The Martial Unity

Or so she thought.

Her eyes narrowed as the blade crashed into an empty image.

A feint.

The real Rui surged towards her back with a Yin-Yang Spear, threatening to cripple her with a single blow.

“You have underestimated me.”

Rui’s eyes widened as his predictive model foresaw a blade cutting his face in half.

WHOOSH!

Rui dodged the incoming blade at the last moment, narrowly avoiding instant death. He bounced back, leaping at her once more.

“Fool.” She huffed. “You’ll onl—”

“Temporal Disharmony.”

Her eyes widened with shock as time sped up massively in her eyes. Rui moved so fast in her sense that his Yin-Yang Spear arrived at her head in the blink of an eye.

‘Got her!’ He grinned as his attack was moments away from killing her.

Yet, it was his turn to be denied victory.

WHOOSH!

His expression grew aghast as she literally disappeared in the face of his attack.

“Wha—!” His senses expanded, and he spotted her a kilometer away, panting lightly with widened eyes.

For the first time in the fight, her composure had been broken as she narrowly evaded death. His deadly technique would’ve crushed her head in.

“If not for my Sword Step Kata…” she managed to squeeze out.

Out of sheer and pure reflex and instinct, she employed a maneuvering technique that utilized her blade to move even faster than was physically possible with just her ordinary sword techniques alone.

If not for that, she wouldn’t have been able to dodge from such a short distance away.

Her gaze fixed on him with deep hatred as she glared at him.

She had no idea what he had done to her, but her perception of the world had been sped up. Everyone moved much faster than they had before, including her own body.

It meant that her own mind could not keep up with her own body.

To any ordinary Martial Master, this would have been damning, especially since Rui’s Hypnomatrix had grown extremely potent since he had broken through to the Master Realm. It disrupted her perception of time very deeply.

WHOOSH!

Rui appeared before her at top speed, surging towards her with yet another Yin-Yang Spear aimed at her temple, threatening to kill her.

Her sword surged toward him with even greater speed than before.

WHOOSH

He side-stepped the attack unperturbed as he continued his offense. Dodging her became increasingly easy as his predictive model grew refined, allowing him to be unbothered by her sword swings, especially when she was afflicted with Temporal Disharmony.

Or so he thought.

SPLAT!

“Rgh…!” Rui grimaced with shock as a deep gash appeared on his body. He leaped back with a grave expression as he momentarily switched to Weaving Blood. Yet, she was unwilling to let go of the chance to seize the initiative.

STEP.

“She who cannot cut what she cannot see is a second-rate swordswoman.” She gripped her blade. “Silent Sword Style…”

Rui felt deep peril emerging from her as chills crawled down his spine.

“…Twenty-Four Sword Vortex.”

What ensued was twenty-four blade swings executed in a fraction of a microsecond.

She couldn’t even see her own body due to Temporal Disharmony.

Yet, it didn’t matter.

Her body remembered every movement of the combo right down to microscopic precision and accuracy. She shut off her conscious reaction, relying on pure instinct and reflex bolstered by centuries of experience.

The Twenty-Four Sword Vortex was a technique that converged the power of twenty-four swings in a single swing of unprecedented speed and power.

An attack that could not be dodged.

BOOOM!!!

The attack cleaved through the world itself, causing a catastrophic devastation of heaven and earth. RUMBLE!!

Land uprooted where the skies above them ceased to exist, giving way to the bright cosmos that shined down upon them unimpeded by the atmosphere.

It was an attack that struck almost everything.

Everything except her target.

“I can see you SOUL.”

Her expression hardened as Rui emerged from the enormous cloud of dust surging towards her at top speed.

Rui activated Outer Convergence, Gale Force Breathing, and Parallel Walk as he shot toward her with the maximum amount of momentum he was able to gather, preparing a Flowing Canon empowered with the Yin-Yang Spear.

It was the fastest and most powerful attack he was able to muster at the moment.

Her demeanor grew more intense as she realized that if she allowed herself to get so much as touched by that, she would lose the battle.

The moment he arrived within her field of attack, a mighty sword swing surged toward him, threatening to cleave him in half.

WHOOSH!

He casually evaded her attack. With the Temporal Disharmony shackling her active coordination and the predictive and SOUL Models active, dodging her sword swing had never been easier.

BOOOM!! His fist struck her ribs, breaking through them with ease as the blow devastated her torso.

That was game.

Or at least, it should have been.

SPLAT!!

His attack froze as a deep gash emerged on his body out of nowhere.

“Rgh!” He grimaced as he began bleeding profusely. He gazed at her katana with shock.

The blade’s trajectory had rebounded and returned after the initial miss, surging towards her opponent as it landed its strike against him after he had dodged her initial blow. He was shocked that she was able to cut him down so swiftly after he had dodged the first sword swing. “Silent Sword Style…” She smiled even as she coughed up blood. “Boomerang Blade.”

This was her sole system of thought. She would observe the dodging patterns of her opponent only to predict the direction and manner in which they would dodge her attack before using the Boomerang Blade to curve the trajectory towards them after the initial dodge.

The only drawback was that the power would be diluted due to loss of momentum during the trajectory rebound.

It was for that sole reason that Rui had not been cut in half.

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