The Martial Unity

WHOOSH!

Rui twirled backward as his mind raced into action, furiously computing possible predictive models based on all the possibilities that the attack he just dodged could be. 

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

"RROOOOOAAAAR!" The dragon bellowed a roar as its powerful physical attacks swung all over, aiming at Rui only to miss him.

Rui had come to avoid attacks one after the other with increasing proficiency and smoothness as time passed. The dragon was more than intelligent enough to notice. It roared with frustration and rage as Rui managed to avoid its best efforts at killing him.

A small smirk emerged on Rui's face. 'It can't do anything other than physically attack. All of its special abilities are centered around the mind. Its only means of physical attack is through its body.'

He was able to deduce this because he had yet to encounter a wide-range or long-range attack. The reason he knew that he hadn't encountered those was because of the angle between consecutive attacks. 

If the distance between himself and the dragon was high, then the angle between consecutive attacks as Rui avoided them would be low, but if the distance was low, the angles between the attacks would be low.

It was thanks to this that Rui was able to deduce that the dragon had yet to launch a single long-range attack. Thanks to that, he could conclude that it was unable to. There was no reason to hold back its abilities so much when it was struggling to get a single hit on him.

TAP

Rui avoided an attack even as he placed his hand partially in the way to get a feel for the dragon's body and gain more information about its movements that way. He could speed up his elimination of possibilities this way.

That was one of the many tactics that Rui employed to speed up the process of developing a predictive model of his opponent.

He was actually impressed by the dragon's relentless fortitude to keep pursuing him. Surely, from the perspective of a predator, he was not worth chasing to this extent. Predators usually sought meals with the most amount of energy for the least amount of effort.

It was completely illogical to continue attacking Rui to this point, and any normal predator would have left him alone.

But apparently, the Illusionary Dragon was too proud.

Unfortunately, it was also intelligent. Although it was incapable of fathoming the sheer magnitude of information that Rui was processing, it understood that Rui was playing the long game where he planned to improve as time went on until he was no longer restricted to defense.

Unfortunately, it had run out of options. The problem was that it didn't understand how Rui could proficiently avoid its attacks so well in the state that he was in. It was utterly incomprehensible to it. Ordinarily, it could effortlessly hunt creatures that were much physically superior to it thanks to its sensory blackout and pain induction mental abilities. These two abilities rendered even the most powerful apex predators vulnerable.

Yet even though it didn't understand how Rui was able to avoid its attacks so proficiently, one thing it understood well was that every creature had its limit. And Rui was certainly not an exception.

SPLAT

Rui grimaced as he somersaulted back, putting his palm to his chest as he felt a light flesh wound caused by the creature's claw.

"ROOOOAAAAAR!" The dragon bellowed triumphantly at finally having drawn first blood. 

'Tsk, looks like the dragon has a stamina advantage over me even with a partial stamina metabody active,' Rui tutted. 'The issue is the Martial Heart's limits.'

Because the gap between his power with and without the Martial Heart was so enormous, it meant that when his stamina wore off, he would weaken much more than other creatures who didn't nearly have as much of a gap between their exhausted state and peak.

BAM!

Rui narrowly evaded yet another powerful attack as he increased the degree of the stamina metabody to preserve his remaining strength better. Thankfully, the predictive model deductions were going well. By having reduced the precision of the predictive models, it was several times easier to create them. He was also quickly getting used to the rigor.

Furthermore, he had purposely avoided sky-walking. A winged creature would have an enormous advantage in a fight midair against a Martial Artist, furthermore, it was easier

His predictions of the dragon's attacks were getting increasingly more accurate and precise. This allowed him to evade the dragon better with less effort than he did before.

The question was whether he would make it in time regard to his stamina. They had been fighting for a long time now, and while the dragon was certainly strained with his stamina, Rui would suffer a lot more than he was.

STEP

Rui's eyes widened as his balance crumbled, where there was supposed to be hard ground, was a gaping hole, preventing him from stepping back at a crucial moment.

BAM!

Rui grimaced as a powerful claw swipe crashed into his guard, flinging him a huge distance away. The actual damage done by the attack was certainly painful, but he was worried about a lot more than just flesh gashes that would heal eventually.

'I've been flung into new territory!'

He cursed even as he was completely immersed in darkness. The psychological toll from not being able to sense his surroundings was high. It certainly grounded down on his mental fortitude to be able to contend with such uncertainty. 

The dragon, however, was not kind enough to offer him respite.

"ROOOAAAR!" It swiftly surged forward toward Rui, sensing blood. The crucial moment of the battle arrived as the dragon lunged forward with its jaws open as it sought to eat Rui whole one one go.

Rui leaped backward, looking to distance himself from the dragon.

BOOM!

He bumped into a cliffside, breaking down the bedrock, but there was just enough resistance to prevent him from evading the attack entirely. He ducked, struggling to avoid the attack at the last moment.

But he was unable to.

CLASP!

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

The dragon soared to the skies, having caught Rui within his claws as he slammed Rui across enormous rock foundations and bedrock, hoping to knock him out so that it could eat him in peace.

Rui gritted his teeth as he began bleeding and bruising all over his body.