The Martial Unity

Chapter 2423: Close-Quarter Onslaught

BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

Rui somersaulted away, evading blasts of fire and bullets of sound while weaving his way through a maelstrom of attacks one after another. Yet none of them so much as touched him. Not even the apocalypse that Ieyasu had unleashed was enough to overwhelm him. He applied every single technique he could possibly employ at his disposal to aid with his maneuvering. He even went as far as to apply Parallel Walking, one of the very first techniques he had ever learned as a Martial Artist.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

Some evasions occurred with the barest minimum of gaps between him and the attack. Yet, he managed to dodge them nonetheless. For every five steps he took forward towards Ieyasu, he took four steps backwards.

Yet, he still made progress.

One step at a time.

Furthermore, Ieyasu continuously adjusted the gradient of intensity of the apocalypse of attacks. He made it harder and harder for Rui to advance. Yet, with Ruiʼs Temporal Disharmony deeply hampering his perception of time, he couldnʼt even follow Rui with his eye, relying instead on a combination of a partial reversal of his perception of time and the reflexes of Kaneʼs Fulminata.

And despite that, every attack that seemed to hit Rui merely hit the feint that he had left behind, thoroughly fooling all of Ieyasuʼs sharp senses.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Slowly but surely, Rui advanced towards Ieyasu with fierce eyes. Despite all the measures that he had taken to keep Rui at bay, Rui slowly got closer and closer.

STEP

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

He evaded several spikes emerging from beneath his feet while calculating what was the path with least resistance and thus greatest ease to pass through. He almost developed a minor system of thought on the spot to deal with wading through a field of relentless and omnipresent offensive maneuvers.

STEP

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM!!!

He evaded a barrage of wind blasts, while sidestepping several sound bullets.

STEP

WHOOSH!!!

STEP

WHOOSH!!!

Countless attacks pierced through his body.

Only to find, much to their chagrin, that there was nothing there. An empty image.

A feint.

STEP

He evaded a hail of lightning as he weaved through the devastating storm that Ieyasu had called.

RUMBLE!!!

STEP

An earthquake literally threw Rui off of the ground, flinging him in the air. Yet, it was within his prediction.

WHOOSH!!!

He positioned himself to allow it to propel him forward in the direction of Tokugawa Ieyasu, only to be intercepted by a plume of poison that he almost inhaled. It slowed him down.

Yet, it couldnʼt stop him.

STEP

Despite everything that Ieyasu threw at him, he still surged forward. WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!

STEP

He couldnʼt be stopped.

Not even the sublimation of every single Martial Art that Ieyasu had ever copied that operated at that range was able to stop Rui. It didnʼt matter what Ieyasu threw at him; he simply overcame it and moved closer and closer to his target.

STEP

And finally, he reached.

And yet, a single realization dawned on him as beheld the ferocity in Ieyasuʼs eyes.

He had been the one waiting for Rui.

RUMBLE…

The apocalypse disappeared.

The storms that raged in the heavens dispersed.

The hellfire that spewed from the depths of Gaia ceased.

However, the cessation of the apocalypse didnʼt bring Rui any relief.

Instead, he felt a deep sense of peril as Ieyasu converged all his extraordinary power within himself.

RUMBLE!!!

Ieyasu combined the sum totality of all his non-conflicting speed, maneuvering, and supplementary techniques into a singular all-rounder dynamic combat style. Every technique that ever improved footwork.

Every technique that ever improved speed. Every technique that ever improved agility.

Every technique that ever improved offensive lethality.

Every technique that didnʼt contradict with the others was integrated as an element of the style. A crystallization of the Martial World.

That was what Rui needed to overcome.

”Adaptively evolve to this.” A faint whisper escaped Ieyasu as he flashed forward at Rui at blinding speeds.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!

He unleashed a horrifying onslaught of lethality. The berserking and brawling destruction of a horrifying monster.

Each blow shot forwards at speeds that beggared the imagination, the sheer amount of momentum and capacity for harm each attack was capable of was beyond what anybody else could have ever achieved.

And yet, Ruiʼs palm gently greeted each attack with the softest of touch. A single graceful motion was all it took.

A single graceful motion was all it took to render even the most destructive of attacks into the most gentle and soft of bonks.

An elegant defensive maneuver that demanded extraordinary precision and accuracy.

By carefully receiving each attack before it struck his Body in an elastic manner, Rui was able to convert all of its momentum into kinetic energy before dispelling the energy into Gaia with his feet.

It was at moments like these that Rui thanked his stars that he had mastered techniques that didnʼt have any hard theoretical upper limits and were proportional to timing and placement.

With the predictions of the predictive model and the translated intent that allowed him to foresee what his opponentʼs decisions were, Rui had plenty of time to prepare the most immaculate timing for not just the interception, but also the dispersion.

Ieyasuʼs expression hardened.

The techniques themselves were actually nothing, he could easily copy them. Yet, in his hands, those same techniques would not even be grade-ten, but in Ruiʼs hands they were among the most powerful grade-ten techniques that he had ever seen.

WHOOSH!

Rui ducked, evading a heavy blow to the head while simultaneously striking his opponentʼs legs with a sweeping kick. An elementary attack, yet, Rui foresaw his defenses and simply weaved past them to cleanly land a blow on his ankle.

BOOM!

Ieyasu grimaced as the powerful Yin-Yang Spear attack permeated its impact to the bone, straining it.

BAM BAM BAM!!!

Rui barely managed to intercept a fury surge of blows one after another. Each attack was flung as haymakers without releasing any obvious pattern of attacks in hopes of catching Rui off-guard at least once.

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