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

him out

BAM BAM BAM

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, not even

the basics of the VOID algorithm. ('The first step is to adapt my fighting approach such that the relevance and significance of power

relaxed his muscles, shaking and dangling them, while crouching his knees relaxedly. Despite this, Rui dashed towards the masked

WHOOSH

avoiding a counter haymaker from his opponent before circling around and

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

('Float like a butterfly...')

WHOOSH

danced out of a straight

like

POW

jab to the

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

Kane accomplished this through speed and agility, something Rui

and agility with the predictive and counter-deduction measures

this, Rui was able 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

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

BAM

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

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