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!

very next

BAM!

application of Inner Divergence and Elastic Shift. The throw hurt like

launching himself at

WHOOSH

BAM!

skidded away groaning

as he got up. If Hever was not aware of the Phantom Step technique, then Rui was certain he would be able to use it

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

would have made this realization the second he saw himself using the Phantom Step technique. He had anticipated

Phantom Step. The biggest reason had to do with the Hever's muscle memory quickness, it was so quick, that even after falling for a feint, he was still quick enough to respond

his sheer mastery of a single technique, that allowed him to crush so many powerful techniques and

even if he continued, it was a fool's errand. He was not going

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 the initiative in this fight. He

his time,

always directly in front of him

Rui conjectured. ('Or perhaps it works worst or not

he could exploit this, but eventually shook his head, it

to

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

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

solace that he wouldn't be wasting his final trump card

"Fuuu..." Rui focused.

odds of it succeeding again were lower than the first time. Such was the nature of

Especially for this one.