The Martial Unity

"Haha, thanks. It's been a while since I had a fight that pushed me to the limit. Watching all you younglings get all the action had me impatient for my turn," He paused, before asking. "Do you think this will be enough to convince the G'ak'arkan Tribe?"

"I cannot guarantee it, but I would be surprised if they were still resolutely averse to obtaining our techniques," Rui replied thoughtfully. "With everything they have witnessed, there should be plenty of reason for them to be leaping at the opportunity of obtaining our techniques."

Senior Ceeran nodded, no longer pursuing the matter. He had done his part and he trusted Rui to do his. So far, Rui had not yet given him any reason to doubt him. The young man had proven his competence many times in the time that he had known him. In fact, Senior Ceeran doubted that anybody had figured out that Rui was not a high-grade Martial Squire. This was despite the fact that Rui had fought multiple times in battle, yet no one had realized that he was actually much weaker than he claimed to be.

This was because Rui's Martial Path and Martial Art were so potent and powerful that they gave enough credence to the mind mask that Rui was wearing, that nobody questioned Rui's prowess at this point in time.

"Why the long face?" Senior Ceeran raised an eyebrow as he noticed Rui's solemn expression sticking out of the excited and ecstatic Martial Squires.

"Hm? Ah, it wasn't much. I was just thinking about the K'ulnen Tribe," Rui replied. "We've killed their leaders as well as many of their warriors, including Martial Squires. Without their leaders and in their dysfunctional state on top of their existing irrationality, I fear they may react aversely to this. Worst-case scenario, they may just decide to go all out in a suicide attack against us."

"Hm, that isn't much of a problem right?," Senior Ceeran shrugged. "After all, they're only left with Martial Squires and Martial Apprentices. They have zero chance of taking us down."

"That is true…" Rui smiled wryly. The issue was that it was unlikely that Senior Ceeran would fight Squire-level battles for them. This meant that if the Martial Squires and Martial Apprentices did decide to launch an all-out war, it would most likely be the Martial Squires and Martial Apprentices of the settlement doing all the hard work.

Of course, Senior Ceeran would definitely intervene if things were starting to get too ugly, still, Rui would rather they didn't have to deal with the K'ulnen Tribe at all. They had just finished accomplishing their goal, and now Rui was finally ready to move back into negotiations with the G'ak'arkan Tribe. Their schedule would be significantly delayed yet again if the K'ulnen Tribe if the latter lost their minds and decided to try and annihilate the Martial Union settlement.

('I should send Kane to wiretap the entire place,') Rui's lit up as he came up with a good plan. The reason they had to be careful with trying to send Kane into any Martial Tribe to try and gather information directly or indirectly was that Martial Seniors were too much for Kane to misdirect the attention of with Void Step, meaning that he wouldn't make it out alive.

Now that both the Martial Seniors of the K'ulnen Tribe were dead, Kane ought to have no problem infiltrating the K'ulnen Tribe and gathering information while bugging the place to hell and back.

Still, Rui wasn't too concerned by the K'ulnen Tribe. After all, the Martial Union's settlement was not the only enemy that they had. They were still engaging in active war against a few other Martial Tribes. Unlike the Martial Union, these Martial Tribes had an active interest in getting rid of the K'ulnen Tribe. Rui was sure that at this very moment, these other Martial Tribes were preparing an all-out war with the K'ulnen Tribe to completely crush and take everything that they wanted from the tribe.

Though Rui highly doubted that the Martial Tribes would massacre the non-combatants for no reason, he was pretty sure that all the Martial Squires and Martial Apprentices were as good as dead. They would be eliminated by the other tribes to ensure that none of them would ever reach the third rank; the Senior Realm to ensure that the K'ulnen Tribe would never return to power ever again.

Regardless, Rui didn't care about what happened to them as long as the Martial Union did not get dragged into the mess. He only wanted to ensure that their plan succeeded.

"Hm?" Rui paid more attention to the corpses of the two Martial Seniors that the Martial Squire found and dragged up.

The patriarch's body was still in a good condition aside from the gaping hole in his gut, but the matriarch's body was quite unsightly. Senior Ceeran had bludgeoned her extremely well, and the post-mortem time had not done anything good for it.

Still, there were insights to be drawn from their bodies. And Rui had already gained one when he inspected the bodies deeply.

('Their veins… are bloated and inflamed…') Rui realized when his eyes widened with a particular thought. ('Could it be that those sharp red lines were in fact all part of the circulatory system?')

It was a shocking thought, but now that he tried recalling the exact position of those lines, which wasn't easy due to the distance between him and them and the fact that they moved blindingly fast, he could see that the positioning of the red lines was not inconsistent with the locations of veins and arteries.

('What exactly does that even mean?') Rui's mind was filled with all kinds of hypotheses, but none of them made too much sense at the moment. ('If they are the veins and the arteries, then that means that their veins and arteries are glowing inside the skin very brightly. Only then could any amount of light could pass through the skin.