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.

instance, you continued going down the same old set of movements even when you knew that they weren't going to work. Do you think that was the best decision you

"…"

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

having known that for many years

you get my predictions to fail? After all, predictions are just that; predictions. They're not absolute. They're not a superpower

as he fell deep in thought. "The more I think

easy to disrupt my predictions, it is still an avenue of exploration that

his predictions, it would almost certainly be useless against Rui's predictive model. His model was based on most subconscious active and passive patterns, meaning that his targets were

any conscious efforts to throw Rui off failed unless his opponent gained an immense amount of

This was essentially impossible.

strategic mindset, which was different from strategic intelligence, Rui was

Kane stuck to a very static approach, hoping to rely on the power of his two grade-ten techniques side-by-side in order to

was, in Rui's

brows. "Like, my Martial Path is evasive maneuvering, right? But if it's ineffective in a particular fight, and offensive maneuvering happens

fact, what Kane was asking was something every Martial Artist asked themselves. And it was a question that was extremely

given situation, should one abandon it and go for

in a fight bad? How could one reach the

quite the dilemma that plagued