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.

mental energy his

He focused.

physical energy his body

in amazement

focus. It grew by the second, pouring onto him from a boundless

how strong

Nel wanted to know.

boy!" He grinned as the savage weight

of mental pressure the two

no one could look

could draw their

the supervisor

RUMBLE

force with which Nel had launched himself

snarled as he launched a wild

WHOOSH

swing crashed into a feint,

BAM!

kick at his ribs from the side, but

POW POW POW

Rui leapt back, having calmly mitigated

he couldn't overcome the combination of two mid-grade defensive techniques as well as one high-grade

He grinned.

ordinary

was capable

WHOOSH

burst forth with shocking explosive speed, launching a

BAM

bruised his arm

only now had he confirmed that he could

launched another loaded

wasn't going to try

WHOOSH

used Balanced Direction

BAM BAM BAM

a flurry

with Outer

was

collided against Nel's guard. His reflexes were too quick to allow Rui to land a

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

expected, ordinary attacks aren't doing the trick.') He

WHOOSH

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

Or so everyone thought.

him with a

BOOM!!

shook

the sheer

Rui had charged up his momentum to the max with Balanced Direction and Parallel Walk, and launched a Flowing Canon attack

Nel's fist

the power of five Apprentice-level techniques

The boys furiously fought.

Fists were exchanged.

Kicks were dodged.

Attacks were endured.

And defenses were sieged!

and speed were lower than Nel's. A

switched things up with Phantom Step

him to avoid more strikes than his speed did, and allowed him to land more attacks than his speed