Chapter 2246: Too Weak And Too Strong

"Fuuu..." Rui exhaled heavily as he activated Neo Godspeed.

"You know that your variant of Godspeed doesn't compare to my True Fulminata Godspeed," Kane took his stance. "Is that what you're calling it?" Rui smiled. "That's an apt name, even if simple. After all, this technique was based on your natural state in the Thundering Valley. Regardless, you're right. My Neo Godspeed is pitiful in comparison to your current state, but have you forgotten, Kane?"

Rui grinned as the air grew more perilous.

"I don't need to be as fast as my opponents to handle them."

Kane sharpened his eyes as Rui surged him with much greater speed than before.

WHOOSH!

Kane lightly side-stepped the blow, shooting forward as his daggers converged upon Rui without so much as a hint of hesitation.

WHOOSH!

Kane's eyes widened as Rui disappeared.

A feint.

They crashed into an empty image as the real Rui threw a powerful Yin-Yang Spear from behind him.

"It's over."

Except, it wasn't.

WHOOSH!

Rui grew stunned as it was his attack that crashed into an empty image this time, a feint from the Phantom Step technique. Both of them had mastered the technique many years ago, and both of them had come to develop a deep proficiency with the technique over a long period of time.

However, as Rui came to realize, Kane was a lot more compatible with Rui. Kane appeared before him in a blinding blur as his daggers surged toward Rui with immense speed. WHOOSH!

It crashed into an empty image as Rui appeared from his side, throwing an extraordinarily powerful blow, only to run into another feint.

WHOOSH!

Kane surged with a swift blade swing.

WHOOSH!

WHOOSH!

WHOOSH!

A strange dynamic emerged in the battle as the two men began throwing attacks, only for them to crash into feints one after another. Kane leveraged the technique to try and mitigate Rui's boost in speed from the Neo Godspeed technique quite well.

Thus, even though the speed from the Metabody System combined with his systems of thought and the nerf to Kane's speed with Speed Void, Kane was able to keep extremely well. Yet, Rui knew that it was not that they were truly equal in combat, for only one of them could maintain this level of combat power for long.

And it was not Kane.

"Huff...Huff..." Kane panted heavily, momentarily pausing the battle.

"This level of output is quite sustainable for me, Kane," Rui remarked. "After consuming the Sandflower Nectar Potion, I can maintain this level of combat quite comfortably. But that domain of yours..."

CRACK CRACK CRACK!

Rui glanced around at the lightning bolts that converged upon Kane, sustaining his True Fulminata Godspeed. "Even if you consume a stamina-augmenting potion, you won't be able to sustain this kind of output for too long; your Martial Body is most certainly not geared towards stamina or large amounts of energy reserves. In other words..."

His gaze returned to Kane. "...You cannot win this battle."

Of course, Rui had to admit, he was deeply impressed. The True Fulminata Godspeed elevated Kane's combat power to a level that was very close to what Rui had achieved as a Martial Senior before breaking through to the Master Realm. In fact, in his current state, Kane was qualified to take on the chimera that Rui had fought in the Mellow Manifold.

Rui couldn't believe that despite the massive advantages he had over Kane, such as the knowledge from another world and an extraordinary mind that went through a second stage of massive growth, the latter was still able to somehow follow in the lofty footsteps that Rui had left behind.

He was a true genius, one who had driven himself to agonous lengths to catch up to the monster that was Rui.

The fact that he had managed to keep victory from Rui despite the latter using most of his Martial Art was a testament to the power he had accrued, matching Rui, trump card for trump card.

The astronomical reflexes of the True Fulminata Godspeed allowed him to neutralize not only Temporal Disharmony but also allowed Kane to avoid getting dominated by the powerful predictive and SOUL models that Rui had on him.

So what if Rui could see the future?

So what if Rui could sense his intent?

Rui's motion was so slow in the face of Kane's highly augmented reflexes that he could probably evade the former's full speed an inch away from his face. They were so great that they were not too far below the reaction speed of a Martial Master.

In the face of such fast reflexes, Rui's movements without his Martial Mind may as well have been frozen. The only shortcoming was that it, too, couldn't allow Kane to touch Rui either, for his insight into his opponents was too great.

On top of that, Rui couldn't afford to get hit by his lethal dagger attacks, forcing him to play a game of evasion against Kane, something Kane was far better at than Rui, as it was his forte.

"Truly impressive," he heaved a sigh of admiration. "But this is where it ends, Kane."

Rui had finished updating his out-of-date predictive model with the most recent changes Kane's fighting style had undergone, doubling the confidence intervals of the statistical model and the depths to which he could foresee the future.

VMMM!!!

His power roiled violently as he activated the Yin-Yang Spear. "Breathing Crucifix."

Rui cruelly choked his gasping friend with a powerful hypnosis, refusing to let him recuperate.

CRACK CRACK!!

The domain shuddered, growing weaker as his heaven-bending was greatly hampered.

"Haha..." A weak laugh escaped Kane as he fell to one knee.

To think he still felt short of reaching Rui after the maddening training that he had been through in the past seven years.

STEP

Rui walked towards him slowly, heaving a sigh. "How unfortunate. You're too weak to defeat me but too strong to have your path broken by me, depriving yourself of the opportunity to break through. Ah, well, I guess I'll just have to pin my hopes on Nel. For now..."

His expression hardened, "go to sleep."

He arrived before Kane with a heavy gaze, lifting his fist up, ready to knock Kane out.

However, by the time he sensed the danger, it was too late.

CRACK CRACK CRACK!!

A surge of lightning converged upon Kane as his daggers shot forward toward Rui in the flash of an eye.

"Fulminata Voidspeed."

BOOOOM!!!

The battle was not over yet.