The close-quarters Martial Apprentices wrangled in Rui's grip with an immense amount of ferocity and power. Yet Rui stayed strong, refusing to let go. He used Outer Convergence, Flame Breathing, and Helical Breathing to squeeze with as much power as he possibly could.

Thankfully, he didn't need to squeeze for too long.

The human brain would lose consciousness after seven seconds of a lack of oxygen. Rui was squeezing hard on his carotid artery and ensuring that there was no blood flow. Although Martial Apprentice could last longer, they too had a limit.

His resistance rapidly grew weaker and eventually, his body went limp.

He was unconscious.

THUD

Rui tossed his body aside as he immediately turned towards the two distant long-range specialists. They had already begun firing against him. But Rui had no intention of being hit by them at all this time.

WHOOSH WHOOSH

The two attacks hit an illusion of Rui, as Rui misdirected their potent attacks with Phantom Step. He immediately began running toward them with an immense amount of speed and agility. It took just a few moments to reach there as he evaded all their attacks.

They even began retreating panicked, as Rui approached them.

BAM!

Rui launched a powerful Flowing Cannon that launched one of them into the air, while the second had gotten stung.

PEW!

The Stinger burrowed itself in his back as he ran away, triggering a profuse wound.

BANG!

CRACK

A powerful hammer kick on the man cracked his skull.

('It's going to take more than that if you want to suppress me.') Rui mused. He knew that the Sekigahara Confederate would certainly try even harder than before, but that was. He had no intention of backing down or losing. He was curious to see the kinds of things that the Sekigahara Confederate would try to do in order to stop him.

Kane on the other hand wasn't nearly as lucky. His opponent wasn't somebody that he could defeat with casual ease, or even in a small amount of time.

His opponent was the only one on the entire battleground asides from Rui who could sense him quite clearly, a sensory Martial Apprentice. The Sekigahara Confederate had deployed him to be able to deal with Kane so as to ensure that Kane also doesn't go around taking down a large number of Martial Apprentices.

In addition to possessing sensory techniques that were required to be able to sense Kane despite the Void Step technique and a few other stealth techniques Kane had taken to improve his overall stealth prowess, his opponent also possessed incredible speed.

With their speed, it was basically like two speedy cars were running around. Kane tried to get away from him as fast he could, but it was simply too much even for someone with Kane's sheer velocity.

BAM!

THUD

Kane paused in surprise as his opponent just collapsed to the ground unconscious.

"Had some trouble?" Rui asked, chuckling.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

"More than just a little." Kane sighed. "This guy was meant to handle me, to ensure that I can't do what I did back then."

"Yeah." Rui nodded. "I went through something quite similar just now."

"How strong was he?" Kane asked in return.

"They, you mean." Rui chuckled. "One of them was a pretty good close-quarters Martial Artists while the others were long-range Martial Artists."

Kane's eyes widened. "They sent three Martial Apprentices to merely keep you at bay?"

"Yep."

"That's hilarious, they have actually significantly underestimated you a lot huh?" Kane laughed out loud. "They're going to need much more than if they want to keep you in check."

"Anyways, enough chitchat," Rui told him. "Let's get back into the battle.

The two of them returned back to the battle and returned to what they were doing in the previous battle against the Sekigahara Battle.

Wreaking havoc.

Now that there wasn't a single enemy Martial Apprentice who could sense him, Kane freely went back to sabotaging his opponent. He zipped through and across the entire battlefield, helping the Kandrian Martial Apprentices and making the life of the Sekigaharan Martial Apprentices miserable in battle was his general modus operandi. This immediately resulted in a visible impact on the state of the conflict. Martial Apprentices of the Kandrian Empire began winning more often, while Martial Apprentices of the Sekigahara Confederate simply lost, more and more.

Rui on the other hand began taking on the most powerful Martial Apprentices that the Skigahara Confederate had to offer. It wasn't as though the Sekigahara Confederate's Martial Apprentices were incompetent. Not at all.

It was just that Rui was simply far too strong.

He had come to the war hoping to run into people just as strong as he was, yet thus far, he hadn't run into someone who was genuinely as strong as him. Yet that hadn't just yet. He had run into interesting challenges like the wind manipulator Martial Artist that he had fought the very first time that the Kandrian Empire had launched an attack on the Sekigahara Confederate.

Yet he had not yet found something nearly as powerful as he had hoped for. Someone who could force him to use his Flowing Void Style to its absolute most.

Even to this day, he still didn't even know what that looked like.

To a certain extent, he envied all the Martial Apprentices he saw running around and beating each other up. At least they were still in a position where any one of them could be defeated by their peers at the same level as themselves.

He recalled how fulfilling the preliminary Martial Contest had been to him. It was one of the best parts of his time in the Martial Academy. Back then, he still had peers who were genuinely his equals and were more than capable of defeating him. It gave him good experience in using his Martial Art and the VOID algorithm. He'd needed to strategize nearly every fight and would have straight up lost several fights if not for his creativity.