The Martial Unity

The two of them quickly left the valley, heading toward a safer space, before quickly consuming potions. Rui found it hard to talk with a hole in his throat, after all.

"Damn," Kane sat back down. "That's a shame."

"It could have gone either way Kane," Rui shook his head. "This is different from when I win because I am simply stronger. In this case, I was using my Flowing Void Style to the absolute maximum, and I still was unable to even gain an advantage. Furthermore, there were times when you were the one with the upper hand. That was what surprised me."

"Yeah, but I still lost," Kane murmured, dissatisfied. "You just feel invincible."

"I'm far from it," Rui chuckled. "The only reason I won this time was because of a clever trick. I simply applied my power a little better than you, at the end of the day. I suspect had you fought with a more open and flexible mind, you might have won."

"Flexible?"

Rui nodded. "Tell me, what was your plan to win after you saw that I was able to handle your swift jabs to my vital spots?"

"…" Kane considered the question as he understood what Rui was trying to convey. "I just kept swiftly moving around hoping to catch an opening."

"I could see that," Rui noted. "In other words, you seemed to hope for victory, rather than doing everything you could to get it."

"Hey, I wasn't holding back!" Kane protested.

this instance, you continued going down the same old set of movements even

"…"

bypassing one of those reasons," Rui pointed out. "For example, you know that my reaction speed is very

having known that

lose the fight," Rui pointed out. "What would happen if you get my predictions to fail?

he fell deep in thought. "The more I think about it though, the more stupid I feel for

it certainly is far from easy to disrupt my predictions, it is still an

a simplistic way to disrupt his predictions, it would almost certainly be useless against Rui's predictive model.

failed unless his opponent gained an immense amount of self-awareness

This was essentially impossible.

mindset, which was different from strategic intelligence, Rui was sure that he would have had a far harder time winning against

of his two grade-ten techniques side-by-side in

in Rui's opinion,

Kane asked with furrowed brows. "Like, my Martial Path is evasive maneuvering, right? But if it's ineffective in a particular fight, and offensive maneuvering happens to be preferable to evasive maneuvering in that, should I abandon my Martial Path entirely in pursuit of what

a simple question. In fact, what Kane was asking was something every Martial Artist asked

situation, should

one's Martial Path in a fight bad? How could one reach the higher Realms

that plagued the Martial Art