The Martial Unity

A long and stressful game began for both Rui and Kane as they participated in the battle but with only a fraction of their full exertion. They fought just enough to not be noticed for not participating, but they made sure to retain their energy reserves.

Kane didn't even bother using Void Step to try and get her with stealth. He already knew that there was no way his misdirection was working on a Martial Senior, Martial Heart or not.

Instead, he mostly stuck to occasionally trying to get her in her blind spot whenever she was pressed heavily by many of the offensive heavy hitters.

The battle slogged on and on for quite some time, however, Rui did not simply wait around conserving energy and getting in an occasional strike. He also made his sound-canceling defenses against her attacks more subtle than before, he timed it later and later, and even launched himself backward grimacing as though he had been struck or hadn't been able to cancel everything out.

To a certain extent, he could allow himself to get struck in order to make it seem more convincing too. His healing factor would mitigate lighter wounds by the end of the battle, so he carefully calculated how much he could let himself get hit in order to fake getting hurt.

Of course, this wouldn't entirely fool a Martial Senior with senses as powerful as hers were on Ajanta Island, but that was fine, as long as he did not stand out like a sore thumb for clearly holding back, he was content.

On top of that, he also spent more time refining his predictive model with the influx of data that he gained from this fight. Much to his delight he even ended up finding new patterns that he hadn't come across before.

('She disengages with the opposite foot of the direction that she pirouettes in,')

('Her primary response to be attacked with a grappling maneuver is opening up distance before launching a sound attack,')

('Her evasion is static as opposed to dynamic an overwhelming majority of the time against powerful singular attacks,')

It improved his ability to predict and adapt to her, making him more confident of taking her on when the time was right.

The battle slogged on, but the outcome was clear, the guardians were unable to take her down or even land major damage on her.

The sparring session went on for hours many of the Martial Squires who were partaking had already been mopped clean.

Yet just as it seemed as though the battle was over.

WHOOSH

spun away, twirling through the air as she evaded two attacks

Rui. "Was it worth waiting? How are you

Rui didn't respond. "Fuuu….."

through the dense atmosphere. She raised her

CRACKLE!

of electricity chirping

and Kane exchanged

their eyes in shock as they witnessed the two of them exhibiting

was perfect, and with Fulminata, he didn't need to prepare reflexive pre-moves ahead of time as Rui

millisecond, they had crossed the distance between them

WHOOSH!

Kane with a shocked expression, yet what followed next was

foot was suddenly near

the attack even

BAM!!

Outer Convergence, Godspeed, Reverberating Lance, and Adamant Reforging crashed into her

their eyes

first time anybody had cleanly landed such a powerful

on her chin as she frowned

any breathing room at all. The two of them flashed forward turning into hardly any more than blurs in the eyes

time, she

before it connected, yet Rui pushed past the attack like it was

threw a full-powered strike at her, one that

his elbow

POW!

attack