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 strike to the temple or the jaw,

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

not mean

timing and placement that Rui had demonstrated by turning the battle

but if you can get rid of my

narrowed.

those words. She shifted her

had predicted

that motion at the right moment, destabilizing her as

BAM BAM BAM!

mercilessly with Outer Convergence and Reverberating Lance. Squire Frinjschia grimaced as she barely managed to defend against

was doing this

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

But he didn't.

her will not awaken her Martial Heart.' Rui's eyes narrowed

it didn't

'I'm sorry.'

BAM!

broke a tooth

It appeared that

hands clasped into

as he leapt

BOOM!

her. It appeared that she was willing to harm herself if it meant getting

it appeared that she wasn't willing to give

was what her sharp eyes

his eyes as he exerted himself to the limit to cleanly evade 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 pushed her body and

Her muscles burned.

Her bones strained.

Her joints creaked.

All in order to elevate herself to a level where she could defeat Rui. The sheer amount

to give her life if that was what it

that fell

WHOOSH! BAM BAM BAM!

grimaced as she launched herself forward with the ferocity of a tiger, throwing a flying knee kick

WHOOSH!

side-stepped it with ease, launching a powerful palm

attack she launched

she

manoeuvre she made was

life's accomplishments fell, one by