In an underground facility in the Martial Union settlement sat a lonesome figure. He sat on the ground with folded legs and his arms resting on his knees.
He had donned his combat attire, as opposed to the formal attire that he had grown accustomed to wearing in the past three months.
His black hair was unkempt, an increasingly rare sight to see due to his position.
His visage was hardly strange or unusual, yet almost everyone standing in the room as him would be paralyzed with primal fear. The fear that came from a great threat to one's well-being and life.
Not only had Rui donned his strongest mind mask as usual, but his mind which had been consumed with the diplomatic mission for more than three months had entered a state it hadn't in recent times.
He had ejected all considerations regarding his mission from his previously scattered mind. For the most six hours, he had been honing his mind on his Martial Art and Martial Path. It took him a while to gather the entirety of his focus, conscious and unconscious.
His eyes were closed, yet it wasn't the darkness that plagues his vision.
He saw a path.
One he was standing upon.
It stretched on forever onwards and upwards.
It winded on and about.
Yet it wasn't just the path that drew his attention.
What the path winded through was equally eye-drawing.
Monsters of all kinds plague his path, each more horrifying than the last. Calamities and catastrophes of all kinds made any attempt to try and reach the end of the path almost impossible!
It was a terrifying path, yet it was all too beautiful.
Yet despite that, it called out to him. Lulled him in.
It was a path he wanted to walk down.
('…It's been a while since I've been down here.')
He could only ever enter the mental landscape of his Martial Path when he immersed his everything into it. Yet, now that he was here, he realized how long it had been since he had actually come down here. It used it be a frequent visit for him, given how immersed in his training he would get. Yet he hadn't done so in the past three months.
('…A blunder.')
He couldn't help but feel some regret.
Playing diplomat was a new and refreshing experience. It was even enjoyable, yet now that he was immersed in his Martial Path, he realized that it could never compare to the path that he had already chosen. A path that he had perhaps been neglecting in recent times.
('Never again.')
A powerful yet stifled presence suddenly grazed against his senses drawing his attention and moving closer toward him.
STEP
STEP
STEP
"You know, it has been fascinating to see your work as a diplomat. I had completely predicted that you would be able to ace this mission when Derun informed me of her choice of picking you for it… but I have to say…" Senior Ceeran paused. "I still like this you more than that one, at the end of the day."
Rui opened his eyes slowly.
It was as though his pitch-black eyes had grown a few shades darker.
A mild grin broke out at the edge of Senior Ceeran's mouth. "It's not even a contest, in hindsight. Look at you, if I was a little sleepy, I might even mistake you for a Martial Senior. What a potent aura. I can't wait to see how strong it will be when you enter the Senior Realm."
Rui smiled mildly. "I'm assuming it's time?"
"Just about, you should get going."
"You didn't have to come down here to inform me of that yourself, you know?" Rui remarked as he got up.
"Yes, but I was just wondering how you were doing. It seems my concerns were unwarranted," Senior Ceeran shrugged.
Rui made his way up, taking in the busy bustling atmosphere in the settlement.
Today was the day, after all.
In the past few weeks, the scale of the conflicts between Martial Apprentices had reached the precipice, it had reached the tipping point where it would crossover into a higher realm of power.
The conflict would only keep escalating, and the only way up was into the Squire Realm. The analytics team had projected that the scale of the conflict that was planned today would cross the bottom line of the K'ulnen Tribe and a Martial Squire would be deployed, perhaps more than one.
That was why Rui would be joining today's operation. He would be there to intercept the Martial Squire that would inadvertently be deployed to handle the overwhelming scale of Apprentice-level conflict.
That wasn't necessarily the hard part. The hard part was that Rui needed to handle the man with his one and only long-range technique.
That wasn't easy to accomplish, even for Rui. His decision to take part in the first Squire-level conflict between the settlement and the K'ulnen Tribe was not well-received by everybody, especially the Longranger Sect Martial Squires.
If not for the fact that he was the leader of the mission, as well as the fact that he had accrued a lot of prestige for a Martial Squire his age and his apparent high Martial Artist grade, he probably wouldn't have gotten his way.
He had also managed to placate them with good reasoning.
"I am the face of our settlement to the G'ak'arkan Tribe," Rui had told them some time ago. "For now, at least. Their scouts have no doubt seen me managing the settlement, and I was the lead diplomat in our talk with them a while back. Taking down a Martial Artist in the manner that I intend to will be good for increasing the amount of respect that I will command from them. It will increase the chances that I will be able to secure a win on the diplomatic end in the future."
As long as it was for the sake of the mission, he could justify his actions well enough.
