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

He focused.

of physical energy his body

amazement despite the

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

strong

Nel wanted to know.

grinned as the savage weight of an apex predator

mental pressure the two boys

no one

person could draw their

the supervisor

RUMBLE

had launched himself sent tremors across the

as he launched a

WHOOSH

swing crashed into

BAM!

from the side, but Nel simply blocked it, pushing the strike

POW POW POW

calmly mitigated the

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

He grinned.

if ordinary

capable of much

WHOOSH

shocking explosive speed, launching a flying

BAM

grimaced as he bruised his arm visibly despite his defensive

he confirmed that he could not take too many of

launched another

wasn't going to try and tank it

WHOOSH

cleanly avoided it with a feint. He used Balanced

BAM BAM BAM

a

strike was powered with Outer Convergence and

was

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

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

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

WHOOSH

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

Or so everyone thought.

a

BOOM!!

shook the

at the sheer display

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

Nel's fist hadn't backed

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!

his average offense, defense and speed were lower than Nel's. A symmetric battle was not

switched things up with Phantom Step and Primordial

to avoid more strikes than his speed did, and