The Martial Unity

He stared at Rui with fearful eyes. Rui calmly returned his stare with an icy one of his own.

"ACK!" He choked as Rui grabbed him by the neck.

"I know it was no more than an assignment for you." Rui strengthened his grip. "I know it wasn't personal for you."

He brought the man's face closer.

"But honestly?" Rui asked. "I don't give a damn."

"...!" The Martial Apprentice's face grew red. He felt as though his head was going to burst. He struggled desperately, trying to pry Rui's hands off his neck while kicking Rui with all the Apprentice-level technique he could.

In vain, of course.

His measly attacks couldn't even budge Rui even when he wasn't using any Squire-level defensive techniques.

The Martial Apprentice's eyelids fluctuated as his vision blurred.

The brain tended to automatically shut down when blood flow to it was shut down for more than seven seconds.

Rui clenched his grip, squeezing down hard.

SNAP

A Martial Apprentice's body was fundamentally human, barring the brain. Rui didn't even need to use Outer Convergence to snap his neck with ease, killing him on the spot.

THUD

He dropped his body to the ground, sighing.

('Not the most rational decision.') He had enough self-awareness to realize that wasn't the best decision he could have made. Maybe the Martial Apprentice had mastered some mental technique that allowed him to fool Rui's Primordial Instinct. Maybe the location that he had given Rui was wrong and fake, and he successfully fooled Rui using that technique.

In that case, Rui should have kept him alive in case the location was wrong so that he could extract the real location from him.

Of course, it wasn't likely, but Rui was normally quite careful on missions.

This time, however, he had acted irrationally.

He sighed, shaking his head. He quickly scoured the man's body, finding some cash and a communication device, both of which he took. There was nothing else of value on the corpse.

He raised one foot up in the air.

THUD!!

His foot struck the ground, cratering past the soil. In an instant, he had created a crater several meters deep, tossing the corpse in it. Within five minutes, he had buried the body in soil and had completely covered it, and flattened the ground.

"Alright then." He clapped his hands, dusting them off. "Time to set off."

First, he updated the Martial Union on the intel he had acquired, through the communication device. It was necessary to keep them in the loop as soon as he got access to new intel, a policy that ensured that Martial Artists did not die before conveying valuable intelligence to the Martial Union.

He turned, facing south. That was where the location of the homeless shelter was.

RUMBLE!

The very ground shook as he dashed away at incredible speeds. The air recoiled as a sonic boom blasted through it.

Twenty seconds, that's how long it took him to reach the location that the Martial Apprentice had given him.

The homeless shelter part appeared to be accurate, this was a good sign. Rui could sense a large number of people within the warehouse, huddled together. It was a cramped location. Seismic Mapping detected an underground layout as well, whose only entrance was at the center of the shelter.

There was no reason to hesitate.

He ignored the odd stares that the people inside gave him. He was clearly not one of them. There appeared to be helpers who aided the needy, they too threw confused looks at him. Rui simply ignored all of them as he headed toward the entrance to the underground facility.

"Hey." A man stopped him. "Who are you and where the fuck do you think you're going?"

A bunch of armed guards stopped him.

"I'm here to kill Faraday Lowminer." Rui simply replied.

He studied the looks of shock and anger that emerged on their faces. Their reactions supported the claim that the target of his mission was here.

THWACK

Rui simply waved his hand across the two guards, killing them instantly.

All hell broke loose as the commotion attracted the attention of the rest of the security team.

He simply tore off his Mind Mask and watched them all freeze in fear, studying their reactions. He was trying to gauge how confident they were in their defenses.

"Hm..." He dashed forward, running through them like they were light curtains. Deeper inside the facility was what appeared to be a locked section. Rui could sense the tunnel leading underground behind the gates.

BAM!

He broke through, shocking the many people within.

Inside was a large opening into the ground that inclined downwards. There were storage vehicles that entered and exited the tunnel. There were many men loading and unloading boxes, filled with drugs no doubt.

The guards immediately raised their muskets and other projectile weapons, yet they never had a chance to fire them.

Rui simply disappeared from their vision.

He was already running down the tunnel.

"Deep." He murmured.

A security block soon entered his vision, they manually checked all the incoming vehicles, before letting them pass. Amongst them was a man in what appeared to be a suit, overseeing the security team.

POW POW POW!

Rui killed all the security guards in the briefest of moments. It happened so man that the security head hadn't even realized what had happened until after Rui killed all of them.

"You're the head of security?" Rui asked him in international language.

He tried pulling out a musket, pointing it towards Rui. Yet he shivered his knees buckled. Rui took off his Mind Mask, drawing out his primal fear.

"Where is Faraday Lowminer?" Rui coldly asked.

The man pointed with a shivering finger down the block.

('Good, he's here.') Rui nodded. "How many Martial Apprentices does he have?"

"S-Seventeen." The man gulped.

Not a small number.

"How many Martial Squires?" 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝙣𝒐𝙫𝙚𝙡.𝙤𝙧𝒈

"N-None."

"You're lying." Rui scoffed.

CRACK

"AAARGH! It's the truth!" The man sobbed, caressing his broken arm.