The Martial Unity

More than three months had gone by. Rui's life had turned into an intense monotony of dungeon clearing, both as Rui and as the Voider, gathering information on the Root, and training with Project Forestep.

Rui had dedicated the entirety of his mind and body towards mastering as much of the Godspeed Breathing technique, hoping to gain as much of this power as he could.

Unfortunately, as good as he was with breathing techniques, he was not as good as Kane was with speed and thus was unable to reach Kane's level of mastery of the technique.

After more than three months of dedicated training, his growth had finally plateaued at about forty percent of the full level of mastery.

"That's still pretty good all things considered," Kane told him. "If not for the fact that you lack the reaction speed to keep up even with thirty percent of the full mastery of the Godspeed technique, you could use it without compunctions. I still don't know how you plan to get past that restriction though, honestly."

Kane had not attempted to pry out Rui's intentions regarding the Godspeed technique. Martial Art related matters were deeply personal to each Martial Artist, and they were not light matters that were generally discussed without care.

Rui on the other hand did not want to make claims that he could not support, and thus did not go too deeply about what he was trying to accomplish. All Kane knew was that Rui was trying extremely hard to realize his ambition of applying the Godspeed technique.

"I'm not entirely sure of much myself, Kane," Rui sighed. "I guess we'll find out. Come at me."

"What?"

"I said, come at me," Rui stood still.

"I'm confused," Kane frowned. "Have you actually completed the technique? I thought you were going to spend time trying to look for a way to compensate for your lacking reaction speed."

"I thought of a potential solution to that problem even before I decided to learn the Godspeed technique," Rui replied.

Kane tilted his head. "Huh. That's unexpected, to say the least. Is there nothing you haven't thought of a solution for? Leave some intelligence for the rest of us man."

Rui smirked. "Well, let's see if I was right. Thankfully, you're the perfect test subject. Come at me with your fastest standard attacks. Let's see how I do."

shrugged, taking his

that was conducive to immediately begin moving in any direction. His heels were elevated, making it harder to read

of his body was loose, yet it was because of the

all of this, Rui didn't feel any wariness. The problem for Kane was that Rui knew him too well. The prediction model he had on Kane was probably the most well-developed one that

knew Kane too

devastatingly countered him in the most effective way possible. The combination of all his other techniques of his Flowing Void Style when applied through the

on taking a stance?" Kane raised

Martial Art," Rui replied calmly. "I'm going use only the technique I'm trying to

Hever who dedicated themselves to a single technique, or people in possession of an extraordinary grade-ten technique, it was not possible to

to underestimate Rui, so he simply abided by

His approach was swift.

the eyes of Martial Apprentices and even low-grade Martial Squires,

WHOOSH

STEP

the tiniest of split seconds, he was already face to face with Rui,

THWACK

Kane's eyes widened.

Rui's face should have been was

came out

opposite leg into a blindingly swift backward spanning roundhouse kick to

WHOOSH

a block, but what he did not expect was his kick passing through Rui's head, dispelling the empty image. He quickly

to

illusion that his kick had struck, he was sure it was the Phantom Step technique that created illusions inside the target's head

Rui smirked.