The Martial Unity

"You seem displeased."

The Emperor's powerful voice echoed across the vast expanse of the Kandrian Throne Hall.

"Oh, I do, do I? You don't say."

Rui's sarcasm was palpable.

Yet the Emperor didn't seem to mind the impropriety.

"Your displeasure is very understandable." The Emperor remarked. "Yet you managed to retain your exterior composure even when bombarded with life-altering revelations in front of all the greatest powers of Kandria."

A hint of approval could be detected in his voice. "Had you grown unstable or had a mental breakdown, I would not have chosen you as my heir. It was…the final test."

Rui narrowed his eyes, glaring at the Emperor. "The final test?"

"Final test." The Emperor reaffirmed calmly. "You have passed all others with flying colors. You are truly a prince worthy of ascending the throne. You are worthy of being Emperor of Kandria."

"I don't understand."

Rui's voice betrayed the frustration that had rapidly built up since the revelation of his royal bloodship.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND." He bellowed as a surge of emotion washed through him.

A brief silence lingered in the air.

"I don't blame you." The Emperor's tone was gentle. "Sometimes, I'm not entirely sure I understand what happened."

Regret and sorrow echoed within the melody of his voice.

He heaved a sigh. "If I, as Emperor of Kandria, had the choice to choose a single supernatural power or ability, what power do you think it would be?"

Rui furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at the random question.

What did it have to do with their current circumstances?

What relevance did it have to anything that was pertinent?

If ranked on the list of topics that Rui wanted to speak to the Emperor about, it would not even make it into the top ten thousand!

Yet, as he met the patient and calm eyes of the Emperor, waiting for an answer, he heaved a sigh.

"…Telepathy? Precognition. Clairvoyance..." Rui nonchalantly replied. "Depends on its synergy with your circumstances and needs as ruler, I suppose."

"That is a neat analysis; those are certainly good choices," The Emperor nodded, smiling wryly. "I chose precognition."

Rui tilted his head. "I do not follow."

"Or rather, an opportunity to choose precognition had risen nearly forty years ago," The Emperor replied calmly. "One of my intelligence networks had caught wind of a clue to the location of the mythical Silas Clan."

Rui's eyes narrowed sharply at that name.

The Emperor had mentioned it when he declared Rui his heir.

It was the clan of his mother, allegedly.

He had never heard of such a clan before in his entire life.

"The Silas Clan is a nomadic clan descended from the Transcendent Prophet, the Astral Sovereign." The Emperor explained. "It is a clan birthed by the son of the Transcendent Prophet, a Martial Sage who went by the name Silas."

Rui's eyes widened, surprised at the connection between the prophet of the Virodhabhasa Faith and the clan his mother was allegedly from.

"The historical records about the origin of the Silas Clan are…

shoddy, to say the least," The Emperor admitted. "However, it is said that Silas was inspired by his father's Transcendent Prophecy from a very young age, so much so that he grew up wanting to become a prophet like his father. It is said that it had shaped his entire identity as he grew up, the core of his drive."

He glanced at Rui. "What do you think his Martial Path was when he broke through to the Apprentice Realm?"

Rui's eyes narrowed. "…Prophecy?"

The word lingered in the air.

"Indeed." The Emperor nodded, closing his eyes. "Over the span of centuries in the Age of Martial Art, Silas broke through to Realm after Realm, reaching the Sage Realm. Just one Realm below Transcendence. It is said that Sage Silas had reached the cusp of the Transcendence Realm…before he ultimately disappeared, thought to be dead."

"'Thought' to be dead…?"

The Emperor shrugged nonchalantly. "Thought to be dead. Gaia is an astronomically enormous world. Orders of magnitude larger than any other in our solar system. He could be dead or not. I doubt we will ever find out. However, before he died, he passed on a technique to his clan of descendants…

a forbidden technique, the Eye of Prophecy."

Rui's eyes narrowed.

"It was a Sage-level technique that is said to allow the user to see the future." The Emperor remarked. "The Silas Clan inherited Sage Silas' final heirloom and dedicated everything to it. Their entire identities warped around the technique as they religiously embodied it."

His eyes met with Rui. "I'm sure you're familiar with the correlation between identity and Martial Path; what do you think happened?"

"…The Martial Artists of the Silas Clan naturally came to possess Martial Paths centered around the Eye of Prophecy," Rui realized. "If their progeny were raised to form their identity around their inherited technique, then there's no doubt that their Martial Art would not stray far away from the technique."

"Indeed," The Emperor nodded. "That was not all. There is a reason the technique is considered to be a forbidden technique. The original technique was not a forbidden technique; it was a Sage-level technique. It was made functioned to make use of the Sage Realm of power. In other words, it was not a technique meant to be used by even Masters, let alone Martial Artists of the Lower Realms. Yet they were determined to harness the power of the technique, the only heirloom given to them by their beloved progenitor, Sage Silas."

The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "They were willing to use it no matter the price. And the price they did pay. The many Martial Masters united together to decode, decipher, and reconstruct the technique to water it down."

"…I presume they succeeded." A glint of curiosity flashed in Rui's eyes.

"Partially," The Emperor replied. "They managed to water it down in order to make it easier to use as a result. However, they were never entirely able to reduce it below quasi-Sage level. The technique was fundamentally such that it required a bare minimum amount of the power of the Sage Realm."