Three days passed as the challenge issued by the defensive scavenger came up eventually.
"Challenger: Guardian Fzartil. Defender: Guardian Falken."
The two of them stepped forward as they faced each other.
"Take your stances," The arbiter experienced.
Squire Fzartil grinned as he took a closed stance, bringing up his arms before him in a guarding position. Furthermore, he had spread his legs crouching, anchoring him to the spot as the divided weight made it more difficult for him to be mobile, but it also gave his stance a lot more stability.
('He's not going to be easy to move,') Rui narrowed his eyebrows. ('Very well then,')
They had both chosen close-range distance, thus the two of them faced each other up close. Rui adopted a classical boxing stance with both fists lower and pointing at his opponent. Such a stance was aggressive and offensive, and it showed Rui's intentions of fighting to beat him down.
"Begin!"
Instantly, not even a moment after the fight began, Rui dashed forward, launching himself at the man.
BOOM!!!
The combined power of Outer Convergence, Wind Breathing Reverberating, and a Flowing Canonon crashed into his guard as a huge shock wave arose from the collision.
The man gritted his teeth as he almost certainly experienced a tremendous amount of stress on his guard. He was a passive defensive Martial Artist, and a lot of it involved that he was employing some form of conditioning.
Rui could feel his Adamant Forging, pushing against a much greater degree of conditioning on the man's flesh.
POW POW POW!
Rui never let up, bombarding Squire Fzartil with blow after blow. Each blow stung more and more, as Rui began employing the Reverberating Lance. It was the perfect tool to bypass external flesh.
POW POW POW!
The man had clearly not expected such a technique to work despite the sheer power that it was conveying deeper and deeper into his body.
('Your defense is far too passive,') Rui mused. ('Because of the lack of active defensive techniques, any pattern or limitation that exists in it becomes much harder to get rid of in the middle of the fight.')
If an active defensive technique was not doing too well then one could simply cease using it. Yet this simply wasn't the case with passive techniques like that.
BAM BAM BAM!
Rui blasted him with blow after blow. He even threw him some Lightning Ripple techniques that shot through the man's nervous system occasionally. These caused brief periods of hampered and limited movements.
He had experienced the lightning across his body, causing him to pause in the middle of the battle as his body suddenly experienced paralysis and numbness at certain moments.
Rui rushed in after momentarily stepping back to crash yet another powerful Flowing Canon on the man's guard.
Yet he didn't.
Just as the attack was about engage, Fzartil brought his guard forward, ready to block the attack.
Yet it never came.
Rui simply twirled by.
BAM!
A swift attack to the exposed head was enough. Although the man had conditioned even his head, it was not enough for Rui to simply knock him out the way he did his previous opponent. The difference was far too much.
But it was concrete progress. Rui wasn't even using the Void algorithm for such an opponent. He did not need it against such a caliber of Martial Artists.
The strategy was straightforward, and unless it failed, he had no intention of using it at all. There were bigger fish to fry, and if the ringleader of the three scavengers was watching, then Rui decided it was best not to divulge all cards.
That was the issue because he was being watched and extensively prepared, he did not want to get carried away and show off.
Thus far, in the Floating Island, no one had truly forced Rui to use his Flowing Void Style to the absolute maximum. None of them had been able to push him all that far, and certainly, none of them had gotten him to use the Forestep technique be used to the absolute limit with the VOID algorithm.
He wondered if the little gang leader would be the first one to force him to divulge his full power. After all, he was sure that in order to climb up, he would need to use the entirety of his Martial Art.
Squire Fzartil gritted his teeth as the image of Rui that he attacked was a well-timed feint, leaving his solar plexus completely open consequently.
BAM!!!
A powerful straight blow struck the man's diaphragm. The sheer amount of force that he had outputted was severe.
THUD
Squire Fzartil.
Rui glanced at the leader of the three scavengers, the man still had a confident look on. Rui wasn't sure where his confidence emerged from, but he was curious. After all, it didn't seem like he was new to this place.
And if he wasn't new to this place, then it meant that he had been in the tenth class of the Floating Sect for quite some time. It clearly meant that he wasn't qualified to get to higher chambers and classes without this ridiculous song and dance of forcing an opponent to show some of the moves and then making more elaborate preparations to counter them.
And even then, he hadn't gotten too very far, though he probably was in the upper echelons of the tenth class, which means he certainly would be paying attention to the highest-ranked Martial Artists of the tenth grade.
Unfortunately, that was Rui this time. And Rui was not a hurdle that he could cross that easily.
"Winner: Guardian Falken!" The arbiter announced once he saw that Guardian Fzartil was unable to continue fighting.
Rui pointed at the man in the spectator standards. "I challenge you to a spar. Ten days."
He went out of his way to challenge the man!
He even gave him ten days to do his little preparations. He wanted to see how strong this man could be.
