Rui rode a wave of euphoria as he felt his Martial Art maturing, it was a feeling of unmistakable clarity. He lashed forward as he acted on the predictive models that he had created for each of the over the span of the fight while deriving the best counter to their impending actions with the adaptive evolution model.
WHOOSH
BAM!
He avoided a predicted low kick by leaping forward with a flying knee kick, striking his opponent’s diaphragm with a powerful impact. It was especially worse because Reverberating Lance permeated the impact deeper into the body, shocking the diaphragm and impeding his opponent’s breathing. The woman collapsed, writhing on the ground.
Six more Martial Apprentices to go.
WHOOSH
POW POW POW!𝒩𝚘𝑣xt.𝗇t
He evaded a roundhouse kick as he threw a combo of strikes at his opponent, disorienting him with the powerful impacts of his strikes permeating deeper.
The remaining two immediately ganged up on him.
BLINK
PEW!
He managed to land a Stinger on his opponent’s neck veiled through a Blink. He immediately grimaced, retreating as he cradled his bleeding neck.
The final remaining close-range Martial Apprentice threw a swing that Rui saw coming from a mile away thanks to the predictive model.
CLASP
He intercepted the swing with Flow Flux immediately, destabilizing balance and leaving him wide open in the balance.
BAM!
A powerful kick to the jaw rattled his head violently, causing enough blunt-force trauma to cause the brain to shut down. Rui didn’t bother trying to kill them as the long-range Martial Apprentices immediately unleashed an onslaught, yet it was too late.
Rui avoid them as he confused them with feints and misdirection along with his swift maneuvering. He ran straight toward them as he launched multiple Tempestuous Ripples to block and neutralize as many of their attacks as he could while he relied on maneuvering to evade all of them.
The long-range Martial Apprentices furious launched as many long-range attacks as they could, whether it meant extended flexibility, wind attacks, launching land, or other sorts of attacks, yet Rui dealt with all of them, much to their dismay.
BOOM!!
A powerful Flowing Canon crashed into the necks of one of the long-range specialists.
He died on the spot.
It didn’t take him long to swiftly take down the remaining Martial Apprentices.
He only took a moment of respite after he had defeated all of them. All of the Martial Apprentices were part of the anti-Rui strike forces that the various nations had created. He had defeated a total of nine powerful high-grade Martial Apprentices.
All by himself.
In front of the entire world, he had forged himself a new feat. At some point in time, the mask he had put on had broken before he had even noticed. The various nations immediately verified his identity as they learned more about the foe that had foiled every response that had ever been thrown against him by any of them.
Yet despite their shock and anger at his feats, there wasn’t much fear in all of them.
A single Martial Apprentices could not singlehandedly affect an entire large-scale war all by himself, no matter how brilliant he was.
Or so they thought.
Rui immediately began sprinting to the very center of the chaotic war. He used Mind Mask and Shadow Step to avoid gathering the attention of the many Martial Apprentices and potion users that were wrangling with each other in his vicinity and the many siege tanks and other large-scale weapons in the distance.
And soon he arrived.
He immediately knelt on the ground.
The time to execute the plan that he had proposed to the Kandrian Empire had come.
He closed his eyes, while still wary of his surroundings.
He crushed every stray thought that flashed through his mind as he began gathering his concentration and focus like he had done so many times. Yet this time, they were especially important, they would be playing a very significant role in the upcoming plan. He knew that there was no way he would be able to execute the plan successfully.
In his mind, he began using his imagination in the Mind Mask technique to construct the most powerful mind mask he ever had. He pictured himself as invincible, invulnerable, and omnipotent. He pictured himself embodying the very concept of power, and everything that it meant to be strong. This was the most Mind Mask he had ever created.
He opened his eyes as he prepared his reflexes and alertness. He knew that if he didn’t react appropriately and timely, he would die in an extremely painful way and no number of potions would be able to save his life.
(‘It’s time.’) He whispered. The weight about what he was going to hit him, if he succeeded, most of the people on the battlefield would die. It was a heavy burden.
He sighed. (“Here goes nothing.’)
He donned the mind mask he had created.
Suddenly, the battlefield froze as a Squire-level aura weighed across the entire battlefield, every Martial Apprentice recognized that feeling, the pressure of mind of a being that was very well a higher life form than themselves. They felt weak and primitive before such might like they were insects.
Rui had also chosen to channel his bloodlust, the bloodlust of a Squire sent shivers down everybody’s spine as they barely had time to wonder what a Martial Squire was doing in the Serevian Dungeon.
Yet, that was when it happened.
The branches of the singular tree that had formed the Serevian Dungeon had activated.
Rui had already documented that these branches had evolved to instantly attack any threat perceived to be in the Squire Realm by the tree.
However, the battlefield was specifically chosen because it was barren, with no vegetation. The closest ring of branches was outside the battlefield.
This was the plan that Rui had cooked up.
He deliberately put himself at the center of the war, so that when the tree branches attacked, they would be forced to attack from outside the battlefield. And in reaching him, they would run through everybody else first.
That was why he had positioned himself in the center of the battlefield. Everybody would become targets along with himself.