The ground rumbled as Rui's Flowing Canon struck Nel's weighted haymaker.
A combination of Blink and Phantom Step allowed Rui to barely get in a speedy jab.
The two of the unleashed avalanches of attacks. Rui abused almost all of his techniques to their very limit to keep up with Nel.
The ferocity escalated!
They lashed out at each other.
Nel's senses and senses were so sharp that combos of Blink and Phantom Step that would normally be game-enders against almost anybody were reduced to defense bypassers
But Nel was able to handle even that to a certain extent. Blink was only partially effective because he was capable of fighting via his other senses alone, however not as well, and his mind still relied on vision the most.
Phantom Step allowed Rui to confuse him even further, allowing Rui to land in jabs.
The problem was, landing kicks were much harder because they were easier to identify than jabs, and were slower than jabs. This is why Rui had trouble landing the Stinger. It was quite problematic because the combination of Stinger landed with the help of Blink and Phantom Step was easily Rui's greatest trump card attack. But against Nel, this trump card unable to end the fight.
This technique-combo was not compatible with Nel, Rui had come to belatedly realize.
Still, Rui had one last trick up his sleeve that he hadn't used yet.
A powerful impact landed on Nel's body, launching him away.
He glanced up, looking at Rui with a hint of surprise.
Up until now, Rui had only managed to land strikes with his tricky feints.
But this time, Rui just straightforwardly landed a clean strike!
Something had changed.
He felt a faint hint of danger evolving from Rui.
"...It took me a while." Rui exhaled. "But it's ready."
Rui's stance shifted, flowing from his neutral stance to an offensive and maneuvering stance. He brought his legs closer to his center of gravity and positioned his arms to land strikes more easily.
Rui leapt at Nel, launching a powerful Flowing Canon.
Nel guarded, using all of his body to aid in defense before launching a flurry of weighted haymakers at Rui.
Rui dodged all of them.
He landed a jab on Nel's abdomen, yet again cleanly landing strikes on him without even using feints.
"RYAAH!" Nel launched an incredibly swift kick at Rui.
It crashed into a feint, much to his chagrin
Rui surprising managed to land three clean jabs to the solar plexus.
A jab to the nose dodging a haymaker from Nel.
Landed a low kick after avoiding a charge.
As this continued, the onlookers realized something!
The tides of the battles were turning!
Rui had been on a losing end initially, barely coping with blinked feints, but now he was landing more strikes than he was taking.
"It's kicked in." Kane grinned.
"What has?" Fae asked.
"His adaptive evolution thingy."
"Doesn't he do that from start?"
"He said it's harder against all-rounders." Kane shrugged. "Maybe that's why."
This was true, all-rounders had no pronounced weakness or shortcoming, although they didn't have pronounced strengths either. This made it harder for the VOID algorithm to adapt.
However, there was another variable than was unique to this battle.
One of the VOID algorithm's biggest shortcomings were that it was less equipped to handle the super Martial Art techniques that were ubiquitous. This is why Rui was unable to make use of several aspects of the original VOID algorithm, and several were obsolete on Gaea.
What if his opponent was not using any techniques?
What if one of the main the reasons the VOID algorithm was less effective was gone?
The answer was obvious.
Rui cleanly landed a powerful combo on Nel's face.
Rui grinned with ecstasy. For the first time in a very, very long time, he was able to use a much significant portion of the VOID algorithm against in a fight!
Despite being a truly deviant monster among Martial Artists, his fundamental fighting structure was closest to what the VOID algorithm was originally built for!
Nel hadn't even landed a single strike in over a minute. The only reason he was still contending was because asides from Flowing Canon, none of Rui's punches or kicks were hurting Nel all too much. His constitution was truly remarkable. Only when Rui managed strike his throat and other vulnerable places was he able to damage Nel with his normal strikes.
To the audience it seemed like Rui was dominating, but Rui knew that his simply wasn't the case.
Unlike with Kane, Rui couldn't afford to peacefully conserve his stamina walking around. He needed to push his energy reserves to the absolute limit if he wanted just to fight against Nel.
In the long run, he would grow tired before he took Nel down.
The only way he could inflict critical damage was through the Stinger, but he had already attempted this. Nel's natural danger sense and instinct was close to as good as Primordial Instinct and his senses were able to pierce the veil of Kane's Void Step technique, even if very slightly.
Landing the Stinger, especially when Nel knew about it, was not easy.
But there wasn't any other way to win.
Rui's fist slammed into his abdomen, but Nel just barely jerked.
"WEAK!" He shouted swinging another powerful haymaker.
Rui calmly dodged it.
He needed to make a decision soon, his power and speed would slowly start decreasing from this point forth, Helical Breathing was far from omnipotent.
Rui wasn't sure how to go about it, but his likeliest win condition would be a lethal Stinger. The second-best win condition was a ring-out.
"Hmmm." Rui's eyes narrowed as a third idea popped into his head.
He grinned. "Why not?"
Suddenly, he launched the Stinger at Nel.
It missed, Nel simply evaded the technique cleanly, incredibly cautious of it.
To everyone's surprise, Rui simply began spamming Nel with failed Stinger attempts.
What was he thinking?