The Martial Unity

Rui leaped away, reeling from the tremendous blow to his head.

If not for a timely Flux Earther, he would have been knocked out then and there. Thankfully, his proficiency with the technique had reached a much higher stage in the past decade and a half since he had created it. He no longer needed any active interception.

He could intercept any attack passively with Flux Earther and disperse its impact into the environment.

BAM BAM BAM!

The twins never let up, bombarding him with blow after blow. It had become painfully clear that these two were definitely stronger together than the Hammerer or the Thunder Viper were individually. They were high-grade Martial Seniors in their own right, yet together, they were much stronger.

POW! POW! POW!

He gravely defended against a series of wound-up heavy blows one after the other while her twin sister rounded about, launching a series of blows against his back.

BANG BANG BANG!

None of them gave him so much as a second to breathe.

On top of that, while they were twins, their movements were not entirely identical. He had been required to create two separate predictive models on each of them, stalling his progress.

However, that wasn't all.

As he watched their thoughtfully synchronized timings and exploitations of the chinks in his armor, an even greater realization dawned on him.

'Their prototypical Martial Minds are also centered around their coordination!' Rui's eyes widened with surprise.

It was no wonder how they were able to execute such a tremendously synergetic degree of coordination.

POW POW POW POW POW POW!

Their attacks spun one after another the way two rotating gears interwove in each other's gaps, leaving no gaps for him to exploit.

Their offense was domineering.

Yet nothing in this world was without flaws.

WHOOSH

Two extraordinary attacks converged on Rui, threatening to knock him out.

CLASP!

Their eyes widened as he effortlessly caught both attacks, cleanly halting them in their path.

'If every movement is coordinated, then I can predict each of you from the other.'

It was a pattern.

BOOM!!

He flung them to the ground with Hypertrophic Surge, causing enormous hills of bedrock to erupt from the ground, displaced by the attack.

RUMBLE!

A single attack had reversed the battle.

Yet they were far from done. The twins rushed in, looking to regain their domineering momentum against him.

Yet their biggest flaw was that they were too coordinated.

It meant that there were too many patterns between each of their movements.

They rushed in, unleashing a flurry of blows against him.

Yet all he could see were patterns.

'If your coordination leaves no holes, then I know to expect attacks where there should be holes.'

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

He calmly evaded blow after blow. Attacks that were too numerous and frequent for him were effortless now that he could predict based on the co-dependent predictive models he had made on them.

The most dominant pattern in all of their movements was alternating phases of preparation and action. When one prepared, the other attacked, followed by the attack of the one who was preparing while the second prepared.

This allowed them to ensure that there were simply no windows of opportunity for Rui to exploit and take them out.

The only time they went for simultaneous attacks was when they were attacking different parts of his body from different directions. This allowed them to ensure that they wouldn't get in each other's way.

Yet, while these minimized inefficiency in their delivery of attacks, it also necessarily formed patterns in their coordination.

The VOID algorithm loved patterns.

It gobbled them up greedily.

WHOOSH!

Their eyes widened as Rui cleanly evaded both their attacks, glancing into the eyes of one of them intently.

'Temporal Disharmony.'

This was his second time using it since he began taking on the series of assassins that were put out to take him out.

BAM!!!

A swift kick from Rui crashed into her faster than her slowed-

down reaction allowed her to contend with.

Yet even before her twin sister could process the frozen reaction time from her sister, Rui had already arrived.

POW POW POW!!

He peppered her with powerful blows, one after the other. She gritted her teeth as she did her best to block and evade his attacks. Yet even without her sister, Rui had already found the patterns in her movements in the time he had observed since the briefing and the fight.

BAM!!!

A powerful flying knee kick landed straight into her solar plexus, making her cough blood. Just as the finishing blow flew to her, it was intercepted by a flying high kick from the second twin, desperately trying to save her sister.

POW!

Rui cleanly blocked as the two sisters came back together to regain their harmony and coordination.

Yet Rui wasn't perturbed in the slightest.

He had long shattered their synergy.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

BAM BAM!!!

Looks of shock and bewilderment appeared on their faces as Rui evaded every single attack they threw while cleanly blasting both of them with blows.

Because he had selectively applied Temporal Disharmony only to one and not the other, he was completely throwing off their carefully honed coordination and disharmony. One was operating at a different speed of time than the other.

This sudden and abrupt change completely shattered their coordination.

The psychological blow was too great.

BAM!!!

A kick cleanly on the jaw of her opponent, knocking her out.

POW POW POW!!!

CLASP!

He blasted the final with several blows before swinging overhead in a perfect over-the-body throw.

BOOM!!!!!

She, too, swiftly lost consciousness.

Yet, they had already escaped his focus and concentration.

"You have powerful domains," A voice behind him called.

Rui narrowed his eyes as he came across the familiar visage of the Suffocator. "Not going to ambush me like the others?"

"There's no need to," The Suffocator's eloquent voice replied. "You are doomed to die. You have exhausted your stamina and your wounds, while healing at an exceptional rate, are going to hold you back."