The Martial Unity

The memory of Master Ceeran's trajectory manipulation techniques was distinct. It had been the first time that he had seen a Martial Senior fight. Back then, he was a simple mid-grade Martial Squire. Today, he was stronger than Senior Ceeran had been as a Martial Senior.

Yet he didn't have time to mull over old memories.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

He evaded three wind blasts, yet his eyes narrowed as they turned around, converging on

BAM BAM BAM!!

He gritted his teeth, yet this time, he managed to minimize the damage even further.

Yet, his assassin was just getting started.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Rui evaded five more as he watched them converge on him once more.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!

Rui intercepted each of the wind blasts with sonic bullets, canceling out their momentum. By then, however, several more were already fired.

'This is not a feasible path to victory,' Rui's eyes narrowed. 'If I go down this path, I'll be drained by the time I'm done.'

He still had other assassins that he needed to deal with. If he didn't deal with this sniper soon enough, he would be far too drained to keep up with any other assassin. He couldn't fight so symmetrically where they drained identical amounts of energy.

'I need to completely close the distance, but...'

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!

Rui gritted his teeth, glaring at the sniper from afar.

Unfortunately, this assassin was a lot more refined than Rui had expected. He had completely gained a good grasp of Rui's circumstances and priorities.

His attacks were focused on keeping Rui busy and forcing him to drain his energy. Once Rui was completely exhausted, the assassin would still have more than enough energy to begin the true assassination.

'My first few battles have made a strong impression on all assassins,' Rui narrowed his eyes.

His dominant performance had highlighted just how tremendously strong he really was. Having taken numerous prominent assassins down in a dominant fashion had alerted the rest of the assassins to the threat that he represented.

Each of them was starting to understand just why their employers had gone through the trouble of hiring so many Senior assassins to take down just a single Martial Senior.

It was not overkill, not at all.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Rui weaved through the wind blasts with remarkable quickness. Alternating between Gale Force Breathing and Wind Breathing allowed him to maintain a good balance between speed and agility.

Yet this particular assassin was no slouch.

RUMBLE!

The very earth shook as he launched a powerful onslaught. Each attack of the many that flew towards Rui possessed the power to level hills to rubble.

They converged on him.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Rui gritted his teeth as the attacks converged on him.

BOOM!!!

An enormous wind blast explosion erupted from him at the epicenter, covering more than a dozen kilometers.

WHOOSH!

Yet when the dust settled.

Rui Quarrier was nowhere to be seen.

The assassin situated deep in the woods shook as he realized Rui had completely disappeared. He double took as he scanned the entire battlefield with his senses, completely bewildered.

Losing sight of his target was a rookie mistake that he hadn't made in more than two centuries!

CRACK!

The assassins's eyes widened as the world flipped upside down. It had bizarrely done a complete one-eighty-degree flip!

He wasn't even able to scream.

He felt a distinctly sharp pain in his neck.

It was only when his vision began blurring that he realized what had happened.

The world had not flipped upside down.

His head had been flipped upside down.

The last thing he saw was Rui glaring at him upside down, having forcefully twisted his head a hundred and eight degrees.

THUD

"Huff…Huff…" Rui panted, gasping for air as he struggled to catch his breath. He glanced at his body.

It was battered, bruised, and cut all over. The sniper assassin had done a real good number on him with that final onslaught. Although it had served as a good cover for Rui to use Greater Phantomind Void and sneak up on the assassin without anyone noticing, it had been extremely painful to allow that final barrage to strike him.

It was the price he paid.

He needed the cover the explosion provided, unfortunately. He could not use Greater Phantomind Void out in the open. He was reluctant to reveal this technique since the Voidreaper had used it as well, but alas, he had no choice but to use it. The probability of being suspected was extremely low since he had used it as discreetly as possible.

At the very first moment of the explosion, the energy flux around him in the atmosphere was extremely high, high enough to jam any and all sensory techniques for just a single moment.

At that moment, he had activated Greater Phantomind Void. Of course, this was merely precaution, there were other measures he had taken.

Master Reina was an extremely good persona and body mimic; she had done such a good job mimicking Rui's micro-

expressions that he felt like he was looking at the true Voidreaper.

As long as she was there, the very question of Rui being the Voidreaper should be absolutely absurd and asinine in the minds of all people involved.

WHOOSH

Rui's eyes sharpened.

His expression grew grave.

Primordial Instinct redundantly warned him of yet another danger. He knew that he was far from done with the series of assassins.

Yet he was already quite tired. Although the duration that he had spent on each assassin was only ten minutes on average, he had faced so many that his combat power was falling by the minute.

He had accrued many wounds, his special healing factor was compromised, and his stamina was greatly drained.

He didn't have much left in him.

Yet he still had to take down the last few assassins before he could call himself victorious.

The battle against the assassins had entered its twilight as Rui was entering the most difficult phases of the struggle.

He didn't have much time before he was completely drained, and his opponents had entered the battle entirely fresh.