The Martial Unity

THUD!

Rui tossed the man's body to the side.

('Had it not been for Thundercoil, he would have been able to break through my grip,') Rui grimaced as he looked at his crumpled and broken foot. The power that he had in his legs was something else entirely. A single stomp had completely cracked the bones in his foot.

Thankfully, Rui managed to restrict blood flow to his brain long enough to cause his brain to shut down.

"Winner; Guardian Falken!" The arbiter declared.

Rui glanced at the spectator stands in the colosseum. Much to his dismay, the little ringleader of the little group that bumped into him did not appear to be fazed at all, instead, he looked quite pleased.

This was again, not something that he expected from a simple bully.

Just as he walked out of the battle arena, he was greeted by Kane.

"Good fight, good job," Kane did a thumbs up.

Yet before Rui could even reply, he was interrupted.

"Don't get cocky, just because you beat Drevolus,"

Rui glanced over at him in dismay. This one was the second of the group that had bumped into him.

Rui wasn't stupid.

There was something going on, but he hadn't yet quite comprehended it. Why challenge him one by one, and why were they so cocky?

Why did their little ringleader look pleased by the outcome of his previous challenge?

This wasn't just some classic bullying, they clearly were trying to achieve something. Given that numbers didn't mean much when it came to retaining chambers and positions, he was unsure of what it was that they were trying to achieve.

"Give me a break," Rui sighed. "I'll take you on in an official duel right here and now and get this over with."

"Three days," The man grinned. "See ya, have fun while you can."

Rui sighed as the man left, he turned and glanced at all of the guardians eyeing him with odd glances. ('Is this some kind of little test that the guardians put newbies through or something?')

He shook his head. They would probably not be this pedantic about it if there was such a thing. This was clearly something those three were doing on their own for the most part. Yet what they could gain?

('The only thing he could gain is information…') Rui narrowed his eyes. ('Is the whole point of this simply to gain more information on me?')

"You seem to be having a tough time," A voice emerged from behind them.

Rui turned back, getting a good glance at the man. He was a guardian, given away by his attire.

"Just a bit," Rui cautiously replied.

"You don't have to be wary," The man cheerily replied. "Not all guardians are like those three scavengers. In fact, most aren't. Those three are just nasty to deal with, especially if you're new and higher than them."

The man was short and sporting a small beard. "You get those types everywhere. So it cannot be avoided."

"You are…?"

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself," The man remarked. "The name's Serin. I'm the guardian of the eight hundred and twenty-second floor."

The man boasted a strong presence that could not be ignored. He was certainly not to be trifled with.

"Falken."

"Nake."

"It's a pleasure to actually make your acquaintance haha," The man chuckled as he approached them. "It's always fun meeting new guardians."

"You called them scavengers," Rui noted. "What do you mean?"

"This whole challenge thing," The man remarked. "It's a ploy. To get your chamber."

"So they expect one of them will defeat me in combat?" Rui raised an eyebrow.

That was the only way to get a higher chamber in the Floating Sect, of course.

"They do," The man nodded. "And unfortunately, their confidence is not unfounded."

"Still, there doesn't mean that there's any point in grouping together when such tactics aren't useless in the Floating Sect," Rui huffed.

"Ah, but in this case they aren't, I'm afraid," The man cheerily remarked.

"What do you mean?"

"You see the ringleader of those three scavengers actually possesses an interesting Martial Path," The man explained. "It is said that he possesses the ability to adapt to his opponents."

Rui's eyes widened in shock. "What?!"

"It's not that shocking, the world has tons of strange Martial Paths, you know?" The man friendlily explained.

Rui couldn't help but ponder his response with a bewildered expression. To think he would actually run into a Martial Squire with a Martial Path that was seemingly similar to his own.

"Explain," Rui demanded.

"Woah, you seem really wound up," The man remarked with an uneasy face. "Chill out man, it isn't that serious. The man adapts to his opponents by choosing the right balance between offense and defense needed to combat his opponent. Thus his combat approach actually changes to adapt to his opponent's fighting style. Kind of incredible, isn't it?"

"…" Rui was shell-shocked.

Choosing the balance between offense and defense was one of the first and most important to adapt to his opponents. The fact that someone had a Martial Path centered around this part of the VOID algorithm was just surreal to him.

He had always assumed that he was the only one on the continent whose Martial Path was centered around such a concept. Yet for the first, time, he was being told that this perhaps wasn't the case.

It made him wonder what the actual number of such Martial Squires was, it was hard for him to imagine the sheer number of them in the first place, the sheer difficulty of such a Martial Path was extraordinarily hard, so much so that he spent his first life on just creating the basis and foundation for it after eventually dying and then reincarnating in a new world causing him to finally put his previous life to work and gaining a Martial Path centered around it. He couldn't even imagine how difficult it would be to start from scratch in a new world.