BAM BAM BAM

Rui released an onslaught of heavy blows, each bolstered by Vital Pressure and Outer Convergence. Dalen simply guarded against each of them. He was one of the few people in the entire Academy who could straightforwardly withstand Rui's full power.

Although Rui didn't hit as hard as Fae or Nel, there weren't many people who hit harder than him. Outer Convergence was an incredibly difficult and powerful techniques that was just a few grades short of being grade ten, only senior striking specialists could over power in a contest of blows.

POW

Rui's strike found itself wiggling through his guard and striking his throat, earning a grimace for him. Dalen was just too rock solid, it would take him forever, if ever at all, to wear him down with ordinary strikes.

That's why Rui had aimed for vulnerable and vital areas with Vital Pressure, and tried his best to harm them with Outer Convergence.

Throat.

Solar Plexus.

Testicles.

Eyes.

Even the nose, for momentary incapacitation.

Rui didn't even bother trying to strike his honed muscles or his rock-solid bones. Only through these vital areas could Rui possibly hurt him.

POW: text © owner.

Dalen returned the favour, trying to take Rui down with blows. To his surprise, Rui didn't even bother trying to block his attacks!

Dalen had only mastered Vital Pressure for offense, and that was simply far too meagre to defeat Rui. Rui didn't even bother blocking them, he simply used Inner Divergence, Acute Edge and Elastic Shift to completely negate their impacts.

Rui blasted forward launching waves of attacks on Dalen, who did his best to withstand all of them while also trying to inflict as much damage on Rui as he could, albeit in vain.

A battle could not be fought only via defense, Dalen was very cognizant of this fact. But his offense bounced off Rui like a beach ball.

In comparison, Rui was making meaningful progress. His ability to land heavy blows on vital areas was truly troubling. Although Dalen had heightened his defense, vulnerable areas remained vulnerable areas.

It was almost impossible to train the throat to be able to withstand the power of Outer Convergence nor were there any techniques barring a grade ten technique peak Apprentice-level technique that allowed the throat to withstand such immense absurd power.

Usually when vulnerable areas were targeted, the only realistic solutions that existed was avoid or block.

Had Kane been the one fighting him, he would have avoided. But Dalen was accustomed to blocking and parrying.

Problem was Rui was faster. Much faster. Not only was he quicker because he was lighter, but his movement speed had increased significantly thanks to Outer Convergence. Furthermore, with maneuvering techniques, Rui was able to reposition himself to exploit holes in the defense very quickly.

This alone was very difficult to cope with for Dalen, especially when Rui had extremely impressive and inhumanly perfect timing with the VOID algorithm and Primordial Instinct.

On top of that, Rui made a fool out of him with Phantom Step. Dalen simply couldn't cope with numerous techniques, many of which were very especially powerful.

Eventually, Rui had become so unstoppably dominant that Dalen simply could do no more than turtle up and simply guard against the incoming onslaught. But that had weaknesses as well, weaknesses Rui immediately exploited.

FLICK

He tripped Dalen by intercepting one of his steps with a well-timed sweeping kick. Rui had become so sharp at predicting Dalen with the VOID algorithm boosted by Primordial Instinct that he was able to intercept things that normally would be impossible to intercept.

Dalen's weight fell sideways as he had no crutch supporting it.

BOOM

Rui launched him flying with a double palmed push, amplified with Outer Convergence. With merely one foot on the ground, Dalen simply couldn't prevent being launched. Since Rui pushed instead of colliding a strike against him, all of his defensive techniques were completely useless, since they were meant to work against collisions.

This was what Rui had been aiming for.

THUD

Dalen landed hard outside the ring, skidding some distance away, before finally stopping. Although this was a win by rules, since Rui knocked him out of the ring. He knew Rui could have pummeled him to the ground until he eventually managed to beat him black-and-blue or manage to wiggle in a lethal attack on a vital area causing immense suffering to Dalen. But he chose to win by a ring-out.

The least painful way for Dalen to lose.

Rui was not someone who enjoyed needless tormenting, he chose to defeat Dalen in the most humane way possible, especially since they were friends.

"Winner: Rui Quarrier." The supervisor declared as Rui cleared the ring for the next scheduled fight.

"You won." Dalen sighed. "Good fight."

"Good fight. You were a difficult opponent to beat." Rui smiled at him. "Let's spar again some time."

Dalen nodded, accepting his good will.

"That double-palm push." Fae noted. "That was well-executed. It surprised me because you don't normally use palm attacks."

Rui shrugged. "I used it because it was the soundest solution in those circumstances and parameters."

"You make it sound like a math equation." Kane grumbled.

('That's actually closest to the truth.') Rui mused.

The VOID algorithm was created with cutting-edge data science, statistics, probability, linear algebra and geometry in the twenty-first century of Earth.

It was forged out of more math and numbers than Kane, or anybody else could possibly fathom in his entire life. The sheer amount of information contained in the techniques was one of the biggest reasons that it was unviable in his previous life. No MMA fighter could possibly memorize all the information needed to utilize the VOID algorithm, even if they managed to memorize the entire algorithm, they were unable to memorize all the information about their opponent mid-fight that the VOID algorithm required them to memorize. Rui could only partially use the VOID algorithm even with his reincarnated-boosted conscious mind, he only used the earlier and more elementary iterations and versions of the VOID algorithm.

If the VOID algorithm were a technique, it's difficulty would likely very well surpass grade ten!