The Martial Unity

Rui felt nostalgic about his current circumstances, it had been a long time since he had faced a Martial Artists genuinely capable of forcing him to pause and think. Before he mastered the pattern recognition system of the VOID algorithm, he had always been forced to fight with creativity and tactics in order to win.

However, the previous two training sessions had simply made him too strong. It took literal Martial Squires to force him to strategize and rely on tactics. Against other Martial Apprentices, he was usually too strong. He didn't need to strategize to win against them.

He was glad that there were still Martial Apprentices out there strong enough to force him out of his comfort zone.

('Alright, think, how do I get past this wall of wind?') He pondered as he blocked yet another wind blast from his opponent.

He couldn't outmaneuver it because it was simply too large and swift. He couldn't force his way past the wind attack with brute force alone. The wind that his opponent generated was incredibly powerful, overwhelming the friction between Rui and the ground. It wasn't a matter of strength, Rui simply lacked the leverage needed to apply his strength against the wind attacks.

WHOOSH

Rui dashed towards him with remarkable swiftness.

BAM!

He put together a guard as he skidded away some distance away from the wind attack. He glanced up at his opponent, after finally having paused.

He stopped attacking, as he took a moment to process his circumstances. The predictive model had been completed, but unfortunately, it wasn't nearly of much use. Sometimes, even predicting your opponent wasn't enough to counter them.

Even if Rui predicted his opponent accurately, he wouldn't gain some massive advantage. He still had no way to close the distance.

('My feet aren't fast enough.') Rui mused. ('It's hard to picture me outpacing the attack with my speed alone.')

Suddenly his eyes lit up with interest as a crazy yet plausible solution hit him. He took a few moments as he fleshed out a plan.

('If my feet aren't fast enough, then I ought to use more than just my feet.') Rui realized.

It seemed like an extremely silly thing to think, but Rui saw potential in it.

('However, I need to ensure that my accuracy and precision are high enough, otherwise, I'm screwed.')

One thing Rui was grateful for was the fact that even though he was having difficulty getting to his opponent, his opponent was also having difficulty hurting Rui. Although the size of the attack made it very difficult to evade, it also reduced the potency of the attack because the power was diluted over a large area. Furthermore, Rui bled off a lot of the power of the attack with the help of the Tempestuous Ripple attack.

He was in no danger of going down to the attack any time soon.

However, something needed to change and Rui intended on doing just that.

('Alright, here goes nothing.') Rui crouched as he prepared himself for yet another attack.

His opponent stiffened as he saw that Rui was about to attack once more, prepared to immediately use his wind blast attack at a moment's notice.

WHOOSH

Rui dashed diagonally forward at a tremendous speed. The Martial Apprentice immediately launched the wind blast attack toward Rui.

Yet;

WHOOSH

Rui's image disappeared, evoking shock from the Martial Apprentice.

It was a feint.

Rui was on the other side. He had feinted using Phantom Step while misdirecting his opponent's attention toward the feint, causing it to be even more effective. He ran in the opposite direction with more than just his feet. He propelled himself forward by launching Tempestuous Ripples in the opposite direction. Using Newton's third law of motion to exceed his normal limits. He moved at a staggering speed as he rushed forward toward his opponent.

His opponent's eyes widened in shock as he hastily tried to launch a second wind blast in time, yet Rui had no intention of letting him succeed.

BAM!!

A powerful Flowing Canon crashed into his opponent's guard, slamming him backward as he grimaced in pain.

Rui immediately chased after him, ensuring that he simply lacked the space or the time to launch a wind blast attack.

POW POW POW!

He threw a flurry of straight body blows that struck his opponent's guard. Rui discovered that despite being a long-range specialist, his opponent was quite tough even in close-range quarters. His defense was tough enough to withstand the onslaught Rui unleashed.

('As expected of a genuine grade-ten Martial Apprentice.') Rui mused.

WHOOSH

He avoided a blow with tremendous power. His opponent had extremely high striking power, close to that of Fae's, from what Rui could tell. This made sense since the immense power of the wind blast attacks came from his striking, after all.

Yet, despite his surprising competence in close-quarters combat, he was still a far cry from being able to defeat Rui.

WHOOSH

BAM!

Rui casually evaded a strike he saw coming from a mile away as he landed his own., the VOID algorithm and the Mindmirror Brain were simply too much together.

His opponent fell to his knees as he grimaced in pain. Rui hadn't thrown an ordinary attack, it was an attack that permeated the impact with Reverberating Lance. The attack had struck his liver, as Reverberating Lance exacerbated the effect.

BAM!

A swift and powerful kick struck his opponent's gut, the impact permeating all the way to the diaphragm, stunning it.

He was unable to breathe.

POW!

A final kick to the jaw rattled his brain enough, triggering enough blunt-force trauma.

THUD

He collapsed flat to the ground, unconscious.

Rui paused a moment before saying out aloud to apparently nobody;

"I appreciate you not intervening," Rui said.

Kane appeared out of thin air, shrugging. "I knew you'd be fine, there was no need to intervene."

Kane had been running around the field, helping out his fellow Martial Apprentices in battle. Yet he had abstained from doing so with Rui's fight.