The Martial Unity

Rui found himself meditating on a large rock in the forests near the Quarrier Orphanage, absorbed deep in thought. He had recently obtained clarity about his path forward in the Squire Realm and had even fleshed out some of the conditions that he would need to keep in mind when developing his Martial Art from this point forth.

All he had to do was take the first step concretely.

('What are my most immediate needs?') Rui asked himself.

Although developing the VOID algorithm to be able to counter all Martial Art in the world was certainly important, it was much more of a lifelong ambition than an immediate objective. He thought back to his battle against the Britannian Martial Squire, analyzing his shortcomings, weaknesses, and faults.

('My lack of ability to hurt him was a pain in the ass.') Rui sighed emphatically.

Rui had been able to react to, outmaneuver, predict, and counter his opponent just fine. The only reason the fight had extended for as long as it did was that he had trouble inflicting any meaningful damage on his opponent.

('My higher-end lethality is shit.') Rui sighed.

His offense was mostly centered around Outer Convergence, which allowed him to employ power from all muscle groups at any given point in time as well as Reverberating Lance, which employed vibrations to permeate the impact of his strike deeper into the body of his target allowing him to inflict damage in the more vulnerable parts of the human body.

all. He didn't always have this problem, when

was vastly stronger as a Martial Squire than he was a Martial Apprentice,

need to fix.') Rui

of tools in order to

the primary avenues that my Martial Art is lacking

opponents with a tendency to be able to resist ordinary attacks to a significant degree, such as the opponent he fought against at

increase my lethality is

to obtain a piercing attack that allowed him to inflict flesh wounds on his opponent. Purchasing the Stinger technique had increased his

have been satisfied with remastering the technique as a Martial Squire, but that no longer

as compatible with me as I'd like. Furthermore, it has zero individuality since it isn't something I created.')

with, it was also true that it required a tremendous amount of momentum to do so. Every time he needed

of limitations and restrictions on the

obsolete in

pressure and their ability to cope with wounds. The Stinger could potentially land critical wounds on his opponent if Rui aimed well or got lucky and hit a blood vessel, but the same could not be said for Martial Squires. Puncturing them was disproportionately harder, and punctures were no longer that critical of a wound unless in vital areas. Martial bodies bled less to flesh wounds and

be nearly as effective as I'd like. But I do not possess the compatibility with extreme piercing-oriented techniques, thus I'd rather avoid going