The Martial Unity

But the bullets were more than just attacks.

They also served as grappling hooks that Oo—o- could use to pull her in towards the target. With a single command, the spider made the webs contract very aggressively into their hyper dense form again, pulling her large body along with it towards Ria at extraordinary speeds.

CLICK CLICK CLICK!

”You. Cannot. Stay. Away. From. Me! My. Webs. Will. Pull. Me. Towards. You. At. All. Times!”

Ria’s eyes widened as a projectile, so fast that even her eyes couldn’t perceive, shot towards her. If not for the sheer distance between them, she would have easily failed to react to the incoming attack.

WHOOSH

She barely managed to evade the spider by leaping into the air, evading the massive body and the arms and many legs of the creature, as well as its sharp stinger. And yet, Oo—o- appeared to have mastered the art of using webbing to become an extremely mobile slingshot projectile, immediately shooting several bullets at Ria that threatened to tag her where she stood.

Only to expand into full-blown explosions the moment she evaded them, while creating a smokescreen for Oo—o- to draw closer towards her by having the webbing contract. The battle rapidly shifted towards an aggressive one-sided pursuit as Ria evaded not only the powerful web bullets but also the explosions they caused, and the bullrushes that subsequently followed inevitably.

’If I make a single mistake, I’m screwed.’

This truth dawned on her as she felt the sheer force with which her opponent could leverage her special web’s expansion and contraction ability. It was a trait that was not unique to the homoarachnoid before her, but it certainly was an extremely polished and highly refined version of it.

She could use it to make the most out of both small and large attacks, switching between them back and forth as and how she pleased, using them to either launch swift attacks at her opponents, or extremely vast explosions, and then have it serve as a rapid-acceleration grappling hook.

What ensued between them was a very aggressive game of cat and mouse. Oo—o- utilized her web very liberally to try to reach and capture her opponents. She merely adopted a very dogged approach that hinged on the prospects of Ria’s inferior physicality, which wasn’t just a little inferior, either, but rather substantially inferior.

In fact, it was this inferiority that made her more convinced about just how special Ria was. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that in terms of raw energy output, Ria was orders of magnitude below her. The force with which her movements shifted her was weak. Her attacks weren’t that strong.

And yet.

She managed to make Oo—o- bleed.

It was a power that seemed to defy her understanding of causality.

Even now, as Oo—o- continuously harassed her with attacks, she smoothly evaded each and every single one of them. Certainly, the special exo-Martial suit played a role. Oo—o- spotted the strange suit shifting shape as if it were a living liquid.

But that suit would not have allowed any other Martial Master in the world to evade Oo—o- to the extent that Ria had done so.

And yet, she could do more than just evade, as Oo—o- realized belatedly.

WHOOSH!

As Oo—o- charged towards Ria for the umpteenth time, using the contraction of her webs as a slingshot. She found Ria waiting for her.

Her amber eyes flared with a ferocious intensity. She didn’t charge towards Oo—o- to inflict great damage on her.

No.

Instead, she simply intercepted Oo—o- with a well-placed elbow.

It wasn’t even an attack.

In the eyes of Ria, all she did was place the final piece of a puzzle to complete an image.

An image where Oo—o-’s own momentum was used against her.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMOOM!!!

Oo—o- felt more pain in that moment than almost any other in her life as Ria’s elbow crashed into her torso, crumpling her entire body under the weight of the momentum of the attack. Ria had calculated, accurately, that Oo—o-’s travel speed when she engaged in her bullrush charges exceeded her reaction speed.

In other words, she wasn’t able to effectively react to potential counter-attacks that were well-timed to strike the moment Oo—o- arrived at her destination at speeds that vastly outstripped even lightning.

That was what Ria had relied on.

It required the accuracy of a machine and the precision of a needle.

She needed to predict exactly where Oo—o- would be and when, and how fast. Then she needed to ensure that whatever collision occurred would harm her opponent rather than herself, a nigh impossible task considering that Oo—o-’s body was much tougher than that of Ria’s.

The key was that this was not an absolute rule that applied to every part of Ria’s body and every part of Oo—o-’s body.

If even one percent of Ria’s body was harder and tougher than just one percent of Oo—o-’s body, then Ria had a way.

A way to clash with Oo—o- head-on and ensure that Oo—o- was the one who emerged reeling.

She had positioned her body in a way that was conducive to the flow of power. Every joint in her body was aligned in a manner to ensure that force traveled along every bone and into her feet that were planted firmly on the ground, where she had manipulated the Water Integument suit to fix her into one spot.

She had found the single line of causality. The single branch of reality where the sequence of events worked in her favor.

It led to a devastating impact that seemed to cave in Oo—o-’s body.

CRACK CRACK CRACK

Ria felt several bones snap as her elbow dug deeper into her opponent’s body, reshaping it a little.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK!!!

Oo—o-’s pincers began snapping against each other in pure pain and agony. Homoarachnoids didn’t have vocal chords, thus they could scream. And yet, the violent snapping of her pincers was as guttural as any scream from a human being.

Ria’s amber eyes lit up as she pushed deeper with an intense determination, focusing all her attention on inflicting as much damage as she possibly could against her would-be kidnapper, threatening to break her where she stood.

And it was precisely that focus that blinded her to an appendage that humans didn’t have.

Quietly, Oo—o-’s stinger shot down towards Ria, piercing her in her back, injecting her web fluid within her body.

”Arrrghhh!” Ria screeched in pain as web fluid entered her body, immediately solidifying into an adhesion that crippled her movements.

Even as Oo—o-’s body was ravaged, she managed to partially paralyze Ria.