Of course, regardless of whether that was true, regardless of what the conspiracy behind the religion was, the woman standing before Rui was certainly not a nefarious conspirator. She was probably a native who had been born and brought up in the Seonmun Church town and had been indoctrinated into the Virodhabhasa Faith their entire lives.
She probably believed that she was doing something that was truly good.
"This holy book, the Virodhaveda, was written by a Martial Transcendent?" Rui asked, trying to hide the skepticism in his voice in order to avoid pissing anybody off.
"Indeed," She smiled, regarding the book that she had passed on to Rui with a reverential expression. "If is said that two hundred and fifty years ago, when the Astral Sovereign reached the Transcendent Realm, he received a prophesy from the very world itself."
Rui narrowed his eyes.
"He received Divine Revelation that warned him of a cataclysm that would consume the very foundation of the world," Her voice quivered. "One that would erase all life across all dimensions of this beautiful world. One that no ordinary force could possibly halt."
Rui furrowed his eyebrows as he watched the elderly woman grow emotional, choking up as her eyes teared up.
This woman was beyond help, she was so heavily indoctrinated that her religion had taken a deep hold of her and her emotions.
"As the Martial Transcendent despaired, the Divine Revelation revealed that not everything was lost," Her plummeting emotions suddenly took a turn for the better as she began smiling again. "The Divine Revelation spoke of a savior. One unlike any other the world had ever seen."
Rui's eyebrow rose as the woman expressed pure blissful devotion.
She did not entertain, for even a second, that she might have been wrong.
No.
"This savior was an otherworldly being. A being who obtained power from another world. A being born in another world, a being that came from another world."
Rui's eyes widened in shock!
Ordinarily, he would have been more than happy to dismiss her words as religious delusion. It was all too easy, after all. Many religions made supernatural empirical claims of all kinds. Most of them were wacky and obviously false, but that was the way that things worked.
Yet, Rui wasn't able to dismiss this claim.
Not at all.
How could he possibly scoff at the notion of a being emerging from another world when he himself was a being from another world?
As a resident of Earth, and then a resident of Gaia, he knew full well that there were other worlds out there either in this universe or another, and he knew that under some circumstances it was possible for their consciousness to travel over from one world into this one.
To this day, he did not have even the slightest shred of understanding or insight into how his reincarnation had occurred. The only thing he knew was that it had indeed occurred.
That was why he couldn't dismiss her words lightly.
The atmosphere grew heavy as the delusional indoctrinated woman spouted what a reincarnated man knew was not entirely nonsense.
"This savior was said to be a Martial Artist. Yet no ordinary Martial Artist. A Martial Artist said to possess unprecedented power. Power, unlike anything that the world has ever seen."
She paused, taking a moment to bring her hands together in prayer as she muttered a few chants under her breath, before turning back to Rui.
"Do you know what Virodhabhasa means, young man?" She asked with a gentle tone."
"…I'm afraid not."
"The world Virodhabhasa is a word from the native dialect of the region that the Astral Sovereign is from," She explained with a loving tone. "It means 'antithesis'. The Virodhabhasa is a being with a Martial Art that is said to be the antithesis of all forces in the universe! It is the harbinger of destruction to all Martial Art, monsters, and weapons in the world! A Martial Art said to be the anti-existence to everything that dares to oppose it!"
It was once again Rui's turn to become shocked.
The claims she made, to any rational being, were ones that could easily be dismissed as the nonsense of religious fervor.
Yet, once more, Rui could not dismiss her words.
Because the Martial Art of the Virodobhasa was what he hoped to achieve with Project Water. If he made fun of that Martial Art as something that was impossible, would he not be insulting Project Water and his idol Bruce Lee?
That was he could not muster up even a hint of rejection, if only to not invalidate his own Martial Path.
Just then, for a brief moment, a strange thought entered his mind.
He quickly shook his head. ('Not everything is about you.')
He didn't want to grow arrogant with such thoughts. His attention quickly returned to the woman before him.
"Our Lord and Saviour, the Virodhabhasa is the only being that can protect us from the cataclysmic destruction of the world!" She insisted, taking a moment to pray as she muttered a few more chants.
She turned back to Rui. "This Virodhaveda that you hold in your hand contains the translated Divine Revelation that the Astral Sovereign received from the world. Why don't you give it a read with an open mind?"
"…I'll be open to that," Rui replied. "Thank you for indulging me."
"Not at all, young man. Thank you for gracing me with your attention." She bowed. "All Martial Artists are sacred. It is thanks to all of you that are civilization stands strong."
This was where the fanaticism for Martial Artists came from. Rui was not aware of the extent to which this went, nor the nuances behind it and its relation to the Virodhabhasa.
However, he had gotten what he needed to get. He quickly paid her the sum in gold before heading deeper into the town.
The architecture was just as beautiful as it had been before, but it had taken a different undertone to Rui.
