The Martial Unity

Ria's expression lit up with surprise as Runark's fist managed to bypass her defense, striking her jaw for the first time. She hadn't intended to allow him to get even a single clean hit on her, but the fact that he managed to worm his way through her active defense was proof that he had gotten stronger.

Interestingly enough, she also felt the faint buzz of the electricity that passed through her skin at the moment of contact.

"You've gotten stronger," she murmured, studying him with a scrutinizing gaze.

She understood what he was doing.

He was generating an electrical current from one end of his body to the other, using the current to stimulate his nervous system and make his neurons operate more quickly, allowing his reflexes to improve significantly.

The technique had improved tremendously from the very first iteration of the technique that his father had developed many decades ago in the Valley of Thunder. He didn't have to embed special esoteric materials within his body the way Kane had started off with.

Instead, he could simply generate current by generating electromagnetic potential differences between his brain and his feet, using a technique that transferred charges from one part of the body to another, creating a cyclical flow of charges through his body.

The technique was much more elegant and refined, requiring minimal effort to maintain compared to how it had started off.

Runark grinned.

"I'm just getting started."

WHOOSH

Runark surged forth, unleashing an onslaught of attacks at Ria, whose expression grew a bit more serious. While she was still exerting herself to her fullest, she did need to pay more attention to Runark's offensive, mounting up a more serious defense.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

His jabs flew like an avalanche of blows. Ria's hand shot forth, intercepting each and every single attack, even as his reflexes allowed him to make increasing gains on her, getting closer and closer to permanently overwhelming her active defense.

He had already proven that he could use reflexes offensively, using them to alter the trajectory of his attacks just moments before they were intercepted by Ria's active offensive.

On top of that, with the electrical flow he could generate, it made her muscles feel a little numb, as if moving them was a little harder than otherwise. For some reason, Runark himself was immune to the technique.

'Most likely a quirk of his Martial Body.'

It was an interesting challenge.

But not one that was beyond Ria's ability to handle.

Her Martial Body had its own quirks as well.

She closed her eyes entirely, much to the interest of Sternon, who watched the spar between the two. Even though Martial Masters had powerful senses, eyesight was still the sense that they relied on the most.

But for Ria, it was unnecessary.

Her Martial Body had been designed to facilitate her understanding of the causality of the environment around her. Her cells were sensory in nature, allowing her to perceive the dynamics of matter and energy in her environment.

She didn't need her eyes to understand the flow of causality of Runark's opponent.

They were a liability, since they couldn't supply her with the information that she needed to handle him perfectly.

The moment she closed her eyes, she could feel the electricity flowing through his body through the electromagnetic waves that they generated. She could also feel the brainwaves that emerged from his mind through her sheer sensitivity to them, not just the mind sense that came with being a Martial Master.

She could feel his intentions even as they emerged.

But that alone wasn't enough.

The reflexes of his Fulminata technique weren't intention-driven, and they were hyper-streamlined, which meant that she wouldn't be able to predict how he was going to try and bypass her active defenses.

This was where she would have to leverage the insights she had into the causality of his movements.

Even if, on reflex, his last-moment pivots to bypass her interception seemed random, they weren't truly random.

They were driven by an intricate maze of causality in his mind that could be mapped.

She needed to create a pattern-recognition predictive model.

She needed to rely on the VOID algorithm.

Arguably her father's most central system of thought. In the years of the Era of Expansion, the systems of thought of the Emperor of Water, once beyond reach and unattainable, had become possible to master even for the average Martial Artist. Many of them were accessible in the Water Sect in exchange for contributions and merits.

Neural inlays were cutting-edge biotechnological products that could at least partially recreate one of Rui's greatest advantages, his colossal neurocognitive processing power. Even though Ria was nowhere near as cognitively gifted as her father, she was gifted, and with the best neural inlays that the Kandrian Empire could fetch, she could run the VOID algorithm as smoothly as her father could.

Even as Runark's blow grew more and more pressing, she rapidly constructed a predictive model of his attacks.

Until she finally broke through.

CLASP!

She caught his fist just inches away from her face, much to Runark's surprise, before thrusting her palm forth straight into his solar plexus.

BANG

The jab smoothly knocked the wind out of Runark, causing him to gasp for air. She rushed forth, grabbing him by the collar, before pulling him over her shoulder, using her waist as a pivot, to slam him into the ground in a clean flip.

BANG!!!

Before Runark could recover, she lunged at his arm, locking it in an arm bar, threatening to break it.

To her surprise, Runark didn't give up. He used his electricity to try to weaken her as much as he could.

Yet, she understood the causality of electricity too well.

She spontaneously activated a breathing technique, using it to pass micro-vibrations across her body, to alter the biomechanics of her physiology to make her body more conductive to electricity, allowing the current to flow through her body more seamlessly, while isolating her nervous system with a layer of insulating fascia to ensure that she was completely immune to his electricity.

It was checkmate.

"Damn… I was hoping to push you more this time," Runark squeezed out before tapping at her arm, signaling an end to the little spar.

Ria inhaled deeply as she lay flat on the ground.

"That was the most you have ever pushed me. You've truly gotten stronger, Runark."

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