Perhaps Rui had gotten so immersed in the flow that he had actually reacted late when that flow changed abruptly. Perhaps, the change was extraordinarily abrupt that it was just that difficult to handle.
Rui wasn’t quite sure.
But there nothing was quite like the eminent threat of death that brought out the very best of one’s creative ability.
CRACK!
Rui grimaced as he intercepted the closest root attack with his sword, yet, rather than trying to slice or destroy it. He almost instinctively applied an incomplete version of the Flux Earther.
He intercepted the impact with his sword, his arms limp before progressively stiffening ad pushing back as the Root moved in closer to strike his body.
Just like a spring pushed back harder when compressed.
And just like a spring, it pushed his entire body backward at a remarkably high speed. Rui didn’t try and ground the kinetic energy by using the second half of the technique with Reverberating Lance.
CRACK!
The Sword was unable to handle the impact, breaking in half before the impact had been completed.
PEW!
WHOOSH
Rui shot out of the target zone at an incredibly high velocity, crashing into the walls of the floor.
BOOM!
“RGH!” He gritted his teeth as he bore the pain that he felt.
He didn’t have time to recover.
WHOOSH
BOOM!!!
The roots were relentless, pursuing him even as he did his best to evade them with an aching body. Fortunately, the VOID algorithm, Forestep, and other elements were still in play.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
Rui dove through the air as he avoided five attacks. He had broken out of his little reverie as he began fighting more fiercely and seriously. A sharp expression occupied his face as he evaded the various attacks that came his way with greater timing than ever before.
(‘Accumulative counter-offense is no longer viable,’) Rui had long realized.
His broken sword meant that he no longer had any way of hurting the Root at the moment with regular attacks. Any hope of eventually accumulating enough damage to neuter the Root was gone.
(‘But that isn’t my only avenue for victory,’) Rui’s eyes narrowed as he perceived a path forward to victory. (‘But I need to get close to the Root.’)
Evading the Root was viable for Rui as he was now, but closing the distance as he evaded attacks was harder. The closer he got to the Root, the greater the number of roots that could participate in the attack against Rui.
Rui was grateful that his injuries from earlier were not too severe, although he definitely endured damage, his healing factor was good enough to negate the effect it had on his combat prowess.
This too would not have happened if not for his Hungry Pain technique.
Rui’s mind worked harder than it ever had before as he furiously processed the outputs from his predictive model before trying to chart paths that he could follow forward.
However, it was difficult.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH𝑜𝐯𝗅xt.𝑐𝑜𝚖
He evaded roots as he dashed forward. Yet just two steps in that direction and he was forced to take a step back!
BOOM!
A root slammed into the ground where he was about to step, forcing him to back off. He immediately spun through the air to the side as he evaded all kinds of trajectories from the roots.
Moving through the roots was absurdly harder than simply evading them for more reasons than Rui had initially understood, not only did he enter the striking range of new shorter, and more distant roots the closer he got to the Root, but he also had less time to react to them due to the shorter distance between him and the inception of their attacks.
Thankfully, the previous failure had taught him some lessons. Although it certainly did hurt him, it wasn’t without its benefits. The last-moment solution that he had cobbled together to get out of the situation was definitely something that could serve Rui well.
Rui’s eyes narrowed as he predicted a root attack from the side, instantly, he made the judgment to test out the viability of the plan.
WHOOSH!
The root rushed forward towards Rui, yet this time, Rui didn’t evade it like he normally did, he partially evaded it, getting his torso out of the way before intercepting the root with his hand.
POW!
The root crashed into his stretched limp palm which stiffened and pushed back the more Root pushed against it.
Just like a spring.
Rui launched himself forward towards the Root, by pushing and bouncing off a root like a spring. This was the application of the Flux Earther technique that he had devised in the middle of battle.
He had always known that the Flux Earther technique could be used to launch himself at speeds much greater than his limit, but he hadn’t considered that it could be used as more than just a getaway, in certain circumstances.
(‘Circumstances like these,’) His eyes sharpened as more than a hundred roots converged on his location!
Yet instead of relying purely on the evasion supplied to him by Forestep, he also employed a combination of Forestep and Flux Earther with his arms to move maneuver across the floor at even greater speeds!
Thus, even if Forestep alone was unable to cope with the increasing pressure of root attacks that came with getting closer to the Root, he could still manage by relying on the Earth Fluxer to move around in ways that would be impossible on his own. Instead, he could get the roots to help him avoid the roots!
This was especially the case given that the roots were incapable of tactical adaptation to exploit the shortcomings of such a technique and strategy. This was the difference between Martial Artists and other creatures. Due to their inability to explore their full potential, they could never match Martial Artists who were exponentially weaker as far as raw power went.
Rui grinned as the battle entered a new phase!