The Martial Unity

Silence.

Yet, not the silence of defeat.

No.

It was the calm before the storm.

BOOOOOM!!!

Master Uma’s eyes widened with shock as an immensely powerful explosion blasted open the tomb of esoteric gravel and storms that sought to bury Rui in their depths.

VMMM…!

The Yin-Yang Spear tore through all her efforts to bury him in the depths of her molten gravel storm. The powerful grade-ten technique might have required contact to actually function, but once it did make contact, there were very few techniques that could equal it.

Master Uma’s storms were not among them.

BOOOOOM!!!

Rui blasted away shells of molten esoteric gravel with a singular attack, overcoming her resistance.

None of the Masters witnessing the technique with their powerful senses were able to understand how the technique functioned. Even when he didn’t generate much torque due to being buried in molten slag, he didn’t seem to have any particular trouble generating massive amounts of power.

Furthermore, Master Uma could tell that he wasn’t using the powerful muscle form of his Metabody System to generate all that power. Yet, somehow, his powerful offense was able to generate extremely intense collisions that blasted away everything it came into contact with.

That only brought her more delight.

She marveled at the sheer amount of power that he cultivated while she applied her STORM System to the current information she had gathered. WHOOOSH!!!

Instantly, the dynamics of the battle changed as she repurposed her winds to disperse their molten impacts across the entire surface of his body to gradually weather him down rather than give him the opportunity to use that mysteriously powerful technique of his.

It was the best way to allocate her wind capital to win the battle.

This was how the STORM System worked.

It treated her storm techniques as capital. This was how the STORM System worked.

It treated her storm techniques as capital. A limited resource.

Then, she applied a systematic approach to figuring out the most effective allocation of these resources in any given circumstance against any given approach. The powerful offensive technique that the object of her reverence demonstrated forced her to redo her strategy on how to take him down.

She began to try and churn from all sides.

WHOOOSH!!!

The Muspelheim domain flared back to life as her opponent reused the technique. This time, however, things were a little different.

“You have my gratitude.” Rui’s voice emerged from within the fiery domain.

It crackled with anger and displeasure.

“You have shown me the way.”

Her eyes lit up as she basked in the expression of hateful gratitude from her God. Yet, what followed shocked even her.

VMMM!!!

Rui’s eyes sharpened as he activated the Yin-Yang Spear technique in conjugation with the Muspelheim technique.

He sought to combine them.

The Muspelheim technique employed vibrations to heat up the ground using thermoacoustic conduction and friction. In other words, it was possible to use the vibrations of the Yin-Yang Spear to super-charge the Muspelheim domain and heat up the ground to extraordinary degrees.

Yet, there were drawbacks to doing this. The more he heated the domain, the harder it would be to protect himself from the effects of the domain. Normally, he partially isolated himself from the worst of the domain. After all, although his Martial Body had been conditioned to it, that was solely when he had been a Senior.

It could not handle the full might of the technique with only its own innate constitution.

Heat did not discriminate between the user and the target. If he supercharged the Muspelheim domain with the Yin-Yang Spear, he would undoubtedly be affected.

Yet, as he stared at the powerful storm that surrounded and protected the cocoon within which Master Uma hid from him, he wasn’t sure what choice he had. His strategy of using her kinetic energy to superheat his domain just enough to dispel the dense tornado technique that enveloped her had failed.

In other words, he didn’t really have much of a choice.

He felt an irrational amount of anger well up inside him at being pushed as far as he was. In any other fight, he would simply accept this without any problems. Yet, when it came to her, he wasn’t willing to take it.

Perhaps it was because of how much he hated her.

Regardless, his eyes flickered with rage as he surged forward and rushed into her storm head front with the Yin-Yang Spear prepared. He needed to get as close to her as possible in order to make use of this strategy.

Master Uma, on the other hand, intuitively felt the danger and peril lurking in the depths of his eyes. Centuries of experience had strengthened her instinct, telling her that she couldn’t allow him to approach her.

WHOOOOOSH!!!

She mobilized all of her wind capital as she flung at Rui with the effort of pushing him away as far as possible. She instinctively knew that she needed to keep him as far as she could.

The powerful storms picked up gravel, flinging them at him in one direction with the sole purpose of keeping him at a distance.

Yet, it was not enough.

STEP

Rui went as far as to voluntarily take damage by reducing Nemean Blossom bit by bit as he activated Hypertrophic Surge in its place to ensure that she didn’t have the power to push him back very easily.

The darkness in the depths of his eyes stirred as he grew closer and closer, overcoming the powerful molten sandstorm that sought to halt his approach.

FSSS…!

His skin began burning and peeling off as the absence of a complete Nemean Blossom allowed the gravel to overcome his raw durability. His nervous system ignited as a tsunami of pain flashed through it.

Yet, as though fueled by pure hatred and anger, he pushed through, not so much as twitching or wincing at the immense pain that flushed through his nervous system.

STEP

Soon enough, he had arrived.

His eyes flared with determined rage, he raised his fist high into the air, before swinging down a Yin-Yang Spear down with all his might.

VMMM…!!!

And in that moment, the Sun descended upon heaven and earth.

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