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

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

BAM BAM BAM

he leapt 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

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

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

WHOOSH

haymaker from his opponent before circling around and entering his striking range to land a

Pow

WHOOSH

out of range after avoiding a low kick. The masked Martial Apprentice grimaced in frustration at the abrupt change in fighting styles, Rui had gone from passive defense to maneuvering

('Float like a butterfly...')

WHOOSH

danced out of

like a

POW

clean jab to

use if he had to fight Mike Tyson. This strategy was similar to what

key difference. Kane accomplished this through speed and

with the predictive and counter-deduction

algorithm simply outputted a corresponding move that

hand, even if small, in a disadvantaged

BAM

opponent landed a solid strike on him. He got up quickly and propped up his stinging arms

Rui urged. He sharpened his senses awaiting a bullrush, yet a guttural screech from a