The Martial Unity

Her expression intensified as she abandoned her reluctance.

She abandoned her misgivings.

She abandoned her qualms and compunctions.

She unshackled herself as she ceased treating this as a tournament match. She treated this like a life-and-death scenario.

Yet little did she realize that it was worse than that.

'His long-range offense is absurd. I need to close the distance.' Her eyes narrowed as she employed several techniques.

"Oh...?" Rui's eyes glinted with interest as several clones of Squire Frinjschia appeared. 'Interesting... A muscle memory version of Phantom Step eh?'

He had to admit that her Martial Path was potent. Potency as measured by how strong a Martial Artist comparatively was when one pitted them against another Martial Artist with the same quantity and quality of techniques.

Rui had to admit that her Martial Path was certainly potent. Their ability to enhance the technique's efficiency and effectiveness was super impressive. While the impact of her Martial Path on her strength was not as exaggerated as his own, it was not a reasonable standard to hold her to in the first place.

Rui tried his best to snipe the real one down with his Mighty Roar Flash Blasts, but even with his predictive model, the technique was too honed.

She ultimately managed to close the distance between them, even if barely.

"HYAH!" She threw her most powerful combos, hoping to overwhelm him for just a brief moment.

And yet...

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Rui effortlessly weaved through her attacks like they didn't even exist.

BOOM!

She failed to dodge a powerful Flowing Canon as Rui corrected the attack trajectory to account for her predicted evasion trajectory.

"Rgh!" She grimaced, coughing blood as Reverberating Lance permeated the attack deeper into her body.

Yet, she had accomplished what she intended to.

CLASP!

Her arms and legs were firmly coiled around his arm.

'She knew that I would tag her despite her evasion.' Rui immediately engaged his whole body in the fight, lest she break his arm with the full power of her body. Grappling was a bit too different from striking, thus Rui made sure to verify his predictive model to make sure that there were no instances of failure due to that.

The two of them wrangled on the ground trying to get a more dominant position on the other.

He understood her intentions.

All it took was one well-timed

much less true for grappling in general. Grappling was much more a contest of effort and perseverance much more

that did not mean timing

diminish the spectacular all-around timing and placement that Rui had demonstrated by turning

rid of my

narrowed. "You

her weight momentarily, trying to get a better

Rui had

the right moment, destabilizing her as he gained

BAM BAM BAM!

with Outer Convergence and Reverberating Lance. Squire

doing this the hard

momentarily gain a clear opportunity to get a rear chokehold on her. She would be unable to break out from his grip and

But he didn't.

out or killing her will not awaken her Martial Heart.' Rui's eyes narrowed her as he continued

had to admit, it didn't feel nice. He didn't

'I'm sorry.'

BAM!

broke a tooth with

grimaced with a flash of ferocity in her eyes. It appeared

hands clasped into a

widened as he leapt

BOOM!

she was willing to harm herself if it meant getting Rui off of

appeared that she

least, that was what

all of them. Yet it appeared that she was far from done. Her movements grew sharper and sharper by the second, she flowed smoother and smoother as she

Her muscles burned.

Her bones strained.

Her joints creaked.

could defeat Rui. The sheer amount of damage she

willing to give her life if that was what it took to overcome

that

WHOOSH! BAM BAM BAM!

simultaneously landed three swift jabs from her blindspot. She grimaced as she launched herself forward with

WHOOSH!

powerful palm

attack she launched

defence she

manoeuvre she made

of her life's accomplishments fell,