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

He focused.

every ounce of physical energy his body could

grinned in amazement

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 oozed out

pressure the

no one could

single person could draw their

supervisor commenced

RUMBLE

Nel had

He snarled as he launched a

WHOOSH

into a feint, hitting

BAM!

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

POW POW POW

calmly mitigated the strikes with Inner

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

He grinned.

ordinary jabs didn't

was capable of much

WHOOSH

with shocking explosive speed, launching a

BAM

his arm visibly

that he could not take too many

launched another loaded

Rui wasn't going to try and tank it this

WHOOSH

feint. He used Balanced Direction and Parallel Walk,

BAM BAM BAM

a flurry of

with Outer Convergence and

was not

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

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

expected, ordinary attacks aren't doing the trick.')

WHOOSH

Primordial Instinct, stepping back

Or so everyone thought.

at him with a punch, Rui charged right back

BOOM!!

clash shook the

the sheer display of raw

most weighted strike, while Rui had charged up his momentum to the max with Balanced Direction and Parallel Walk, and launched a Flowing Canon attack amplified with Outer Convergence and

fist hadn't

five Apprentice-level techniques with

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 battle was not in

switched things up with Phantom Step and Primordial

allowed him to avoid more strikes than his speed did, and allowed him