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.

the vast mental energy his mind had bloomed across

He focused.

physical energy his body could

in amazement despite

It grew by the second, pouring onto

how strong was

Nel wanted to know.

as the savage weight of an apex predator oozed out of every

the two boys generated

one could look

could

supervisor commenced the

RUMBLE

had launched himself sent tremors across

snarled as he launched a wild

WHOOSH

powerful swing crashed into a feint,

BAM!

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

POW POW POW

Rui leapt back, having calmly mitigated the strikes with

mid-grade defensive techniques as

He grinned.

ordinary jabs

was capable of much

WHOOSH

shocking explosive speed, launching a flying

BAM

bruised his arm visibly despite

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

another loaded

try and tank it this

WHOOSH

a feint. He used Balanced Direction and Parallel

BAM BAM BAM

a flurry of

powered with Outer Convergence and

was

allow Rui to land a clean strike

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

attacks aren't doing the

WHOOSH

the help of Primordial Instinct, stepping back to open

Or so everyone thought.

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

BOOM!!

shook

sheer display of raw

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

fist hadn't backed

the power of 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

switched things up with Phantom

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