Time passed on more monotonously than Rui had expected, the entire battle was happening in slow motion within his eyes, so he had gotten rather bored for quite a while now. As time passed, his intervention in the battle reduced bit by bit, to ensure that the battle proceeded more organically, otherwise he would end up taking too much credit from the Martial Apprentices of the Longranger Sect that were partaking in this battle.
He had been launching fewer attacks and had also been sabotaging his opponents less as time passed by.
The problem for the K'ulnen Tribe was the fact that the advantages that came from the initial numbers advantage, as well as the higher-quality Martial Artists in general. On top of that the accumulated advantage that came from having an immensely successful battle up till this point was also adding on top of the pile.
It was slowly starting to get overwhelming at this point. Unlike before, a single Martial Apprentice of the K'ulnen Tribe had to face more than one long-range Martial Artist of the Martial Union and the Longranger Sect since their numbers had been cut down since the start of the battle.
It was already difficult for them having to deal with just a single Martial Apprentice, but now that they had to deal with a lot more, not a single close-range Martial Apprentice of the Longranger Sect was able to penetrate the wave of attacks that were coming from the distance and close the distance faster than the Longranger Martial Artist was moving back.
The Martial Artists of the Longranger Sect had also coordinated their matchups much more excellently than at the start of the battle. It helped that they had a solid intelligence advantage over the K'ulnen Tribe.
The heavy long-range artillery Martial Artists focused on the heavyweight durable close-range Martial Artists in the K'ulnen Tribe. The latter was extremely difficult to halt in their path and required serious firepower within the Apprentice Realm to stop them.
They were generally handled with techniques with high single-hit power or techniques that could be used continuously, resulting in a tremendous amount of power being outputted every second.
Only such techniques could stop the momentum of heavyweight power and durability-oriented close-range Martial Artists.
On the other hand, there were plenty of middle and lightweight maneuvering-oriented Martial Apprentices that were able to dodge the attacks of such unwieldy, albeit powerful, attacks. These kinds of Martial Apprentices did not fear such attacks since it was extremely difficult to hit them with such attacks.
Instead, they were handled by the Martial Apprentices of the Longranger Sect which was capable of highly flexible and adjustable, quick and wider attacks. Such techniques were inherently harder to avoid due to the higher area of effect, while also being easier for the long-range Martial Artist to tag due to their flexible nature.
The biggest downside to such techniques was the fact that their power was quite lacking. This meant that it would be nearly impossible to take out heavyweight power or defense-oriented Martial Artists. On the flip side, lightweight Martial Artists almost always tended to have low durability and toughness which meant that even such power-lacking techniques were strong enough to be effective against them as a means of offense.
Another powerful K'ulnen Martial Apprentice fell to a key shot that hit a vital, incapacitating them. The momentum of the K'ulnen Tribe's charge had stalled to a tipping point.
Attacks rained on them wave after wave. Not only did they significantly hamper the path forward, but they were also beginning to push back!
Step by step, leap by leap, the Martial Apprentices of the K'ulnen Tribe backed off as the overwhelming amount of artillery piled on them.
('Anytime now,') Rui grew more alert as he waited for the signal.
"Chase after them!" An order was bellowed once the Martial Apprentices of the K'ulnen Tribe learned that they had effectively lost the battle.
The Longranger Martial Apprentices began charging forward swiftly, unwilling to let their enemies retreat easily when they had such dominant odds.
That's when it happened.
What appeared to be a firecracker of some sort was launched into the air.
It exploded, producing a lot of sound and light.
Rui grinned. "It's time,"
This was the signal that the Martial Apprentices were supposed to launch when they were in real trouble, according to the intelligence that had been gathered on the K'ulnen Tribe
That served as a signal to summon a Martial Squire to clean up the mess.
"Retreat!" Rui ordered them Martial Apprentices.
They were well aware of what was about to come, having been debriefed about this operation thoroughly.
Rui remained behind as he prepared himself to use the Void Pathfinder technique.
Normally, the Void Pathfinder technique, which was the VOID algorithm applied to the Pathfinder technique could not be applied to Martial Artists of which he hadn't prepared a predictive model and thus an adapted style to counter them.
That was why Rui had painstakingly built predictive models for all of the Martial Squires of the K'ulnen Tribe for almost two months. It had been quite difficult and had taken quite some time, but he had done all of that not just for today's spectacle, but also for future conflicts against the Martial Squires of the K'ulnen Tribe.
The VOID algorithm was necessary in this case for when the target of his Pathfinder technique was in motion since it would require some degree of prediction that he would use to input into the ODA System. Together, he would be able to achieve a feat that ought to leave even the G'ak'arkan Tribe's jaw-dropping.
('Now then… Which one will it be in the end?') Rui wondered.
His comms device vibrated, drawing his attention.
Said the message that Kane had sent him.
('…Unexpected,') Rui shrugged as he prepared himself to execute the ODA algorithm in a split second when the Martial Squire arrived. ('But not a problem.')