Rui woke up, feeling a touch of peace that he hadn't experienced in what felt like forever.
Yet it wasn't enough.
His eyes hadn't lost their edge.
Senior Xanarn did not fail to notice that.
"Woken up yet?" She asked with a melancholic tone, her head resting on his chest. She had hoped to be able to soothe his mind, yet she had underestimated how deep his dissatisfaction was.
It was not something that could be resolved with the pleasures of the flesh.
"How long was I asleep?" Rui asked.
"About nine hours." She replied softly. "You must not have slept in days."
"A week." Rui heaved a sigh, getting up.
"Are you still not going to tell me what happened?" She asked.
"..." Rui paused for a moment before he shook his head. "It's not something I wish to recount just yet. I came to understand how insignificant I am. That's all that matters at the end of the day."
She pouted unhappily. "What do you intend to do?"
"Gain power." His words were sharp as his eyes narrowed.
An air of peril formed around him.
It was volatile. Yet Senior Xanarn could only watch unhappily as he refreshed himself before leaving.
His fist clenched as the intensity in his eyes only grew.
He itched to rush over to Ieyasu and unleash an intensity of bloodlust unlike anything he had experienced before, but there was something that came before that.
STEP
He paused as he arrived at the second chamber of the Floating Sect. He almost couldn't believe it when he had been informed Xanarn, yet even he couldn't help but smile. Time and time again, Kane proved that he was a genius in Martial Art.
"Kane." Rui called out to him before simply waiting.
Suddenly, the door opened.
"Rui!" He grinned as the two clasped hands, exchanging a hug.
"You've grown stronger," Rui smiled. His words were kind, yet his tone betrayed his true thoughts.
Power within the Squire Realm didn't matter to him anymore, and it was hard for him to hide that.
Especially from someone who had known him for more than a decade.
Kane stepped back, furrowing his eyebrows, as he sized Rui up. "...Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry for not coming to see you sooner." Rui apologized with sincerity. "No matter how tired I was, I should have come to see you. But I was with Senior Xanarn and I ju-"
"Hey," Kane cut him off with an expression of concern. "...It's ok."
Rui's expression softened as a melancholic smile sprouted on his face. "...Thanks."
Their friendship was too deep for such superficial issues to possibly put cracks into it. Kane needed only one look in his eyes to realize that his friend was deeply disturbed.
"...What happened?" Kane asked with uncertainty. "You were gone away only for a year, and I know for a fact that you definitely spent an overwhelming majority of that time training."
He didn't have the heart to brush Kane off. Once the two of them gained some privacy, Rui recounted the entire story from the very start, not missing out on a single detail.
Kane's expression grew increasingly more incredulous as Rui continued.
"...And so I was forced to run away yet again while Master Deivon held back that crazy bitch." He needed to exert visible restraint to control his anger. "I ran for an entire week before finally arriving at the Kaddar Region. And now here we are."
Kane stared at him with an expression of shock. He was stunned speechless, his jaw had long dropped with incredulity.
He turned away, blinking for a few seconds.
He knew that Rui had been through something intense, but the story that he had just narrated exceeded every expectation that Kane had.
He actually felt a little guilty for feeling a little bad that Rui hadn't come over to visit him immediately. Especially now that he learned about the tribulations that Rui had overcome just to get back to the Kaddar Region in one piece.
It was no wonder.
He didn't even know what to say. The magnitude of the story he had just told him was more than what he could handle.
"...At the very least, we can be certain that she cannot get you anymore, right?"
"Nothing is certain. However, searching for the smallest needle in the largest haystack would be a trivial task in comparison, statistically speaking," Rui nodded.
"...Now what?"
"Now I grow stronger." Rui narrowed his eyes.
He had divulged everything to Kane, giving Kane a greater context to understand what he meant by that.
"I've fought him many times over the past year," Kane sighed. "He only defeats me with greater ease each time we fight, even though I have only grown stronger. Frankly, his Martial Art has helped me grow stronger. It's like I'm looking at an ideal version of myself in a way."
Rui raised an eyebrow at that. He would have brushed that off in the past, but now he had greater context on the man.
He was the seventieth Virodha Champion. Which meant that his Martial Art was undoubtedly exposed to the Virodhabhasa Faith. Could it be that he had endured similar issues due to possessing a potent Martial Path himself?
Perhaps one of the reasons that he ordered Meera to serve as a scout for people capable of forcing him to awaken his Martial Heart was because it was too dangerous for him to be in the presence of the dogmatic religion.
"What do you intend to do if it doesn't work out?" Kane asked.
"...I don't know."
He got up.
"Where are you going?"
"There is only one thing left to do," Rui replied.
"Now? You want to fight him right away?" Kane raised an eyebrow.
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
Almost in reflex.
Unadulterated dread gripped his heart as a chill crawled up his spine.
Power.
Pure refined power emanated from him.
Kane's jaw dropped with shock when he realized that the gap between them had grown despite his own growth.
'How can a Martial Squire be this strong?' He didn't understand.
Only one other person had made him feel this way.
A nervous grin appeared on his face as he realized that he and everybody in Floating Sect were going to witness something historic.
