The Martial Unity

"Good," Rui nodded when he observed how quickly Deacon Industries had put together a giant raid force. "Still, captain 'Deacon' eh? That was unexpected."

It looked like Rui had underestimated how much the conflict between them could intensify.

Rui shrugged, it wasn't his fault that Deacon's son was going to die. It would happen eventually given that Rui had no intention of clearing the dungeon before Deacon Industries got a shot at it.

Thus, his son was doomed to die either way.

More importantly, he paid more attention to the quality of the Martial Squires of the raid force, if they weren't strong enough then Rui wouldn't be able to execute the plan in mind. He needed them to be able to pressure the Root enough for it to go all out. Otherwise, he wouldn't get what he was looking for.

Thankfully, it appeared that Chairman Deacon understood the consequences of failing at this stage, for the raid force consisted of Martial Squires that each appeared to be quite high-grade to his senses.

There even were multiple grade-ten Martial Squires in the crowd, along with Chairman Deacon's son who was serving as captain. These were Rui's greatest hope in drawing as many active patterns out of the Root and allowing Rui to gain a greater understanding of the Root.

One thing he was concerned about was his ability to keep up with the entire battle. There were more than a thousand Martial Squires present before him at the moment. Each one of them was going to be engaging one if not multiple, roots. Rui needed to not only perceive all of them but also make sure that he was consciously aware of what was happening with each of the one thousand Martial Squires of the raid force before him.

It was no different from a normal human being trying to keep up with the one thousand human fights, all at once simultaneously.

It was an absurdly difficult task that normally Martial Squire would be able to accomplish.

Except for Rui.

With his mind that had gone through lifetimes worth of growth, surpassing human limits, and his extraordinary mastery of the Mind Palace, Rui estimated that it would be possible for him to at the very least record all the data that he wanted to record, and construct the predictive model based on the active patterns that he could extract from the data that he had collected.

Still, he needed to make sure that he was at his very peak in order to actually accomplish this, thus he had rested his mind extensively the night prior with deep sleep, so he would not only be at his peak but would also be able to return to his peak with a single high-quality rejuvenation potion.

Soon enough, the raid force was dispatched. They sky-walked all the way towards the Shionel Dungeon in a high-profile manner, drawing all kinds 0f attention from civilians as well as other Martial Squire adventurers.

"Hmp, show-offs," Kane grumbled.

"He needs to show off," Rui replied. "Given how close the elections are, there is no other time that requires him to show off. If he does in fact end up clearing the Shionel Dungeon before the elections, then the sheer prestige that comes with it will allow him to finally decisively surpass Guildmaster Bradt."

What Rui didn't bother mentioning was that there was basically no way they could happen. It was because he was certain that they couldn't clear the Shionel Dungeon that Rui was confidently willing to take the first shot at the dungeon floor, without interfering in the battle in any way.

The raid force dungeon quickly entered the dungeon, and soon enough, one of the disadvantages of Chairman Deacon's method of clearing dungeons become evident.

"Hauling all those people through the tunnels of the Shionel dungeon is an incredible pain in the ass," Rui murmured as he watched the more than thousand Martial Squires attempting to squeeze through the tunnels of the Shionel Dungeon with his Riemannian Echo. "I can only imagine how annoying this must get if their route ends up involving tunnels that are extremely narrow and can only fit one person through at a time."

"Imagine if someone farts," Kane remarked, smirking. "That would kill half the raid force given how stuff the dungeon can get."

"Thankfully, I made sure that the tunnels of the exploration route that I chose to hijack were wide enough to ensure nothing like that could happen," Rui remarked with an amused expression.

The journey to the bottom of the Shionel Dungeon took longer than Rui had expected. Then again, given that the raid force was a thousand strong, it had to be expected.

"Still, it's been more than a day," Kane complained as he strutted forward with a hunched posture. "Can't they pick the pace up?"

Kane's role in this entire plan was minimal, he had absolutely no significant role to play, thus he was a little detached and disinterested. Rui was the only one who could perceive the raid force. He was also the only one who could thus track them, and observe the battle against the Root. Furthermore, he was the only one who was going to be taking down the Root.

How he was going to do something that not even a thousand Martial Squires could accomplish, Kane didn't know. But he trusted Rui, and this was far from the first time that Rui had accomplished insane feats.

"Finally, they're here!" Rui informed Kane with an excited tone. "Man, I've waited for this for quite some time. They've arrived at the end of the exploration route, leading to the Root. Let's hurry up and get going."

The two of them scurried forward as Rui eagerly reached a range where he could perceive everything with his Riemannian Echo. He had already scouted a perfect location to perceive the entire fight from without actually being close enough to get dragged into the crossfire.

"It's going to start soon," Rui murmured as he watched the Martial Squires entering the Root Floor one by one.