The Martial Unity

Chapter 2567: Provoking Gauntlet

BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

A multitude of blows were exchanged one after another as two Sekigaharan Martial Masters exchanged a flurry of blows at a furious rate. The two powerful Martial Masters brawled with an extremely high intensity against each other in the combat arena.

”Impressive,” Rui murmured as he watched the two Martial Artists fight to a standstill.

He didnʼt miss the attention that his arrival had garnered.

There wasnʼt a single Master among them who didnʼt know who he was.

”You are not welcome here...” one high-grade Martial Master appeared before him with a fierce expression.

She glared at him with ferocious rage.

Rui smiled at her. ”What are you going to do about it?”

”You fucking bastard...” she snarled, earning an even wider grin from Rui.

He didnʼt mean to provoke her, but she was such an easy target that he couldnʼt help himself.

Also, she was strong.

”Tell you what,” Rui smirked as he directed a sweeping gaze at all the hostile Martial Masters in the combat arena. ”Round up as many of your fellows that there are. I will fight all of you one after another without breaks or potions. If you can beat me, I will leave. If not, you guys leave. What do you say?”

His smirk grew deeper. ”Or are you too scared to take me on?”

”Youʼre on!” she glared at him with challenging anger.

Had he offered a one-on-one, many would still have been very hesitant due to just how absurdly strong the Dawnbringer was known to be.

However, if it was a gauntlet where he was not allowed to recuperate his stamina, then...

Their eyes lit up with fierce determination.

Soon enough, the combat arena was emptied as the Masters canceled their slots to make time for this gauntlet, even if it meant forgoing pre-arranged sparring sessions.

Each and every sekigaharan hated him deeply. They could never miss what they thought was a realistic chance to finally humble him for his sheer arrogance, not after everything he had done and said.

Soon enough, Rui found himself standing in the combat arena, lightly stretching and warming up for the upcoming fights. He found it interesting because he wasnʼt absolutely certain that he would win. With many dozens of Masters present in the arena, it was possible for him to simply expend all his stamina by the time he faced the grade twenty-eight and grade twenty-nine Martial Masters.

He would need to be very efficient in the way that he dispatched all of them.

Still, he was the man who fought a hundred Martial Masters and emerged victorious.

It took an extraordinary amount of power to overcome him.

On top of that, he had grown stronger since then. He looked forward to gaining more experience with the Forge of Creation, having only used it once in a highly limited spar with Ieyasu for testing purposes.

The Sekigaharan Martial Masters studied him with narrowed eyes.

They, too, noticed it.

There was something different about the aura of power that radiated from him.

It was a profoundly deep power.

Power beyond their comprehension.

Power beyond their fathoming.

If they didnʼt pay attention, they might have mistaken him for a weak Sage from a distance.

”Letʼs begin.”

His voice was calm and composed.

He didnʼt feel the need to display too much bravado.

Even though he had issued the challenge, they all knew that they were the challengers, and he was the defender.

Both sides knew what the strategy was going to be. Oftentimes, the common sense strategy was the most optimal one. In this particular case, the only people who stood a chance against him were the Martial Masters, who were very close to the peak of the Master Realm, but based on war, it was clear they stood no chance in a fair battle.

STEP

The first Master to arrive in the combat arena was a middle-aged man.

His body was enormous; he possessed an immense amount of muscle and fat that protected his body against any outside impact or force. His Martial Body was so tough that Rui figured it probably massively compensated for a huge gap in grades. Any defensive technique that he used was probably deeply bolstered by his innate toughness.

Rui needed just the tiniest split second to discern why they had sent this man first. Inflicting any damage on him was going to be draining for an overwhelming majority of Martial Artists. It was almost impossible to win the battle without spending at least a chunk of their stamina on overcoming him.

”Good choice,” Rui nodded as he brought his palm to his fist in the universal Martial gesture of acknowledgment.

”I am Master Kokuho of the Shintate Clan,” the man spoke in the universal dialect. ”You probably donʼt remember me, but we have fought once before.”

”Oh?” Rui accessed his Mind Palace and swiftly revisited all the battles that he had fought in

the war. ”Ah, we have; that was not much of a battle, Iʼm afraid.”

It was so insignificant that it had escaped his normal memory, requiring him to visit the

stored footage of the battle in his Mind Palace.

”Indeed,” he coldly seethed. ”I have trained hard since then. I am still not strong enough to

defeat you, but I will ensure your defeat occurs nonetheless.”

Rui smiled. ”Well then, I look forward to seeing what you have.”

”Take your stances.” The arbiter announced.

BOOM!

Master Kokuho lifted one leg before slamming it into the ground as he adopted a firm, wide- legged stance that maximized stability and defense.

Rui simply stood where he was, earning him even greater anger from his opponent.

”Begin!” the arbiter commenced the battle as their Realms of power blazed into life.

What followed shocked everybody who stood there.

They had all been prepared for the unbearable flood of information that was his Martial Embodiment.

They had even been prepared for it, having undergone immense information tolerance conditioning. After all, none of the Sage-level powerhouses could tolerate all their Martial Masters being rendered useless by a single Embodiment.

They had expected to catch him off-guard with their enhanced resistance to his Martial Embodiment. And yet, they were the ones who were caught off-guard by the single most powerful embodiment that they had ever beheld in their entire life.

A tsunami of water from the depths of his very being, subsuming the entire world.