The Martial Unity

Rui finally got a good look at his aggressor. Not that it helped much because his aggressor was masked. However, there were things that could still be gauged despite this.

('Adult male. His bulky physique probably means he's not a speed or maneuvering oriented Martial Artist, he's definitely a Martial Apprentice though') Rui thought as he struggled to restrain him.

Rui's goal in this fight was not to win. He had two goals:

The first was to survive. His survival was the ultimate priority to him. Although he had gotten closer to Bella during the mission, he was not going sacrifice his life for her. Rui never fancied himself to be a hero or a saint.

The second, was to stall, not win. He did not intend to expend any extra energy on killing his opponent or knocking him out, though if he could, that would be great too. But for the most part, Rui was going to do his best to stall for Bella.

Stalling was easier than defeating, in most cases. Thankfully, this was one of those cases.

This was also how Rui planned to compensate for the weight difference. Rui had grown remarkably physically stronger over the last year, much more so than almost anybody else. However, at the end of the day he was still only a fourteen-year-old.

His opponent seemed to be in his twenties, the prime of his life. An adult Martial Apprentice was stronger than an adolescent Martial Apprentice. Rui had to capitalize on his advantages as much as he could, stalling instead of aiming for a win, was part of the plan.

FOOSH

The masked Martial Apprentice finally managed to untangle himself from Rui's ground grappling.

POW POW POW

Rui immediately began showering him with a barrage of strikes of Vital Pressure, but his opponent managed to block and redirect almost all of them.

WHOOSH

Rui managed to cleanly crouch out of a high kick while simultaneously sweeping his pivot leg with a low kick.

BAM

but the difference in power prevented Rui from knocking him out of balance. His opponent returned the

BAM BAM BAM

back putting some distance between them. They both paused for merely half a second, regaining their bearings. However, Martial Apprentices processed combat so quickly that even half a second in combat was akin half a dozen seconds. In fact,

power and toughness.') Rui analyzed, while parsing the data he had collected through the basics of the VOID algorithm. ('The first step is to adapt my fighting approach such that

and dangling them, while crouching his knees relaxedly. Despite this, Rui dashed towards the masked Martial Apprentice

WHOOSH

stopped and stepped back avoiding a counter haymaker from his opponent before circling around and entering

Pow

WHOOSH

Martial Apprentice grimaced in frustration at the abrupt change in

('Float like a butterfly...')

WHOOSH

danced out of a

like

POW

to the

if he had to fight Mike Tyson. This strategy was similar to what Kane used against Fae. A light offense combined with evasive maneuvering to avoid his opponent's counter. Land in jabs wherever you could, avoid all

this through speed and

for his lacking speed and agility with the predictive and counter-deduction measures of the VOID

move

an upper hand, even if small, in a disadvantaged battle validated Rui to his very core. The Martial Scientist in him

BAM

his opponent landed a solid strike on him. He got up quickly and propped up his stinging arms into a stance, prepared for the next

yet a guttural screech from a distance away broke him out of his