The Martial Unity

Deep within the Great Forest of Hypnonarak, a Martial Artist stood atop a mountain scouring the vast expansive forest with his senses. Her Martial attire bore the crest of the Carnil mafia, the cloth glowing with the light of her Martial Heart.

A curved sheathed blade hung at her side.

"Hmmm…" She pulled out a rough map of the forest, eying several marked locations before directing her attention back to her surroundings. 'It should be somewhere here...The Ecstasy Plum Fruit.'

The Carnil mafia had ceased all large-scale extraction operations of narcotic drugs and instead had merely deigned to deploy Martial Seniors on individual small-scale operations. Since it was none other than Martial Seniors that were being deployed, they had been assigned with special objectives.

The Ecstasy Plum Fruit.

A special fruit that grew only in the Great Forest of Hypnonarak. It was known for its extraordinarily high narcotic potency. It was said that one drop from the Ecstasy Plum Fruit could put one thousand men in a dreamy trance indefinitely.

Not even Martial Squires could resist the powerful effects of the fruit entirely. Only Martial Seniors were qualified to hunt for this fruit. Its market value was more than a million times greater than the ordinary narcotic plant extracts that were harvested from the forest.

This was the Carnil Mafia's way of compensating for the temporarily halted large-scale operations.

And it also happened to be Rui's only opportunity to destroy the Carnil Mafia's operations.

One moment, Senior Ferna was merely keeping scouting the local area, and the very next, a sharp pain flashed through her body as a titanic impact crashed into her passive defenses.

BOOM!!!

The sheer weight of the impact crumbled the mountain peak.

"Urgh!" Senior Ferna grimaced with pain as she quickly got back up from the heavy impact despite the pain.

She was alive.

Yet she couldn't afford to waste a single moment on celebrating.

CLASP!

A monstrous pressure washed across the area as she gripped the hilt her sword, unsheathing it in one fine motion.

'One Thousand Strokes of the Wailing Blade.' Her body flashed into motion, executing countless sword swings at a speed and pace that exceeded even her reactions. A thousand maneuvers, baked into her blood, had reached a level of muscle memory where it far surpassed her conscious cognition.

…CRACK!

Instantly, her environment split into countless ribbons for several hundreds of meters.

Trees, boulders, bedrock.

Everything was reduced to sheets.

Except, of course, for her assailant. He was unharmed. On one hand, she was displeased that he was able to withstand her technique so well.

On the other hand, his stealth had come undone as a result.

Exactly as she had hoped.

"Die!" Her hand lashed out once more speeding out as her blade blurred into action. 'True Mourning Convergence Cleave!'

A technique where the sword swing generated an intense two-dimensional wave of sound while using a breathing technique to generate powerful currents on either side of the sound wave tugging the target in the opposite direction of the wave.

It was no different from a target being pulled into an incoming swing blade, increasing the piercing pressure of the blade.

A technique that was said to be unsurvivable if successfully employed.

The key word being 'successfully'.

"Rgh!" She froze, her eyes widening as her technique halted.

A single thought flashed through her head.

'Why can't I breathe?'

BOOM!!

Her hampered breathing had distracted her for a moment too long.

Her assailant was not kind enough to let it pass. A powerful Flowing Canon empowered with the full might of Outer Convergence, Reverberating Lance, Gale Force Breathing, and Adamant Reforging crashed into her abdomen.

CRACK!

Her lower rib succumbed to the force, cracking as he flung her away with tremendous force.

She gritted her teeth, coughing blood as she did her best to regain her respiratory capacity. Yet, she was unable to. Strangely, she didn't feel any physical impediment. She was familiar with poisons, and had yet to feel the familiar sensations that were associated with it.

This was different. It was as though her mind refused to allow her to breathe. Or rather, it was as though her mind believed she could not breathe. Perhaps had she more time, she would have been able to break out of it, but alas, reality was not so kind, and neither was her assailant.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!

Heavy bullets of sound flashed towards her at extraordinary speeds, forcing her attention away.

Although she was hampered, she was not rendered obsolete.

SWING SWING SWING!

She cut down the swift and powerful bullets of sound with her blade, gasping for air while she desperately protected herself from the powerful attacks. She gritted her teeth as she plotted a way to escape. Victory was definitely out of her hands, but it was possible that she could survive if she fought right.

'I didn't struggle for a hundred years in the Senior Realm only to die at the hands of this bastard.' She gritted her teeth.

She recognized the mask and the Martial Art attire from when he assaulted Senior Nereau and the extraction team, annihilating them in one blow. He had disappeared, as if fading away from existence.

"You're dead!" She shouted at him in a fit of rage. "You're a dead man. The Carnil Mafia will tear you apart to shreds."

He didn't reply. He merely blasted her with long-range attacks from afar, refusing to get close within her swinging range.

The pressure began mounting.

Faster attacks.

Heavier impacts.

Something needed to give.

And something did.

She gritted her teeth.

A single whisper escaped her mouth. "Chanting Sword Style: Three Hundred and Sixty Hymns of the Dying Blade."

Her assailant paused, halting his offense before leaping back at top speed, racing away as fast he could.

BOOOM!!!

A tremendous explosion emerged from Senior Ferna, reducing everything it touched to dust. It expanded at speeds that far surpassed sound, swallowing up the upper half of the mountain.

RUMBLE

When the dust settled, the mountain had been reduced in half.