The Martial Unity

Now that Rui thought about it, he had never seen her fight, even back then. He had never seen any of the warriors of the G’ak’arkan Tribe fight against their peers or their enemies.

Of course, he knew that they were all specialized in long-range combat. Thus, he already knew what her Martial Path was going to be about, largely speaking. He was interested in whether she would show him something new.

STEP

The two of them arrived at a distant yet large and uninhabited island that was out of the field of vision of Vilun Island. They didn’t want to accidentally kill everybody if their Martial Embodiments were somehow visible even that great distance away, unlikely as it was.

Rui’s, in particular, would kill Martial Artists as well, not just civilians.

BADUMP!

Their Martial Hearts burst into power as they activated it, followed shortly by their Martial Minds.

That was when she saw his Embodiment.

Her eyes widened with pure shock as a tsunami of endless darkness flooded the entirety of the world.

It subsumed all of heaven and earth, consuming them outright.

A flood of information greater than any other she had ever been hit with crashed into her mind as she felt a burden weighing down on her mind.

It wasn’t light, but it was far from enough to paralyze her.

“Not bad.” Rui smiled. There have been those who have been unable to do even what you have.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t patronize me!”

WHOOSH!

She surged forward as her very existence seemed to transform in Rui’s eyes.

She became the sharp winds of the chilly north, ones that could almost cut everything that they touched.

WHOOSH!!

She breathed in deeply, manipulating the heavens to her beck and call.

Rui simply waited.

They both knew that she was the challenger.

Of course, Rui also knew that Masters could not be judged by intuition alone. However, even then, he was almost certain that he was stronger than her.

If she wanted to be treated like an equal, she would have to earn it.

What followed, however, surprised him.

WHOOOOOSH!!

His eyes widened as she unleashed a remarkable wind blast that soared towards him at lightning-fast speeds, threatening to wipe him away with a single attack.

BOOOOOM!!

Rui narrowed his eyes as he endured the tremendous wind blasts, dispersing its power with Flux Earther.

Yet, he frowned. “How did you…?”

How did she release an attack that was twice as powerful as the energy that her body generated?

That was what he wanted to ask.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the chance.

WHOOOSH WHOOOSH WHOOOSH!

Before he knew it, several blasts of wind converged upon him at remarkable speeds.

BAM BAM BAM!!!

He swerved through the air, evading them by an inch.

Wind blasts tended to be slower than sound attacks, but they also tended to be much wider than sound attacks, making them even harder to avoid.

Yet, despite having avoided them, he couldn’t help but frown.

“Why am I having trouble predicting her attacks…?”

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

He sensed her manipulating heaven and earth ahead of time, yet he was unable to foresee the five attacks that converged upon them.

BOOOOOOM!!

“Tsk, how is he avoiding my heavenly wrath blasts!?” She grumbled as she continued to attack with attack after attack.

Rui, on the other hand, was pleasantly surprised to see her demonstrating that he had indeed never seen before.

He studied her like a hawk, observing her passive patterns such as the shifting of her body weight, her breathing, and her muscle tension and twitches.

He foresaw a great exertion in power in about two microseconds, yet—

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

His eyes widened as he failed to foresee the three wind blasts that converged upon him from outside of the Tempestuous Feel.

BAM BAM BAM!

He met them with three Might Roar Flash Blasts, dispelling them with effortless ease.

“Hah! You’ve gotten really good at that technique!” She grinned, recognizing them on the spot.

The G’ak’arkan Tribe had been the one to teach that technique to him in the first place, after all. Rui had taken the liberty to show off how smooth his proficiency with the technique had grown in the past twenty years.

“Hah, let’s go; we’re just getting started,” Her hands and legs began swaying as she activated yet another breathing technique. Her movements generated even greater wind currents by virtue of the sheer power that underlied them.

Yet, it wasn’t as though power was directly being flung at Rui, no. Instead, she created pressure and temperature gradients that harnessed the ambient kinetic energy of the winds and the air over an enormous amount of volume and amplified with her own heaven-bending before directing it towards Rui in a remarkably short timeframe.

A single gust of wind with enormous power.

BOOOOOM!!

“Got him!” She exclaimed with a grin.

Unfortunately, she only realized that her rejoice was misplaced.

“I see. So, that is how you utilized my Pathfinder technique. It’s impressive, really.”

She froze as Rui’s calm voice emerged from the cloud of dust.

“You utilized the Pathfinder’s extrapolation of local atmospheric change to increase the range of your atmospheric energy redirection.”

In other words, her Martial was centered around long-range environmental energy redirection, and Pathfinder was the perfect tool to increase the range and scope of her energy redirection.

In other words, as long as she was able to understand the specifics of how the atmosphere was going to change, she could drain the atmosphere’s energy over huge radii and redirect it to empower her attacks.

She would have undoubtedly needed to modify the Pathfinder technique to increase its scope from one dimension to three dimensions.

It sounded simple, but it was actually extremely difficult.

STEP

Rui emerged from the dust cloud unharmed. “No wonder you took an entire decade after that; it’s actually quite impressive.”

“Tsk,” she tutted as she fired several attacks at him.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!

Yet, just as they were about to hit him—

WHOOSH…

They dispelled out of nowhere, seemingly disappearing into thin air.

“Unfortunately, I have already adaptively evolved to them.”

He had no intention of explaining how.

WHOOSH!

In the blink of an eye, he arrived before her as a powerful Yin-Yang Spear surged towards her.

–