The Martial Unity

Chapter 2234  Progressed Friends

CLANG CLANG CLANG!!

Master Inyen gritted her teeth as she barely managed to fend off Kane's aggressive maneuvering and astronomical speed agility. She had trouble breathing at all, let alone activating any breathing techniques due to the broken ribs that she had gotten from her battle against Rui.

WHOOSH!

Her eyes widened as her blade sank into an empty image.

A feint.

Chills crawled up her spine as she recollected Rui using the exact same technique.

SPLAT!

"Rgh…!" She grimaced as an invisible blade carved up her flesh.

Kane rapidly shifted back and forth between speed and stealth mode, using his refined system of thought to estimate the most optimal timing to bring out the best of both. The rapid shift between speed and stealth made it difficult to get a feel for rhythm because Kane had developed alternate sets of attack patterns that were optimal for their respective modes.

He had developed it as a counter against Rui's VOID algorithm, seeking to curb the predictive model on him that Rui had refined over many years and even decades at this point. "But now he's seen it," Kane muttered with a tone of displeasure. "Ah, well."

Surviving came first.

He could not afford to hold back against a Martial Master no matter how exhausted she was.

And exhausted, she was. Her breathing was desperate, gasping for air like someone who had almost drowned. Her vision was starting to blur as her Martial Body was close to depleting both her conventional energy and the energy reserve of her Heart. If not for her dimming her Martial Mind so that she could operate with extraordinary efficiency with even that limited power, she would not have been able to keep up with Kane. Not just to keep up, but even to overwhelm.

SPLAT!

Kane's eyes widened as her Boomerang Blade inflicted a light gash on his abdomen.

"You…" Her eyes widened with rage. "...are not my equal."

SPLAT SPLAT!!

Faster than even he could fully react, another set of wounds appeared on his abdomen.

Her aura sharpened as she gathered her remaining energy, employing it to stabilize her condition.

"Know your place, little Senior."

Her words weren't merely an empty boast.

He could feel the difference in the weight of their existences.

The only reason that she hadn't erased his existence was because of her wounds and her deep exhaustion.

However, even under these circumstances, a Martial Senior fighting with an exceptionally high-grade Martial Master was no different from courting death.

"Heh." Kane smirked as entered speed mode, pushing Fulminata Godspeed to the very limit as he surged forward with the Martial Mind. Fulminata Godspeed had grown tremendously as Kane had integrated his first high principle to generate a stronger current without needing to rely on esoteric implants.

"You haven't seen anything yet." Kane surged with determination. "I'm going to beat you, and then I'm going to catch up with him."

In a different part of the battle, Nel grinned as he fought multiple Masters at once with a maniacal expression.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!

His fingers dug into their flesh, piercing into them as though they were meat.

"Rgh…!" His opponent, a low-grade Master, grimaced. "You animal!"

BOOOM!!

Nel grinned as he blocked a heavy blow from his opponent, flying backwards.

"Is that…" His bloodlust flared. "…the best you can do?"

"Insolent!" one Master shrieked. "Just you wait. When I recover, I will hunt you! I will kill you for not knowing your place."

"Is that so?" Nel grinned. "Too bad you're going to die here today."

His Martial Heart shined with blinding brightness, crackling with immense power while the Martial Hearts of his opponents were so dim that one could miss them if one wasn't paying attention.

It was solely because of this massive difference that he could fight them head-on even as they retreated.

On top of that, Nel was as gifted in Body as Rui was gifted in mind. His Martial Heart had reached a level of power that was comparable to that of the Gatekeeper despite the fact that the latter had cultivated his body for five hundred years.

He had spent the past thirteen years, seven of which were in the manifold, training under the guidance of Sir Armstrong. He had wanted to do that ever since he had learned of the Gatekeeper's existence after Rui's duel with him many years ago.

"You have been blessed with a Body and physicality that greatly exceeds even mine, the Gatekeeper had told him. "However, while I can help you with the Body, I cannot help you reach the Master Realm. That is something that only you can do."

Funnily enough, Nel had indeed been working on a system of thought. Unlike his mentor, he wasn't content simply pursuing physical supremacy.

He was pursuing Martial supremacy.

He had gritted his teeth and began mastering Rui's voidlet techniques ever since they were created.

Even the highly basic and distilled thought techniques that were highly customizable to the point of being incomplete had been extremely difficult for him to master. Yet, it shortened a journey that would have taken decades otherwise.

But it helped him create his one and only system of thought.

"Should I fight…" His grin widened. "…or not?" Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Answering that question was the sole purpose of his system of thought. It inputted data of some parameters and evaluated whether it was optimal to start or continue to fight or not fight.

Strangely enough, the system of thought seemed to give the same answer almost every single time.

"FIGHT IT IS!" He laughed with a maniacal innocence as he leaped at a large group of Masters retreating in the direction of the Sekigahara Confederate.

Even if they were deeply exhausted, attacking so many retreating Martial Masters was always a horrible choice. There was no way that a Martial Senior could fight so many Martial Masters at once!

Yet, he leaped into the fray nonetheless.

The desperate battle for survival cursed the Sekigaharan Masters as they retreated as fast as they could despite the fully rejuvenated Martial Seniors who sought to kill as many as they could.

-