The Martial Unity

In human anatomy, the ulnar nerve was a nerve that ran near the ulna bone; one of the two bones that the forearm was comprised of. The nerve was one of the largest nerves in the body that was also unprotected by muscle or bone. It was covered by the skin and thus was quite prone to injury. When cleanly struck by an impact, it would send an electric jolt across the body, while also causing a knee-jerk or, rather, an elbow-jerk reaction in the arm.

Colloquially, most people knew the ulnar nerve as the funny bone at the elbow joint, a strange not-really-a-bone nerve that caused electric-like sensations and jerks in the arm.

That was why when Rui's first Sonic Bullet struck his opponent's ulnar nerve. Her body shuddered as the potent, precise, and accurate strike send electric-like shudders across her body her arm involuntary displaced itself in a jerk, consequently leaving her eyes exposed again.

Rui grinned, as a terrible sense of fear arose in his opponent.

He had aimed for this from the very start!

Her pupils dilated as time slowed down in her cognition, it was as though her brain went into overdrive, realizing how dire the situation was. She struggled to drag her aching arm back up, trying to protect her eyes.

Yet it was too late.

SPLAT!

The second Sonic Bullet that Rui had launched earlier flew unhampered, crashing into her left eye, crashing through it, and dove further into her skull even as her body accelerated forward inertially.

BANG!

She crashed into Rui violently, and the two tumbled out of the sky, free-falling out of the sky.

THUD!

A crater as wide and deep as a dozen meters formed, with the two Martial Artists at the center of it.

('One Martial Artist, and one corpse, more like,') He shoved her large body off him grimacing even as blood pissed out of her eyeball onto his face.

THUD

Her massive body shook the ground even as it fell, having weighed as much as a grizzly bear.

('Honestly, I'm a little surprised that actually worked,') Though Rui would never admit that out loud.

The first Sonic Bullet had been reduced in size. He needed precision far more than he needed raw power to strike her ulna nerve to achieve the desired effect. Ordinarily, this would have been extremely difficult, but considering how thin and small the ulna nerve was, it was very difficult to strike it in exactly the right way to achieve the desired effect, even when it came to one's own ulna nerve.

('If not for the extra-refined VOID algorithm, it probably would be nearly impossible to not only locate and aim accurately but also time and angle it accurately to cause the desired reaction,') Rui sighed.

Of course, he wasn't going to complain. He was happy that he survived.

('It's not like that strategy is something I can consistently employ in my battles,') He shrugged.

Just how many times would he be in a scenario where he would be facing off against a primitive group that made gathering intelligence on them easily due to their lack of technology, allowing him to make remarkably deep preparations against any possible enemy that could be deployed in him?

Rui was relatively certain that this was the last time that he would ever be in this kind of situation again.

He grabbed her corpse by the head, lifting it up with him as he sky-walked into the air.

Despite being a good distance away from many of the other battles, he could sense that they all were eying him.

He could sense their emerging shock, rage, and hatred.

THUD

He dropped the corpse, after having achieved the result he wanted.

('The battles are stagnating, though we have a winning edge.') Rui noted.

At the moment, there were an equal number of Martial Squires on both sides. They had mostly sorted themselves out against opponents closest to their own grade. Resulting in balanced battles.

('The fight's gone on long enough for now, time to move on to the next stage,') Rui noted as he pulled out his comms device, hitting a few buttons.

Rui immediately rushed back to the battlefield.

Now that the Longranger Martial Artists had plenty of time to demonstrate the prowess of their techniques, Rui felt that it was time to move on to the next stage of the battle.

Drawing out the Martial Senior.

Senior Ceeran was probably on extremely high alert and on immediate standby at the moment. This was the moment that Rui and the others had to be very careful of. If not, they may very well just end up dying before Senior Ceeran could arrive.

Rui no longer attempted any spectacular assassinations. The goal of this battle was not to kill as many K'ulnen Martial Squires as possible. It was a sales pitch. And Rui had already done enough for his own techniques. The other Martial Squires needed their own time in the spotlight.

Rui half-heartedly launched a few attacks here and there for a brief amount of time to apply more pressure on the K'ulnen Martial Squires.

Until, of course, reinforcements came from the Martial Union as planned.

What followed was rather hard to watch.

The Martial Artists of the Martial Union already had an advantage that would have snowballed in the long term. However, with the arrival of even more Martial Squires. The odds of the battle tilted completely.

It was overwhelming.

The Martial Squires of the K'ulnen Tribe gritted their teeth, refusing to retreat. How could they? They were the final line of defense within the Squire Realm!

…Within the Squire Realm, that was.

Everybody froze.

It was abrupt.

Rui knew that it was coming, and yet, he never saw it coming.

Everybody froze as the atmosphere shifted, both metaphorically and literally.

The air chilled.

It was cold.

Chills crawled up their spine as an unprecedented amount of pressure crashed onto all of them.

"She comes…" One of them murmured with a maniacally wide smile. "You have courted death, outsiders!"