The Martial Unity

The skies began turning heavy and black as an immense amount of moisture condensed into heavy clouds that impeded his Tempestuous Feel. They grew denser and denser as the storm continued brewing.

RUMBLE…

Rui’s nerves tingled.

His instincts screamed.

Chills crawled across his skin as the storm not only grew more powerful than before but also grew more impenetrable and inscrutable.

Yet, before he could even think of leaving the skies and returning to the ground, he felt an electric sense of peril.

CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!

A maelstrom of lightning crackled in the air as Rui felt the sheer amount of charge that the storm conjured up. He dove to the ground, hoping to escape the brewing storm and growing peril.

Yet, it didn’t allow him.

CRACKLE CRACKLE!

“Rgh!” He gritted his teeth as bolts of lightning converged on him, electrocuting him where he stood in the skies. “Damn. He used the heat of the magma attacks to create a powerful pyrocumulonimbus cloud!”

He knew Ieyasu well enough to know that he had replaced the conventional heating principle of this technique with the magma spikes. In other words, he had anticipated the failure of his previous attacks and had used them as a set-up for his next attacks.

CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!

The lightning converged upon a single point.

A single person.

CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!!

A stream of lighting emerged from the tips of his fingers.

At that moment, he resembled a puppeteer.

He who commanded lightning itself.

A profound aura of power and peril radiated from him, inspiring awe and fear in the lifeforms in the region that had the privilege and curse of beholding him.

Yet, the sight of it merely evoked an amused smirk from Rui. “Who do you think you are? Kane?”

He simply gazed at Rui with a stoic expression for a moment before activating a breathing technique and waving his hands down in a graceful curve.

He resembled the conductor of an orchestra.

A conductor who guided the symphonies of thunder.

CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!!!

A truly tremendous amount of electric current converged on Rui at extraordinary speeds. Yet, this time, he defended by attacking.

“Sonic Singularity.”

Instantly, a domain of sound formed around Ieyasu, hurtling a tsunami of sound upon him that threatened to cook him where he stood even as the lightning converged upon Rui. CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!!

VMMM!!

Rui grinned as Ieyasu grimaced.

FSSS…!

Their skin and flesh burned.

Rui activated Nemean Blossom while Ieyasu activated his own defensive technique to withstand the Sonic Singularity domain.

Rui simply stared at him with ferocity.

A primal and predatory glint flashed in the depths of his eyes.

Not even the slightest hint of reluctance towards mutual destruction could be detected in his

eyes.

Ieyasu’s eyes grew more severe.

CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!!

VMMM!!

Ieyasu could sense Rui’s determination and willingness to take it to the very end.

It was an unyielding and fierce drive to see things to the final moment.

He could sense that Rui yearned for death.

Or rather, he yearned to be pushed to the brink of death.

All for the sake of learning who he was.

All for the sake of taking one more step towards the Sage Realm.

He was willing to suffer the hell of being so close to death to the point where even death itself would be the boon to end one’s misery.

It was nothing short of madness.

A desperation for self-enlightenment that might very well have crossed the boundary of mental illness and clinical insanity.

At that moment, Tokugawa Ieyasu couldn’t help but feel chills crawl across his skin.

He had always thought that his drive for self-enlightenment was stronger than any other Masters in existence.

Yet, today, he was proven wrong.

He had come across a man even more desperate to learn about himself than Ieyasu himself.

Rui watched him like a serpent waiting to strike.

He knew, from the mind sense of his Martial Mind, that Ieyasu wasn’t willing to let them cook each other to death and see who died first.

He could sense his reluctance.

And he was right.

Ieyasu’s expression darkened as he finally relented.

His lightning domain dispersed as he redirected his efforts to dispelling Rui’s domain with powerful heaven manipulation.

FSSS…

Both sides stood in the heavens in silence as they activated Weaving Blood to heal their wounds. They exchanged deep gazes as they sized each other. Rui was hardly pleased to see someone else using his technique, but he knew there was no point in getting angry about what his opponent had the power to do.

He minimized the use of his original techniques to ensure that Ieyasu wouldn’t be able to copy them while relying on his mind as much as possible.

That, along with his high principles, was the only advantage that Rui had over Ieyasu. Of course, it was an absolutely enormous advantage of extraordinary proportions, one that Ieyasu could never hope to obtain for himself. Thought was also the one place where Ieyasu didn’t have the extraordinary foundation and mastery that he seemed to have in pretty much every other field in Martial Art.

“In that case…” Rui deactivated Weaving Blood as it finished healing his wounds. “I’ll just have to deal with you with my mind.”

As much as Rui would have loved to dish out Yin-Yang Spear and his other powerful techniques, there was a good chance that Ieyasu would be able to steal it, one way or another.

If that was the case, then Rui simply needed to deny him this possibility by relying on the one thing that he couldn’t steal for himself.

His mind.

This was his solution to adaptively evolving to Ieyasu.

He adjusted his combat style, adopting a simple and neutral stance where he stood. His eyes remained fixed on Ieyasu, refusing to let him out of his sight once more.

Ieyasu simply gazed at him with a stoic expression.

One moment, he was simply standing still.

The very next moment, he appeared before Rui, blindingly fast. A powerful blow surged forth

towards Rui, aiming to knock him out where he stood.