The Martial Unity

The difference was startling.

Squire Frinjschia's eyes narrowed as she felt a profound sense of peril unlike anything she had ever felt.

She always felt the faint pressure of death from particularly powerful Martial Squires. Even if she did not mind dying, her body was still cognizant of the threat of death that particularly lethal Martial Squires and Martial Artists of a higher Realm exerted on her.

Yet, this was different.

She felt a bone-chilling terror from Rui as if death was not the worst he could inflict on her.

Her instincts could sense it clearly.

The perils the depth of his eyes conveyed were beyond her fathoming

Instantly, her wariness spiked as she honed her focus.

He took a neutral stance, just like she did. The two faced each other in close quarters, facing each other eye to eye.

"Begin!"

She did not even hesitate. Instantly, she lashed out at him with her remarkable agility, throwing a number of jabs at his vitals.

POW POW POW! WHOOSH!

Rui dispersed their impacts only to have his own blow dodged with ease.

BAM BAM BAM! WHOOSH!

He narrowly turned, managing to block and disperse the impacts of her strikes with Flux Earther yet again, only to have his own blow dodged.

He had to admit, her evasive maneuvering was splendid. Even Kane would have been quite impressed had he been here to witness it. Landing a single blow on her was quite difficult because muscle memory reflexes felt more impressive in person than when he was watching it from the contestant stands.

Yet it was far from enough to deal with him.

WHOOSH!

Her eyes widened as her blow crashed into an empty image that faded immediately.

BAM!

She gritted her teeth as a Flowing Canon immediately crashed into her, pummeling her with all of his momentum.

Rui raced in towards her, looking to build upon this momentum, yet it appeared that she was too wary of his offense.

'Strange, she was more aggressive against the Kandrian prince than against me.' Rui noted as he continued to pursue trying to find openings as the two of them exchanged.

He wondered if she had gained an inkling of what he intended to do. he thought he had hidden his intentions well behind a Mind Mask, but perhaps he had underestimated the intuition of a Martial Artist who had been training and fighting literally the entirety of the normal human lifespan.

He could sense a degree of reluctance and wariness from her movements when he compared it to the bold decisions she took in her previous fight.

'Well, if you're not going to come to me, then don't mind if I come to you.' Rui mused.

He hadn't been merely going back and forth with her. His predictive model had already made substantial progress as he gathered increasingly more data.

BAM! 

His fist collided straight into her face with unerring accuracy as he launched her away.

She managed to land on her feet, skidding away with a look of surprise on her face. 'I thought I dodged at that, but he instantly altered its trajectory in the direction I was moving in even before I had begun!'

Something was off.

Rui began exerting a greater sense of threat than he did before. It was unnerving.

She had already seen his larger form against the abyssfeeder, and had seen a hint of his capability for extreme speed in the second round yesterday. She knew that his current capabilities were far from his limit.

Yet she was not resigned. Against someone like Rui, she had already determined that taking him down quickly in the short term was the most optimal course of action.

That required her to be aggressive against him, but for some reason, she found it particularly difficult to actually go ahead with the plan.

Her eyes narrowed as her fists clenched. 'Getting bogged down isn't like me.'

She made up her mind, rushing in before launching a barrage of strikes and blows. Her balled fists morphed into knuckle punches as she aimed to inflict greater damage with each strike and make it harder to disperse her attacks.

One could imagine her shock when he blocked all of them with greater ease than he did before.

CRACK!

She grimaced as Rui managed to cleanly break one of her knuckles with a well-timed counter. 

Yet he was far from done.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Her eyes widened as Rui effortlessly evaded her muscle-memory combinations as if he long knew how they were going to unfold. His movements began growing smoother and smoother as he grew more comfortable in dismantling her muscle memory offense.

Yet it wasn't only her offense that was compromised.

Evasive maneuvering was one avenue she was better at than the others because it paired really well with a muscle memory combat style.

Yet even that was denied.

WHOOSH!

She sharply evaded a swift blow cleanly, shifting to the side

Yet it was too late to dodge the kick that had already arrived where she had just reached. 

BAM!

She grimaced as it crashed into her ribs unguarded, flinging her away. She sky-walked away, hoping to get some respite.

But Rui had no intentions of being merciful.

'Overcome this,' Rui mused as he braced himself to launch a barrage of Mighty Roar Flash Blasts, activating the ODA System of the Void Pathfinder. 'Overcome this, and you shall thank me for the rest of your life.'

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!

He mercilessly shot her down from the air with perfectly well-timed and placed sonic bullets. Barrage after barrage crashed onto her.

Her ferocity began revealing itself after she realized the dire predicament she was in.

She had assumed that Rui's greatest threat came from the abysmal power and speed that he had displayed in the three elimination rounds previously, but it was only now that she fought him that she realized that that was less than half the story!

It was icing on the cake.

If she wanted to win this battle, she needed to fight with her life on the line!