"Fuuu..." Rui exhaled as he calmed his pounding heart.
He didn't want to get too excited.
He had been waiting for this day for quite some time. If he screwed things up because he was too excited he wouldn't forgive himself
He glanced at his personal schedule for the preliminary contest.
[Fae Dullahan vs Rui Quarrier]
It had been five days since the Academy pre-scheduled the remaining matches. In the following days after his fight with Feela Garron, he went onto fight Jane Francis; A powerful grappling specialist, as well as Avi Seth and Sahar Kal.
In his fight against Jane Francis, he had adapted his fighting style into that of a distant ranged striker with elements of evasive maneuvering. This was one of the best solutions against an aggressive grappler, range to exploit their weakness, and evasiveness to counter their only means of compensating for their weakness. He had eventually won the battle with a well-timed Flowing Canon which knocked his opponent out.
Against Avi Seth, he was truly tempted to use the Stinger. The Stinger was one of his trump cards that would have been extremely effective against Avi Seth because it inflicted critical damage while minimizing contact with poison skin. Allowing him to take Avi Seth out far faster than the poison would incapacitate him. It would have been trivially easy for Rui one-shot Avi had he gone all out. But he decided to preserve the trump card for when it was truly needed.
Instead, he took Avi down by abusing his maneuvering techniques and Phantom Step, carefully avoiding his palm jabs while also avoiding his arm guard. This turned out to not be as challenging as he expected, he came to realize that Avi had potent poison that he employed in tricky ways, but once Rui figured out the trick, the VOID algorithm chewed his Martial Art and spat out a counter-adapted fighting style which Rui used to dominate him start to finish.
He ended the battle with a clean ring out.
It definitely helped that he had spectated Fae's fight with him.
His third fight against Sahar Kal was the most dominant of all three fights. Despite being an all-rounder, she had poor adaptability and fought very straightforwardly. This is why Rui was able to cleanly handle her despite the fact that all-rounders were harder for the VOID algorithm to adapt to. He exploited the holes in her style without missing a beat and eventually defeated her with a chokehold, forcing her to tap out.
In the past four days, the top twelve Martial Apprentices of the Academy who were tied for rank one had been whittled down having faced each other. At the current moment, of the original twelve that had a zero loss win streak, only five managed to maintain their win streak.
Rui Quarrier.
Fae Dullahan.
Nel.
Kane Arrancar.
Hever Mendelieve.
And now the day had come for him to fight Fae.
He headed to the sparring facility immediately, there wasn't much time left for his match.
He ran into all four of his friends on the way to the ring.
"Oh, he's here." Kane remarked.
"Hey guys." Rui said, before turning to Fae. "Hey Fae, are you ready?"
She nodded. "I am. Win or lose, no hard feelings, I won't hold back."
And Rui could sense that. She was pumped up to go all-out.
"I couldn't ask for anything more." Rui grinned. "May the best Martial Artist win."
Soon, the match was to be commenced.
There was an immense amount attention on this fight.
All Martial Apprentices who weren't participating in a match themselves had chosen to spectate this particular match. This was important. This was a match that would likely eliminate one of the top five candidates from the position of rank one.
Furthermore, everybody was curious to see who would win between Fae and Rui. The two of them were both incredibly remarkable and had reached the very best of all the Martial Apprentices of the Martial Academy!
Regardless of the outcome, they were in for one hell of a fight.
These official preliminary matches were very different from the routine mandatory spars the Martial Academy held between Martial Apprentices. The spars were spars, most people did not go all-out during them, but rather used them to train certain parts of their Martial Art, certain techniques, certain tactics and strategies. They were much more training than they were competition.
The preliminary contest was different. Every single Martial Apprentice was absolutely serious and did everything they could to in order to win. Each Martial Apprentice had grown stronger in the past few years having accumulated a lot of power. The preliminary contest was the one place where all of this growth and power would be used to the absolute maximum.
This fight would truly show them which one of the two titans were the strongest.
"Take your stances." The supervisor instructed.
Fae coiled her right arm to the side, tucking her taut open-palm upside down at her waist. That arm was a serpent waiting to last out at its prey. Her left palm faced Rui. This palm was positioned in manner that allowed her to launch quicker and lighter jabs, and also aid her right palm into landing powerful attacks successfully.
She exhaled, spreading her feet and dividing her weight between them.
She stared at Rui with narrowed eyes. In this fight, she would not treat him as a friend. She valued her relationships. But she was absolutely clear about dividing them from Martial matters. She was far too driven to allow herself to be moved by such matters. Her muscles shook with restrained power, she would hound him the second the fight began and mercilessly pound him to the ground.
Rui grinned.
Even as Primordial Instinct screamed at him about the sheer power in Fae's frame.
He grinned.
Even as the weight of the attention of all Martial Apprentices and even Squires fell upon him.
He grinned.
He had been waiting for this for a long time. He would no longer be denied!
