Chapter 2220: Overcome Prediction
It wasn't that Rui knew for a fact that Master Kaijin was stronger than him. It was just a gut instinct that he had already been warned to not trust in the Master Realm. After all, Martial Masters were unfathomable beings in the complexity of their power.
Yet, despite that, it was hard for Rui to ignore his instincts in this matter.
The man had an overwhelming, thick, and suffocating aura.
Almost as if he was a fortress looming over his hapless opponents.
He was undoubtedly a striking-oriented Martial Artist. However, Rui was unsure whether he leaned more defensive or offensive. He would have to find out in battle.
"Not coming?" Master Kaijin raised an eyebrow. "In that case..."
His eyes sharpened.
The air grew more perilous.
It happened far quicker than Rui could have ever imagined.
WHOOSH!
In the blink of an eye, he had already arrived before Rui. A palm jab flew towards Rui at a blurringly high speed, threatening to take his head off.
It was within Rui's prediction.
WHOOSH!
"Oh?" Master Kaijin raised an eyebrow as Rui evaded the jab with the slightest sidestep. Yet, he was undeterred.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
A flurry of powerful palm jabs surged forward, threatening to impale Rui. Yet, they couldn't even come close to touching him as he swayed just the right amount to evade each blow.
He had already formed a predictive model of his opponent, allowing him to foresee his incoming attacks based on prior passive pattern data collected by the Angel of Laplace. All he needed to do was step out of each incoming attack moments before it arrived at him.
Unfortunately, a trump card that had won him all battles in the Lower Realms was no longer the game-ender it once was.
BOOOM!
Rui gritted his teeth as he barely managed to throw together a guard. An attack defied his prediction, finding its mark on him despite his preemptive evasion. If not for Flux Earther, he would not have walked away with his bones intact.
Yet, that wasn't all.
DRIP DRIP...
Rui glanced at the blood on the fingertips of the Master's jabbing palm.
Flux Earther was harder to use against piercing attacks—it was exclusively designed to work on blunt force attacks, ideally punches.
"...Insufficient." A murmur escaped Rui as he came to realize that his defense was too narrow. The technique had served him extremely well in the Lower Realms, however, it was clearly lacking in the upper Realms. For Martial Artists at this juncture, progression was capable of harnessing more forms of offense than just blunt force.
He would need to amend this shortcoming.
"Focus, boy."
WHOOSH!
Rui's eyes widened as he barely managed to evade yet another jab.
Or he thought.
BAM!! He shielded himself as the trajectory of the attack defied his predictive model, blasting him with a powerful jab-turned-whip.
This was the second time.
The second time in a row that the man defied his predictive model.
Yet, Master Kaijin was only getting started.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
Rui bobbed and weaved about each attack carefully, equally wary and curious about the man's ability to defy his predictive model.
Each attack the man delivered was heavy.
Even when he didn't charge them, even though they were merely low-effort jabs, they were far stronger than Rui's average blows.
He couldn't afford to tank them in the long run.
"Is dodging all you can do?"
BOOOM!! A powerful blow landed on Rui with devastating momentum.
CRACK!
Rui leaped away as he momentarily activated Weaving Blood, healing the cracked bone in the blink of an eye. He was now certain that this man possessed a system of thought that allowed him to defy his own patterns. It was a concerning revelation to Rui.
Yet, it was his opponent that was displeased. Master Kaijin's eyes flared with rage.
"You dare?"
Rui raised an eyebrow.
"You dare disrespect me, your elder, by holding back?" he growled with fury. "In the Sekigahara Confederate, you would be beaten to death for such a travesty!"
Rui furrowed his eyebrows.
It appeared that Sekigaharan culture was even more martial than he thought.
"Idiot." Rui gestured around them. "We're in a war, moron. If I waste all my stamina on you, then I'll be dead the second this battle is over."
Rui hadn't forgotten the point of the battle either. He was fighting to protect the Kandrian Empire, and stalling out the battle for long was a good thing.
Master Kaijin stared at him blandly for a moment.
Almost as if he wasn't sure of what to say to such level-headed reasoning.
"I see, you're right. I should have considered your circumstances."
Rui was surprised at how reasonable the man was. "I appreciate tha—!"
He froze as a horrifying wave of peril washed over him.
"I'm going to get serious now." Master Kaijin's voice was low. "Let's see if you can worry about what's going to happen after this battle when you have to deal with my full power."
He activated his first breathing technique of the battle.
And it was only then that Rui realized he had been fighting without one the entire time.
He leaped back in alarm, yet he was a beat too late.
WHOOSH!
Master Kaijin appeared before Rui in the briefest of moments, launching an even faster attack that threatened to decapitate him then and there.
SPLAT
Rui barely managed to evade death, suffering a wound on his cheek as he leaped away, maintaining his distance.
He couldn't trust his predictive model with this man.
That, on top of his superior speed, meant that he needed to maintain his distance; moreover, he also couldn't use the Yin-Yang Spear without his predictive model.
"Does my Insightbreaker throw you that much off-guard?"
BOOOM!!
Rui grimaced as he barely managed to disperse the man's damage on his body, leaping away as he opened the distance between them. He swiftly launched a barrage of Transverse Resonances against his opponent from a distance.
Yet, Master Kaijin was hardly perturbed.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!
He cleaved through the bullets of sound that Rui fired at him effortlessly.