The Martial Unity

Time passed quickly. Frankly, there wasn't much for him to do at his quarters. He generally immersed himself in meditation as he thought about his upcoming fight with Servil Bisha, constructing an adapted fighting style for him.

So far, he had only come with a few elements that the adapted style needed to have in order to be suited to fighting Servil Bisha.

Evasiveness and anti-striking counter-offensive were at the core of the style. As long as Rui could negate the lethality that came from the permeation of the impact due to the vibrations, he stood a pretty good chance of negating the threat.

Another means by which he could reduce the formidability of Servil's Martial Art was through grappling. Ground grappling was also another by which he could negate Servil's permeation since Servil needed to inflict impacts to permeate them. He would not be able to land even a handful, if at all any strikes in super-close-range grappling.

Establishing these two elements in his adapted Martial Art was the first step. Now he only needed to finetune it to suit Servil's Martial Art's traits.

This was where he had an advantage compared to the other representatives. They're combat prowess would not change at all between rounds, but he would become more formidable with each round with the greater amount of data and time he had to thoroughly create the most suited Martial Art for taking each of them down.

This was normally something he would have to do mid-fight, but he would achieve better results if he had more time to flesh it out.

Soon, the day passed. He hadn't left his quarters for anything asides from his meals, occasionally running into the other representatives, only half of the original sixteen were present. Yet Fiona was the only one who bothered interacting with him. She remained as eccentric as she was the day prior, asking him all kinds of random questions as she satisfied her curiosity.

"How are you so strong?"

"What's your favourite colour?"

"Did you dye your hair black?"

Rui simply answered those questions as shortly as he could.

Soon, a day had passed and it was time for round two. Rui went through the same procedures until he found himself in the contest viewing balcony yet again.

"Welcome back to the Martial Contest ladies and gentlemen! We will soon be commencing the highly-awaited second round of the contest! Today's matchups are..."

His voice faded into the background as Rui closed his eyes, zoning out. Prior to the start of the Martial Contest, he always thought the festive nature of the contest was a good thing, but now he couldn't help but disagree with his initial notions.

Thankfully, the nonsense ended quickly and the first match was announced.

"In the first match of the second round, we have Ian Nepomniachtchi and his Breathing Mountain Style of the Farund branch facing off against Representative Freund Gamor and his Dreamy Poison Style of the Villimaine branch. The Breathing Goliath faces off against the Toxinmonger!"

The two contestants entered the arena, their powerful minds weighed on the onlookers as tension bwas bred in the atmosphere.

"Take you stances." The referee instructed.

Ian took a neutral stance while Freund's stance leaned more towards offense and speed.

One thing Rui found curious was that Freund took down his mouth mask this fight. He wondered if tehre was any significance to that.

"Grown stronger, have you?" Ian asked coldly. "Unfortunately, it's not going to be good enough. This fight is going to end the same as last time."

"Hmph." Freund snorted. "You talk too much. I'll show you how things have changed since last time!"

There appeared to be a deeper history between them, though it wasn't entirely clear.

"Begin!" The referee commenced the fight.

WHOOSH

Freund blitzed out at Ian with his hand reached out. His intentions were clear. His entire skin was poisonous, but he needed to make contact to apply it against his opponents. He had other kinds of poison too, but they all generally had the same condition.

WHOOSH

Ian avoided Freund cleanly. The sheer speed at which he dodged told Rui that he was using Lightning Breathing to amplify speed. Rui paid close attention to his breathing. He had to face Ian in the next round if he won his match in this round, he hoped to gather as much as information as he possibly could.

Ian was continuously avoiding Freund's attacks. To the untrained eye, it merely seemed like he was being passive as he avoided. But Rui actually approved of his decision. With Freund's poison being as potent as it was, it was best not to touch him unless the gains outweighed the losses. If his poison was like Avi's then even clothing wouldn't be too effective as a defense.

WHOOSH

BAM!

Ian dodged a strike as landed a fearsome kick on Freund's neck, staggering him in pain. It was only strikes to the vitals like this one that were worth coming into physical contact with Freund for. Only with attacks that did meaningful damage could Ian always ensure that he was inflicting more damage on Freund than the latter was on Ian with his poisoned skin.

In this way, Ian could take his time and slowly weather Freund down for a guaranteed win.

Or so he, and even Rui, thought.

Ian's vision blurred just for the tiniest moment. His eyebrows knitted in confusion.

('Is his poison affecting me already?') Ian wondered incredulously. ('But that makes no sense! His poison wasn't this strong and quick last round. There is no way he upgraded it within twenty-four hours.

He staggered mildly as he realized that even his sense of balance was very slowly starting to get affected.

Rui didn't miss that, realizing what had happened. He too was surprised.

('It has to be another poison, but how is Freund applying it?') Rui wondered as he closely watched their interactions.

There was very minimal contact, and in fact zero contact since Ian discovered he was being affected. So what exactly was happening?