The Martial Unity

Rui had to admit, he had found her Martial Art interesting when he read up on the intelligence on Senior Fern that the Beggar's Sect had provided him.

The Chanting Sword Style was an offensive Martial Art that relied on the blade to produce a sharp piercing sound that struck the target with sharp focused pressure. By relying on a breathing technique, she altered the density of air in the trajectory of her blade in such a way it generated a two-dimensional sound wave.

It was a Martial Art that could generate long-range attacks despite requiring a sword. A fascinating concept that he had only seen once before.

Yet also nothing he couldn't overcome.

He was unable to assassinate her with ease because the Carnil Mafia had gone as far as to supply all Martial Seniors with potions that could allow them to keep their Martial Heart active for extensive period of time, allowing them to maintain Senior-level defenses at all times.

Thus he could not crush them, merely inflict damage with an initial ambush. After that, it was pure head-on combat. The battle had proceeded more or less exactly how he expected. Breathing Crucifix massively reduced her offensive lethality, neutering a grade-eleven Martial Senior, one who was only two grades away from being high-grade.

Although it was a shame he was unable to maintain the Greater Phantomind Void while being physically suppressed with lethal attacks due to the fact that needing to heavily defend his life altered his non-verbal communication, he had already been resigned to this fact.

Kane's Void Step also suffered from a similar problem, if he was hit with an attack, then the misdirection was completely undone. They had almost gotten caught by Deacon Industries much earlier in the Shionel Dungeon due to this when Kane had gotten hit with a powerful shockwave.

However, it didn't matter all that much to the outcome of the attack since he would need to put it aside when using the VOID algorithm in the first place. Breathing Crucifix along with the elementary predictive model he had already created was more than enough to grant him dominance.

There were only two things that caught him off-guard.

The first was her technique naming sense, and more importantly, saying the name of the technique out loud while using it.

He had rarely come across such a tendency and he was glad that most Martial Artists had the common sense to not utter out the name of their technique when using it, but it still made him cringe when he heard it.

Not to mention the metaphorical abstract extravagant names.

In fact, he might have chosen to mock her for it had he not felt an extreme sense of danger from the technique.

That was the second thing that caught him off-guard.

"Chanting Sword Style," She whispered. "Three Hundred and Sixty Hymns of the Dying Blade."

Chills crawled across his skin as shivers went down his spine. Primordial Instinct rang alarms in his head about a perilous danger emerging from her. He swiftly ceased his attacks, leaping away at top speed.

BOOM!!!

An explosion that consumed half a mountain erupted from her. 

'No…This is…' Rui's eyes widened as he gleaned the true nature of the attack.

It was not an explosion, it was three hundred and sixty of her blade swings, generating two-dimensional waves expanding outwards in every direction.

It formed a sphere, for there were three hundred and sixty angles in a circle.

"Rgh!" Rui activated Nemean Blossom as the slices overtook, cutting away into his flesh. Yet thanks to the distance, they had already been diluted significantly, leaving only flesh damage on his body.

"Damn…" Rui cursed. "What the hell was that?"

Considering the power exceeded what he had seen from high-grade Martial Seniors like Senior Ceeran and Senior Zenshin, it had to be some kind of extraordinary grade-ten technique.

He immediately expanded his senses, searching for his target. 

Yet his eyes could only widen as he came across her bleeding corpse. Her skin and flesh were ravaged, leaving an unrecognizable corpse behind. 

"I see… It was a forbidden technique," Rui heaved a sigh.

Forbidden techniques were techniques that had been outlawed by the Martial Union due to being extremely self-destructive and dangerous to the user and causing permanent damage or death to the user. Such techniques were greatly restricted in their spread to ensure that as few Martial Artists as possible mastered them and thus as few succumbed to them as possible.

His Metabody System could be considered a forbidden technique if he used all the metabodies at once, gaining extraordinary power in exchange for his life.

However, if she generated power at the cost of her constitution, then it made sense that she was able to generated such a devastatingly powerful attack. Had he been caught in that at close range, he would have been in a critical condition.

She had sensed her imminent loss and had decided to try and take him with her. But alas, she had underestimated him.

"One down, eight more to go," Rui heaved a sigh, drinking a healing and rejuvenation potion as he switched directions, rushing off in another direction in the forest to his next target.

He didn't have time. The Carnil Mafia was not going to lag much behind when it came to the drug supply from the Hypnonarak forest. He gave himself a week at most. He needed to kill all the Martial Seniors of the Gereign base of operations and then reduce the base to ashes before reinforcements arrived.

'It's a shame her clothes were destroyed in that final suicide attack,' Rui tutted, narrowing his eyes. 'I need the Carnil Mafia's crest if I want my plan to work."

Rui had come up with a strategy to ensure that he successfully eradicated the Carnil mafia's base of operations, but also ensured that the mafia would direct its attention away from him elsewhere by the time he was done.

He swiftly headed over to his next target, another Martial Senior in the Great Forest of Hypnonarak.