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 bloomed across two

He focused.

physical energy his body

in amazement

Rui's sheer focus. It grew by the second,

strong

Nel wanted to know.

Martial Path is stronger void boy!" He grinned as the savage weight of an

pressure the

one could look

single person could

supervisor commenced the

RUMBLE

Nel had launched himself sent tremors

He snarled as he launched

WHOOSH

crashed into a

BAM!

powerful kick at his ribs from the

POW POW POW

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

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

He grinned.

if ordinary jabs

was capable of much

WHOOSH

burst forth with shocking explosive

BAM

bruised his arm

it, but only now had he confirmed that he

another loaded

going to try and

WHOOSH

cleanly avoided it with a feint. He used Balanced Direction and

BAM BAM BAM

a flurry

was powered with Outer Convergence and Vital

was not

too quick to allow Rui to land a clean strike on a

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

ordinary attacks aren't

WHOOSH

cleanly with the help of Primordial Instinct,

Or so everyone thought.

with a punch,

BOOM!!

clash shook the

sheer

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

fist hadn't

five Apprentice-level

The boys furiously fought.

Fists were exchanged.

Kicks were dodged.

Attacks were endured.

And defenses were sieged!

speed were lower than Nel's. A symmetric battle was not in

with Phantom

than his speed did, and allowed him to land