The Martial Unity

WHOOSH

Rui avoided the first strike, barely.

BAM!

The second strike, however, crashed into his guard. It was only then that Rui understood the threat that Servil Bisha posed.

The impact freely permeated past his guard, through the skin and flesh of his abdomen. It penetrated all the way to his diaphragm, stunning the muscle and stunting his breathing a bit.

It was almost like his defenses did not matter at all. Rui was shocked, he had never experienced an attack like this.

Even though his raw power was not quite remarkable, the sense of threat his offense was no different from what Rui felt against Nel. If Rui did not have Inner Divergence that dispersed impacts across the entirety of his body uniformly, he would have suffered critical damage. He might have even gotten knocked out if his diaphragm suffered too much.

He could not afford to take many of those attacks. If anything, he felt a lot of respect for Arjun Erigaisi, who withstood countless such blows for a long time in the first round.

Rui was only able to avoid a portion of the blows, the remaining struck him, inflicting damage even though he did his very best with Elastic Shift, Acute Edge and Inner Divergence.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the right moment.

Servil threw a weight blow at Rui's face, hoping to knock him out.

('Now!') Rui rolled with the strike, as he fell backwards.

CLASP

His four limbs wrapped around Servil's arm, tightly coiling around it.

Before she could even mount an attack;

CRACK

"Aargh!" She grimaced collapsing to the ground as Rui dislocated her elbow cleanly, bending it at an unnatural angle.

But he wasn't done.

He slowly maneuvered to her back, lashing out at her neck the right timing. With his right arm wrapped tightly around it and his left hand on the back of her head pushing her into the chokehold. There wasn't much she could do. She struggled as she used her vibration permeation as she attacked with blows over and over. But soon her vision blurred as she struggled to breathe.

A proper chokehold severely restricted or completely blocked blood blow to the brain. She had several seconds before she lost consciousness.

Rui endured all of her attacks as excruciating as some of them were.

"Winner; Representative Rui Quarrier!"

The referee announced after he confirmed Servil had momentarily passed out. That was enough for Rui to fulfill the win conditions.

He let go of her as got up, struggling. Even in a brief period of time, she had managed to damage the joints of his lower body with her permeation technique.

She was strong. But unfortunately for her the VOID algorithm was remarkably compatible with her Martial Art.

"Aaaand we have a winner folks! Representative Rui Quarrier also secures his spot in the third round of the Martial Contest after a brutal victory against representative Servil Bisha!"

The crowd cheered loudly at those words amidst the applause.

On his way back, he pondered about his fight.

Servil was strong, but he had pronounced strengths and pronounced weaknesses. That made him very incompatible against someone like Rui. Someone who was very good at negating pronounced strength and exploiting pronounced weakness.

His next opponent was not going to be that simple, however. Ian Nepomniactchi was extremely strong, and he hadn't probably even shown all his cards yet.

That made Rui wary of him since he did not know what else Ian had. However, even if he had somehow revealed everything he could do, he was still an incredibly strong menace.

Rui shook his head, dismissing the matter. He had enough time to consider the matter later.

He returned the viewing balcony.

"Well done." Squire Kyrie congratulated.

"You nailed that quite well." Dylon threw a thumbs up. "No doubt thanks to my brilliant guidance, of course."

Rui ignored his remark as he focused on the arena. The next match was just about to be commenced. The outcome of this match was most interesting to him.

"Moving onto the next fight. We have representative Ferlicia Ernand of the Frtizer branch and her Blazing Fury Style. On the hand we have representative Mia Marnt and her Echo Blast Style representing the Fellen branch!"

The two women stepped into the arena, walking in and facing each other. They were incredibly determined and it reflected, not just on their face but in the heavy aura they exerted on the atmosphere.

"Take your stances." The referee instructed.

Ferlicia reverted to her offensive grappling stance while Mia also reverted to her odd stance that focused on facilitating her sound attacks.

"Begin!" The referee commenced the fight.

WHOOSH

Ferlicia dashed towards Mia as her skin reddened with heat.

Mia immediately cupped around her mouth and roared as invisible sound bullets as she leapt back trying to maintain distance.

They both were already aware of the fighting style of their opponent, and were also aware of the win conditions to the fight, one way or another.

If Ferlicia managed to close the gap and get a hold of Mia, it was over. If Mia managed to keep Ferlicia at a distance, then she would be able to win the fight.

Ferlicia's toughness wasn't great. It wasn't bad, of course. But most of her defense came from the fact that nobody could touch her. However, Mia didn't need to touch her in order to damage her. She only needed to pepper her with sound bullets from a distance.

They both had little to no defenses against other. This battle had become a race. Ferlicia needed to close the gap and get a hold of Mia before she sustained enough damage from Mia's offenses, while Mia had to avoid ever getting into contact with Ferlicia. As a grappler she would undoubtedly get a hold of her and roast her alive, literally, if that ever happened.

Rui was quite curious about seeing how the two of them would go about this, it would also likely force them to use everything they had. Which was good for him.