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.

his mind had bloomed across

He focused.

every ounce of physical

grinned in amazement

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

strong was

Nel wanted to know.

grinned as the savage weight of an apex predator oozed out of every cell in

mental pressure the two boys generated burdened

no one could

single person could draw their eyes

supervisor

RUMBLE

sheer force with which Nel had launched himself sent tremors

he launched a

WHOOSH

crashed into a feint, hitting

BAM!

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

POW POW POW

calmly mitigated the strikes with Inner Divergence,

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

He grinned.

what if ordinary jabs didn't

was capable of much

WHOOSH

with shocking explosive speed,

BAM

he bruised his arm visibly despite his

but only now had he confirmed that he could not take too many of

another loaded

wasn't going to try and tank

WHOOSH

with a feint. He used

BAM BAM BAM

a

strike was powered with Outer

it was

land a clean strike on a vital, and when defended, his defense was too

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

ordinary attacks aren't doing

WHOOSH

Primordial Instinct, stepping back to open

Or so everyone thought.

him with a

BOOM!!

shook the

sheer display of raw

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

Nel's fist hadn't

of five Apprentice-level techniques with

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 symmetric

things up with Phantom Step

his speed did, and allowed him to land more attacks