The battle began as the Martial Apprentices of the Longranger Sect fired all kinds of long-range attacks at the Martial Apprentices of K’ulnen Tribe once they entered the firing range of the Martial Apprentices.
Rui watched with interest as he studied the battle in slow motion.
(‘There is more diversity among the Martial Apprentices’ long-range offense than I expected,’) Rui noted with interest.
He even saw one Martial Apprentice wielding Seismic radiation as a weapon, used to destabilize the ground that the enemy Martial Apprentices traversed on.
(‘Nice. Bet the G’ak’arkan Tribe would really love to have that one.’) Rui mused.
He hadn’t seen many of the kinds of techniques that he saw with these Martial Apprentices. He had to admit, the Longranger Sect certainly knew its long-range.
(‘Still… Rocks?’)
He glanced in interest at the Martial Apprentice who was hurling literal rocks at the enemies. Furthermore, she was doing it in the most primitive fashion, seemingly. She literally just kicked at the ground and debris flew forward at tremendous speeds.
(‘Wait a minute… She’s not just kicking.’) Rui realized as an eyebrow of rose. (‘She’s doing something similar to the reverse of my Flux Earther technique.’)
The Flux Earther technique involved elastically converting the kinetic energy of an attack into the kinetic energy of his body through an elastic collision, before grounding it into the ground with the help of the Reverberating Lance technique.
What she was doing on the other hand was elastically converting her own kinetic energy into the kinetic energy of anything that she could kick. Once the object inherited her kinetic energy, it would naturally end up moving at tremendous speeds forward.
It was a bizarre technique, but Rui couldn’t complain about its power or effectiveness.
(‘It doesn’t require learning breathing techniques or any additional crutch techniques that many long-range techniques, so the difficulty was probably much lower than a wind-based technique. Quite practical, really. I bet the G’ak’arkan Tribe would like that.’)
There were several other techniques that caught his eye. He didn’t even bother contributing as he spent his time analyzing their techniques in interest.
(‘The seismic radiation technique is in a way the opposite of the rock flinging technique,’) Rui mused.
He was converting the power of his strikes into surface-level seismic radiation techniques that allowed him to disrupt the grounding of approaching techniques.
(‘It’s like a failed version of the second half of my Flux Earther technique,’)
Reverberating Lance in the Flux Earther transmitted the impact of the attack deep into the ground such that it did not affect the surface, but if he didn’t then it would affect the surface.
(‘The difference is that he’s directing the seismic radiation in one direction; towards his enemies, rather than in all directions. Quite impressive.’) Rui acknowledged.
His eyes ran across all of the other techniques being employed. Wind was the norm, but he even saw arm extensions, and even fire. Something that he had only seen once.
(‘The gimmicks are quite attractive. But that isn’t the area in which the G’ak’arkan Tribe is lacking,’) Rui turned back to face their opponents, taking a good look at them as well.
They all simply rushed forward with balled fists or open palms.
From the few attacks that they had tried to launch, it didn’t seem as though they had anything interesting at all.
Of course, Rui was starting to understand why the Martial Union hadn’t been pining to obtain the techniques of the K’ulnen Tribe. Unlike the G’ak’arkan Tribe, the K’ulnen Tribe did not possess any remarkable novelties, thus the Martial Union had no interest whatsoever regarding that tribe.
(‘Well, let’s speed this up a bit, shall we?’) Rui sighed as he opened his mouth.
THWOOM!
He employed the power that he was capable of when he was a Martial Apprentices, which while nowhere near what he was capable of now, was still enough to overwhelm most Martial Apprentices.
BAM!
The sound projectile struck a charging Martial Apprentice, knocking him unconscious and giving him a concussion.
BAM BAM BAM!
Three more attacks invited three more groans and wails of pain. Broken ribs, face, and arms were just the direct consequences. In less than a second, he had taken four Martial Apprentices.𝑶𝑣xt.𝗇t
“Move backward and maintain distance!” The leader of their unit bellowed. The Martial Artists of the K’ulnen Tribe were closing too much distance even if the Martial Apprentices of the Martial Union were doing a great job mowing them down and hurting them with long-range attacks.
Retreating backward was a common way for long-range Martial Artists to ensure that close-quarters Martial Artists never managed to get their hands on them.
They moved backward as they continuously rained a volley of attacks on their opponents. Although one or two of the Martial Artists of the K’ulnen Tribe managed to sneak past the volley and get close to their opponents, Rui subtly launched a sound bullet, knocking them down before they ever managed to reach close.
Although he wasn’t interested in fighting the battles of Martial Apprentices for them, this battle was important. He wanted to make as perfect of an impression on the G’ak’arkan Tribe as possible.
Not a single casualty, and not even a single injured Martial Apprentices. A literally perfect battle. Of course, if not for the fact that Rui had taken down some of the key Martial Apprentices while also sabotaging their success in breaking through, it would definitely have not been possible for the victory to be this squeaky clean.
Now Rui just needed to ensure that they pushed hard enough to force the K’ulnen Tribe to deploy as strong a Martial Squire as they were willing to deploy. The stronger the Martial Squire, the more impressive it would be when he took them down effortlessly.
As for how he intended to do that, he had spent weeks preparing a plan and making preparations to fulfill that plan when the time came.
Although it wasn’t easy, he had gone to extreme lengths to ensure that not a single thing could go wrong.