The Martial Unity

He closed his eyes, donning his most intense and powerful Mind Mask. Instantly, a Master-level aura spread across the Forest of Fear, sending shivers across the entire region.

Yet the wyverns just grinned at him gleefully, snorting and huffing.

Their non-verbal communication conveyed a single message.

Deception.

“Tsk,” Rui tutted, displeased, dispelling the Mind Mask.

Instantly, they spiraled around him, hoping to gang up on the stronger one of the two. They converged on him in one fell swoop, preparing powerful infernos to cook him alive. The prey would have no direction to escape while being subjected to the combined heat of all the wyverns of the Forest of Fear. This tactic ensured that no prey within the Senior Realm could possibly survive their prison of hellish fire.

The end was nigh, as far as they were concerned.

Yet, in facing the approaching wyverns, Rui didn’t so much as twitch. He stood midair with closed eyes.

A single remark escaped him.

“Your neck muscles stiffen two milliseconds prior to flame attacks.”

His eyes flashed open as he spun, launching a flurry of Mighty Roar Flash Blasts at each of their flame-spewing mouths a millisecond before they opened.

THWOOM TWHOOM THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!

FWOOOOOOOOOSH!

“ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!!!” The wyverns roared in pain as the perfectly timed sonic bullets entered their mouths the very moment they opened it, pushing the fire inside their bodies rather than outside. The fireballs erupted inside their esophagi, causing them major internal burns.

Yet Rui was hardly done. He was grateful that the Angel of Laplace had been completed before he was burned to a crisp by nearly two dozen obsidian wyverns. This allowed him to build predictive models on each of them at the last second.

Fortunately, the obsidian wyverns were extremely similar to each other. Their patterns overlapped significantly, allowing him to reuse data of each wyvern on the others.

“ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAARR!” Immense rage echoed every note of their bellow as they prepared even more fireballs.

But alas, their patterns were as transparent as day to Rui.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!

He fired off many Mighty Roar Flash Blasts as soon as he saw their neck muscles stiffen, instantly extrapolating the exact moment of the exact actions they would take to launch the fireballs.

FWOOOOOOOOOSH!

“ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARR!” The wyverns roared once more in pain as they glared at Rui with unbridled hatred.

Is that the best you could do? Rui taunted them.

While they had no fear, it was clear that they were prone to falling to other emotions. It would do well for him if he could destabilize their feelings.

They shivered with rage, spiraling around him with tremendous velocity.

Yet, with initial predictive models formed, Rui’s confidence had risen tremendously.

“Bring it,” he growled fiercely.

And bring it, they did.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

The many wyverns converged on him. An overwhelming majority of the flock focused on him while the remaining few attacked Kane.

Rui would be lying if he claimed he wasn’t worried about Kane. He was only a mid-grade Martial Senior, and he was afflicted with the fear of the Forest of Fear. Rui was the only one who was entirely immune to it.

Regardless, he wasn’t particularly in a position to worry about him. The obsidian wyverns were clearly intelligent enough to recognize the futility of attacking Rui with fireballs.

They changed tactics, circling around in the sky, eying him with an aggressive light in their eyes.

A flood of peril erupted from each of them, washing over the entire region around them.

The air boiled under the sheer force of the bloodlust they radiated. Peril sparked in the air, igniting conflagrations of panic across the fauna of the Forest of Fear. These creatures who knew no fear did finally experience fear from the bottom of their hearts.

Yet Rui did not so much as budge. He stood, rooted in his spot in the air with an aura of impregnable solidity, never so much as twitching an inch.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the moment.

“ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAR!” A single wyvern began the charge on him, swerving in at extraordinarily high speeds.

What was once a lesser dragon became a jet-black blur, arriving at his location in moments, ready to rip a hole in him with razor-sharp fangs and claws.

Yet, it couldn’t so much as touch Rui.

WHOOSH

He cleanly evaded the bull rush.

“Aeronautic adjustments precede rapid acceleration by a hundred microseconds.” He coldly dissected patterns of the wyverns, using them to his advantage to foresee their attacks well ahead of time.

One wyvern could never touch him.

Yet, what about twenty-two?

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH

A flurry of powerful and swift Senior-level creatures converged on Rui’s position, each ready to take him down. Rui’s expression grew grave as he activated Neo Godspeed.

WHOOOSH!

The many wyverns shook as Rui turned into a blur, weaving through their many blurringly fast bull rushes. None of them understood how his speed grew so significantly!

Yet, that wasn’t all.

“Speed Void.”

He made generous use of the Yggdrasil System, creating a domain where every moving entity or object aside from him suffered significant detriment to their speed.

WHOOSH!

The wyverns struggled as the drag force they experienced increased exponentially.

“ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRR!” they complained, conveying their furious frustration with ample clarity.

Wind-shackler! They glared at him with inhuman bloodlust. Eat the wind-shackler!

All twenty-two obsidian wyverns surged forth to his location, determined to kill him at once!

It was an intelligent decision. They were so big that together, they could cut off all directions of escape collectively as they surged toward him. If there was no room for escape, then their hampered speed was inconsequential!

They converged on his location simultaneously. The sheer totality of their power exceeded anything Rui had ever been struck with. On top of that, all directions of escape were covered thus Neo Godspeed was rendered useless.

A maelstrom of razor-sharp fangs and claws seemed fated to tear at him with immense speed and power.

It meant certain death.

Yet, he grinned.

Sleep.

–