The Martial Unity

Had anyone witnessed what Rui did, they would be shocked beyond words. It was an absolutely bewildering choice. Some would even question whether he made a mistake, whether he tripped on a rock while running at top speeds, sending him flying into the Root's mouth.

Yet none of it was true. Rui understood what he was seeking to do, and why he was doing it, and did it anyway.

This was the only way for him to take down something as large as the Root. It was far too large for him to take down with his regular attacks. This meant that he had absolutely no ability to take down the Root any time soon with his regular attacks. He would only be pricking the Root even if he used his tiny little sword or his strongest Transverse Resonance attack. The Root was large enough to make even the likes of Senior Ceeran use serious attacks to destroy it.

Thus the question of destroying it wasn't a question any sane Martial Squire would even fathom asking themselves.

But Rui did.

It was a question that he had struggled over for many months. How exactly was he supposed to take down the Root?

Should he have filled his dimensional ring with a substance that was extremely lethal to the organic tissue of the plant kingdom? Maybe if he dumped enough of it, he could kill the Root. That was one of the first possibilities that he looked into.

After months of consideration, he ruled out almost all possibilities.

Except one.

Although he had only just verified its full plausibility in this battle, there was a huge cost that came with it. It, unfortunately, involved doing some rather crazy things.

It was a gamble.

The second he entered the mouth, its opening closed, leaving him trapped.

Inside was a gap between the upper and lower roofs of the mouth. A gap that would close completely in order to crush the esoteric ore deposits before releasing the digestive acids to aid with the breakdown and refinement of the esoteric ore deposits.

That was where Rui had thrust himself into.

Certain death.

BOOM!

The two jaws rapidly moved toward each other at blindingly fast speeds even for a Martial Squire, threatening to crush Rui!

At the same time, something had already begun to change.

It took the tiniest fraction of a millisecond, but the air changed drastically as the jaws began to close down on Rui!

A titanic amount of pressure erupted from him, flooding the entire floor.

Rui donned his most powerful Mind Mask, taking on the guise of a Martial Senior!

In that microsecond, the entirety of the Shionel Dungeon perceived an existential threat from the exact location Rui was present, shaking violently as a multitude of the roots that spawned from the Root lashed out toward Rui the very next moment!

The fact that the Root was in the way between them and Rui did not seem to matter to the roots. Thousands of roots struck at the main Root body that they emerged from!

It took less than a millisecond, but alas, it wasn't fast enough.

The Root's jaws had already closed.

"RRRRRGHH!!!" Rui gritted his teeth as he desperately balled himself up, trying to reduce the amount of area that his body covered.

The sheer amount of force that the Root's jaws exerted on him was greater than anything else he had ever been subjected to in his entire life!

CRACK CRACK CRACK!

He could feel his bones snapping like little twigs!

His flesh was being wrung as it tore across all of his body.

His internal organs were not exempt from the damage, all of the internal systems in his body have suffered damage!

He had only one goal; keeping his brain intact. He positioned his body in such a manner that most of his body would have had to be crushed before his head suffered any damage.

CRACK CRACK CRACK!

In the span of a millisecond, he had already been put into critical condition!

He experienced more pain at that moment than he had since the Squire evolution breakthrough process!

It was a maddening amount of pain that would have driven any normal human being to absolute insanity!

Yet he managed to keep his head intact the entire time. His efforts had paid off as his Mind Mask technique never broke.

And that meant that the roots never stopped.

The Root shivered as thousands of its own roots impaled it from all directions, inflicting a tremendous amount of damage to the Root.

Rui had noticed that neither the roots nor the main Root possessed any consciousness or instinct of self-preservation.

That was why he knew that this could work!

Using the roots to defeat the Root was his plan.

RUMBLE!

The Root opened its jaw as its wounds hindered its functions.

Rui's mangled body fell out, landing on the ground. His body was in so much pain that he struggled to have any coherent sequence of thoughts. The very first thing he did was use Final Breathing, his endurance-related breathing technique to stabilize his condition.

If it weren't for the fact that he had an enhanced healing factor from his Hungry Pain technique, Rui knew there was a realistic chance that he would be dead right now!

That didn't mean he wouldn't die.

DRIP DRIP DRIP

His wounds were not light. If he lost enough blood, he would not be able to survive. The worst part was that his body was so messed up, he couldn't even use his dimensional ring to bring the high-grade healing potion that he had stored in it.

For the moment, he focused on using his breathing to nourish his healing factor as much as possible. As long as he could contain the bleeding and restore enough of his body to access his healing potions, he would be just fine.

He half wished Kane was here, but Kane had already retreated like he was supposed to. Rui had told him not to enter the Root Floor, it was far too dangerous for him at the moment.