The Martial Unity

POW!

Rui swung a hook only for his opponent to step towards the strike, blocking it with an armed guard. Rui seamlessly hurled an already-wound straight punch to the man's face.

BAM!

Once again, the man stepped forward in the direction of the attack, blocking it with a forward guard. He was incredibly swift for a defensive Martial Apprentice, being able to keep up with Rui's every attack. Rui launched a barrage of blows, yet time after time, the man somehow continued blocking all of Rui's attacks casually.

('He's ruining the timing of my attacks.') Rui quickly realized. ('He's using a technique where he steps forward in the direction of the attack and blocks it prematurely before the attack has charged enough to reach its peak.')

It was a simple yet fascinating principle. Every attack had a peak as speed and power went. Martial Artists swung their fists and legs and spaced themselves such that the attack would land on their target when the attack was at peak power in order to deliver the maximum possible impact.

Rui's opponent instead, rapidly stepped forward in the briefest of moments before the attack had reached its peak and intercepted it when it was weak. This way he could prevent his opponent from showing their best striking power in a fight. Of course, he used other techniques to mitigate the impact, including some passive defense that came from conditioning.

Yet, it was this mistiming technique that drew Rui's interest.

This technique also foiled Reverberating Lance since Rui always timed the technique for the normal collision of the attack. But that was only if Rui continued to fail.

BOOM!

The man grimaced for the first time as a powerful body blow slammed into his guards

Rui kept a careful eye on his movements with Primordial Instinct boosted by the Mindmirror secondary brain, carefully readjusting the timing of the Reverberating lance to suit the sabotages of his opponent. Rui continued whaling away at him as he began inputting data about his opponent into his mind palace.

BAM!

Rui cleanly bypassed his guard as a powerful blow crashed into the man's guard launching him some distance away.

The biggest problem with the mistiming technique was that it made him predictable and easy to read. If he approached attacks o through them off-timing, then Rui knew exactly what he would do to each attack.

The actual predictive model of each attack was not even complete, yet at this stage, Rui wasn't even sure if he actually needed it.

Rui launched a powerful hook aimed at the man's jaw. The man, like clockwork, prematurely moves to mis-time the attack. Yet;

WHOOSH

It was an illusion.

BAM!

Before he could even process it, a sudden attack appeared and crashed into his jaw. The sheer impact of Rui's true, unhindered power crashed into his jaw. The impact shook his brain, immediately triggering brain trauma.

THUD

He collapsed on the ground.

Yet, Rui wasn't done.

('This lart sucks.') Rui sighed with a solemn expression.

BAM!!

A powerful drop kick to the head was the end. A pool of blood began forming from the man's head. His skull had been shattered and his brain had already been damaged.

BAM!

Rui immediately turned over as the deed was complete.

The mission bill had been extremely clear. There was to be no mercy shown to hostile competitors' Martial Apprentices. The participating Martial Apprentices were not allowed to let the vanquished Martial Artists survive. Rui began attacking the Martial Apprentices one by one.

The tide of the battle had begun to overwhelmingly devolve in the favor of the Kandrian Empire. The reason for that was that the Kingdom of Nochus was a small and weak country that simply was unable to compensate for the large disparity in quality and quantity of Martial Apprentices.

Rui was the biggest problem, as everyone soon came to realize.

He was a menace. An incredible all-rounder who was highly capable. On top of that, the VOID algorithm was particularly brutal. Yet what was even more brutal was how none of them were Martial Apprentices where Rui genuinely would be unable to win without it.

BAM!

Rui landed stray attacks on other hostile foreign Martial Apprentices. He pranced around the battlefield looking for especially powerful Martial Apprentices, yet he couldn't find them.

He sighed, disappointed mid-battle. Although he knew the Kingdom of Nochus was small and weak he hadn't expected how much weaker it actually would be. The lackluster Martial Apprentice all reflected the inferiority of the Kingdom of Nochus.

Rui sighed as he evaded a canon attack. Primordial Instinct kept a focus on the battle yet his mind was preoccupied. He had no competition in the little place.

Rui was certain that the large nations would be different. These were nations that were more or fewer supernations that were on par with the Kandrian Empire. Rui was sure that at the very least one of the supernations had enough Martial Apprentices who were powerful enough to take him on. What were the odds that he was genuinely unmatched even with such a drastically wide and large ample size? What were the odds that not a single Martial Apprentice across so many countless Martial Apprentices was simply insufficient to take him on and truly test his powers against a genuine equal who could push him to his absolute limit?

Before he could even ponder the manner:

Suddenly.

WHOOSH

Rui side-stepped as he cleanly and smoothly evaded the attack, glancing back at the direction it come from.

His eyes widened as he clearly beheld two Martial Apprentices in the room.

One of which was Ian Nepomniachtchi, who had been eying him in hindsight.

('No way...') Rui thought to himself. ('No way he just fired an attack at me?')

Rui felt several conflicting thoughts as he analyzed the situation and many different possible explanations as to why the other Martial Apprentice was the one to have fired the attack. Yet his gut told him that he was wrong.