It should have been game over. After all, the swordsman's opponent was clearly a long-range Martial Artist.
There were long well-established paradigms and conditions for battles between close-range and long-range martial Artists.
The condition for victory in such a battle for close-range Martial Squires was simply being able to close the distance between themselves and their long-range opponent. In ninety-nine percent of cases, this meant death for long-range Martial Squires.
Conversely, being able to keep their close-range opponent at bay by inflicting damage from a distance was the win condition for long-range Martial Squires.
To the swordsman, it was clear to him that he was the one who had successfully fulfilled his conditions for victory.
That was why he resolutely used his most powerful technique aiming to cleave Rui in half so finely that even his own cells would take a moment to realize that they had been sliced in half. There was no way Rui was going to survive that attack.
Or so he thought.
SWING!!
An incredibly powerful attack rushed towards Rui. The sheer potency behind the swing was so great that it cleaved the clouds across the sky in half.
Yet when it hit Rui… It didn't.
Rui's retreating image that he cut simply faded.
His eyes widened.
It was a feint.
CLASP!
BZZZT!
Before the man could even react, Rui's limbs tangled across his own from seemingly nowhere!
His arms coiled around the man's neck, pressing down like a vice as though he wanted to crush it with his bare hands.
The man didn't even understand what happened!
He was supposed to have won.
He was supposed to have shopped Rui into a perfect half.
Yet not only did Rui somehow manage to perfectly time his dodge neither too late nor too early, but he also managed to feint just ahead of time, to trick his mind.
The Phantom Step technique that Rui had used was actually not that potent a technique. It was a good trick that could be a little challenging to handle at times, but any high-grade Martial Squire would eventually be able to handle them one way or another. It was far from invincible, and not a technique that was too significant at the highest echelons of the Squire Realm.
It was for that reason that Rui only used it at the most appropriate moments. He only used it to show people exactly what they wanted to see, what they expected to see.
And that was why they fell for it.
The man's expression was furious. He tried unwrapping himself out of Rui's grip, yet breaking out of a rear chokehold was too difficult if the two were in the same league of strength.
Yet, the man wasn't done. Even if his arms were bound by Rui's legs, his hands weren't. His wrist was free.
Including that of the hand that held his sword.
SPLAT!
ραndαsΝοvεl ƈοm He inflicted a deep gash on Rui's leg, causing him to begin bleeding profusely.
Yet Rui was prepared.
He quickly activated Weaving Blood, and instantly, the wound healed in just a second!
The man's eyes widened in shock!
He had thought that Rui was the average long-range Martial Squire, but then he not only managed to avoid his fastest technique, but he also feinted with such impeccable timing that he didn't notice until after the swing was complete.
Furthermore, he then grappled him, paralyzing him partially with some strange technique, weakening his resistance.
He then healed a deep dash on the spot with an absurdly impressive healing speed.
What long-range Martial Squire did that?
Regardless, he didn't ponder the matter at all. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered surviving. As long as he survived, he would be happy.
He swung his hand as he could, hoping to cause as much pain and damage as he could to Rui to get him to come off.
But alas, Rui did not yield. Even without Weaving Blood healing the damage that the man inflicted with his sword, he would not be able to hurt Rui all that much in the short term.
The reason for that was that he could only use the muscles in his forearm to swing because the rest of his arm and body were too restricted.
He began panicking when his vision blurred, going red. But that only made it even worse.
And he lost consciousness before he even realized it.
Yet Rui didn't stop. He continued restricting blood flow to the brain for as much as he needed to without going out of his way to take any risks.
It wasn't long before the man's heart ceased beating.
Rui dropped him, allowing the corpse to plummet back to the Kaddar Region.
"Huff…" Rui sighed as he wiped away his sweat. "That was tiring."
Still, he was quite satisfied with the outcome of the fight, obviously. He was happy that he managed to beat such a powerful Martial Squires. He had inadvertently achieved his goal of using Weaving Blood in a real fight, and it had worked like a charm.
Still, he didn't use it as a Martial body to adapt to someone, he had only used it to heal some wounds at the end of the fight.
What he wanted to do was test the ability of Weaving Blood to serve as a way to adapt his body to a Martial body focused on healing. In this case, he didn't get to do that. Simply healing some wounds that frankly were not too much of a threat was not the same as adapting his body to permanently using Weaving Blood.
He had come across a powerful opponent, and he hadn't been able to fulfill his plan of scouting for powerful guardians whose Martial Art was such that Weaving Blood was the way to adapt to them. He had been far too busy with fighting to also be able to do that.
('No matter, I can do that now,') Rui expanded Riemannian Echo to encompass the entire battlefield.
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