Chapter 2245: All-Out

With the source of the breakthrough right there, how could they ignore him and retreat, especially when he was only protected by one Martial Senior while the rest were in his hypnosis?

They couldn't.

They would probably never get a chance like this ever again.

The battle between the Gatekeeper and the Martial Masters raged on as Rui focused exclusively on breaking at least one more Martial Senior through.

Unfortunately, he wasn't doing too well.

"Huff...huff..." He panted heavily as he closed his eyes, struggling to keep the hypnosis going. "Dammit."

It was overwhelming.

It felt like his brain was stinging unbearably.

If this was how much it hurt to just use hypnosis and his systems of thought without actually using his Martial Mind, then he couldn't help but wonder how bad it would be if he activated his Martial Mind.

He was not interested in finding out.

"Come on." He at the hypnotized Martial Seniors with grave hope. "You're at the cusp. You can do it."

They were all peak-grade Martial Seniors; Rui was certain that they had the chance to break through.

He and the Gatekeeper needed to hold out until then.

Meanwhile, Kane fought Rui with everything he had.

CRACK CRACK CRACK!!

The air sparked as it tingled with faint peril.

"Finally going all out are you?" Rui smiled.

Within the illusion, Rui projected an image of power.

"I need to, if I have any hopes of beating you," Kane's eyes narrowed, "of catching up to you."

His demeanor grew solemn and severe.

Yet, it only brought about melancholy within Rui.

Kane had grown more serious after Rui broke through to the Master Realm and once more put a Realm of difference between them. The gap between them had forced him to take his path to a higher Realm much more seriously and dedicate all his time and energy to it.

He tended to become more light-hearted and relaxed after he caught up to Rui.

Rui knew because it had happened three times in the past when he broke through to the Squire Realm, Senior Realm, and Master Realm.

He tended not to care about reaching a higher Realm all that much until Rui broke through to

it.

CRACK CRACK CRACK!!

His lightning domain roared in its full might as bolts of lightning converged upon him with full power. Rui observed with a hint of admiration as Kane gently harnessed them, roping them upon his body as he clad himself with lightning itself.

In Kane's case, he had decided that it was sub-optimal to use the Tree of Life to produce an environment that hard-countered him physically.

Unlike Nel and the Gatekeeper, he didn't heavily rely on his constitution.

If Rui wanted to break him through to the Master Realm, it would only be through actual combat.

"Here I come!" Kane narrowed his eyes as he surged forward with incredible speed. WHOOSH!

In the blink of an eye, he arrived before Rui at immense speed.

"Speed Void."

WHOOSH!

Rui managed to evade his attack, hampering with drag of his domain. Ordinarily, he would have also hindered him with Temporal Disharmony to lower his speed further. However, that technique was largely ineffective against Kane.

The old Fulminata Godspeed alone made it quite ineffective by amplifying his reflexes and instincts to a great degree. However, the domain took it much further, meaning that using the Hypnomatrix in this circumstance was simply a waste of energy.

However, Speed Void, in and of itself, was not enough to kill his speed advantage with his own domain, which sped him much faster than Speed Void slowed him down.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Rui relied on his predictive and SOUL models to evade all his extraordinarily fast attacks one after another. If not for the fact that these were both pre-made, he wouldn't have been able to handle Kane's speed without at least Neo-Godspeed.

On top of that, he couldn't afford to get hit by Kane's attacks.

SPLAT SPLAT!

Rui narrowed his eyes as two cuts appeared on his arms.

Kane had reached a level of speed and agility that was so high that his daggers had become arcs of pure destruction, tearing apart at anything that was unfortunate to emerge in the way of his attacks.

Unfortunately, Rui knew Kane too well. Despite the astronomical speed gap between them, Kane could not even force Rui to use his Metabody System due to how refined his models on

were.

"Hah, cheater!" Kane complained.

"Life isn't fair." Rui snorted, evading a lethal attack as he surged in, throwing a powerful Flowing Canon at Kane.

WHOOSH!

Kane effortlessly evaded with his astronomically heightened reflexes; it didn't even come close to hurting him.

It was within Rui's prediction as a second blow had already arrived at Kane's dodging maneuver even before he did.

WHOOSH!

Kane evaded that as well.

"Tsk," Rui grew more serious as he found himself struggling to touch Kane so much in his current state.

His reflexes were so great that while he found it exceedingly difficult to land a single hit on Rui, the reverse was even more true. Despite the extraordinary might of both the VOID and SOUL models working against him, in addition to the Speed Void holding him back, Kane was

impossible to touch where he stood.

"Well, I'll be damned." Rui grinned.

The whole mechanism of the breakthrough was to use his Martial Art to bring his targets on the verge of having their paths cracked, by overwhelming adaptively evolving to them. However, if his opponent was strong enough, then it was possible that Kane wouldn't suffer

any threat to his Martial Path.

And Kane was strong.

Far stronger than he could have ever imagined.

Not only was his new domain extraordinary, but its synergy with Kane was even greater, leading to an outcome that far exceeded what Rui would have expected from him. At his

current level of power, Rui wasn't sure he could beat Kane without going absolutely all out.

RUMBLE...!

Kane's eyes widened as Rui activated the Metabody System.

"Alright them, all out it is."