“Take your stances.” The referee instructed.
Surman Marliak took a strange stance. He lifted his left leg, positioning his left foot at right knee. One arm was raised over his head while the other was raised towards Rui.
Rui wasn’t sure what to make of this stance. It looked strange and silly, but the fact that Rui didn’t understand the significance and reason for it simply meant his understanding of mental techniques was limited. He had tried to do some research, but he was limited.
In the face of the unknown, he simply chose a simple neutral stance while activating pushing his sensory techniques to their limit.
“Begin!” The supervisor declared!
WHOOSH
Surman Marliak disappeared in everyone’s eye, drawing a gasp from the crowd.
POW
He appeared next to Rui throwing a powerful strike, but to his surprise Rui had managed to block him easily.
POW!
Surman retreated in surprise. He didn’t expect his misdirection to fail so spectacularly. What he didn’t know was that Rui was able to see through misdirection far greater than what he had used. After all, Rui had been able to detect Kane’s position despite the Void Step technique; A technique with grade ten potency and difficulty.
Rui chased after him, refusing to let him go too easily. Surman paused at the sight, taking his strange stance yet again, he moved his arms legs in slow wavy patterns even as Rui approached him. It was then, Rui’s eyes flew wide open as he suddenly Surman Marliak’s figure cloned into two!
Suddenly he saw two Surman Marliaks!
What was this sorcery?
POW!
Both Surman Marliaks threw a strike, pushing him back.
Rui frowned, calming down. There was no way the clone was real, Martial Art was not that absurd, not yet. Furthermore, Surman’s specialty was mental techniques, so this was some kind of trick that Rui wasn’t quite understanding.
The two images of Surman he saw were identical, their positioning, and their movements were all identical.
Rui’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening.
The brain received visual inputs from both eyes, however, both eyes were positioned seperately, meaning the visual input they supplied to the brain were different. The reason people had a singular vision despite two eyes was because the brain merged those two images. Diplopia was the condition of having double images due to the brain not fusing the two separate feeds from the eyes properly.
Rui strongly suspected that that was why he was seeing two Surman Marliaks. The strange movements that Surman had performed shortly before his vision had doubled was likely some kind of hypnotic or mental technique.
He knew that vision and other sensory input could affect the brain and mind in various ways. He also suspected that this was the principle on which mental manipulation techniques worked.
WHOOSH
Surman dashed at him, hoping to take advantage of Rui’s disorientation, yet once again.
WHAM!
Rui not only didn’t get his but also batted Surman away with a swift kick. Surman frowned as landed back, realizing Rui was mentally remarkably resillient for him be this unaffected.
A combination of Rui’s supernaturally powerful mind and the Primordial Instinct allowed Rui to fight almost unperturbed despite his disorientation. Rui’s mental fortitude was quite remarkable, to the point that Surman suspected he was employing anti-mental manipulation techniques.
He began employing even more strange stances. His body moved and contorted in bizarre ways bewitching the eyes of onlookers.
Rui rushed forward attempting to stop what he was doing. He went for a swing when he suddenly froze. A sharp sense of pain rushed across his entire body!
But nothing had physically changed!
Why did he suddenly feel pain?
POW POW POW
Surman took advantage of Rui’s openings launching a flurry of strikes. He began some more strange movements.
Rui struggled to defend as he turtled up.
(‘He can induce pain?’) Rui wondered, shocked!
He did not think such a thing was possible!
Suddenly, he felt his mind blurring as Surman struck his temple before performing some more strange maneuvers.
The result was that the very world around Rui had begun bending and morphing, more and more so by the second.
(‘He’s affecting my spatial awareness too?!’)
BAM!
Surman’s fist crashed into Rui, driving him back. He ruthlessly exploited Rui’s openings to the very limit, trying to end the fight as soon as he could.
Rui on the other hand was still shocked.
And excited!
Every time he thought he understood Martial Art, some new technique came along and broke his world view!
Surman Marliak had been the latest of them. A Martial Art who could affect the sense of pain, spatial awareness and attention remotely and continuously with almost no pre-conditions or significant caveats.
It was extremely overpowered.
Rui had fully come to see exactly why Surman was chosen as the representative of his Martial Academy branch.
He was at a disadvantage. He was in pain. He was disoriented.
Yet he felt only one emotion.
Unbridled ecstasy.
“Huhuhu…”
Surman Marliak’s eyes widened as he heard a restrained chuckle from Rui. He saw a grin crack at the edges of his mouth.
Rui began laughing uncontrollably. He couldn’t help himself. How could he not? He was just shown that there was yet another direction of Martial Art beyond his imagination that he never even knew had existed before!
Everyone onlooking grew confused.
Why was he laughing like a mad man?
Was this also a mental manipulation Martial Art technique? Did Surman Marliak force his opponents to laugh as he beat them down? If so, how brutally sadistic.
Surman himself had knitted eyebrows in confusion. When had he learnt such a technique? Did he not read the data of his technique scrolls properly?
BAM BAM BAM!
He didn’t stop pummeling. No, he was forcefully stopped.
CLASP
Rui suddenly caught one of his incoming fists smoothly. He turned to Surman Marliak wordlessly. He didn’t speak but his expression conveyed gratitude.
(‘Thank you for showing me what is possible.’) He though as he launched a powerful weighted strike at Surman. (‘Let me thank you by defeating you.’)
BAM!