The Martial Unity

That battle was intense and heated from the very start. The Longranger Martial Squires demonstrate their prowess and their worth as they rained all kinds of attacks on their opponents. Not only did they demonstrate techniques centered around the same principles that Rui had seen the long-range Martial Apprentices employ, but there were also many techniques that Rui hadn’t seen ever before.

Techniques became a lot more absurd in the Squire realm since the Martial body allowed for the application of power in ways that the human body was simply unable to even attempt to replicate.

Still, he was more concerned with his opponent than anything else.

Their battle became independent of the others. Rui was forced to continuously move away from his opponent while she launched herself after him. Despite being much more powerful than him, she was quite heavy. The power canceled out with her mass, preventing her from drastically out-speeding Rui.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM

Rui fired Sonic Bullets one after the other relentlessly as he tried accumulating damage on her neck. Thanks to the extra-refined predictive model that he had built on her, he was able to accurately aim for her throat despite both of them chasing after him at top speed.

What he did discover was that even her throat was ridiculously tough! He had already landed numerous attacks on it, and the most he was able to do was bruise her.

(‘What the fuck? She has got to be grade seven at least, if not grade eight. That kind of defense is stupid.’) He groaned inwardly as he relentlessly launched attacks, trying to slow down her momentum in vain.

She chased after him, barrelling through his attacks like a rhino. His attacks didn’t do too much to slow her down. She gritted his teeth and bore all the attacks that he tried directing at her vitals, defending them or plainly tanking them head-on.

Unfortunately, she was extremely wary of any attacks to the eye. As tough as she was, not even she believed that she would be able to withstand an attack of that caliber to the eyes. If Rui succeeded in hitting her eyes like he did the previous two Martial Squires, then that would almost certainly kill her, or cripple her forever at the very least.

The K’ulnen Tribe was much more sensitive towards injuries than the Martial Squires of the Martial Union were. After all, the Martial Squires knew that healing potion technology was a deeply developed field. Although the cost of healing potions for Martial Artists was progressively more expensive and restrictive as one went up the Realms, they were still certain there was an extremely little chance that they would incur an injury that the Martial Union would be unable to heal, or that even their potions would be unable to heal.

“ARGH!” She snarled in frustration as Rui began maintaining the distance between them that much better.

The distance between them was a few hundred meters. Far enough that the chances of her reaching were not too high, and he didn’t need to fight like he was treading on extremely thin ice. But close enough that he could aim for her vitals despite being highly consumed by maneuvering away from her. It was much harder to aim accurately when both the shooter and the target were moving at top speeds in a dance of high-effort maneuvering.

Unfortunately for Rui, he couldn’t do much more than that at the moment. She put an immense amount of effort and care into ensuring that Rui would be unable to take her down the same way. Even if he so much opened his mouth, she would immediately tighten her guard around her vitals. Her eyes were perenially guarded. It was clear that she possessed some sensory technique that allowed her to sense his location from a good distance away, and that was enough.

Even if her sensory capabilities were much lower than that of Rui’s it didn’t matter all that much. Even if she couldn’t sense the motions of his limbs, it didn’t really affect her all that much. As long as she had clarity on his location at any given moment, it was good enough. Her goal was to get close to him and pummel him to death. Sensing his location was enough because once she reached his location, it did not matter what Rui did to defend against those attacks, they both knew that the fight would be over with a single clean attack.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM

Rui launched another barrage of attacks against her as his movements began growing increasingly effective and accurate. He smiled as he began using the data that he was obtaining in this battle to further refine his predictive model of her.

(‘If you cannot defeat me at the start of a battle, then you cannot defeat me,’)

This was very true for Rui. The VOID algorithm ensured that he grew stronger with every passing second. His power growth against particular opponents in the middle of a battle meant that the best and only opportunity to take him down was at the start of the battle.

It was his one and only weakness.

(‘You have long crossed the threshold,’)

That was why Rui was quite confident that she would not be able to take him down despite clearly being several grades higher than himself.

However, that only applied if this was a one-on-one battle.

(‘Hm?’) Rui’s noted another Martial Squire circling around their own opponent to reach Rui’s opponent, meeting up with her.

The man twisted his upper body as he wound his balled fist back behind his body preparing for a punch despite being very far away from Rui.

Yet Rui’s eyes widened as he saw his opponent bracing her body before her fellow tribal member.

(‘Shit!’) Rui cursed as he realized what their plan was. He scrambled away at top speed as the man swung his wound fist, catapulting the woman forward at an extremely high speed, straight towards Rui.

“HAHAHA!” She cackled as she flashed through the sky at a tremendous speed, quickly catching up with the frantically retreating Rui. “YOU’RE DEAD!”