“Fuuu…” Rui exhaled.
The next moment his muscles grew taut as he gathered as much energy as he could, preparing for the charge.
DASH
He dashed towards her. Yet, the moment he was close enough;
BOOM
WHOOSH
A powerful whip landed onto him, only for him to disappear!
(‘A feint.’) Feela realized.
He had been using feints to mislead her attacks, allowing him to avoid them.
This was a particularly effective solution as Feela needed rely on predictive measures in order to strike her targets from such a distance. Meaning feints were particular effective against her.
She immediately escalated the attacks.
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Rui barely managed to avoid getting hit as three impacts struck around him. He glanced at her with surprise.
(‘Damn, she’s using both arms and her leg simultaneously.’) Rui realized. Meaning the number of attacks had tripled.
By using all three limbs at once, she was dishing out three separate ranged-attacks at any point in time. Thus, even if the first whip missed him because of a feint, the second or the third would undoubtedly strike him.
BOOM BOOM POW
The third whip landed square on Rui, pushing him back.
The strategy was effective, but it was not without caveats. By increasing the number of strikes, she was forced to reduce the lethality of each strike. Making withstanding them a much more practical solution.
Rui dashed towards her once more.
BOOM BOOM
He feinted out of the first two strikes, but the third was set to hit him!
POW
He used Inner Divergence, Acute Edge and Elastic Shift to negate the impact, before pushing forward.
BOOM BOOM
WHOOSH
POW
He got past yet another set of whips, making even more progress. By carefully choosing when to feint and when to endure, he was able to make use of a combination of both of these approaches to close the distance between him and Feela.
BOOM BOOM
WHOOSH
POW
He timed his defensive techniques perfectly this time, enduring no pain or damage whatsoever.
He was just five meters away.
She had only one last chance!
If Rui crossed the last barrage, the range would be too short for her whips to gain the speed and momentum they normally had.
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Rui feinted, throwing two of the whips off target while throwing up his guard and charging through the last whip with all of his defensive techniques.
(‘Shit-‘) She didn’t even have time to curse.
BAM
Rui charged at her with his maneuvering techniques, accumulating momentum and striking her with Flowing Canon.
Although having her back face the corner meant no one could ever take her back and attack her from a blind spot, it also meant that the probability of her getting knocked out of the ring was much higher. The ease of doing so was greater than if she were at the center of the ring.
As predicted, her capabilities at close quarters were limited and she simply did not possess the techniques needed to deal with one of Rui’s most powerful attacks.
WHOOSH
The attack launched her flying, as she skidded across the ground.
(‘Winner; Rui Quarrier.’) The supervisor immediately declared.
“Fuuu…” He exhaled in relief. (‘Ten more battles to go.’)
He was quite comforted by the fact that he was able to beat Feela handily, especially without needing to use his trump cards. It gave him greater confidence that if he went all out and used all the techniques that he had at his disposal he would be able to combat those he was most worried about.
“Good fight.” Rui had offered her a handshake after he exited the ring. “You were quite strong.”
“As were you.” She returned his gesture. “Now that you beat me, my chances of being chosen as representative are all but gone. You better win.”
“I intend to.” Rui smiled.
He exchanged farewells with her before returning to his friends.
“Good fight.” Kane said.
“That was clean.” Fae agreed.
“Thanks.” Rui replied, consuming a rejuvenation and healing potion, before glancing at Fae. “You’re up next right?”
She nodded. “My match will begin soon, so I should probably get going.”
Rui nodded. She was scheduled to face another rank one fighter; Avi Seth. The reason Rui was particularly interested in the outcome of this fight was because Avi Seth was a Martial Artist with a Martial Art centered around poison.
It’s not that he hadn’t seen poison based Martial Art, it’s just that he hadn’t seen it at higher levels. He didn’t think Fae would lose unless she was careless, so he was curious to see how Avi fought and what he would do against someone of Fae’s caliber.
Rui and the others reached her assigned ring as they spectated. Avi had long red hair, his stature was not particularly large nor too lean, he was perfectly neutral.
What drew Rui’s attention were his hands. They were bizarre, to say the very least. His nails were grotesque and purple, as though they were undergoing necrosis.
(‘Some special conditioning.’) Rui realized. There was no doubt in his mind that Avi had undergone some special conditioning training to that led to the strange physical features he had, there was no doubt that this was connected his specialty either.
The human body did not naturally produce poison. In order for poison-oriented Martial Art to exist there needed to be some degree of human modification that had to be made to the Martial Artist or one simply would not be able to make use of poison oriented Martial Art.
Rui suspected that his hands had been modified to either produce poison or store it. The purple pigmentation was likely due to the presence of poison itself.
Which meant Fae should avoid it at all costs. He glanced at her, sensing certain level of caution from her towards his hands. She could not be too rash, lest she be taken down with a potent form of poison!
“Take your stances.” The supervisor instructed.
The match was about to commence.