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 bloomed across

He focused.

physical energy his body

grinned in amazement

focus. It grew by

how strong was

Nel wanted to know.

boy!" He grinned as the savage weight of an apex predator oozed out of every

maelstrom of mental pressure the two boys

one could look

a single person could draw their eyes

supervisor commenced

RUMBLE

with which Nel had launched himself sent

snarled as he launched a wild

WHOOSH

powerful swing crashed into a feint,

BAM!

from the side, but Nel

POW POW POW

having calmly mitigated the strikes with Inner Divergence, Elastic Shift

mid-grade defensive techniques as well

He grinned.

what if ordinary

capable of much

WHOOSH

forth with shocking explosive speed, launching a

BAM

as he bruised his

long suspected it, but only now had he confirmed that he could not take too many

launched another loaded

try and tank it this

WHOOSH

cleanly avoided it with a feint. He used Balanced

BAM BAM BAM

launched a

powered with Outer Convergence and

it was

guard. His reflexes were too quick to allow Rui to land a clean strike

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

expected, ordinary attacks aren't

WHOOSH

kick cleanly with the help of Primordial

Or so everyone thought.

when Nel charged at him with a punch, Rui charged right back with

BOOM!!

clash shook the

at the sheer display

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

fist

the 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!

defense and speed were lower than Nel's. A symmetric

things up with

to avoid more strikes than his speed did,