between mind and reality, as well as the relationship between information and causality. These were topics that even he didn’t fully understand yet, but he could give her broad overviews, as he had arranged for every Martial Sage.

"A dimension of information..." she muttered incredulously. "And it controls the material universe?"

"Its contents dictate it," Rui replied. "It defines reality. And it is abstract and can only be accessed by phenomena of information, such as consciousness. Phenomenological uniformity is the fundamental condition that one needs to achieve in order to become a Transcendent. And you have just arrived at the starting line of what will undoubtedly be a very long journey."