The Martial Unity

Instead, he remained where he stood, crouching as he brought his hands and legs closer to him, making him smaller.

He reduced the feasible avenue attacks.

As a speedster, Master Grais primarily targeted the more vulnerable parts of the body since he lacked the power to do damage to particularly tough and well-shielded parts of the body.

His expression grew more severe as he understood what Rui was trying to do.

'It's an invitation…' His eyes narrowed as he stared at the prodigiously young Master. '…and a trap.'

For a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other.

As it was right now, Rui had exhausted more energy, but Master Grais had taken more energy.

However, as they exchanged gazes, a mutual understanding came between them.

A battle of attrition favored Rui.

The longer the battle continued, the more Rui grew familiar with his opponent and the more he adaptively evolved. His SOUL and predictive models only grew stronger and stronger, while Master Grais' speed only went downhill.

At some point, Rui would come to outmaneuver him if the battle continued for long. The fact that Rui was able to keep up without the Metabody System when he needed it before was proof of that.

If he wanted to win, he would have to do so very soon.

Rui had already foreseen this even before he used Neo Godspeed. He made sure to hurt Master Grais enough such that the decline of his speed was all but guaranteed before adopting a strategy that forced Master Grais to come to him rather than Rui adopting the role of the chaser.

"Well played, Void Prince," Master Grais snorted. "I accept your invitation."

His hand sharpened, straight as an arrow, as he finally activated his third system of thought. 'Lightning Spear Jab.' His eyes flared with power as he surged with power.

It was an offensive system of thought that relied on scanning the opponent's body for microstructure weaknesses across the entire body before eventually adaptively altering the form of the attack to inflict as much damage as possible.

attack all needed to

wooden blocks was easier when done along the grain than

be exploited if one was precise and

was his most powerful

final exchange came sooner than anyone had

WHOOSH

an instant, Master

SPLAT!

as his attack pierced through Rui's torso in between his abs without

gazed into Rui's

grin appeared on Rui's

attack to impale him thoroughly without resistance. Rui tightened his back and

had been his tactic

"I have you now."

as he struggled to escape. Yet his speed-oriented body did not allow him

—BZZT!

effect weakened the elder Martial

light as

what was to

anything the Martial Master had

another, bludgeoning him black and blue. Each blow was empowered

with one arm, trying to inflict as much damage to Rui's vitals with his

was hardly

Rui's voice strained with pain even as his

the man was locked in place, there was no need to continue employing anti-speed

shuddered with excruciating agony as each of Rui's blows set his nervous system on fire, causing

continued blasting the Martial Master with as much power he could possibly muster, growing

end