The Martial Unity

There were plenty of things Rui had learned today. He learned that when a person abandons and sacrifices the prospects of winning, the prospects of actually inflicting damage on their opponents, all for the sake of stalling for ten minutes, it was pretty difficult to stop them from succeeding at that humble goal.

In a normal fight, they would die immediately after ten minutes, but not in this fight. In this fight, they would win if they succeeded.

He had been surprised that even Neo Godspeed and the predictive model together had been unable to weave past their attacks, but he also noticed that they had diluted their power and spread them wider. Yet it had done them good.

The reason for that was because it took less power to parry his charges away than to hurt him. They compensated for a speed gap with a large area of effect by sacrificing potency.

It was a good counter. They had adapted and evolved to him very well.

Rui froze.

Time slowed down to a crawl.

'They're adapting to me…?' His eyes widened as a profound realization hit him. 'Since when did my opponents adapt to me instead of the other way around?'

How had they been able to make more progress with adaptive evolution than he did?

He leaped away, putting enough distance between them as he studied the two gasping Martial Seniors. He was in the middle of an assassination attempt, yet he felt the need to take just a moment to understand what was happening.

He was positively in a better condition than they were, they had burned through much of their stamina, and they were having a hard time breathing with Breathing Crucifix.

Yet despite being in a better place, they were able to adapt to him more effectively than he did.

Why was that?

'They established their goal and cleanly sacrificed everything that wasn't necessary for it. They're making an efficient application of resources.' Rui realized. '…Am I not doing the same?'

With Death's Sympathy, he didn't need power, he could kill them with a single tap. That was why he went for Neo Godspeed out of all the Metabody techniques, he needed speed more than power and defense.

On top of that, he had put a lot of effort into his predictive models.

'But it hasn't been that helpful,' He clenched his fist. 'Why not…?'

His eyes widened as the answer dawned upon him. '…Because it isn't the best option in this situation.'

He had already experienced that predicting the future did not mean he could change it. The fact of the matter was, that his opponents had essentially built a huge barrier between himself and them, and they shifted it to keep up with his movements, preventing him from approaching.

It was purely a reactive defensive game on their part, the predictive model could not fix his problems. '…And that's the difference between us. They cut away and sacrificed what couldn't fix their problems while I clung to it even harder,' Rui realized. 'Predictive model this, predictive model that. Predictive model every single time. I have been clinging to the pattern recognition system too hard all this time. There are many such circumstances where the pattern recognition system isn't the best, but I mindlessly use it every single time.'

The pattern recognition system was his original baby. One that he had created back on Earth, it held an extremely special place in his heart. It was that that love that had blinded him. It had blinded him from the fact that it wasn't the all-powerful wish-granting superpower that he had been using it as.

At this very moment, Rui came arrived at a profound ultimatum.

'I need to abandon the pattern recognition system if I want to kill Chairman Deacon…' Rui gritted his teeth as he clenched his fists. Just the thought of doing that was painful.

Yet the moment he threw it away, he felt his shoulders lighten.

It was as though every muscle in his body had relaxed. His joints had loosened, allowing him to move freely like he never could before.

This sensation…

'Freedom…' Rui inhaled a deep breath. 'I see…'

He had been shackling himself to the pattern recognition system all this time. When was the last time he made a combat decision without the pattern recognition system?

He indulged his epiphany to its full depth. Despite the fact that he was in the middle of the most important act of his life in the past seven years.

'No…' Rui's eyes softened with realization. 'It's because this is a pivotal moment of my life.'

It was only right that he proved it was worth it.

He glanced at the three Martial Senior bodyguards.

A single emotion reigned in his heart.

Gratitude. One moment, he stood there.

The very next moment, he faded out of existence.

Their eyes widened as they immediately leaped back, landing on Deacon's carriage as they began firing off omnidirectional attacks that served as a force field to keep him away. This strategy proved to be useful against the assassin all this time, thus they were sure that it would work against him for the next ten minutes as well.

Unfortunately, they were wrong. BOOM!!

A titanic impact blasted through the omnidirectional shockwave as Rui surged forth, using Hypertrophic Surge and Phantomind Void as he blasted through their defense. It was precisely because they had chosen to spread themselves thin because that had been optimal against a speedster, but it was sorely lacking against a powerhouse.

The three Martial Seniors shook with shock as they immediately turned themselves in the direction of the invisible force that had blasted through.

But alas, it truly was too late this time.

BAM!

Rui scrambled the brains of one of the Martial Seniors to mush as he blasted him in the head with a punch. The other two Martial Seniors could barely widen their eyes in time before he swiftly followed suit.

Death often came before one realized it.

BAM BAM!

While Hypertrophic Surge was certainly nowhere near as fast as Neo Godspeed, it was certainly not slow. The two Martial Seniors collapsed lifelessly as Rui heaved a sigh, shaking his head.

'Just by changing my approach, I was able to quickly solve a problem that had seemed impossibly difficult. I have a long way to go before I achieve perfect adaptive evolution.'

He had thought that he was doing well before, but now…he realized how wrong he was, how arrogant and ignorant he had been. The final hurdle had been cleared.