The Martial Unity

"Hm?" Rui's ears perked as Seismic Mapping and Tempestuous Feel picked up some heightened activity coming from the direction that the convoy was supposed to come. Furthermore, it should have been about time for the convoy to approach, by his estimations, give or take.

He got up before crouching down to a knee behind some vegetation on the hill.

It took a while for Rui to finally be close enough to make out details about the approaching source of the activity that he had perceived using his two techniques.

('Twenty-eight carriages,') Rui counted. ('Matches the information I was given about the convoy.')

The convoy was transporting esoteric supplies to the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana, most of these carriages were storage carriages that were filled with the esoteric raw supplies needed to sustain the communication sectors of the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana. Thus, Rui didn't think it would be easy for them to be able to evacuate with supply carriages.

As long as he disrupted the vanguard and the rear, they would be forced to abandon the entire convoy as they escaped.

Rui's eyes narrowed as the convoy approached closer. His Primordial instinct alerted him to the presence of a strong Martial Squire. He could sense his opponent increasingly clearly.

Of course, Rui was quite certain that his opponent couldn't sense his own Martial Squire status. After all, Rui had been strongly concealing his mental pressure aura with the Mind Mask technique.

Soon the convoy had entered his field of vision, and Rui had already prepared what he was going to open with.

It was time.

Rui leaped into the air, launching seven Sonic Bullets at the rear row of carriages.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

In less than a second, the carriages had been carefully crippled, and broken apart in a manner that made it impossible to turn around and run back from where they came. The cohesion of the crew broke apart as immense panic beset them, Rui could hear the crew members screaming as they tried to follow whatever protocols they could when attacked.

THUD

He landed in the path of the convoy, unleashing the bloodlust of a Martial Squire.

He launched a powerful Sonic Bullet in the direction of the convoy, but it was too late.

POW

A man appeared in the path of the attack, dispelling the attack with a spinning kick.

('Squire Crillian,') Rui smiled behind his mask.

The man barked instructions to the crew members in a foreign language never once taking his eyes off Rui. His gaze ran up and down the latter's body, noting the garb, only for his expression to grow even graver.

The crew ran away as though their life depended on it, even the Martial Apprentices assigned to the mission did not dare to stick around and try intervening in the fight.

The air grew frosty.

One could almost feel the frozen atmosphere growing tauter by the second as it was wrung under the maelstrom of pressure the two formidable Martial Squires exerted.

It was only half a second in real-time, yet from their perspective, it was all the time in the world.

The man's expression grew increasingly contorted with rage, inducing bone-chilling terror in any human who bore witness to it.

STEP

...

STEP

STEP STEP STEP

He walked towards Rui as he gathered every ounce of power in his muscles, his body shook as it brimmed to the rim with power!

BOOM!

He launched himself forward with tremendous momentum. The sheer power with which his body tore through the atmosphere left violent sonic booms in his wake. His body contorted as he released a thundering swirling kick to Rui's face.

And yet;

RUMBLE

The man's eyes widened in shock as Rui intercepted his strike with a single palm. What was even more bizarre was that the palm didn't even try to stop his attack!

Yet to his greatest shock, the power of his attack disappeared!

By the time his kick had fully extended, Squire Crillian felt weak. He felt as though someone had extracted the power of the attack and thrown it away.

His will steeled as he contorted his body, extracting his leg before launching a spinning kick that sent it coming from the opposite direction!

RUMBLE

The ground shook as Rui once more intercepted the attack, channeling its power through him elastically, before dispelling it into the ground via Reverberating Lance.

Had Squire Crillian witnessed the exhilarating grin behind Rui's mask, he would have lost his temper even more. Yet Rui valued keeping his appearance a secret too much to try and provoke his opponent using non-verbal triggers.

Thankfully, it wasn't needed.

"RARGH!" The man launched into a tirade of torque-empowered blows, trying his best to overwhelm Rui's defense. A torrent of strikes befell Rui, swinging at him from all directions.

"Ngh." Rui gritted his teeth as he barely managed to negate every single swift and powerful strike that his opponent threw.

Rui realized that his opponent's fighting style contained more nuance than he had given it credit. Every attack that his opponent launched was a set-up for the next attack. If he launched a roundhouse kick, then he would use the fact that his body core was twisted, to generate torque for a right hook when he untwisted his body from the previous body in the opposite direction. That then also served as the set-up for the next attack after!

He employed a dynamic attack style that employed all four limbs while also using each attack to charge up torque for the next attack. Which meant that each of his attacks was nearly as strong as a fully charged attack!

Rui, on the other hand, only had two palms which were also the sole limbs that could use the Flux Earther technique, against the torque-empowered dynamic strikes that involved all four limbs.

POW!

A straight punch managed to wind past Rui's defense, landing on his torso.

"Urgh," Rui grimaced as he stepped back, yet his opponent had no intention of letting Rui go.