The Martial Unity

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

The air rippled with thunder as Rui and Kane evaded lightning bolts meticulously, being careful to avoid being within the vicinity of the lightning bolt to not get exposed to extreme heat.

As they evaded lightning bolts, they also tried to move closer and closer toward the center of the valley. Although the two of them knew that there was no way they would be able to make it to the center of the valley as Martial Squires, they still wanted to push themselves and see how far they could go.

Their progress was very wonky and chaotic. Rui felt strangely nostalgic as he thought back to his fight with the Root. He had been faced with a similar predicament back then as well. Back then, he had needed to close the distance between himself and the Root. He had needed to make marginal progress bit by bit, taking five steps forward, but four steps back.

This was a similar situation. Instead of roots, there were dealing with lightning.

Rui and Kane both froze for a moment as their Primordial Instincts screamed of great peril.

The two of them dove from their spot as a lightning bolt larger than they had ever seen struck the spot that they were less than a millisecond ago.

BOOOM!!!

"Rgh!" The two of them grimaced as they were unable to escape the heat. Their bodies were covered the light burns as the skyrocketing heat of the lightning bolt burned them lightly. Kane was better than Rui considering that he moved away faster and thus got further away, but their outer flesh had turned red.

"What the hell was that?!" Kane asked even as he dodged a lightning bolt that struck his spot a second later.

"That was one of the larger lightning bolts of the Thundering Valley that are more common the deeper we go," Rui replied as the damage he took was healed by his body.

"That one was way thicker than any other lightning bolt we've seen thus far!" Kane exclaimed. "If I actually got hit with that…"

He didn't even need to complete his words. His actual toughness and durability were extremely low, both of them knew that he was a goner if a lightning bolt of that magnitude hit him.

Rui would probably fare far better than he did because his Martial Body's configuration did lean more towards durability and defense. Furthermore, he had a stronger healing factor, and he had also mastered Final Breathing, which was one of the reasons he survived being chewed by the Root.

"Maybe… We should avoid biting off more than we can chew at the moment," Rui offered.

"Yep,"

Just as Rui was about to suggest returning back a bit, his eyes widened as he realized he made a mistake.

"Sh-!"

BOOM!

A powerful bolt of lightning struck him.

It hurt more than he had expected. Even more than the damage he had undertaken against the Root.

A titanic surge of current passed through his body, and more importantly, his nervous system. It made him feel pain that was comparable to what he felt during the Squire evolution breakthrough procedure.

"AAAAAARGH!" Rui grimaced as he fell to his knees. "…Damn!"

"Rui!" Kane called out as he avoided lightning strikes on his way to Rui. "You okay?!"

The actual energy of the attack was that of a low-grade Squire-level attack at most. The issue was that it caused pain far greater than the actual damage. It caused pain like every cell in his body was being devastated by a powerful attack.

The reason for that, of course, he knew. The current had affected his nervous system, every nerve across his body was firing pain signals to his brain greater than what the damage actually was due to the current flowing through his nervous system.

BOOM!

Rui barely managed to dodge another lightning bolt, still reeling from the pain of the one that hit him.

He quickly headed back momentarily, as he felt himself regaining proper control over his body.

"Are you ok?" Kane asked with concern. "That looked pretty bad."

"Yeah…" Rui groaned. "It hurt way more than it actually damaged my body."

Rui flexed his muscles testing his motor control. The current has also introduced a mild paralytic effect that he was struggling to get rid of.

"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves," Rui finally said as he finally felt his body returning to normal. His healing factor was doing a good job mending the damage and the burns to his body. "Probably best to not venture in too deep. The lightning bolt that hit me wasn't even that big. If it was the large one from earlier, that… That would be brutal."

Rui wasn't sure whether he'd be able to survive a powerful lightning bolt that large striking him.

"Yeah," Kane nodded, turning back to look at the ocean of lightning bolts. "If it did that to you, I don't even wanna think what it would do to me."

"The boundary that we went to is very close to our limit at the very moment," Rui murmured. "Maybe we can change that in our time spent training here."

The two of them had come pretty close to their limits, especially Rui. His evasive capabilities without the VOID algorithm were not something that could be boosted immediately.

The two of them had quite a lot to think about in this particular regard. Rui was determined to not leave the Thundering Valley without making some progress. Kane was determined to not leave the Thundering Valley because… he liked it too much. He was in his comfort zone and his home court when it came to training like the one that they were doing in the Thunder Valley.

"Alright, let's get back to training," Rui commented as he bounced back up, heading towards the Valley again.

"Are you sure about that?" Kane looked at him with a dubious expression.

"Yes, I don't want to waste the Forestep that I have already activated."