The Martial Unity

Without even the slightest hesitation, he activated Neo Godspeed and Nemean Blossom at fifty percent each.

He didn’t make the decision lightly.

Despite having developed a predictive model on her with Angel of Laplace, he was barely able to evade her very initial strike from a distance of ten meters. Her power and speed exceeded his greatest expectations.

And yet, she was just getting started.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary onslaughts Rui had ever experienced.

Each blow she threw was simple.

It was elementary.

And yet-

BOOOOOOM!!!!! BOOOOOOM!!!!! BOOOOOOM!!!!!

The speed at which they transmitted devastating power was truly unlike anything Rui had ever seen in his entire life.

The warm and bright smile had yet to leave her face.

And yet-

BOOOOOOM!!!!!

Each blow sent ripples throughout the entirety of the underground battle arena.

Each blow shook the world.

Each blow shook her opponent.

BOOOOOOM!!!!!

CRACK

Rui’s expression grew grim as he momentarily activated Weaving Blood to heal the crack in his bone.

And yet, the next attack had already come.

BOOOOOOM!!!!!

Not even the combination of the Metabody System, the pattern recognition system, and Flux Earther could disperse the sheer power that she imparted with each attack.

And yet, what shook him the most was not the force of her attacks but the fact that he was unable to discern their origin.

He was unable to detect any high principles.

He was unable to discern the mechanism of the technique she was using.

How could a simple palm attack unleash more power than his Yin-Yang Spear?

It made no sense!

BOOOOOOM!!!!!

He skidded away from the sheer impact only to find that she had already arrived at her location. While Rui racked his brains trying to understand the principles underlying her power, she simply attacked over and over.

She didn’t so much as deploy a single breathing technique.

She didn’t so much as deploy a single maneuvering technique.

She didn’t so much as deploy a single offensive technique.

She didn’t even attack.

She didn’t even fight.

She simply lived.

She simply lived her life amid this battle.

Pushing rocks with a palm thrust for a century was not easy.

It was even harder to do it with one heart, mind, and soul, to dedicate the sum totality of one’s existence to even the most mundane of tasks.

And yet, she did it anyway.

She didn’t do it with a gritted face or grim expression either.

She did it with an earnest and heartfelt smile. She did it with all the joy and happiness that she

could muster up. Unbeknownst to her, she was actually training her Martial Art with an

efficiency the likes of which the world had perhaps never seen.

The most efficient ways to embed memory in one’s mind was with association with happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, and euphoria. The brain retained information associated with dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins.

It was why remembering answers to a question in an exam required exertion, but remembering the lyrics to one’s favorite song or the lines in one’s favorite movies was effortless and came naturally.

Thus, even though she had trained only for a hundred years since almost every moment was drowned in satisfaction, euphoria, and optimism, she had effectively trained for more than one thousand years.

The result?

An unfathomable level of mastery the likes of which the world had never seen before.

And yet, not even that was enough to overwhelm the Dawnbringer.

A single remark escaped him.

“I can see your SOUL.”

WHOOSH

Amare’s eyes widened with surprise as her palm crashed into an empty image.

A feint.

“I think I understand now.”

Chills crawled across her skin as she heard his voice right behind her. She leaped away, turning

around with a stunned expression as she beheld the Dawnbringer.

His dark eyes pierced right through her.

As though she was naked.

Transparent.

“You…” he continued with the faintest of whispers, “are a miracle.”

His whisper reverberated throughout the entirety of the battle arena.

“So much so that I wasn’t able to understand your power until I created your SOUL model,” he continued with an awed smile. “You… You have gone beyond the absolute mechanical, thermodynamic, and physiostructural efficiency that all Masters have, haven’t you?”

She stared at him with a dumbfounded smile.

“…I don’t know what that means.”

Rui chuckled at her innocent confusion.

And then, he attacked her.

“Show me the full depth of your mastery.”

The full power of Hypertrophic Surge and Yin-Yang Spear rushed towards her in a flurry of blows, one after another, as Rui exerted great power to test her limits.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOM!!!

And yet, she defended elegantly.

She had the grace of a ballerina channeling untold amounts of power. Every attack he threw

was elegantly redirected, blocked, or evaded with a realm of smoothness and ease that he

didn’t even know was possible.

And yet, his grin widened.

His fascination with her only kept growing with each passing moment.

It couldn’t be helped.

Not after he understood the source of power.

She was the answer.

She was the answer to the question of what would happen if someone’s muscle memory and mastery had risen so high that they could harness every cell in their body in absolute

harmony.

She was the answer to the question of what would happen if one’s mastery was so high that every single molecule in one’s body was able to unite and deliver her actions in a single

motion.

Every single iota of metabolism, from the cells in her muscle that combusted ATP to produce mechanical energy to the shining blood cells in her body that delivered oxygen and took away the carbon dioxide, to the neurons in her head that fired the most minute of electrical

impulses.

What would happen if all of them worked in quantum harmony, generating an output that was absolutely impossible otherwise?

It was a realm of mastery that far surpassed anything Rui had ever seen in his entire life.

BOOOOOOOM!!!!

Less than half a minute had passed since the battle had begun as it escalated to even greater

heights.

RUMBLE!!!