The Martial Unity

The Frontal Lobe of the brain, as the name suggested, was the foremost part of the brain. It was responsible for conscious cognition as a whole.

It also happened to be the part of the brain that was closest to the eyeball and the eye sockets.

The distance between the opening of the eye socket and the Frontal Lobe of the brain was shorter than Rui's big toe. In a hypothetical scenario, if his toe were to enter a human eye socket at precisely the right angle and location, it would pierce the brain.

That had always been the most lethal option Rui had, from the very start. Yet he lost the first time despite possessing it.

What made this time all that different?

For one, her incredible active and passive defenses were no longer all that invulnerable.

Fae and Nel were using their tremendous power to seal her arms and shackle her neck and head in place.

As for her passive defense, her remarkable constitution wasn't particularly all that relevant here.

The only thing in between the Stinger and her brain was her eyeball and her eyelid.

Yet, previously, even this had been demonstrably enough. Rui could barely hurt her flesh. He did not think the Stinger alone could penetrate to her brain.

Yet, what was different this time was that the Stinger wasn't alone this time.

Although it propelled forward with the same power and speed it usually did, the difference was that its target was propelling towards it at remarkably high speeds and momentum.

Hever had grown far stronger in the past nine months since the Martial Contest.

He had added minor elements of other techniques to the Meteor Swing technique. Elements of breathing and muscle techniques to amplify power and speed. Elements of mental techniques to amplify his mind in a few different ways, conditioning techniques to amplify his grip.

It had taken him a long time to incorporate these elements into the Meteor Swing technique. But once he succeeded, the grade of the technique as a whole had risen.

It was no longer merely a grade-nine technique. It had stepped above the ninth grade and had slowly begun to approach grade ten.

It was a quasi-grade-ten technique.

That was the difference.

She struggled, but Fae and Nel coiled tighter and tighter. As strong as she was, she had no Squire-level techniques and was unaccustomed to her power. Not even a Martial Squire could overwhelm the many high-grade techniques that Fae used across her entire body to shackle her. It didn't help that Nel was outputting a power that wasn't too far off either. Even if she was slowly overwhelming them, she wouldn't make it in time.

Every time she shifted, Rui almost reflexively readjusted the Stinger's trajectory, refining the aim with Primordial Instinct.

Time was up.

She closed her eye, hoping her Squire-level constitution would hold.

The Stinger crashed into her eyelid.

The verdict would soon be delivered.

The sheer net power of the quasi-grade-ten Meteor Swing in combination with the Stinger, Flame Breathing, Outer Convergence, and Adamant Reforging pushed against her eyelid through the sharp toe.

...

SPLAT!!!

All that pressure.

All that fear.

All that pain.

All of it melted away as he saw a splurt of blood erupt from her eye. Her eyelid hadn't even withstood the attack for more than a millisecond. The sheer combined power it had been subjected to far exceeded the Apprentice Realm.

Had she possessed even a single Squire-level defensive technique, her eyelid would have emerged unscathed.

But she didn't.

And thus, it hadn't.

His elation erupted as his toe pushed deeper and deeper into her skull. But he controlled his emotion as he heightened his senses. If the trajectory was off by even a bit, the damage would not be critical.

The Martial Squire would quickly crush them all. A single missing eye would not be enough to give them a win.

BAM!

The toe had gone as deep as it could, and his foot had banged into her head.

BOOM!

The Meteor Swing had been completed.

Fae, Nel, and Hever widened their eyes, they had only just seen Rui after the attack had ended. Without techniques like Primordial instinct and the VOID algorithm, they simply had been completely unaware of what Rui had done.

Yet Rui ignored their reactions.

He didn't know the outcome.

Yet, he didn't care.

"RARGH!"

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

He snarled as he began slamming her head over and over with drop-kicks and soccer kicks.

If the plan had failed, then he at least needed to inflict as much damage as he could. Blunt force trauma, increased blood loss, and hopefully even a concussion.

He could feel her powerful heart still beating through Seismic Mapping. He didn't give a fuck whether the plan had succeeded or not anymore.

He was not going to stop until either she died or she got up and they died.

His friends had absolutely no idea what just happened. In their eyes, Rui had just somehow appeared out of nowhere.

Yet they realized the gravity of the situation and joined in.

Seconds passed.

BOOM!

BOOM!

...

BOOM!

Minutes passed.

BOOM!

THUD

Rui stumbled back and fell.

His vision was blurring, his muscles lost power.

He lost too much blood.

"Huff... Huff... Huff..." He got back up weakly, raising his leg to kick.

"Rui." Kane called out to him.

BOOM!

"Rui!" Kane insisted.

He paused glancing at him.

He turned straight to the ground.

He followed his gaze.

A large pool of blood and cerebral fluid had formed from the head of the unmoving body of the Martial Squire.

"It's over." He said. "We won."

He knew that.

But the sheer paranoia coupled with his disoriented mind propelled him forward.

Now that reality had been forced onto him, he fell to the ground exhausted. "...Holy fuck."

He cursed.

He still found it extraordinarily hard to believe.

It was surreal.

To think that despite how horrendous the odds were, they still somehow managed to pull through.

He shook his head. "What a world."