The Martial Unity

Rui simply stared at him with sharp eyes.

He did understand. To a certain extent, he felt the same way.

He was not going to hold back.

He couldn't. Not if he wanted to break through to a higher Realm of power.

The Martial Heart was a power that could only be accessed if he was pushed beyond the limit of what his conventional power could accomplish. This meant that holding back was antithetical to the very nature of the activation of the Martial Heart.

That was why not only was Rui not going to hold back physically, but he had already psychologically conditioned himself to not hold back mentally even in the slightest.

That meant no mercy.

No compassion.

No empathy.

If his opponent's death was a consequence of that, then he wouldn't feel any guilt over it either.

Rui had always maintained the philosophy that if one knowingly chose to partake in something where their life was at stake, as a Martial Artist, which was an occupation where lives were always at stake, and was willing to undertake those risks voluntarily after fully understanding them, then they had consented to the possibility of having their lives taken.

Not only did Tokugawa Ieyasu consent to this, but he had been the one to initiate it when he originally challenged Rui. Even though Rui was challenging him now since he wasn't a guardian and was a challenger all over again, they both knew that Rui had not made the first move.

Neither of them had even the slightest compunctions of taking each other's lives as a consequence of pursuing their Martial Heart.

Rui even had a plan as to how he was going to do it. It was quite simple.

Form a predictive model as soon as possible.

Win.

That was all.

"Take your stances." Senior Sarak instructed.

Both Rui and Tokugawa took simple neutral stances.

Their weight was well-balanced, catering to offense, defense, and maneuvering simultaneously.

It should have been the most ordinary of sights.

A trivial occurrence.

And yet every single guardian watching could only stiffen.

An absurd amount of invulnerable peril could be felt from them.

stone in the hands of a master was said to be more

even by non-Martial Artists were nothing short of armed fortresses

even further as they

ceased to

ceased to

existed only in the reflections of each

single word escaped Senior Sarak's

"...Begin!"

widened

they

And then they weren't.

in the eyes of the guardians, flashing forward toward each other

BOOM!!

the battle had

ripple of shock washed over

power spread

RUMBLE

been exchanged, yet the floating island seemed to

Yet the battle continued.

It had to.

POW POW POW!

and swift attacks clashed against Rui's guard. A powerful and swift fist flew forward, threatening

WHOOSH!

threw a

Yet Ieyasu was unfaltered.

forward, narrowly avoiding the sweeping kick as he simultaneously launched a flying knee kick to the crouching

WHOOSH!

sharply avoiding the flying knee kick while launching a kick with the upward motion of his legs. A swift kick to the chin could threaten a knockout, yet Ieyasu

STEP

both paused for a moment, landing

thoughts furiously flashed through their

acquiring a deep amount of information on their opponent and reconstructing a superior one from the same building blocks. Ieyasu was aware that Rui constructed the most optimal counter to a Martial Art after deeply analyzing his

extent of

Yet that was enough.

Art was quite esoteric and deviant from the norm, it wasn't entirely obvious

flashed through both their minds. Regardless, there was one thing that was

faster one

everyone else, a race had

won the race would gain an undeniable advantage in the fight. If Ieyasu managed to copy Rui before Rui managed to adapt to him, then there would be a brief window where he would be dominant over Rui. If Rui adapted faster than he copied, then he

a

Yet something was off.

pattern recognition was being delayed. He had hoped to make some progress from the initial exchanges, but he had been unable

could have been