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

He focused.

of physical energy his body

amazement despite the

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

strong

Nel wanted to know.

savage weight

of mental pressure the

one could look

person could draw their

supervisor commenced

RUMBLE

had launched himself sent tremors

he

WHOOSH

powerful swing crashed into a feint, hitting

BAM!

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

POW POW POW

jabs. Rui leapt back, having calmly mitigated the strikes with Inner Divergence, Elastic Shift

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

He grinned.

what if ordinary

capable of

WHOOSH

explosive speed, launching a flying

BAM

he bruised his arm visibly

had he confirmed that he could not take too many of Nel's

launched another

to try and tank it

WHOOSH

used

BAM BAM BAM

launched a flurry of

was powered with Outer Convergence and

it was

to allow Rui to land

"Tsk." Rui retreated.

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

WHOOSH

help of Primordial Instinct, stepping back to open up some distance between

Or so everyone thought.

a

BOOM!!

clash shook the

at the sheer display of

momentum to the max with Balanced Direction and Parallel Walk,

fist

matched the power of five Apprentice-level techniques with his

The boys furiously fought.

Fists were exchanged.

Kicks were dodged.

Attacks were endured.

And defenses were sieged!

were lower than Nel's. A symmetric battle

with Phantom Step and Primordial

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