The Martial Unity

Ria simply walked towards him with a calm expression, her amber eyes were entirely composed. She knew she was dealing with somebody with a body that was greatly superior. Yet, her instincts told her that it wasn’t something that could be overcome.

She could tell that he lacked the kind of efficiency that Martial Artists had, every other Path couldn’t output as much as they generally did without massive sources of energy. Her senses could faintly detect the traces of nuclear fusion within his cells as he generated more power to fight against her.

“Here I come.” Sternon’s voice was serious.

WHOOSH!

He shot towards Ria at high speed, blurring in Ria’s eyes. And yet, it was within her understanding of causality.

She had already begun moving the moment he shot towards her.

WHOOSH

She leaned back, tilting her head to one side, evading a fearsome blow. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it, turning around to launch a powerful kick to the head. Ria had no intention of taking such a heavy attack head-on; instead, she simply ducked and charged forth, launching a powerful double-fist blow, making use of her bodily momentum to strike his abdomen.

BOOOM!!!

The sheer force of the blow made Sternon skid away a bit despite the fact that he had toughened his flesh by a significant degree. A grimacing expression emerged on his face as he charged forth, throwing an onslaught of short, but faster jabs that were much harder to avoid.

Ria’s amber eyes sharpened as her hands shot into motion, intercepting each blow at the wrist and then diverging it just off course enough with a redirection maneuver.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

The sheer gap in raw power was unlike anything that she had dealt with before in a serious contest. It was truly unfair how much superior his body was to hers. She felt like she was fighting someone who was ten times bigger than her, despite all of her Realms of power already active.

And yet, she held on.

She used a technique—no, a principle—to intercept each and every single blow that he threw at her. For such short and fast blows, she couldn’t evade all of them even if she saw them coming. The simple reality was that her speed just wasn’t enough. And yet—

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Her wrist struck his wrist even as his fist charged towards her, it allowed her to knock his fist just off-course enough to make the strike impotent due to an awkward angle.

Sternon’s eyes widened as he realized she had effectively managed to negate the onslaught of attacks that he threw against her. He felt like he was fighting a child with how large the gap in physicality was, and yet somehow that child was managing to just knock his blow off-course enough that it made it possible for her to withstand them.

‘How is she doing that?’ He knew that Martial Artists had the least amount of raw energy and power out of all the pathwalkers in the world. Tekvores had energy cores. Therianthropes, elves, and even evosapiens had special cellular energy generation units. Giants were giants. Perhaps only dwarves used less energy, but they weren’t combatants, fundamentally.

But the gap in power between them should have been far too great. Not only did he have much greater nominally as an evosapien, but he was also a neo evosapien, making him far greater in raw energy.

And yet, she defended against his attacks smoothly. She intercepted each of his attacks as early as she possibly could, shifting her body out of the way as early as she possibly could. And that was enough to make his strikes useless, somehow.

Yet, she didn’t merely defend.

She intended to win.

BANG!!!

His eyes widened as he felt a flash of dull pain in his abdomen. Her palm jab struck his solar plexus, making it very difficult for him to breathe. The attack had struck him before he even realized, much to his surprise. Her movements were in slow motion to him, and she had somehow managed to catch him off guard.

“How?” he managed to squeeze out. “How did you—”

BANG

Her fist slammed into his face, even breaking his nose a little. Although the gap in their power was great, no nose could withstand such a powerful blow.

“You get distracted too easily,” she muttered with a musing tone, before charging forth with fierce eyes.

“Focus, or you will drown.”

He wanted to ask what he would drown in, but the answer came soon enough.

He would drown in the flood of attacks that she unleashed against him. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

A flurry of blows peppered his body as Ria went all out with her power, threatening to wound him all over. The young evosapien’s translucent eyes widened as he found himself struggling to react to her attacks.

She was slow. There was no question about that.

And yet, her attacks somehow struck him before—

BANG!

“Rgh!” Before he could react. Almost as if he was in a trance.

His translucent eyes widened as he remembered. “This. Is this hypnosis?”

Hypnosis was a field of combat that was exclusive towards Martial Artists for the most part. Although many years had passed since Panamic pathwalkers had entered the true world, the other pathwalkers had yet to understand how Martial Artists used hypnosis mid-battle.

It was a technique that was exclusive towards them, much to the frustration of the other pathwalkers.

Ria laughed at those words. “Not even close, my new friend.”

BOOM!!!

Her fist dented his abdomen, warping his entire body underneath the force of the attacks, causing him to cough blood upon impact. And yet, she was just getting started.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

She blasted him with blow after blow, each successfully evading his awareness and worming past his defenses.

She didn’t need to use something as extravagant as hypnosis.

She merely distracted him.