Time passed a stable routine fell into place. Rui would research, and get deployed.
And then he would kill his opponent, and gain even more free time.
Every time.
Every time that he was deployed, an enemy Martial Squire died, and their corpse was brought back to Crexeet Town.
Every time.
Rui's dominance was shocking to both allies and enemies alike.
Word of his deeds spread like wildfire within Crexeet Town, albeit unspecific. The town was still unaware of the extent of the conflict that occurred outside the borders, however, they had come to learn that Rui always killed a Martial Squire every time he fought.
He was already quite famous because of his accomplishment in the scholarly fields, but he had also proven his worth as Martial Squire to the entire town. He was nothing short of a celebrity within the town, he had become the object of admiration and even lust.
The mayor was thoroughly overjoyed by Rui's dominating performance. He knew that the Martial Squires of this region were by no means of the highest grade, but there were plenty of competent Martial Squires, and even high-grade Martial Squires.
Yet, Rui was never stopped.
His success was so impactful that the enemy nations had long taken notice of him. He was known as the 'one soul reaper' in certain circles, for he only killed once every time he stepped onto the battlefield and no more.
However, something had to give.
These nations did not possess an endless supply of Martial Squires to merely be reduced as fodder for this new Martial Squire to consume. The loss of each Martial Squire was a tangible wound to these nations.
That was why after the fourth domineering defeat, the various nations finally threw their hands up and decided to deploy multiple Martial Squires to at least neutralize him as a threat, even if they could not eliminate him as a threat.
The fifth time Rui stepped onto the battlefield he was confronted with a defense-oriented Martial Artist and a long-range Martial Squire.
This was the first time in a while that Rui had been subject to a longer and more intense battle. It appeared that his enemies had chosen well. The long-range Martial Squire was a competent Martial Artist with immense flexibility and maneuvering as well as power. She could rapidly alter the angle from where she attacked him in a manner that was similar to Senior Ceeran, albeit much inferior.
The defensive Martial Squire, on the other hand, was a good tank with enough speed and wingspan, giving him the ability to barricade Rui from reaching the long-range Martial Squire who continuously bombarded him with powerful attacks.
Thus, Rui was confronted with an unfair battle where he was blasted with power offensive attacks that were quite difficult to evade, but unable to inflict any damage on either of them. The long-range Martial Squire was too far, he'd need to use his own long-range techniques, but also more importantly, the defensive Martial Squire kept tanking everything that Rui had to offer.
Yet, Rui eventually prevailed yet again.
He waited for the moment when the long-range Squire came closer to him than she ever had as he put on a facade of losing. Just when she got close enough, he used his Reverberating Catapult to launch the defensive Martial Squire straight at him.
Yet she hadn't realized that that was merely meant to be a momentary distraction.
POW!!!
A simple well-timed Flowing Canon from her blindspot took her down. She had been the kill for the fifth battle.
The enemy nations had come to realize that they couldn't simply keep him bogged down with just two mid-grade Martial Squires, thus they kept stepping up their efforts. It wasn't long before they had increased the quality and quantity of martial Squires enough so much so that they were able to pressure him very hard.
Yet, all it took was for Rui to exhale deeply in a strange manner. In the middle of the battle, he became vastly faster than he was before, he slipped through the Martial Artist nets that his opponents had made to suppress and kill him.
The Forestep technique was not to be underestimated. Although the predictive model that he had created in this battle was far too unrefined for it to bring out the full power of the Forestep technique that he had demonstrated in his battle against the Root, it was still enough for him to win the battle against the Martial Squires.
Time passed as this became the norm. A single Martial Squire seemingly turned the tide of war all by himself.
Rui seemed to be the only one who wasn't impressed. This wasn't the first time that he had had wide impacts just purely based on his Martial Art performance. Compared to what he had achieved in the Shionel Confederation, this little conflict was nothing more than a quarrel between children.
Not that he minded this in any way, in fact, he was rather relieved that this was the case. It meant that the enemies that he made were much more proportional in their threat level relative to him.
In the Shionel Confederation, the threat level of his enemies was off the charts. There were simply too many of them who were too powerful for him to possibly face head-on.
The same was not true for the smaller and weaker local sovereign states that he had picked a fight with by doing such a good job protecting Crexeet town. The Squire-level nations did not scare him. Although they certainly were stronger than him, they were unable to simply crush him, or even defeat him without any exertion like Chairman Deacon was capable of.
That was desirable. He had no intentions of making disproportionately powerful enemies yet again when he was already on the run from extremely powerful enemies in the first place.
Regardless, he continued his research until he finally stumbled across success.
"I've got it," He grinned. "This is it!"
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