The Martial Unity

This meant that the foundation of his predictive model grew richer and stronger as time passed.

The difference was visible.

He began drawing closer to the Root at a pace faster than before. Previously, the difficulty of advancing closer to the main Root had risen with each step because the number of roots that could physically reach him had reduced the closer he got to the Root, the main root that all other roots sprouted.

But the strange strange mental boost he had gotten from the epiphany as well as the data that Rui had collected across their entire fight had empowered his combat effectiveness against the Root tremendously.

He had finally reached a stage where he could continuously close the distance between himself and the Root. He no longer needed to prance around while shortening the distance in bursts.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

TAP!

Rui dodged four roots, propelling himself forward with the quasi-Flux Earther technique.

He turned towards the Root with a grin. He had crossed most of the distance between them in the past few hours and was only crossing it even faster. Soon he would reach a distance where he would be able to perceive the Root with his physical eyes.

The battle had begun its final act.

During the entire battle, Rui had been the challenger. He had spent the entire battle thus far proving that he could avoid being inevitably taken down and overwhelmed by the sheer output of the Root.

And proved he did. With every second that passed, he was attacked by nearly a thousand roots simultaneously!

Yet despite using most of the roots that it had at its disposal, the Root seemed incapable of even hurting Rui!

Any spectator would surely agree that Rui had done a fine job as the challenger thus far. However, that wasn't enough to win a fight.

Not dying was simply the first level. Just because it was an exceedingly difficult demand for any single Martial Squire did not mean that it was the only demand or even the most challenging condition to be crowned the victor.

Rui had yet to inflict even a shred of meaningful damage on the Root. Yes, it was true that he did inflict damage on the Root with the help of his sword, but that was rather minuscule compared to the total mass that comprised the entirety of the Root.

The fact of the matter was that not even Kane had any idea how Rui intended to win this fight. Rui hadn't been specific when Kane asked, always replying that he needed more time and data.

By the time the fight came, Kane didn't ask him. He figured that if Rui wanted to share the information with him, he would.

In reality, even Rui hadn't gained confirmation until very recently, although he had strong suspicions that the means to victory that he had chosen would, in fact, grant him victory, he had only truly become certain of it when he sensed the Root with his Primordial Instinct technique.

('It's truly mindless… It's not even controlling the roots. The roots may emerge from it, but each root is like its own organ that is also mindless and little more than organic robots,')

In some ways, he was disappointed, but he was also relieved.

It meant that his plan to take down the Root was viable!

He began advancing towards the Root bit by bit, evading and bouncing off the many roots that narrowly missed as he stepped out of the with his Void Forestep technique.

He was reaching a stage where almost every individual root was blasting attacks at him. The environmental damage was so great that the size of the floor had increased substantially, despite the floor already being absolutely gigantic.

The net damage was on par with the damage that Martial Seniors were capable of exerting, although the roots did take much longer than martial Seniors would, at least, Martial Seniors of the caliber of Senior Ceeran.

Rui finally reached a stage where he could sense the Root with his other senses and techniques barring Riemannian Echo, but his rate of progress slowed down as the roots intensified. Not only was the number of roots the total number of roots that stuck out from the main Root, but the closer he got, the less time he had to predict the roots.

Rui's predictive model growing more and more powerful negated the latter, but the increasing number was still a pain in the ass.

One thing he notices was that it was as though the roots didn't have any stamina limits. He realized that if he let the battle progress for too much longer, he would weaken from exerting himself to such a degree that he would decline before the roots did, he would certainly die before he could ever disengage to recharge his stamina.

He glanced at the Root's 'mouth', the cavity in which it crushed and ground all the raw esoteric ore deposits, before slowly dissolving them in some kind of acid and dispersing them across the dungeon. It would be extremely lethal if a person fell in that. An ordinary human, even Martial Apprentices, and even some Martial Squires would get crushed before eventually being dissolved by the digestive liquids of the Root.

('It would be extremely lethal and painful if I fell in there,') Rui thought to himself with an inward sigh as he continued evading the root attacks.

He could only imagine what kind of pain anybody who fell into the Root's mouth would experience. Although it probably was not as bad as the pain Martial Squires felt in the Squire evolution breakthrough procedure, it was still most likely an abysmally excruciating pain. The more he thought about how much it would hurt, the uglier his expression became.

He sighed, before going through with his plan. He pushed himself to the very limit as he evaded every single root that blocked his way…

Before jumping into the Root's mouth.