The Martial Unity

He dashed forward towards the heart of the Serevian Plateau. His Seismic Mapping technique picked up unnaturally high and yet fluctuating seismic radiation incoming from the very direction he was headed at the very moment. He shed his squire-level mind mask before adopting his stealth mind mask and activating the Shadow Step technique, becoming incredibly stealthy and hard to register.

It took him some time but eventually, he reached the heart of the Serevian Plateau.

"What the..." Rui's eyes widened as he beheld the strange sight in front of him. "What in the world is this?"

It was so bizarre he couldn't even put it into words.

In front of him was an elevated landmass. The landmass extended beyond what the eye could see on both sides. It was as though a piece of the tectonic plate had been elevated by dozens of meters, randomly. It was as though the landmass had been transported over and dropped onto the center of the Serevian Plateau.

"What the fuck is this?" He wondered aloud. "How can such a ridiculous elevation even occur naturally?"

He was no geologist, but he racked his brains, both of them, searching for an answer.

"Earthquake?" He quickly wondered.

Earthquakes were caused due to shifts of tectonic plates bordering each other. The shift led to the release of a massive wave of seismic radiation. On the surface, this seemed to be a logical explanation for why the land was elevated and what the cause for the seismic radiation he was sensing was.

"No, that makes no fucking sense." He shook his head.

The seismic radiation released by earthquakes was non-uniform and constant over long periods of time. They were destructive, but acute and didn't last too long. They certainly didn't last four days without ever once reducing in intensity.

"Furthermore, if it was an earthquake, I refuse to believe that the Ministry of Environment and Ecology is incompetent enough to not recognize an earthquake when they see it." He shook his head. "That's not the only problem with that option either. This place is too clean to be the epicenter of an Earthquake."

Earthquakes were destructive. It was absolutely impossible for the structures atop and around the epicenter to be intact. Yet the surroundings were remarkably unkempt. Although a few trees at the very edge had been uprooted due to the split, the surrounding trees were untouched. Even the nests of birds atop the trees had not fallen off.

as he turned back to face the

it deeply with Seismic

shock as a realization hit him. "The roots... The roots of the trees atop that part of the land have grown so much that they have elevated

roots were enormously thick, thicker than those of the other trees around him, and had extended far deeper than even his Seismic Mapping

took up so much space underground, that landmass itself shifted up due to an increasing lack

its structure. This

sensed a vast

to an extremely high height

STEP

surface of the elevated landmass, and his eyes widened,

rubbing his eyes before looking

shook his head. "No no. This isn't

took some more measures before he finally gave and accepted his vision wasn't

a vast

Except they weren't.

were a single

they were separate, were actually

deeper and deeper. Every single 'tree' was connected by a branch. The branches were covered in leaves. The sheer number of branches meant

Primordial Instinct sensed

WHOOSH

somersaulted he evaded an

branch?') His eyes widened as a terrifying thought entered his mind. ('Is this

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH