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

prevented Rui from knocking him out of balance. His opponent returned the favour

BAM BAM BAM

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, not even half a

the VOID algorithm. ('The first step is to adapt my fighting approach such

crouching his knees relaxedly. Despite this, Rui dashed towards the

WHOOSH

back avoiding a counter haymaker from his opponent before circling around and entering his striking range

Pow

WHOOSH

abrupt change in fighting styles, Rui had gone from passive defense to maneuvering

('Float like a butterfly...')

WHOOSH

of

like a

POW

clean jab to

pioneering. It was the strategy that the legendary Muhammad Ali once said he would use 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 attacks through evasive

one key difference. Kane accomplished this through

compensated for his lacking speed and agility with the predictive

to deduce the general attack that his opponent was aiming for, and the VOID algorithm simply outputted a corresponding move that has the greatest chance for success. Rui himself had painstakingly worked on the counter-deduction system of the VOID

allow him to gain an upper hand, even if small, in a disadvantaged

BAM

got up quickly and propped up his stinging arms into a stance, prepared

urged. He sharpened his senses awaiting a bullrush, yet a guttural screech from a distance away broke him out of his reverie.