CHAPTER 2396: HER FEAR

She saw herself in its broken and distorted image.

In the reflection, she saw herself standing on a path.

Her path.

Just a few steps away ahead of her was a gate.

An enormous and grand gate.

It was waiting for her.

It was waiting for her arrival.

In her eyes, there was longing.

She longed to walk over to it and cross it.

Yet, there was an even greater emotion that held her back.

"Fear."

Ieyasu's voice brought her back from the real world.

Only to be confronted by a powerful blow surging towards her. His powerful hands sharpened as they converged into a single point. The sum totality of his power passed through the

singularity as his body moved with such great speed and power that his entire body had become a blade.

His first attack of the battle.

It was more powerful than any attack she had ever thrown.

BOOOOOM!!!

CRACK!

The sheer impact of the attack broke her arm cleanly before flinging her away with a devastating impact.This text is © NôvelDrama/.Org.

Yet, she didn't feel pain.

No.

The only emotion she experienced was the horror that clenched her heart.

That Martial Embodiment. That attack.

She recognized both of them.

"That is my Martial Art..." A shocked whisper escaped her.

At that moment, she finally understood what his Martial Embodiment meant. She finally understood what his desire to make everything had done for him.

"A Martial Art that allows him to copy all other Martial Art."

She had never heard of such an absurd Martial Art ever before.

Yet, she could not deny the reality that had presented itself before her.

She gazed at him with unrestrained shock.

"Tell me..." His tone was stoic and frosty. "Why do you fear the Sage Realm?"

Chills crawled across her skin as her expression grew murderous.

Pure bloodlust emerged from the depths of her eyes.

She understood what was happening.

Yet, it was precisely because she understood what was happening that she understood that she didn't have the power to stop it.

"Every Master is afraid of Martial Sages..." he continued with a cold gaze. "...But no Master Is afraid of reaching the Sage Realm."

The darkness in his eyes stirred.

"...No Master except you."

She glared at him with unreserved hatred.

Yet, she refused to answer his question.

"This Martial Art of yours..." He gazed at his hands with a calm expression. "...would normally not be suited for me as a person."

His eerie black eyes turned towards her.

"I can copy it."

He began walking towards her.

"I can assimilate it."

His gait was calm and composed.

"I can even evolve it."

STEP

He arrived before her.

"But the fact of the matter is that this Martial Art is best suited for a Martial Artist who is just as nasty as the Martial Art."

The user of her Martial Art needed to be a sadistic and cruel person who enjoyed the suffering

of others. It was precisely that sadistic cruelty that allowed her to say horrible things that hurt the very souls of her targets.

He could not copy her sadistic cruelty.

He certainly could not evolve it.

He would need to reach the Sage Realm to perform such a feat.

She took her stance as a smirk appeared on her face. "Why, you flatter me."

Unfortunately for her, he could see right through her.

"You fear the Sage Realm because you fear that your Martial Art will be rendered obsolete against Martial Sages."

Her body shook at his words as he effortlessly unraveled the horror that she hid in the depths of her heart. Her pupils shivered with shock as he ruthlessly exposed the shameful depths of

her emotions.

It was as though he could read her mind.

For a moment, she blacked out of the battle as her mind struggled to regain her composure. Unfortunately, he was not kind enough to let that opportunity go.

BOOOOM!!!

A devastatingly powerful blow surged forward as he combined assimilated Fulminata Godspeed into the technique he copied from her while improving her offensive with principles based on collision mechanics and friction.

Simultaneously, he improved her psychological disruption techniques with Master Zeamer's hypnosis techniques. He also improved her pheromone principles with another technique from another Martial Art that allowed him to increase the production of certain hormones

that her technique made use of.

Additionally, he added an assimilated domain technique from an assimilated poison Martial Art that was centered around forcing his opponent to breathe in anything he wanted by creating a pressure differential that forced his opponent to breathe in the poison or, in this

case, pheromones.

This was one of his systems of thought, Assimilative Convergence.

Before, his evolution was limited to being better and more talented than his opponents, and his copying was limited to using the foundations of other fields. His greatest limitation was that he could only ever use one copied Martial Art at a time.

Now, he could completely use many Martial Art simultaneously and assimilate them into his opponent's copied Martial Art, creating a superior hybrid. Master Sera's expression grew grave as she understood better than anybody else just how superior his chimera hybrid evolution of her Martial Art was.

"It must hurt to see all your effort plundered so effortlessly."

Her body shook at his words as rage flared in her eyes.

WHOOSH!

He appeared before her in the blink of an eye.

"It must hurt knowing that your Martial Art was a dead-end."

A blindingly fast blow surged towards her, threatening to end her where she stood.

WHOOSH!

His eyes widened as she cleanly evaded it.

"You suck at provocations, boy."

BAM BAM BAM!!

Pure fury emerged on her face as she blasted with blow after blow.

Unfortunately, the combination of the Yin-Yang Shield technique with another technique that allowed him to absorb seismic and sonic radiation from heaven and earth allowed him to

improve the already powerful grade-ten technique even further.

"Heavenly Yin-Yang Earth Shield."

BOOOM!!

The ferociously powerful technique blasted all her attacks away.