The Martial Unity

Minutes passed.

The Hammerer struggled vigorously. Yet each of his movements was hampered by Heavenly Convergence.

The technique made him feel like he was trying to move while trapped at the center of an ocean of adhesive. By the time his attack struck Rui behind him, most of the power had gone into pushing against Heavenly Convergence.

Every movement he made.

Every attack he made.

Every haymaker he threw.

They were insufficient.

He still would have succeeded in shaking Rui off even after the shackles of Heavenly Convergence if not for the second pair of shackles on not his body but his mind.

Breathing Crucifix prevented him from inhaling the air he needed to generate the power and energy he needed to break free of Rui's grasp.

On top of that, Rui's powerful arm crushed against his windpipe like a constrictor, stopping all breathing.

The man struggled.

Yet, with each passing second, his movements grew more sluggish, slower, and weaker.

His pupils dilated as his vision blurred.

The end was nigh.

WHOOSH!

Yet, Rui's eyes widened as he undid the chokehold, leaping away desperately.

SPLAT!

The Hammerer's head flew into the air, separated from his body by the precise sword swing.

"Dang, I was hoping to take both of you out."

The Thunder Viper's grin was malevolent.

His eyes were wide.

They fixated on Rui.

He sheathed his curved blade as he faced Rui once more.

One moment he was there…

The next moment, he was not.

WHOOSH!

He sped through the air at mind-boggling speeds, incinerating the air into a white inferno with sheer friction alone.

SPLAT!

"Rgh!" Rui gritted his teeth as he barely managed to get decapitated.

What shocked him was how extraordinarily sharp the blade was. It possessed an edge thinner than the claws of Senior Zenshin. It cut through his flesh like a hot knife through butter.

A deep sense of peril flashed through him as he realized that he had come extremely close to death.

"Hey, not bad!" The Thunder Viper laughed, already ready for yet another round. His grip on his blade tightened as he leaped into motion.

"Speed Void."

The assassin's eyes widened with shock as Rui's voice reverberated across his new domain.

His face stretched, blown back with an astounding amount of drag force. The sheer amount of resistance he faced from the air was unlike anything he had experienced in his entire life!

He felt like he was trying to run immersed deep in the ocean!

When he tried accelerating from zero to top speed, all of heaven and earth seemed to be doing everything in their effort to stop his acceleration!

Yet Rui wasn't done.

The assassin's eyes widened as they met Rui's.

Suddenly, the fabric of time went haywire.

Time sped up.

Everything sped up.

The turbulent drag force that opposed him speed to grow faster.

His own body movements became too fast for him to keep up, forcing him to slow down.

'Temporal Disharmony.' Rui narrowed his eyes as he successfully nailed the hypnotic technique.

It helped that Speed Void, the domain born from Project Speed Prison, had completely cut off the man's speed.

Now, he was no longer a speedster.

He may as well have been a below-average Martial Artist with a shitty Martial Body that had no strengths, only weaknesses.

Rui blurred in his slowed-down vision, appearing before him.

He peered into his target's eyes.

They were pitch black.

Greedily consuming all the light that graced it.

They bore into his.

At that moment, he felt naked.

Transparent.

Helpless.

His speed was denied.

His very perception of speed was denied.

What else did he have?

His eyes became hollow as the horrifying answer dawned on him.

'Nothing.'

CRACK!

Rui's powerful blow crashed into his jaw, breaking it.

Yet that wasn't the only thing inside him that broke.

By the time he lost consciousness, he had also escaped Rui's consciousness.

For he had bigger things to worry about.

BAM BAM BAM!

"Rgh!" Rui grimaced with pain as he leaped away from the unconscious body of the Thunder Viper, facing his new opponent.

Or opponents.

Twin sisters stood side by side.

Their cold eyes fixated on Rui.

They had waited for the moment when Rui's attention had been fully consumed by his attack on the Thunder Viper.

WHOOSH!

They flashed forward aggressively, arriving before him just a moment later.

Yet he could only see one.

She stared at him.

Where was the other one?

BAM!!!

He grimaced as a powerful blow crashed into his diaphragm.

It came out of nowhere as the second twin sister completely bypassed his senses.

WHOOSH!

In just a moment, they had already arrived before him.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!

Dozens, hundreds, and thousands of well-timed blows crashed one by one into Rui. An ocean of attacks blasted him at a rate beyond his ability to contend.

"Rrrrrghh!!" Rui gritted his teeth as he desperately defended against each strike.

Each strike exceeded his own.

They were incredibly heavy.

He felt his arms rattling as they crashed into him.

They were incredibly swift, as swift as one could be without being a speed-oriented Martial Artist.

Yet those weren't the most devastating part of their offense.

'It's their absurd coordination. It's even greater than the telepathic-predictive coordination Ieyasu and I had set up!' His eyes widened with shock.

To say they could read each other's minds was an understatement.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!

In just a moment, an uncountable number of blows had been unleashed upon Rui.

Each time he took a step back, they took two steps forward.

Each time he took a step forward, they took two steps forward.

When he tried to so much as catch his breath and breathe, they pressured him with their most powerful, lethal attacks.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!

Rui gasped for breath as the sharp, piercing attacks from their elbows left light gashes across his chest. The very act of breathing became painful!

Rui's eyes widened as he realized one of them had disappeared once more!

BOOM!!!

A titanic blow crashed into his head!