The nations recognized Rui even with his mask on. Martial Artists were distinct and Rui was very infamous at this stage. Every nation had had a hard time containing him in war. He was simply a menace and no individual Martial Artist lasted very long against him.𝔬𝚟xt.𝐜𝚘
However, he by himself could not compensate for an entire army. The nations felt more confused than offended. What were they trying to do? Were they just sending a single Martial Apprentice to speculate the war and gather intelligence from a distance?
However, the Kandrian Empire did not need to engage in such tactics for surveillance. It was also quite clear that Rui wasn’t primarily or even significantly a sensory-oriented Martial Apprentice. Thus, there was no way that Rui was being deployed due to a need for surveillance, there were many more fit Martial Apprentices that could be deployed for this particular role.
So why send their ace Martial Apprentice all alone in the middle of a war?
He shouldn’t have been able to accomplish anything meaningful on a battlefield with three armies, yet the nations paid attention to his movements, if only because they were curious as to what his purpose on the battlefield could possibly be.
Rui didn’t need to travel much to reach the battlefield. It was literally the final piece of valuable territory left and it wasn’t far away at all.
Once he reached it, he was immediately attacked by many Martial Apprentices. These were powerful high-grade Martial Apprentices of each nation that had been assigned to stall and potentially defeat him. It was an overkill force but that was merely because they were the combined force of three opinions that each wanted to hold him off or ideally kill him.
All of them wished to do the latter, after being chewed out by their superiors for being unable to defeat a singular Martial Apprentice.
The atmosphere grew taut as Rui’s brains both went into top gear mode. Time slowed down as he analyzed his circumstances. He needed to break past and reach the center of the war.
That was his goal at the moment, reaching the center of the war being waged at the center of the Serevian Dungeon.
BOOM!
Rui somersaulted out of the way as he evaded a powerful long-range attack from one of them narrowly, immediately behind was a speedy Martial Apprentice.
POW POW POW!
Despite being caught off-guard, Rui reacted to all of his strikes perfectly, blocking them perfectly well, much to his opponent’s surprise. His opponent had been hoping to land clean strikes that would draw blood.
Yet Rui’s reaction speed was something that was outside the Apprentice Realm. The Mindmirror Secondary brain worked parallelly with his main brain thanks to the Mind Embed technique allowing it to amplify his Primordial Instinct technique as well. His reactions and reflexes were almost impossible to assail for even the fastest of Martial Apprentices to assail.
WHOOSH
Rui evaded yet another attack as he hoped to squeeze through his opposition hoping to get to the center of the Serevian Dungeon.
Yet, he had no such luck.
Three Martial Apprentices appear before him before, targeting him specifically. They boxed him, looking to simply dogpile him with sheer numbers.
They all rushed at him at the same time. Yet they simply underestimated how difficult Rui was to suppress.
Even while facing all three of them, he managed to keep up. He feinted and dodged, bobbed and weaved, and used his high-grade power, speed and durability to keep up with opponents. Furthermore, the predictive models were being constructed as rapidly as Rui could manage.
However, even without the predictive model, Rui’s engagement with his opponents was phenomenal. It was impossible to dodge and block every single attack three Martial Apprentices dogpiling him, however, he could time and place his dodges and blocks correctly such that he could mitigate every single attack. Even if he did not have the ability to also simultaneously launch his own attacks while dealing with the onslaught of the opponents that outnumbered him, simultaneously.
That was until the initial predictive models were built.
WHOOSH
BAM!
Rui dodged a right as he ducked with impeccable timing and launch an uppercut that perfectly fit into the counter-vulnerable gap that was created by the hooking maneuver. The powerful blow crashed into his opponent’s head, empowered with Outer Convergence, Flame Breathing, and Adamant Reforging. Furthermore, the Reverberating Lance technique permeated the impact deeper into his head.
The sheer impact shook the brain enough to trigger enough brain trauma causing his brain to shut down on the spot.
He fell unconscious from a single strike from Rui. Even though he was a powerful Martial Apprentice with techniques that weren’t weaker than that of Rui, a combination of the right timing made all the difference in the world.
WHOOSH
Another Martial Apprentice tried to get Rui, not willing to loosen the pressure that they were exerting on him, yet Rui saw that attack coming a mile away with the help of the predictive model and his reaction speed and the attack crashed into a feint.
Rui leaped away backward as he launched a barrage of Tempestuous Ripples, slamming into his opponents, yet the second he distanced himself from the close-quarters combat, the long-range specialists launched all kinds of attacks toward Rui.
Yet to their frustration, despite the sharpness and timing of their swift attacks, Rui was simply too good at somehow mitigating all the attacks that were unleashed against him. It was ridiculous to watch. A team of Martial Apprentices fighting him simultaneously in close-quarters combat wasn’t good enough to beat him in close-quarters combat and long-range Martial Apprentices also struggled to take down Rui with their extended long-range targeted attacking.
Rui lashed out towards the long-range Martial Apprentices, yet to his annoyance, the close-quarters jumped in, intercepting him. Both the long-range and close-quarters teams realized that they genuinely needed to work together to have any chance of taking down Rui Quarrier.