CHAPTER 2319 BEGIN
That day was a special day. The denizens of the manifold had experienced pressure.
An immensely deep mental pressure.
It had borne down on them, spreading great concern across the entire manifold. Many had momentarily thought that the manifold had come under attack by the East Panamic Treaty Alliance.
Their fear turned to curiosity when they learned that the Void Prince had caused the anomaly that pressured the entirety of the manifold with the weight of his mind. Not even the Martial Sages who had been training in the manifold could contain their curiosity into the matter.
Yet, the request he made immediately after was even more bizarre.
"I would like a battle simultaneously against as many Masters willing to help me test out my new technique as possible."
Very few Martial Masters had the capital to make such demands. In the first place, there were very few Masters who could make that demand and not come under backlash for the disrespect. There were even fewer Masters who could make that demand and come away without making a fool of themselves for undertaking a challenge that was clearly too much for them. One was Master Sera, the Harbinger.
And the other was Master Rui, Void Prince of the Kandrian Empire.
STEP
The Masters stiffened when he arrived upon the Master-level battle arena within the manifold. He had changed. Owned by .
An even greater weight seemed to accompany his every movement.
A gravitas so deep he might as well have developed his own gravitational field.
As well as a peril that prickled at their nerves.
"…Remarkable," Master Sera remarked with an expression of delight as she watched from the spectator stands. "He's grown even stronger."
"Forsooth, that is to be expected," the Gatekeeper calmly replied, standing beside her. "If my suspicions are correct, he has made an immensely powerful breakthrough to obtaining an even greater capacity of thought."
The two of them had taken time out of their schedule to witness the fruits of Rui's labor that had caused the little anomaly within the manifold.
Yet, they weren't alone.
"What do you think, Your Sagehood?" Master Sera glanced to her side. "What do you foresee?"
Matriarch Nephi snorted. "I do not exercise my power lightly. What is to come will come."
"Boo."
"Rui will win, you guys," Kane promised with a wide grin. "Trust me, I have seen this exact scene a hundred times before. It happens every time he makes a major breakthrough. He reaches a whole other level than before."
Out of all of them there, Kane knew Rui better than anyone. He had come to recognize so many patterns in the way that his best friend progressed that he could almost form his own predictive model on the way that Rui evolved as a Martial Artist.
"I, too, foresee a complete victory." The Divine Doctor smiled mirthlessly. "The mental pressure that I momentarily experienced that day was indicative of a massive breakthrough in net combat power."
His words drew the attention of the other five of them. "Why are you even here?" Master Sera raised an eyebrow. "I didn't take the Divine Doctor to be a fan of Martial Art."
"Oh, I'm not. I assure you I couldn't care less about it," he replied nonchalantly. "I'm just curious about the progress my stethoscope has made, you see."
All five but Kane found his words to be confounding. He was the only one who had been privy to the agreement that Rui had formed with the Divine Doctor in the Beast Domain. He knew why the man cared so much about how strong Rui was.
"It's about to start." Kane's gaze returned to the battle arena with an excited smile. "I'm so hyped to see what he's cooked this time."
Rui found himself standing in the middle of a group of more than a dozen Martial Artists. They adopted their various stances, facing him while he simply stood.
It appeared that he didn't feel the need to take a stance of his own.
Despite cornering him, the Martial Masters couldn't help but feel like they were the ones who were cornered.
They were each high-grade.
Yet, that didn't stop them from breaking into a cold sweat.
"Thank you all for agreeing to partake in this," Rui calmly addressed them. "I appreciate it."
They simply nodded lightly.
"Now then…" Rui continued. "Let us begin."
BADUMP!!!
A variety of Martial Hearts burst into power as they surged forth, empowering their Martial Minds.
Including Rui's.
They stiffened as an endless wave of darkness eclipsed their Martial Embodiments, consuming them whole.
An infinite Void.
They had grown accustomed to it, yet the sheer power of his Martial Embodiment never failed to earn their admiration and envy.
Yet, it was what followed that truly shocked them.
The weight of his mind and Embodiment did not stop rising.
It only accelerated.
The glowing blood vessels that stretched across the entirety of his Martial Body grew dimmer and weaker as their physical output decreased. Their power was being redirected to his brain.
The blood vessels in his skull consequently began shining, resembling streams of boiling lava on arid land.
His eyes glowed blood red as they flared with power.
RUMBLE
An unfathomable amount of mental pressure weighed down on the other Martial Artists, almost shackling them where they stood. The infinite void resurged as a shocking force seemed to accompany the devastating Martial Embodiment. It was as though the Embodiment had gained material substance, threatening to erode their minds away with a vengeance.
It was as though his mind could impact materia with the sheer elevation of its cognition.
"What are you waiting for?" His voice had remained unchanged, yet they could have sworn that it was heavier than before.
Those words that jolted them out of their stupor.
He was right.
What were they waiting for?
Sure, he was stronger than them, but that did not mean he was invincible.
They also had a huge numeric advantage.
On top of that, Masters were naturally highly observant.
While his mind had grown more powerful, they did not fail to miss that his Body had grown weaker.
It didn't take a genius to figure out the basics of what he was doing.
"Attack!" They leaped all at once, ignorant of what was to come. -