The Martial Unity

The Martial Games soon proceeded as Fernan was carried away. Rui was the new defending champion of the Martial Games and he sent challenger after challenger.

Yet, none of them prevailed.

One after the other, Rui overwhelmingly crushed them all with adapted styles that wrecked them in combat. The rest of the participating representative fighters weren't quite as deviant as Fernan was. The adaptive-evolution model was far more effective against them than it was against Fernan. His victories against them were smooth, clean and elegant unlike his messy battle against Fernan.

However, Rui had begun to notice something strange.

Every once in a while, some of his opponents would simply give up even when the fight wasn't quite over. Their bodies went limp as their eyes lost life as if someone had drained them of it. And he would win easily once they stopped resisting. They would collapse as if they no longer cared for anything.

Rui didn't understand what was happening. He only a found it a little strange because he experienced something similar with Vranil. But he simply shrugged, maybe they just knew went to stop?

There were Martial Artists that fought bitterly to the very end and gave Rui one hell of a run till the very end. Their eyes burned with determination and perseverance even as Rui knocked them out.

At the end of the day. He was still the defending champion and had defeated every single fighter who had participated.

All of the guests were shocked as they witnessed Rui upending the Martial Games!

"Winner; Apprentice Falken. He is the current undefeated reigning champion!" The butler announced. "There are no more challengers!"

The guests applauded loudly at Rui's performance. Suddenly, a voice boomed from the crowd.

"No, not quite."

Charles DiVilier smiled as he drew everybody's attention to him. "Normally, I don't participate as one of major hosts of the Martial Games. But today is a special day, an old champion has come back to reclaim his rightful title and has done so undefeated. It would be interesting is he was met with a challenger qualified to fight him."

Rui's eyebrow rose at those words.

"My representative fight will be participating today." He said.

before they erupted in

Rui sensed a heavy presence

chiseled like he had been sculpted by hand. What surprised Rui was that the man was

paused at a distance from

stances."

took a neutral

an air of anticipation unlike any of his

The arbiter commenced

man appeared in front of him in an

BOOM!

the blow sent him skidding away. He was shocked.

pressure crashed onto Rui as the man had already appeared in front of

WHOOSH

evade his strike narrowly as he furiously

this guy?') Rui gritted his teeth. ('Is he a Squire pretending

systems in the VOID algorithm. Which meant it required time, which meant that he could not use it right off the bat. Which meant

POW POW POW!

a combo of strikes, but the masked man casually blocked them as he threw another strike

BAM!

Rui skidded away.

of power. Just when the crowd thought Rui was a

WHOOSH

BAM!

he landed a powerful Flowing

didn't relent. He lashed after Rui once more, yet to his surprise, Rui calmly dealt with his attack

blow furiously as Rui began gaining perfect parity with the masked man. The crowd's eyes lit up

managed to perfect the prediction model just in time. Confidence filled every cell in his body as went all-out trying to defeat his opponent. His opponent had superior parameters, but Rui's prediction and adaptive evolution allowed him to mitigate

He didn't fight head-on like a brute but instead fought cleverly, making the