The Martial Unity

Unfortunately for him, it was within Rui’s prediction as he had already formed a predictive model with the Angel of Laplace.

WHOOSH

A simple sidestep was enough to evade the attack. The Flowing Canon that he had copied from Rui many years ago was a powerful attack. Yet, it was easy to dodge for anybody who saw it coming ahead of time.

Ieyasu was just getting started, however.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!!!

A series of short and swift blows pounded into Rui’s guard in an unrelenting onslaught. The sheer number of attacks that he unleashed each moment was extraordinary, as each attack served as the set-up for the next attack, ridding any and all delay and lag between each blow.

The sheer frequency was so high that Rui felt like he was experiencing a continuous singular force crushing on him rather than a series of concurrent impacts!

Yet, it was far from enough to pressure him. All it took were mild adjustments.

He went with each blow, converting what should have been a painful impact into an elastic push that he converted into the kinetic energy of his Body. Reverberating Lance then simply radiated away the impacts.

Because Flux Earther was such an extraordinarily flexible technique, it did not have hard limits, and its power was dependent on how well it was applied. Yet, it didn’t hold Ieyasu back at all.

FWIP In a moment, he opened his balled fists into open palms before driving them forward as spears that could pierce and impale his opponent, thanks to the conditioning of his nails and fingers.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!

Rui leaped back as he continued wisely evading the man’s attacks one after another. His skin and flesh were decently conditioned, but he knew that Ieyasu had undoubtedly copied and mastered many poison techniques.

He did not want to try his luck in that regard.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

The two men closely watched each other like hawks as a furious exchange of attacks and evasions danced amid each other, fitting in like pieces of a puzzle. Yet, it didn’t last long.

WHOOSH!

Rui barely managed to avoid having his eyeballs gouged as Ieyasu’s spear hand extended a foot longer than it normally did. Yet, just a moment later, a second spear hand came out of nowhere, almost beheading him where he stood.

WHOOSH!

Rui ducked backward before somersaulting away. His eyes narrowed as he caught a glimpse of Ieyasu’s shoulders.

They were dislocated.

By dislocating them at the right moment of each trajectory, both their speed and range could increase significantly. Ieyasu had assimilated a Martial Art centered around flexibility with a Martial Art centered around the spear hand, creating a lethal human chain spear Martial Art.

WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Two extended spear attacks flashed forward at blurringly high speeds, moving faster than Rui could evade and threatening to impale him where he stood.

THWACK THWACK!

Rui’s palm flew out, intercepting the spears not at the blade but at the hilt. It didn’t matter if the attack was lethal if it landed because it simply never landed at all. Adaptively evolving to piercing attacks could be done by intercepting a piercing attack at the wrist, elbow, or shoulder.

In this case, the shoulder was a vulnerability that could be exploited to land a damning blow.

THWACK THWACK!!

Rui parried two extended spears before driving a powerful blow armed with the power of Reverberating Lance, Outer Convergence, and Wind Breathing straight to Ieyasu’s shoulder dislocation.

Unfortunately for him, Ieyasu knew exactly what he was thinking.

WHOOSH!

The powerful attack missed Ieyasu as he cleanly evaded it with a well-timed launching flip. Yet, his relentless attacks didn’t halt as he launched a barrage of sound attacks that blasted straight toward Rui at extreme speeds.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!!!

Yet, Rui had foreseen them coming.

The tiniest of shifts were all it took.

At his ankles, his knees, his waist, back, and shoulders.

The tiniest of shifts were all it took to effortlessly evade every single one of those attacks.

Until, of course, those same attacks spontaneously changed trajectory, returning to blast him.

Master Ceeran’s Martial Art.

Rui’s eyes narrowed.

“You’ve been busy.”

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

One after another, they weaved in and around Rui as he evaded them with ease each and every time.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!!!

Ieyasu continued blasting more and more sound projectiles one after another, adding to the difficulty of evading them. He fired relentlessly until an ocean of sound projectiles flashed around, threatening to blast Rui where he stood.

Yet, Rui was never caught standing in one place.

With the insights of his predictive model, plus the two years he had spent inside the manifold with sealed systems of thought to focus on gaining experience and intuition, he was able to choose the optimal evasion maneuvers each time. He needed to look for traps and dead-ends, relying on the swift nature of intuition and instincts to evade each attack one after another.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

Even as he wove his way past the net of attacks that Ieyasu blasted him with, Rui couldn’t help but feel suspicious about his opponent’s intentions.

A single question begged itself at this juncture of the battle.

‘Why isn’t he copying me like last time?’

Ieyasu’s Martial Art was centered around Assimilative Evolution. He copied Martial Art and then assimilated other Martial Arts into it, or assimilated the copied Martial Art into other Martial Arts.

Right now, however, he was doing neither.

He had commenced the battle with an aggressive offensive, as though he had wanted to kill Rui as soon as possible.

It was not his style.

But for some reason, he seemed entirely uninterested in copying Rui.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

Rui somersaulted away as he avoided being blasted with sharp sound projectiles. Yet, his suspicion only grew stronger and stronger once he became fully cognizant of it. ‘Just what is his plan? What are his objectives?’

Unfortunately, instead of an answer, he received nearly a hundred sound projectiles converging onto him with great speed and power.

BOOOOOM!!!

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