The Martial Unity

Rui hadn't come across too many, but most balance-oriented Martial Artists were supplementary in nature. They simply focused all their efforts on strengthening their balance to the absolute maximum to gain as much of a boost from it in combat as possible.

It allowed them to stabilize their combat to the absolute maximum, increasing their offensive prowess by allowing them to maximize the rate at which they attacked without any need to worry about balance all that much. It increased their maneuvering considerably, allowing them to attack and evade in ways that other Martial Artists were unable to.

It also improved their aerial maneuvering where balance became considerably more important. Martial Artists did not float in the air by leveraging some special energy to keep them stationary in midair. They pushed down against the air by stepping on it, thus balance was always and especially important when sky-walking.

It was in these ways that balance-oriented Martial Artists generally leveraged their strength.

However, it appeared that Squire Ran was not quite satisfied with passive supplementation. This was the first time that Rui had seen someone leverage balance in such a manner.

He could instantly gain insights into her character and personality for developing such a Martial Art and having such a Martial Path.

An aggressive desire to dominate her opponents with her greatest strength. Rui mused even as she began launching an aggressive offensive against him.

The nature of balance was not intrinsically offensive. Yet she was determined to leverage it offensively and leverage it to dominate her opponents.

It appeared that she had settled on a bizarre solution.

She decided to forcefully turn the battle into a battle of balance!

And she did that by poisoning both her opponent and herself. It was an absurd notion, but it did succeed. At the moment, Rui was struggling to retain his sense of balance even while she did her best to pummel him to the ground.

Had she been a poison-oriented Martial Artist, perhaps she would have found a way to sabotage only her opponent's sense of balance, but she wasn't a poison-oriented Martial Artist, and thus the potency of the poisons she could integrate into her body was limited.

Thus, she settled on a guaranteed mutual sabotage by employing a poison that targeted the brain and changed the settings of the fight, such that balance became the most important parameter by far.

Such was the nature of balance. It was incredibly important to not just Martial Art, but all coherent physical movement. It was absolutely foundational. However, its significance decreased the more proficient it became over time. It offered diminishing returns the greater balance one possessed. Thus it was rarely trained above a certain level.

However, by guaranteeing a successful sabotage of his sense of balance at the cost of her own, both of them had lost that high-level sense of balance, reducing them to a fraction of their original balancing capabilities. It became less important the more proficient at it one was, but conversely, it became more important the less proficient at it one was.

And they were most certainly not proficient at it any more thanks to the poison, meaning it became the most important parameter in the battle.

One in which she still held an overwhelming advantage against him.

And it reflected.

BOOM!

She launched him flying across the colosseum even while he guarded his head. He could not afford to let her get a clean attack on his head at this juncture, it would simply mean a clean KO.

Never before had he gained such an appreciation for balance. It was only in situations like these that one remembered how important something that they took for granted was.

Everybody knew the importance of breathing. Yet only an asthmatic patient felt the value of breathing every second.

He knew that from experience.

BAM!

The crowd cheered as she gained a decisive advantage against him. Rui stood up uncertainly, relying on muscle memory for the time being. She swiftly lashed forward without any inhibitions, he cautiously tried to throw an attack, only to sorely regret it.

WHOOSH!

His attack missed her wildly but she ignored it, stepping forward to blast him with some more powerful kicks.

BAM BAM BAM!

Tsk, this isn't going to work. Rui grimaced as he brought up his guard, sloppily dispersing them due to his messed-up balance. He felt like he was stuck in a quagmire, every movement he made, let alone techniques he executed, was severely hampered.

It became clear that if he let this go on, it would be game over. He needed a practical solution.

Nemean Blossom and Weaving Blood came to mind.

Too costly, too ineffective.

They did not solve the root of the problem, they simply put a bandaid on the symptoms. A bandaid that had a time and energy limit.

He needed to find a solution that targeted the problem head-on.

I need to regain my balance.

Could he somehow get rid of the poison?

No. I don't have any means to do that at the moment.

His eyes narrowed.

There was only one answer.

His Martial Path was adaptive evolution. Thus, he needed to adapt to it.

This isn't something that the VOID algorithm can help me with.

The VOID algorithm could not allow him to overcome an inhibited sense of balance, it only allowed him to predict and time extremely well-adapted movements against his opponent.

For this... I need something new. His eyes narrowed. A ground-up, systematic approach to adapt to the inhibitions she had inflicted upon me.

It was a tall task. In the middle of combat, he would need to come up with a new system of thought to be able to adapt to his new inhibition.

Right here.

Right now.

In the middle of combat. In the middle of being attacked by his powerful opponent, in the middle of the disorientation and the mental torture of a shaking and rumbling dystopic world.

All while simultaneously developing the predictive model for when he did return to normal.

It was an absurd notion.

If he did succeed, then the odds would be even, and he would also be adapted to her.

If he failed, then it would be game over.

Had it been anybody else, failure was a guarantee.

Yet, before Rui, even the most insurmountable of barriers was reduced to a fun challenge.

"Heh... Haha..."

A chuckle escaped his mouth.

Squire Ran felt a shiver crawl up her skin.

She didn't understand.

Wasn't she winning?

Hadn't she been pummeling him around for the last minute?

Anybody with a brain and eyes could tell that she was winning.

Yet her stomach churned when she stared into his eyes. A dark void seemed to emerge from behind his silver iris.

Three words escaped his mouth.

"You are strong."

Yet, those words only made her feel weaker.

In that moment, a single instinct reverberated across her mind.

I need to finish this... before it's too late. Her eyes flashed with determination.

The battle escalated as Squire Ran pushed herself to the absolute limit.