"Don't go, mama!" Ria's voice was filled with alarm and grief. "Don't go as Papa did! Stay with !"
Her amber eyes overflowed with tears as she held on to her mother's Martial attire, refusing to let go of it. Amare's hardened expression softened a little as her more mature eyes grew conflicted.
She knew she had to go.
As one of the Transcendent Candidates of Panamic Civilization, she couldn't afford to go. She had a duty to protect her civilization and her world, and she had a duty to protect her family that was being threatened by an existential crisis.
She couldn't afford to remain ho.
"I'll be back," Amare promised, kneeling before her daughter and kissing her on the forehead before pulling her into a deep hug. "And once this is all over, Papa will be back too."
Ria just couldn't allow herself to be satisfied with that. Her father had disappeared sowhere to fight sothing for so reason and hadn't returned. Now she watched her own mother go away as well.
She began sobbing uncontrollably as tears gushed from her little eyes. "Then take with you! I also want to co!"
Amare smiled at her daughter bittersweetly. "I'm afraid not, my precious baby."
"Why not?!"
"It's too dangerous."
"But mama is going!"
"Mama is very strong."
"Ria is very strong too!" the little girl insisted. "They said I did very well on the test thingy!"
"I know, and you are truly wonderful," Amare promised. "But only Martial Artists are allowed to fight in these kinds of wars."
Her amber eyes lit up with determination through the gushing tears as those words invoked a profoundly strong drive within her. "If Ria can be with mama and papa by becoming a Martial Artist, then she will!"
What followed defied Amare's fathoming.
STEP
She took a step forward.
Not a physical step.
And not on the physical ground of the royal chambers in the Royal Palace.
But rather a taphysical step forward on a taphysical path.
The Martial Path.
Amare's amber eyes widened with shock as she watched her daughter discover her Martial Path then and there. Her expression grew stunned as she watched her daughter take her first step down the Martial Path, becoming a Martial Artist at the re age of five years.
Her brain activity spiked as latent, untapped parts of her cognitive potential were activated, allowing her to do things that she would never have been able to do in the past.
The aghast mother simply watched with astonishnt as her daughter's neural activity stabilized to a higher state. When she opened her eyes once, she saw the world as a Martial Apprentice. Her vision had heightened, increasing the resolution of her view of the world. Her sense of the world had also grown richer, allowing her to perceive the world with more clarity.
When Ria moved her hands, it was like she had moved them for the very first ti in her life. As if her arms had been shackled with weights, and only now were they free.
She felt a surge of power that made her feel invincible.
Amare simply stared at her daughter with a dropped jaw, frozen in shock.
For a mont, she thought she was dreaming.
There, the alien invasion was simply a horrible nightmare as well.
That would have been nice.
But she wasn't dreaming. This was actual reality. She found herself staring at Ria, her daughter, but also a Martial Apprentice.
At the age of five years.
It shattered all prior records. People like Kane, who broke through to the Apprentice Realm at the age of twelve, were regarded as prodigious geniuses. People like Fiona, who had broken through at the age of nine, were regarded as heaven-sent prodigies that the world only saw once every generation. What of a girl who broke through to the Apprentice Realm at rely five years of age? What kind of adjective could possibly do justice to such an unfathomable amount of natural talent?
Discovering the Martial Path required a foundation of physicality and Martiality. Initiates needed to be exposed to Martial Art as they began growing familiar not just with Martial Art but also with themselves. And only when their understanding of themselves and Martial Art intersected at a critical point did they co to discover their Martial Path.
Yet Ria had gone through none of that.
Even her discovery of the Martial Path was not a discovery of herself, but closer to a decision.
As if she were in control, rather than working her way through a dark maze, she thrust open the door in front of her with brute force and took a step onto the path before her.
It was categorically superior to anything Amare had ever seen. It was a realm of talent that exceeded even that of Tokugawa Ieyasu, even her original self in her previous life as Esil, the first person to ever discover the Martial Path.
Amare dared to even go as far as to say that Ria had the potential to surpass her father, if given enough ti. It was a gift from her father, after all. And Amare knew that the only person in the world that Rui would be perfectly happy surpassing him would be his own daughter, even if it ca at the cost of Project Water.
"Mama? What happened? Why do you look so pale?" Ria asked with an innocent tone of curiosity. It appeared she hadn't even fully grasped the sheer significance of what had happened. While Amare remained frozen in shock, the smallest of smiles cracked at the edge of Rui's mouth many light hours away. The blood-red suns within the depths of his eyes shone with blinding brightness.
"That's my girl."
His drive to fight, to win, had grown even stronger. His body was covered in wounds, even as these rapidly healed.
The laminar integunt opposite him was spotless, hovering elegantly in the backdrop of an exquisitely beautiful cosmos. Several flashes of light flickered through its body, forming a single ssage that it conveyed to Rui.
"You. Cannot. Win."
A profoundly intense will erupted from deep within his heart. "I will win."
His heart raced with power.
"I will win and protect my world, my family, and my daughter if it's the last thing I do."
He charged forth, unleashing an onslaught of attacks against the laminar integunt.
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