Rui felt this time and time again for each of the representatives, but they were truly worthy of the position of representative.
Even with her body-heating technique alone, she would easily be in the top five in the Hajin branch of the Martial Academies. Her compatibility against basically everyone was great since merely touching her caused damage.
In fact, Rui would even go so far as to say that she would even beat Hever and at the very least stalemate Kane. Hever needed to firm interception and physical contact, Ferlicia would dominate him because he would not be able to maintain contact with her.
Kane may not lose against her, but he really would not be able to win against her either. Kane's offense and defense was already limited. If he could not even realistically touch her, then there was basically nothing he could even do.
And then there was her spectacular fire attack. Rui did not think she was actually expelling fire from within her lungs. If he had to guess, she was using the extreme temperature of her body to ignite the air. She blowed air as hard as she could through a thing gap in her red-fingers, the combination of the high temperature and the high pressure likely reached a level that was enough to ignite the air that she was exhaling.
It was an incredible technique that had a remarkably wide area than one would expect, it was not a technique that could be mastered without dedicating one's everything to heat.
However, Askin wasn't weak either.
He managed to land a strike on her minimizing damage by striking with footwear in obscure strange angles that were hard to defend from.
He launched a barrage of backward kicks on Ferlicia while upside down hand-standing with his back faced against her. It was an incredibly comical scene, yet it allowed him to attack her without suffering any damage.
He avoided her with a strange spinning flip onto his feet. Rui found his moves quite difficult to predict, it was not easy and he had an a rather unpredictable, unlimited and unconstrained fighting style. He deviated from orthodoxy.
In the Martial Academy, there were several principles taught to students in the Foundational stage regarding combat, these principles were also taught on Earth. They were basic guidelines to fight optimally. Martial Artists had long grown accustomed to taking them for granted and fighting as if those guidelines would mostly be followed.
And they were, because those guidelines and norms were generally good time-tested advice that actually worked.
Yet it seemed that because of the peculiarities of his Martial Art, a lot of the foundational norms of orthodox combat simply didn't apply to him!
He broke every rule, but somehow he kept getting away with it.
Frankly, he was so divergent, even the VOID algorithm would need to take its time in order to adapt and evolve to him.
Many of the Martial Artists spectating the match felt a headache just trying to process his bizarre motions!
Ferlicia was also among them. She had grown more and more irritated at her inability to even properly touch him. He was bizarrely slippery and somehow always escaped her clutches.
Furthermore, he launched bizarre unorthodox attacks that she found it hard to defend against.
He managed to launch a swift combination of odd attacks that slipped right past her guard.
Irritation flashed across her face. So far, the only attack that had successfully hurt him or even hit him was her fire breath attack. However, she did not think she would be able to land it any time soon again.
Shockingly, it didn't seem like he was so lose. Then, something changed.
"Argh!" Askin grimaced as he retreated. He had burnt his leg badly. He had trouble understanding what had happened. He launched a kick but ended up getting burnt quite significantly.
"She was unable to avoid getting hit, so she shifted so that an exposed part of his leg would hit her instead of more less vulnerable areas." Rui nodded. It wasn't the best strategy she could have employed that Rui could see, but it showed that Ferlicia was a clever fighter.
The damage was done. Askin was too reliant on his unorthodox maneuvering, thus the severe burns on his leg weren't good.
Furthermore, Rui realized he probably had it worse if his body maintained a high level of alcohol at all times. Alcohol was very flammable and Ferlicia was extremely hot. It was quite likely that every attack did more damage than it would normally do so.
Furthermore, his maneuverability had decreased quite a bit due to the injury.
Ferlicia managed to nick him with yet another attack. Her offense was finally starting finally land on him. However, she was unable to grapple him, grappling charges were still much slower than jabs, after all.
She managed to land her first clean strike. Askin had already been burnt quite a bit by then. In comparison, she hadn't any meaningful damage. Askin hadn't landed too many heavy blows on her.
His condition deteriorated more and more until eventually she managed to charge and grapple him.
Asking grimaced. Just as Ferlicia was about to grapple and burn him even more.
She froze. Letting go of him immediately.
"Did I hear that right?" She asked him, evidently in disbelief.
"Match over!" The referee declared. "Winner; Representative Ferlicia Ernand!"
Askin shrugged clumsily. "I'm not unreasonably stubborn. I know when to take a step back *hic*"
She simply gazed at him wordlessly as he was supplied potions, before turning around and walking away.
"Hmmm.." Rui pondered. "Well, atleast he saved himself some pain."
"Indeed." Squire Dylon agreed. "I would have done the same if I was in his position. Nobody has time for prolonging torture futilely."
Rui wasn't sure he agreed with that entirely. "Regardless, she's going to be incredibly strong."