The Martial Unity

He gazed at her warily as the pressure she exerted on him only grew by the second.

She was immersed in him.

In the person she had to kill.

He recognized her state of mind.

He had entered such a state himself several times in his life, fleeting and obscure as it was.

But it was especially familiar because Rui often voluntarily entered this state, usually before battles of great importance. He had done so before the most important battle that he had faced in the Senior Realm—his battle against the chimera.

That was why Kane knew that fighting carelessly was a blunder against this woman.

“Still…”

WHOOSH! In the blink of an eye, he had crossed the distance between them, reaching astronomical speeds. “…I’ll win.” His eyes flared with determination.

The very next moment, he came face to face with her blade, inches away from his eyes.

WHOOSH!

He ducked half a foot, surging forward as the blade passed above him.

Yet, just before he could dig his daggers into her gut—

WHOOSH!

He somersaulted away, evading an incredibly swift Boomerang Blade.

“Tsk.” He sharpened his gaze. ‘I would have lost my head if I continued with the attack. It’s not just that she has a good system of thought. No, this woman…’

She had extraordinary instincts and intuition.

He could tell that she wasn’t being extremely thoughtful in her actions. He had come to recognize how to spot an extremely thoughtful Martial Artist after all the decades he had known Rui.

‘It’s not going to be easy to crack her defenses, but maybe I don’t need to.’

After all, she was itching to kill him first.

WHOOSH!

She surged forward, taking the offensive, ready to take him down as soon as possible.

“Silent Sword Style…” A faint whisper escaped her. “…Twelve-Strike Vortex.”

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Kane weaved and bounced about the storm of winds and sound that emerged from an extraordinarily swift set of sword swings.

“You…” Her eyes flared with bloodlust, “are transparent.”

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!

His eyes widened as cuts appeared on his entire body.

“You cannot evade my blade.”

WHOOSH!

He leaped out of the way, only to find that a rebounded swing had arrived at his location even before he had.

SPLAT!!

“Rgh…!” Kane grimaced as he leaped away with shock. He recognized the sensation he had just experienced.

It was similar to what he felt when trying to avoid Rui’s strikes.

“Your system of thought… is predicting me?” He narrowed his eyes.

“I told you…” she murmured, almost in a trance. “You’re transparent.”

WHOOSH!

She appeared before him in the blink of an eye, having used her Sword Step technique to cross the distance between them at extraordinary speeds.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Kane narrowed his eyes as he sharpened his reflexes, pushing himself to the very limit.

Each time he evaded her attacks and surged for her throat, he would find himself inches away from her Boomerang Blade, forcing him to leap away with a dodge and to enter into a stronger state of Fulminata Godspeed.

His system of thought had led him to the conclusion that Void Step was highly sub-optimal against her.

She had a Martial Mind, dim and highly depleted as it was.

But it meant that he couldn’t misdirect her beyond a one-time surprise move. It meant that, for this battle, he would have no choice but to stick only to Fulminata Godspeed.

Ordinarily, that meant that he was never getting touched by any Martial Senior ever.

But, unfortunately for him, his opponent was a Martial Master.

CLANG!

He narrowed his eyes as his daggers barely protected his neck from decapitation, leaping away to safety.

Yet, Master Inyen refused to let him go.

A foolish decision in the big picture. In her immersed state of bloodlust against Kane, she had forgotten the very thing that she had warned her fellow Sekigaharans off—they needed to retreat.

Yet within the battle, it was the best possible decision.

WHOOSH!

She arrived before him at extremely high speeds with her Sword Step techniques, refusing to give him any reprieve.

WHOOSH!

Kane evaded her smoothly, yet this time, he didn’t even have the time to mount an attack!

CLANG!

He gritted his teeth, stunned as she managed to predict the direction of evasion even earlier this time.

She had one system of thought.

Just this one, yet she had dedicated centuries to refining it and nothing else.

“It wasn’t able to shine against me because my prediction is much superior and universal but…” Rui watched them battle from atop a distant mountain. “…When it specifically comes to predicting evasion, her system of thought is not much below the VOID algorithm in that particular field.”

Of course, the VOID algorithm was still far superior even though John Falken had not refined it for centuries. This was because the VOID algorithm had been created using cutting-edge statistics,probability theory, and state-of-the-art data science.

It was fundamentally of a different caliber than all other systems of thought in this world.

“However, that’s not relevant here because,” Rui narrowed his eyes, “you have poor compatibility against her, Kane.”

CLANG CLANG CLANG!

Kane gritted his teeth as he was forced to parry every sword attack that found itself in his face each time he evaded her initial attack.

His evasion success rate only plummeted as she began predicting him better.

Kane soon came to realize what Rui already had.

“Shit,” he cursed. “Of all the goddamn opponents I could have picked! I just had to pick one with a Martial Mind that specialized in dealing with evasion!”

Initially, he thought that she was just good at predicting in general. But he noticed that avoiding her was far, far harder than actually landing attacks on her.

In other words, her system of thought was focused only on prediction of evasion.

It was no wonder he was having such a hard time. ‘Wait, but it’s worse than that…’ Kane’s eyes grew grave. ‘If her system of thought is anything like Rui’s then…’

Then it would only grow stronger and stronger with more time.

Making it harder and harder for him to survive.

–