Weapons were tools for killing, while combat arts were the techniques of killing. Of the Eighteen Combat Arts passed down to the present day, aside from the introductory forms meant to strengthen the body, every other move and technique existed to kill more efficiently.
Most combat arts took shape during the five hundred years after Radiance was founded, because those were the five hundred years of the most frequent wars. Countless noble men and women had risked their lives in bloody battles against the Sea Barbarians, Mountain Barbarians, Wild Barbarians, and Grass Barbarians, expanding Radiance's territory to its present extent. If another century or two passed, perhaps animal-protection organizations would even demand care for those barbarian tribes on the verge of extinction.
During the years when combat arts were taking shape, countless styles had flashed into existence and vanished just as quickly—those using fists and feet, ranged weapons, swords, spears, axes... During Radiance's early founding years, weapons were of such poor quality that they were easily damaged in battle. As for going back to have a master repair one's weapon before returning to the fight, most barbarians were unwilling to agree to such a thing. The ones who were willing to agree were usually no longer able to breathe.
Thus, driven by the intense needs of reality, one school of Omni-Combat Arts after another emerged. Unlike Formless Combat Arts, which served as the general outline of the Eighteen Combat Arts, Omni-Combat Arts required practitioners to learn, at the lowest training cost, a general martial art that could switch freely between fists and feet, blades and swords, axes and spears. The goal was that even if one's sword broke on the battlefield, one could casually pick up a comrade's axe and continue rampaging. If the axe was gone, one could raise