The Martial Unity

The two dashed towards each other.

('I'm faster.') Rui realized.

Yet despite this, Gale's strike reached first.

WHOOSH

Rui dodged the strike.

Gale continued dishing an onslaught of strikes and Rui avoided all of them cleanly. Ever since he mastered Primordial Instinct, his timing had grown much sharper and more accurate. Its synergy with the VOID algorithm was truly impressive.

Gale didn't stop, his strikes were straight forward and had a huge range. He launched all of them from outside Rui's striking range, so Rui wasn't able to do much.

('He's a long-range striking specialist.') Rui realized. Each strike had a huge reach, and he launched them in a way that deliberately prevented Rui from reaching close enough to launch his own attacks.

Rui keenly observed this before making a decision, he stopped avoiding Gale and instead dashed against him once more.

A flash of surprise morphed into Gale's expression as he quickly launched a straight jab at Rui, growing even more surprised when he saw Rui didn't avoid them, and instead ran into it even faster. Just as the strike was about to hit Rui

WHOOSH

Rui disappeared.

('A feint!') Gale realized.

BAM

impact

had feinted with Phantom Step to draw his strike away while simultaneously using

Outer Convergence, Parallel Walk and Balanced Direction had crashed into Gale, leaving him reeling. He just barely managed to throw up a

Gale leaped back, grimacing.

he rushed in. Gale panicked when he saw Rui dashing in, feeling an immense amount of mental pressure from

This time he was a bit more prepared, he didn't want to be

didn't dodge

CLASP

moving with it to reduce the impact

The Binding Lash technique.

the VOID algorithm outputted a grapple counter as the most apt way of defeating Gale, dragging outside the realm

CRACK

grimaced in pain as Rui managed to cleanly dislocate his arm. The Binding Lash technique allowed the user to dislocate

of these conditions

accuracy of his timing immensely. The VOID algorithm allowed him to consciously and actively analyze, evaluate and make

by virtue of being much older, but Rui had nailed

give up, struggling with everything he had. Despite the advantageous position Rui

a career ending injury, but in the world of Gaea, within the Martial Art, this wasn't much of a big deal. Healing

excruciating and even if Gale somehow broke through, he had no

He did not enjoy the act of inflicting pain on others. He carefully let go of Gale's arm, not wanting hurt him

slowly, before throwing a bitter smile at

He meant it.

mentally the entire fight along with the perfect fight that he'd displayed from start to finish. Rui had shown him just how big the gap between them was. Gale had spent a long time in the Academy, and even with his mediocre growth, he had come to accumulate more power than most Apprentices in the Academy currently. But Rui still beat him cleanly, while holding back

offered a hand to

would not be chosen as the representative of the Academy. "I haven't given up yet though. On becoming the representative,