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.

a wave of silence overtook the guests, before they erupted in enthusiasm. They

Rui sensed a heavy presence entering the

was tall, his body was chiseled like he had been sculpted by hand. What surprised Rui was that the man was also masked,

a distance from Rui, at the starting

stances."

man took a neutral

an air of anticipation

The arbiter

eyes as the man appeared in front of him in

BOOM!

together a guard in time. The sheer impact of the blow sent him skidding away. He was

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

WHOOSH

he furiously started building the

is this guy?') Rui gritted his teeth. ('Is

VOID algorithm was that it required data, unlike the other 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!

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

BAM!

Rui skidded away.

Just when the crowd

WHOOSH

BAM!

cleanly evaded a strike, while he landed a powerful Flowing Canon on the man's gut, pushing

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

man. The crowd's eyes lit up in elation as they realized that Rui's

went all-out trying to defeat his opponent. His opponent had superior parameters, but Rui's prediction and adaptive evolution allowed him to mitigate the advantage to a large

also a tricky and tactical fighter that impressed Rui. He didn't fight head-on like a brute