The Martial Unity

Rui hadn't come across too many, but most balance-oriented Martial Artists were supplementary in nature. They simply focused all their efforts on strengthening their balance to the absolute maximum to gain as much of a boost from it in combat as possible.

It allowed them to stabilize their combat to the absolute maximum, increasing their offensive prowess by allowing them to maximize the rate at which they attacked without any need to worry about balance all that much. It increased their maneuvering considerably, allowing them to attack and evade in ways that other Martial Artists were unable to.

It also improved their aerial maneuvering where balance became considerably more important. Martial Artists did not float in the air by leveraging some special energy to keep them stationary in midair. They pushed down against the air by stepping on it, thus balance was always and especially important when sky-walking.

It was in these ways that balance-oriented Martial Artists generally leveraged their strength.

However, it appeared that Squire Ran was not quite satisfied with passive supplementation. This was the first time that Rui had seen someone leverage balance in such a manner.

He could instantly gain insights into her character and personality for developing such a Martial Art and having such a Martial Path.

An aggressive desire to dominate her opponents with her greatest strength. Rui mused even as she began launching an aggressive offensive against him.

The nature of balance was not intrinsically offensive. Yet she was determined to leverage it offensively and leverage it to dominate her opponents.

It appeared that she had settled on a bizarre solution.

She decided to forcefully turn the battle into a battle of balance!

And she did that by poisoning both her opponent and herself. It was an absurd notion, but it did succeed. At the moment, Rui was struggling to retain his sense of balance even while she did her best to pummel him to the ground.

Had she been a poison-oriented Martial Artist, perhaps she would have found a way to sabotage only her opponent's sense of balance, but she wasn't a poison-oriented Martial Artist, and thus the potency of the poisons she could integrate into her body was limited.

Thus, she settled on a guaranteed mutual sabotage by employing a poison that targeted the brain and changed the settings of the fight, such that balance became the most important parameter by far.

Such was the nature of balance. It was incredibly important to not just Martial Art, but all coherent physical movement. It was absolutely foundational. However, its significance decreased the more proficient it became over time. It offered diminishing returns the greater balance one possessed. Thus it was rarely trained above a certain level.

However, by guaranteeing a successful sabotage of his sense of balance at the cost of her own, both of them had lost that high-level sense of balance, reducing them to a fraction of their original balancing capabilities. It became less important the more proficient at it one was, but conversely, it became more important the less proficient at it one was.

And they were most certainly not proficient at it any more thanks to the poison, meaning it became the most important parameter in the battle.

One in which she still held an overwhelming advantage against him.

And it reflected.

BOOM!

across the colosseum even while he guarded his head. He could not afford to let her get a clean attack

before had he gained such an appreciation for balance. It was only in situations like these

Yet only an asthmatic patient felt the value of breathing

that from

BAM!

against him. Rui stood up uncertainly, relying on muscle memory for the time being. She swiftly lashed

WHOOSH!

it, stepping forward to blast him

BAM BAM BAM!

he brought up his guard, sloppily dispersing them due to his messed-up balance. He felt like he

if he let this go on, it would be game over. He needed a practical

Blossom and Weaving Blood came to

Too costly, too ineffective.

solve the root of the problem, they simply put a bandaid on

to find a solution that targeted the problem

need to

get rid of the

any means to

His eyes narrowed.

was only one

Martial Path was adaptive evolution. Thus,

something that the VOID

VOID algorithm could not allow him to overcome an inhibited sense of balance, it only allowed him to predict and time extremely

narrowed. A ground-up, systematic approach to adapt to the inhibitions she had inflicted

to come up with a new system of thought to

Right here.

Right now.

being attacked by his powerful opponent, in the middle of the

simultaneously developing the predictive model for

an absurd