The Martial Unity

"Take your stances." The supervisor instructed.

Hever shifted as he took his modest stance. He distributed his weight equally between both feet, putting his left foot forward and his right foot back as a support. His hands were open, placed at a height precisely in between his chest and waist. They were in interception position, ready to intercept all attacks that Rui threw at him.

"I'm looking forward to fighting you." Rui said as he hopped lightly between his feet, with both hands in front of him perfectly positioned for speedy jabs.

This stance sacrificed power for speed and mobility. Rui had seen that Hever was comfortably able to handle even the power of Nel without any problems for an extended period of time. There was no point in trying to overpower Hever. The only person who had chance of accomplishing that in the entire Academy was Fae, everybody else could only lower their head to his obtuse counter-offensive mastery.

"As am I." Hever calmly replied. Rui was not the only one paying attention to his rivals and contenders. Hever had long since identified Rui as one of the biggest obstacles in the entire Academy for the preliminary contest.

Especially since Rui was also ranked higher than he was at the moment.

"Begin!" The supervisor commenced the match.

Rui shuffled as he drew closer to Hever.

Hever simply waited.

Rui threw a jab only for Hever calmly intercept it.

WHOOSH

A feint. The Phantom Step technique.

Rui exploited the opening to throw the quickest jab he could!

the very

BAM!

Inner Divergence and Elastic Shift. The throw hurt like hell. Even with Primordial Instinct,

launching himself at Hever

WHOOSH

BAM!

away groaning in

as he got up. If Hever was not aware of the Phantom Step technique, then Rui was

had used the Phantom Step technique many times in this preliminary contest, and Hever was clearly prepared for it, anticipating that Rui would

were in Hever's place, he would have made this realization the second he saw himself using the Phantom Step technique. He had anticipated that this would not work against

biggest reason had to do with the Hever's muscle memory quickness, it was so quick, that even after falling for a feint,

but admire his sheer mastery of a single technique,

did not expect anything to change even if he continued, it was a fool's errand. He was not going to fight foolhardily like Nel and continue attacking

being voluntarily attacked. Hever had mastered only one technique, and it purely counter-offensive, he had no pure offensive potential. This meant that Rui had fully grasped

took his time, thinking

always directly in front of him at

conjectured. ('Or perhaps it works worst or not at all when

thought of ways he could exploit this, but eventually shook his head, it was too

have to use

the VOID algorithm. It wasn't that he hadn't obtained any solutions, it's just

He shook his head. At the very least, Dalen was easily in the top five, if not top three in the

wouldn't be wasting his final trump card

"Fuuu..." Rui focused.

odds of it succeeding again were lower than the first

Especially for this one.