The Gu poison had consud the entirety of Rui's body.
It had consud every organ.
Every cell.
Everything.
His skin was a sickening black, lting into the darkness of the Gu.
His breathing was ragged and labored.
Choked.
His heartbeat had weakened.
It beat unsteadily.
Uncertainly.
Death had claid him.
Death had claid Amare.
Death was absolute.
"Then… I will adaptively evolve to death itself."
His tone was maddened.
Heretical.
It was an oath.
An oath that had erged from the very depths of his soul.
An oath he would fulfill no matter what.
Even at the cost of his own life. His eyes were were singularities of intensity as blood-red Suns shined with blinding brightness within their depths. His Body, Heart, and Mind surged with endless determination with the one and only one intention.
Adaptively evolving to everything that stood in his way.
The Gu poison was the most powerful force that he had ever confronted in his entire life.
It was not an exaggeration to say that the poison was an incarnation of death itself.
Even with the help of a Transcendent-Grade treasure, he was still losing the battle despite using so of his best solutions at hand. Not even the Rebirth technique born from the combination of the Fruit of Healing, the Soul Retconned Weaving Blood and Hungry Pain was enough to protect Rui from the Gu.
Even if it was strong enough, it was a temporary solution as the Tree of Healing was a temporary variable.
It would disappear soon enough.
And he would die the very mont it did.
The Forge of Creation roared with life as Rui desperately parsed through every single possible technique from his foundational mastery with the full power of Gigabrain.
And yet, it was all for naught.
There was no trick.
No solution.
Nothing.
"…rgh!" he coughed a bout of black blood as his vision grew hazy.
His skin blackened even more, resembling the corpses of the many Sages strewn about the battlefield.
His breathing grew choked as the poison suffocated him.
His heart quivered as it struggled to pump poison-ladened blood across his entire body.
A single realization filled his heart.
I'm too weak.
Far too weak. I need power.
He needed more power than he had ever had in his entire life.
A maddened glint of desperation flared in the depths of his eyes.
His expression crumpled with grief, frustration, and self-hatred.
A nacingly intense air of drive erupted within him.
Along with every single desire he harbored within him.
The desire to fulfill Project Water.
His love for Amare.
His desire to protect his family and friends.
The Kandrian Empire.
The world.
Every single desire he harbored.
Every single drive he harbored.
They culminate into one.
They rged into one single desire of maddening intensity.
'Power.'
The blood-red Suns surged with a ferociously extraordinary amount of power as it abandoned all other thought processes and all other systems of thought. The entirety of his mind gathered.
His focus honed with extraordinary sharpness.
His concentration refined with absolute purity.
The sum totality of his consciousness.
His logos.
Every ounce of his being gathered to focus on one and any one task.
The Large Soul Model. The large language, behavioral, and psychological predictive model that he had dedicated more than ten years of his life to creating. The single most extraordinary undertaking he had ever set out on.
He dedicated the sum totality of his existence to this one purpose.
Simultaneously, Rui allowed himself to get closer and closer to death.
Dying to the Sage Realm.
He grew closer and closer to death than he had ever reached in his entire life.
And as he did, he ca to understand just what manner of being he was. His desire to live.
His drive for self-preservation.
It served as a counter-weight on a balance to asure the entirety of the essence of who he was.
Project Water was heavier than it.
His love for Amare was also heavier than it.
His love for his friends and family was also heavier than it.
He would gladly sacrifice his life for any of them.
Ti slowed down in his eyes as he drew closer and closer to death.
His desperation and drive heightened in intensity as he felt death tugging at his soul with its cold hands.
His breathing had almost entirely frozen.
His heart had almost entirely given up.
His tabolism has slowed down to a crawl.
Natural cell death had already begun as parts of his body had been deprived of oxygen for long enough.
Weaving Blood weakened with each passing second.
The Gu poison began accelerating.
His body had turned almost pitch black, absorbing every ounce of light as it began lting into the darkness of the world around him.
Ti slowed down in his eyes.
Seconds beca minutes.
Hours.
Days.
Weeks.
Months.
Ti slowed in his eyes as a single second stretched for what felt like years.
The sum totality of his life flooded him.
It flooded his large soul model, nourishing the data with his entire life.
mories that were his.
And mories that weren't.
They both shaped him into the very entity that he was.
His severe asthma has crippled him his entire life. He could run.
He couldn't play.
His skin was sickly while his body was thin and weak.
He was bullied relentlessly.
He hated himself. He hated being weak. Crippled in his breathing.
He yearned to be strong.
Like Bruce Lee.
He was invincible.
'Be Water,' he would say.
And that was exactly what John had tried to do. He would adaptively evolve to his life, choosing to remain as close to combat sports as possible while pursuing a field that he was able to. He had dedicated his life to the principles of Water in combat sports.
As Rui, he had embodied the principle to its very essence.
Countless challenges, tribulations, and hurdles had been flung his way.
He had adaptively evolved to each of them.
His entire life had been fluid, from different phases in different places and different kinds.
As he beheld the sum totality of his life in all its grand magnitude, a profound epiphany and revelation flooded his heart.
On the verge of death, an extraordinary revelation consud his entire being.
One that gave his soul absolute tranquility.
Peace.
Harmony.
'It doesn't matter what my na is.'
It didn't matter if he was John.
Or if he wasn't. It didn't matter if he was Rui.
Or if he wasn't. He was not defined by his na.
He was not defined by a label.
He was defined by his life.
He was defined by the countless forces of cause and effect that had culminated in his very being.
And in that mont, an existential realization dawned upon him.
A soulful revelation spread across his mind and soul.
"I am Water."
And thus, he had attained it.
He had attained Enlightennt of Self.
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