The Martial Unity

"Cough… Cough…" Captain Deacon spluttered blood as he panted deeply.

His body was a mess, riddled with deep wounds that refused to stop bleeding. His left eye was missing, causing him to take a stance that tilted his left side away. His Martial Art attire was completely torn, yet he didn't care. He stumbled as he moved forward.

Each step he took splashed around the blood that submerged his heels, produced by all the corpses around.

He glanced around him.

The grade-ten Martial Squires that had taken the lead of their wounded force in the battle against the Root were all dead.

One of them was flattened, while the other one was severed in half, the third one had been throttled away. Considering he never returned, Captain Deacon that he was dead too.

He was the only one left, half a day later.

The raid force had put up a brave fight, the grade-ten Martial Squires rallied the wounded Martial Artists into going all out against the roots. Hundreds of Martial Squires launched long-range attacks one by one as the close-range Martial Artists rushed forward. They mustered every ounce of power they could to resist the nightmare that the roots were.

The worst part wasn't that they were crushed in the end.

No.

The worst part was that they weren't crushed immediately.

The worst part was that they even made some progress, believing they could win.

Hoping they could win.

The worst part was when the roots allowed them to hope, before crushing it mercilessly, leaving behind nothing but despair.

Thousands of individual roots, each with the power and speed of grade-ten Martial Squires, crushed any and all resistance that the Martial Squires mustered up.

In the end, only he, the most invincible Martial Squire, survived.

Yet, he knew that it was just a matter of time. Yet, he didn't care.

No, that wasn't quite right.

He couldn't afford to care, for the sake of his sanity.

His heart ached as a Martial Artist, as a leader, as the son of his father for whom he was fighting.

His heart had collapsed into a bottomless pit of despair. He had sunk low not only because of his personal failures but because he knew that his personal failure would destroy everything his father had worked for.

His father's ambition to become guildmaster had begun more than a decade ago. He had sworn that he would do anything in his power to aid his father, who had raised him with love and faith, in achieving that goal.

Yet now, he had done the very opposite. He had gone and suffered the greatest failure in his career at the worst possible time he could possibly fathom.

Such a failure could not be hidden, and once his father's allies realized the sheer magnitude of the catastrophe that they had suffered by losing the Martial Squires that they had contributed to the raid, that his father was responsible for, their alliance would surely fracture!

Losing support just days before the elections was absolutely devastating. It was a political catastrophe of unprecedented detriment. It would cost Chairman Deacon the entirety of his political campaign, his one and only shot at becoming the guildmaster of the Shionel Merchant Guild.

He would rather die than look his father in the eye and tell him that his failure as a leader, as a Martial Squire, and as a son, was the reason that his life's greatest ambition had collapsed.

He froze as his father's image appeared in his mind.

His father was a hard ass, yet it was certain that he loved his children deeply, going to great lengths to facilitate their dreams and ambitions.

The thought of committing suicide just to avoid taking responsibility repulsed him. He owed it to his father to not kill himself because he was too weak to take responsibility for his failures.

He gritted his teeth, before turning around and heading for the exit.

BAM!!!

He gritted his teeth as he withstood a root attack pummeling him as he left. He had gotten a brief moment of respite when he had collapsed into the ground motionless, but as soon as he started moving properly again, the roots were relentless.

He persevered as he endured their attacks on his body. If not for the fact that his Martial Body had grown stronger over twenty years of growth, and the powerful grade-ten defensive technique that allowed him to endure much damage, he would not have managed to last this long.

A grade-ten defensive Martial Squire was not someone who could be put down as easily as the other grade-ten Martial Squires. Of course, they had inflicted far more damage than he had to the Root, they simply did not possess the ability to resist damage.

Yet just as he was escaping, a figure appeared before him out of nowhere.

SLASH

SPLAT!

A blade struck at his exposed neck, leaving a wound that splurted blood.

"To think that didn't kill you," Rui murmured from behind his mask. "Grade-ten Martial Squires sure are impressive, it makes sense that you managed to escape despite being blasted by the Root."

Captain Deacon covered his wound, desperately trying to close the wound. He glanced at the strange unknown Martial Squire before him with wary yet steely eyes.

How could this Martial Squire know his position?

How did he know that he had been enduring attacks from the roots?

Who was he?

His eyes widened as the answer came to him.

He had no proof.

Yet he had come to know, nonetheless.

"You…" He managed to squeeze out. "YOU D-"

SLASH

A second slash finished the job.

THUD

The captain's head collapsed to the ground, rolling away.

Rui turned towards the direction of the Root. He was still too far away to trigger its defense mechanisms.

"Not for long," Rui murmured as he stepped forward.

He was ready. Perhaps it was more prudent for him to wait, but he had already obtained everything he wanted and didn't feel the need to wait.