The Martial Unity

RUMBLE!!!

The clone’s fist burrowed deep into Rui’s torso, digging deeper and deeper. Under normal circumstances, the devastating impact would have ravaged the original’s body. The clone had managed to catch Rui off-guard by somehow becoming intangible to his blow, using the opportunity to land a clean attack and potentially deal the original some real damage.

And yet, it didn’t.

“Impressive.”

Clone Rui’s eyes widened as the original absorbed the impact with Aqua Existentia, using it to fuel his own attack. Even though Rui had been caught off-guard, that was only his brain-consciousness. His body could react without any input from his brain, allowing him to absorb.

WHOOSH

Rui’s eyes widened as his fist passed through the intangible clone once more.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Blow after blow, the clone managed to simply pass through Rui’s attacks as if he were a spectre. Somehow, the clone was managing to erase the substance of his body as if it didn’t even exist. WHOOSH

Rui watched with extremely heightened senses as his fist passed through the head of the clone without even the slightest deviation.

‘It’s not a feint.’

Feints could cause similar illusions, but they were just that: illusions. The moment you touched the afterimage of a feint, it would cease to exist in your mind.

He was different.

WHOOSH

His fist passed through the clone’s body smoothly, even as clone Rui charged towards Rui with another attack that should have been futile.

Or so Rui thought.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Rui’s eyes widened as the sheer force of the attack warped his body. Its power greatly exceeded even the Convergence of Casimir, which used the Casimir Force to increase the force upon contact. It caused Rui’s body, now turned into a gel-like substance due to the passive Aqua Existentia, to deform upon contact.

The clone’s fist felt… hyper real. As if it were vastly more dense than it normally was. Simultaneously, Rui’s attacks simply phased through the clone.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

A three-blow combo passed through the clone’s body as if it wasn’t even real, an entirely futile attack. One that the clone ignored as he landed his own attack on Rui’s body.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Rui’s expression grew stunned as the impact lifted him off his feet despite his most powerful defensive techniques siphoning energy from his opponent’s momentum. His fist became an unstoppable force with immense momentum that overwhelmed even the original, while Rui’s attack seemed to simply pass through his opponent’s substanceless body.

WHOOSH

His expression hardened as he exerted materia prima to warp the very fabric of space and time as he launched several more blows at clone Rui, attempting to see if he could phase through space-time warping attacks.

And yet, it was to no avail.

WHOOSH

The attack phased through clone Rui, who emerged from it untouched, before launching a tremendously destructive attack of immense power.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

This time, Rui was prepared for it, remaining unfazed as he smoothly absorbed the energy from the clone’s devastating attacks before channeling that power into fueling his own speed and power, activating Neo Godspeed to test whether his intangibility technique was active or passive.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

His blows became lighter but blindingly fast as he poured all of his energy into making them as difficult to time and intercept. With Body of Chaos still active, clone Rui couldn’t rely on Prophecy of the Void to try and predict him as easily as he would have liked, forcing him to rely more on active reactions than predictions.

And yet, not a single attack so much as even touched the clone.

He seemed to have become a ghost.

A spectre.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

A myriad of blows washed over him, struggling to even make contact with him, while the clone unleashed his own onslaught of devastating attacks.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Each extraordinary blow deformed Rui’s quasi-liquid body in his Aqua Existentia body even as he absorbed the power, siphoning it for his own offensive power to redirect right back to the clone. His ethereal eyes sharpened as he peered deep into the clone’s existence, trying to understand what was happening.

How did clone Rui manage to become intangible?

Why were his strikes so powerful that they strained even Rui’s body to absorb their energy?

His eyes peered deeper and deeper into the very existence of the clone’s body, scanning it on an anatomical, physiological, and biochemical level. He couldn’t sense anything in his biology that would be responsible for such a feat. His body remained quite stable.

However, he did sense negatron matter being actively used.

Which was strange because he couldn’t sense any expansion of the geometry of space-time around them. What was he using the negatron matter for then?

His ethereal eyes lit up. ‘He must have found a new way to apply negatron matter to create these effects!’

Rui shifted his senses to hone in on his opponent once more, allowing him to gain deeper insight into what the clone was doing. He also activated Mirror Mode once more, causing his neurons to become mirror neurons. The downside of this state of neurology was that he couldn’t simultaneously use his Anthean neurology to enhance his processing power, causing his systems of thought and predictions to take a hit.

It was an opening that the clone did not intend to forgive.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

He pushed his Metabody System to the very limit as he drew out every ounce of power he possibly could, ravaging Rui’s body with invintium-laden fist to maximize the force of the impact. He aimed each strike at bones rather than flesh, reducing the impact of Aqua Existentia as a technique, unleashing all of his power into every single attack that Rui had to offer.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The clone’s fist buried into the original’s sternum, burying deeper and deeper until the bone could no longer withstand the strain.

CRACK

The clone’s eyes lit up as he managed to inflict the first bit of real damage upon Rui for the first time in the battle. A surge of jubilation emerged from the clone as he pushed harder and harder, unleashing everything he had upon Rui’s most vulnerable vitals.

He aimed for the head.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!