Rui finally got a good look at his aggressor. Not that it helped much because his aggressor was masked. However, there were things that could still be gauged despite this.

('Adult male. His bulky physique probably means he's not a speed or maneuvering oriented Martial Artist, he's definitely a Martial Apprentice though') Rui thought as he struggled to restrain him.

Rui's goal in this fight was not to win. He had two goals:

The first was to survive. His survival was the ultimate priority to him. Although he had gotten closer to Bella during the mission, he was not going sacrifice his life for her. Rui never fancied himself to be a hero or a saint.

The second, was to stall, not win. He did not intend to expend any extra energy on killing his opponent or knocking him out, though if he could, that would be great too. But for the most part, Rui was going to do his best to stall for Bella.

Stalling was easier than defeating, in most cases. Thankfully, this was one of those cases.

This was also how Rui planned to compensate for the weight difference. Rui had grown remarkably physically stronger over the last year, much more so than almost anybody else. However, at the end of the day he was still only a fourteen-year-old.

His opponent seemed to be in his twenties, the prime of his life. An adult Martial Apprentice was stronger than an adolescent Martial Apprentice. Rui had to capitalize on his advantages as much as he could, stalling instead of aiming for a win, was part of the plan.

FOOSH

The masked Martial Apprentice finally managed to untangle himself from Rui's ground grappling.: text © owner.

POW POW POW

Rui immediately began showering him with a barrage of strikes of Vital Pressure, but his opponent managed to block and redirect almost all of them.

WHOOSH

Rui managed to cleanly crouch out of a high kick while simultaneously sweeping his pivot leg with a low kick.

BAM

It landed, but the difference in power prevented Rui from knocking him out of balance. His opponent returned the favour by launching a barrage of blows.

BAM BAM BAM

Rui was pushed back despite mitigating the force with Acute Edge and Elastic Shift, he leapt back putting some distance between them. They both paused for merely half a second, regaining their bearings. However, Martial Apprentices processed combat so quickly that even half a second in combat was akin half a dozen seconds. In fact, not even half a minute had passed since the Martial Apprentice ambushed Rui!

('His Martial Art leans towards power and toughness.') Rui analyzed, while parsing the data he had collected through the basics of the VOID algorithm. ('The first step is to adapt my fighting approach such that the relevance and significance of power and durability is as minimal as possible.')

"Fuuuu..." Rui exhaled as he relaxed his muscles, shaking and dangling them, while crouching his knees relaxedly. Despite this, Rui dashed towards the masked Martial Apprentice aggressively, much to the latter's surprise.

WHOOSH

Rui abruptly stopped and stepped back avoiding a counter haymaker from his opponent before circling around and entering his striking range to land a quick jab.

Pow

WHOOSH

Rui jumped out of range after avoiding a low kick. The masked Martial Apprentice grimaced in frustration at the abrupt change in fighting styles, Rui had gone from passive defense to maneuvering and evasive offense, becoming a much more annoying opponent!

('Float like a butterfly...')

WHOOSH

Rui danced out of a straight punch.

('… Sting like a bee!')

POW

A clean jab to the solar plexus.

This strategy was not exactly pioneering. It was the strategy that the legendary Muhammad Ali once said he would use if he had to fight Mike Tyson. This strategy was similar to what Kane used against Fae. A light offense combined with evasive maneuvering to avoid his opponent's counter. Land in jabs wherever you could, avoid all attacks through evasive maneuvering.

But, there was one key difference. Kane accomplished this through speed and agility, something Rui didn't have.

Rui compensated for his lacking speed and agility with the predictive and counter-deduction measures of the VOID algorithm.

Range and balance of weight. Using this, Rui was able to deduce the general attack that his opponent was aiming for, and the VOID algorithm simply outputted a corresponding move that has the greatest chance for success. Rui himself had painstakingly worked on the counter-deduction system of the VOID algorithm that constructed through a mind-numbing amount of data science.

Watching his work allow him to gain an upper hand, even if small, in a disadvantaged battle validated Rui to his very core. The Martial Scientist in him was excited!

BAM

Rui almost flew away as his opponent landed a solid strike on him. He got up quickly and propped up his stinging arms into a stance, prepared for the next move.

('Come!') Rui urged. He sharpened his senses awaiting a bullrush, yet a guttural screech from a distance away broke him out of his reverie. He just barely managed to recognize the voice.

('Bella!') In a moment of shock, he glanced towards the direction the scream for just a second.

However, when he turned back...

('He's gone!') Rui cursed. The Martial Apprentice had escaped from the edge of Rui's vision, and scurried away into background.

('He went away in the opposite direction.') Rui frowned, incredibly confused as he began moving in the direction from where he heard Bella. ('Does he not care if I run after her?')

The only reason he would do that is if his job was cancelled.

('Or if his job is complete.') Rui froze in horror. He immediately strained himself to the absolute maximum, running at a speed that physically hurt his body.

He sprinted faster than he ever had before, moving at a speed that ordinary people would find difficult to even follow with their eyes!

('No no no. There's no way.') He tried to calm himself down. ('First I need fucking fin-')

His thoughts suddenly froze as something entered his vision.

What he saw next wiped every ounce of energy and tension in his muscles.

He just froze without a care, tripping and crashing on the ground hard before looking up.

And there she was.

What he saw was a sight that burned itself into his memory, forever.

Tears streaming down her face, snot trickling down her nose, eyes rolled almost entirely up, and a pool of blood splurting from her slit neck.

Face-to-face with the corpse of Bella Hier.