The Martial Unity

A devastatingly powerful wave of destruction emerged from Sage Sekiei, surging towards Rui with the full intention of eviscerating every last trace of his existence.

That was exactly what Sage Sekiei expected to see.

Against his most powerful Sage-level offensive technique, he didn’t expect to see anything else.

He didn’t want to see anything else.

And that was exactly why Rui’s hypnosis worked so well against him. SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!!!!

Sage Sekiei’s expression lit up with delight as, in his eyes, Rui’s body disintegrated upon the destructive force of his attack, splattering into the air as a flood of blood and gore.

For a moment, he was relieved.

And then, reality struck him like a train.

WHOOSH

The image faded away as Rui emerged before him, entirely unharmed shocking the Martial Sage frozen.

Delight turned to frustration.

Happiness turned to anger.

Sage Sekiei had never even imagined that it was possible for Rui to hypnotize him. The fact that a Martial Master had managed to pull it off was something that truly shocked him. Rui, on the other hand, had only made use of his bloodlust against the man.

Hypnosis was most effective when the illusion was what the target wanted to see or expected to see. It experienced far less resistance and impedance from the target in this condition.

Sage Sekiei’s desire to end the battle with a domineering victory as soon as possible was palpable.

It gave Rui one and only one chance of an opening.

He surged forth with a thunderingly powerful Yin-Yang Spear aimed straight at the man’s jaw, seeking to knock the man out then and there when he was caught off-guard.

Unfortunately, it was he who underestimated the Martial Sage as a blazingly fast sword attack surged towards Rui with tremendous piercing power.

WHOOSH

Rui barely managed to avoid being decapitated as he summersaulted away with the help of Temporal Marionettera. And yet, he leaped forward once more, unwilling to allow the gap between them to open to negate all the progress that he had made up until now.

Sage Sekiei was one of the very few swordsmen who was weaker in close-quarters combat than he was at range, and Rui had no intention of allowing him to open the gap between them again.

He surged towards the Martial Sage with a blindingly fast rush, hoping for an opening.

Instead, he only found a thunderingly swift blade arching down at him. WHOOSH!

Rui smoothly side-stepped the blade with a fluid spiral while simultaneously generating the torque needed to land a blow on his opponent. But not before Sage Sekiei’s lateral sword attack erupted with a ferociously blinding velocity, threatening to decapitate him then and there. WHOOSH

Rui leaned back sharply, evading powerful sword swings.

Yet, he continued peppering his opponent with a relentless surge of attempts to land even a single blow on his opponent.

It wasn’t that Sage Sekiei even had anything to fear from his attacks in the first place. He had managed to evade the attacks of a Martial Sage, but that hardly translated into parity in other areas. He simply didn’t have the power to even dent his opponent’s active defenses.

However, the fact that they were active defenses was enough to give him a sliver of hope that he could potentially land a finishing blow that could potentially knock his opponent out if he was caught off-guard.

Additionally, he was relatively certain that he had a stamina advantage even with Gigabrain active. The Sage depleted a tremendous amount of energy with each sword swing of a rather heavy and hefty greatsword, while Rui’s evasive maneuvers, in comparison, were less taxing.

His strategy was simply to burn his opponent’s energy reserves until they were gone.

It was a simple and unsophisticated strategy, but that was precisely why it was so effective. More importantly, the frustration mounting on Sage Sekiei’s expression indicated that he, too, was aware that he couldn’t maintain such an output for too long.

He wasn’t built for attrition battles. He preferred ending the battle as soon as possible with his devastatingly powerful offense and then calling it a day. Had he maintained his calm and his rationality, he would have realized that because Rui’s offensive was so weak, he didn’t need to launch a powerful attack each time Rui approached him. In fact, in most cases, he could simply allow it and allow the attack to unfold, for it stood very little chance of harm.

And yet, he hadn’t been able to maintain his calm and his rationality. From the very moment Rui, a mere Martial Master, had been his opponent, he hadn’t been able to maintain his composure.

The longer the battle continued, the more it physically hurt him.

That was why he continued hacking away at Rui as much as possible with a ferocious bloodlust in an attempt to end his life then and that. Unfortunately, he failed.

WHOOSH!!

A lateral pirouette allowed Rui to avoid being cleaved across his body. He landed on all fours, wasting absolutely no time to lunge at his opponent with a fiercely aggressive charge.

And yet, it only angered Sage Sekiei even more.

“Rgh!!!” He smoothly swung an earth-shattering blow of extraordinary magnitude at Rui, yet he simply kicked off the blade with a stunning level of precision, leveraging Sage Sekiei’s attack to fuel his own momentum.

And thus, he landed his first blow of the entire battle.

BOOOOOOMMM!!!!!

With the power of a partial Soul Retcon, he managed to land a thundering blow that far exceeded what almost any Martial Master could have possibly unleashed.

What was even more shocking was the extraordinarily excruciating pain that surged through Sage Sekiei’s body.

“AAARRRGGHHHH!!!” the Martial Sage’s body shuddered as he felt more pain than he had in recent times.

It was in moments like these where Phantom Pain shined the brightest: Against opponents who were far beyond his ability to effectively harm.

Sage Sekiei’s retaliatory attack converged upon him, interrupting his second attack.

WHOOSH

Rui leaped, narrowly evading the heavenly discharges along the plane of the attack.

–