The Martial Unity

"..."

"..."

Rui stared at him.

Nel stared back at him.

"You... what?"

"Broke through without em."

"No, surely..."

"Nope."

Rui tilted his head with incredulous confusion.

Broke through to Martial Apprentice without learning a single technique? What sort of nonsense was that?

Rui wasn't even sure what to say to that.

He wasn't even sure he believed him.

Was he lying to get Rui to lower his guard so he could later unveil them?

Looking at his sincere clueless expression, Rui shook his head, this guy was serious.

But wasn't that even more absurd?

"You... What is your Martial Path?"

"Take your stances." The supervisor had arrived, and quickly told them to be ready.

"Heh." Nel chuckled as he crouched, letting his arms dangle freely.

"My Martial Path is to beat everyone up using my body alone." He declared, his aura growing more feral by the second.

"..."

Rui's eyes flew wide open at those words.

For the very first time, he had run into someone with a Martial Path even more obtuse than his own!

"Take your stance." The supervisor insisted to Rui.

"I see..." Rui ignored him, staring straight at Nel with a boundless fascination and excitement.

He just couldn't wait!

"...My Martial Path is to beat everyone up with my VOID alone."

Rui adopted a neutral all-rounder stance, dividing his weight perfectly, positioning his arms and legs to be equally conducive to offense, defense and maneuvering.

"Fuuu..." He exhaled.

His mind went blank.

There was nothing.

And slowly...

He focused.

vast mental energy his mind had

He focused.

ounce of physical

amazement

amounts of pressure from Rui's sheer focus. It grew by the

how strong

Nel wanted to know.

He grinned as the savage weight of an apex

pressure the two boys

one

person could draw their

the supervisor

RUMBLE

force with which Nel had launched

he launched a wild

WHOOSH

swing crashed into

BAM!

powerful kick at his ribs from the side, but Nel simply blocked it,

POW POW POW

threw a series of swift jabs. Rui leapt back, having calmly mitigated the strikes with Inner

overcome the combination of two mid-grade defensive techniques

He grinned.

ordinary jabs

was capable of

WHOOSH

forth with shocking explosive speed,

BAM

bruised his arm visibly

but only now had he confirmed that he could not take

launched another

to try and

WHOOSH

it with a feint. He used Balanced

BAM BAM BAM

a flurry of

powered with Outer Convergence and Vital

it was

His reflexes were too quick to allow Rui to land a clean strike on a vital, and

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

aren't doing the

WHOOSH

cleanly with the help of Primordial Instinct, stepping back to open up some distance between

Or so everyone thought.

with a punch,

BOOM!!

shook

sheer display of raw

weighted strike, while Rui had charged up his momentum to the max with Balanced Direction

fist hadn't backed

of five Apprentice-level techniques with his

The boys furiously fought.

Fists were exchanged.

Kicks were dodged.

Attacks were endured.

And defenses were sieged!

offense, defense and speed were lower than Nel's. A symmetric battle was not in

things up with Phantom Step and Primordial

his speed did, and allowed him to land more attacks