The Martial Unity

As Rui continued traversing the forest, he couldn't help but wonder the increasingly glaring question that begged itself.

'How in the world did the Hypnomaster create this forest?' Rui furrowed his eyebrows. 'Not only that, how in the world did he manage to create such a viable ecosystem that was stable enough to neither expand in territory nor die out? As amazing as the Martial Mind is, I highly doubt that it allows you to figure out how to construct a perfect ecosystem out of many species sharing a similar form of nutrition acquisition.'

In the first place, surely going this far to create such an enormous and fantastical forest that was also a nightmare to be trapped in was not worth the effort?

'Is it also because he's more effective on this battlefield, I wonder.' Rui thought to himself. 'It would be like Kane and the Thundering Valley. Or an aquatic Martial Artist and a water reservoir.'

If that was part of his intentions, then it was more understandable. He was already a powerful Martial Master, and if he could gain a domain advantage, then he would be extraordinarily dangerous within the Master Realm.

It was no wonder that even the Silent Shadow had been unable to assassinate him.

Still, that only answered the why, and not the high. This was especially true when his specialty was mental techniques. Techniques that were exclusively impactful on the mind, and not on non-sentient phenomena.

Rui concluded that there were probably many things that he still did not understand about the Master Realm. They seemed to break common sense to a certain degree with the feats that he witnessed.

Just the fact that there were things nearly every square meter of the forest that posed some degree of a threat to Rui across this entire forest was a testament to the capabilities of the Hypnomaster; that he could treat even this forest as merely a test for his students.

One more thing that Rui hadn't missed was that Great Forest of Hypnonarak was constructed out of species from the Beast Domain.

That spoke a lot about the Beast Domain.

It made Rui regard the mysterious core of the continent that was uninhabited by humans with much more wariness. If the Beast Domain possessed threat levels that were similar and even much above, then it was not to be trifled with.

'Hm?' Rui narrowed his eyes as he spotted something in the distance.

He quickly crouched activating Phantomind Void for good measure nonetheless. Even if it wasn't effective against flora, it was effective against fauna.

He expanded his senses forward, trying to get a good gauge of what was going on.

His eyes widened as he came across a shocking sight. A bunch of humans and Martial Apprentices had had their skulls broken open as a strange creature wriggled inside, consuming a part of their brains. Moments later, the skull and flesh healed, as the bodies were restored to their previous states.

What was even more disturbing was that the bodies woke up moments later, with wide eyes and inhuman glint within them.

'Marionnette worm...'

"Help! Help! Help!"

"Somebody come here, I found something."

"Come this way, we found an exit!"

The humans and Martial Apprentices made a bunch of noise drawing attention to themselves, spouting out words that only humans could. It was a horrifying sight to witness humans and even Martial Apprentices being mind-controlled in such a fashion.

It was most likely a tactic to draw in more humans. They were apparently able to manipulate parts of the brain to manipulate the human's actions.

Rui narrowed his eyes. Although these were known creatures who were already marked to be dangerous, but not fatal, he knew that he couldn't let them go on. This was actual inhumane torture and it was not something that he was willing to tolerate.

He didn't even need to activate his Martial Heart.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!

The sheer force of his attacks smashed them into confetti killing them on the spot. He made sure that the potency and speed were high enough that even the Martial Apprentices would have died before feeling even an ounce of pain or realization.

Yet he immediately turned his attention to his surroundings, warily. His actions drew attention and he needed to make sure that he didn't suffer inadvertently from them.

'Damn, maybe I should have taken lessons from a hunter Martial Artist before entering a forest this dangerous.' Rui tutted, glancing at the evening sun. 'Time sure does fly if it is already approaching dusk.'

He needed to find shelter so that he could get some rest. Of course, when he first heard that it was even possible to find shelter in the forest, he was surprised. But apparently, it was true. One could find shelter in very specific niche places in the Great Forest of Hypnonarak.

Rui sky-walked a little as he activated his Martial Heart, trying to spread his senses as far as he could to get as much of a gauge as he could of the surrounding topography.

It wasn't too long before he found what he was looking for.

A gigantic boulder devoid of any flora or vegetation on it, extending far past the surrounding forest. Rui quickly made his way to it as he began climbing the boulder.

Yes, climbing. This was to avoid distinguishing himself as a target to any potential cloud hornet nests that were lurking amongst the clouds.

The idea was to dig a hole deep into solid rock in a boulder at a high enough elevation and create enough of a space for one to inhabit, as long as he could do that and find himself a decent place to get some rest, he would be fine.

As long as he could handle the uncomfy living conditions, he would be fine. Hard rock was nothing to a Martial Senior, after all.

As long as he could get that out of the way, he would be able rest while keeping away from the threats of the forest for the time being.