The Martial Unity

Being a Martial Artist was not always easy. A lot of people who found their Martial Path were unable to tread deeply down it because they simply lacked the perseverance and dedication needed. Completing missions was not so easy when you were on the lower spectrum of the Martial Apprentice grade scale, you earned a decent amount, but that was about it.

That was a why a lot of Martial Artists turned to the underworld, there were many alluring fruits within reach, poisoned as they may be.

Kate Kole remembered the first time she sold a child. She had earned more than ten time's what she would normally earn as a low-grade Martial Apprentice of the Martial Union. And it was trivially easy too, capturing a single child from the backwaters of the Empire and shipping them to the commercial hub of the town of Hajin and selling them in the thriving underworld of the town required very little physical effort from her, compared to completing the often long, difficult and tiring missions of the Martial Union.

It was addicting. The first time she had kidnapped and trafficked a child, the sheer ease with which she was earning a larger sum of money had pulled her into the Underworld. She would never be able to go back to being regular Martial Artist. She went around changing her name time and time again, Martha Myers, Jenna Jill, Ciara Carter and so on and so forth. She had amassed an immense amount of wealth.

Of course, the Underworld came with its own fair share of detriments. There was a saying that there were only ten people in the Underworld who weren't exploited by someone else, the ten most powerful people in the Underworld. Everybody else below them served someone or the other and was at the mercy of someone or the other.

The moment she stepped foot into the Underworld, she was unable to escape. The demand for her goods was strong, and those that she had provided for would not let her go so easily. She was coerced to continue her child-trafficking business. Lest the Underworld sold her to the government once she was no longer of use, they had too much dirt on her.

Life in the Underworld was one of fear, fear of the Underworld, fear of the overworld. She could not stop trafficking children; she was not allowed to. She was constantly afraid that the Underworld she had stepped foot in would consume her, or spit her out into the open where the Empire would consume her instead.

Eventually, she had reached a stage where she was willing to give away all of the wealth she had built upon the heinous suffering of innocent children just to be able to sleep at night without wondering 'When are they going to come for me?'.

Today, she realized, just very well might be that day.

She turned around in fear as she saw Rui pursuing her relentlessly. This wasn't her first time being pursued by a Martial Apprentice. She was normally too fast for them to even keep up, she had managed to acquire many Apprentice-level maneuvering techniques in fear of being caught and mastered them to give her some sense of security. That in combination with her intimate familiarity with the town of Hajin allowed her to escape all her previous pursuers.

trying so hard. He was a Martial Artist of the Martial Union, not the government, this must have been a commission

knew was that she had to get away from him. As

Or so she thought.

opened up the distance between them, he was still somehow able to keep pursuit of her! Even if

has a sensory technique!') She

get of his sensory range. This would take

she didn't know if she could

and had let her body go with material indulgences. Her body had grown rusty, and her physical parameters had plummeted in the time that she had stopped training, more so than she had imagined. Her body had ached all over from stressing

even prior to the Academy. Furthermore, once he entered the Academy, he had honed his body like a madman with his extreme potion

and running some

in

would give up but he didn't.

passed, and the two of them had already crisscrossed and circled around

moment had

CRASH

state, Kate had stumbled on a rock and crashed hard into the ground,

she experienced

to turn around. She could feel the weight of his mind

grasped her hair before she could even turn around. He didn't utter a word, the glare in his eyes spoke for

She screamed. "HELP! SAVE ME!" She cried