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 mind had

He focused.

of physical energy his body could

grinned in amazement despite the

of pressure from Rui's sheer focus. It grew by the second, pouring onto him from a boundless abyss. It

how strong

Nel wanted to know.

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

maelstrom of mental pressure the two boys generated

no one

single person could draw their

the supervisor

RUMBLE

which Nel had

as he launched

WHOOSH

powerful swing crashed into a feint, hitting

BAM!

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

POW POW POW

leapt back, having calmly mitigated the strikes with Inner

two mid-grade defensive techniques as well as one high-grade defensive technique with ordinary

He grinned.

what if ordinary jabs didn't

capable of

WHOOSH

explosive speed, launching a

BAM

he bruised his arm visibly despite his defensive

confirmed that he could not

another

Rui wasn't going to try and

WHOOSH

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

BAM BAM BAM

a flurry

with Outer Convergence

it was

against Nel's guard. His reflexes were too quick to allow Rui to land a clean strike on a vital, and when defended, his

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

expected, ordinary attacks aren't

WHOOSH

avoided a kick cleanly with the help of Primordial Instinct, stepping

Or so everyone thought.

Nel charged at him with a punch, Rui

BOOM!!

shook

gaped at the sheer display

charged up his momentum to the max with Balanced Direction

fist hadn't

power of five Apprentice-level techniques with his sheer

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

up with

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