The Martial Unity

The masks that Martial Artists wore were not meant to protect their face or head, it was meant to protect their identity. Of course, Martial Apprentices got hit in the face and the head regularly thus the masks that Martial Apprentices wore were designed to survive the rigor of Apprentice-Realm combat. Of course, most masks needed heavy maintenance after rigorous extended combat.

Ordinary substances that couldn't withstand the rigors of Apprentice-Realm combat while the esoteric resources with the tensile strength to be able to completely endure Apprentice-Realm combat were strategic resources that also too scarce to be wasted on masks.

Thus, as well as masks were designed to survive and at the very least stay intact, when faced power and onslaught at effectively the pinnacle of the Apprentice Realm, they simply couldn't stay intact.

Rui hadn't even realized that his mask had fallen off until he felt the warm air make contact with his face.

Yet before he could even process his situation, his eyes fell on his opponent, who was in the same predicament.

Golden hair and golden eyes. Perfect, beautiful features.

The man looked like a prince.

Yet it wasn't his aesthetics that shocked Rui.

"You...!" He murmured in shock. Rui's mind flashed back nearly two years ago, back to his bodyguard mission in the Basara Mountains. He had fought a bandit group that was routinely ambushing and plundering supply convoys for high-grade esoteric resources.

The leader of the bandit group back then who had managed to escape was the very man before him.

shock as much as he could, pretending it was his own mask slip he was shocked about. He didn't want the golden

grown extremely excited. The identity of not just one, but two of the strongest Martial Artists

him away. The crowd immediately his

eyes. That's that Apprentice

to rope in the finalist of the Martial

this point. He had

from Nartha. Since then, his goodwill with the members of the Martial Games community had risen, if he was in bad blood with all of them, he would have

basically nothing happened to the fighters commissioned for the

went out of his way to ensure that there were no disincentives and incentives. Nobody wanted to make any enemy of

man's

huge red flags in Rui's mind. But for now, he kept things under a lid. He was enjoying the fight prior, but not he just felt wary.

feet as they immediately took their stances

the way they originally wanted to." He continued. "Here at the Martial Games we

of disappointment washed over the guests, but none of them dared

words. His identity was already revealed, the mask or not, it didn't matter. Yet the fact that Charles insisted likely meant that the reason he wanted had nothing to do with Rui's

the blond man, scrutinizing him in

why he was stopping the match? He didn't want even the slightest chance of it being leaked that his representative was a prolific bandit that disrupted economy of the town of Hajin and no doubted affected several of the

to the blond

"Hey." Rui called out.