Chapter 63: All for One and One for Region-All

The rules for the competition were as follows: Two teams of five will do battle for five minutes. During those five minutes, the teams will be fighting over a talisman tag. The tag is literally that, a floating tag that will follow the last player to touch it or hit it with an attack of any kind. The tag will hover directly in front of the person's heart, passively incrementing a timer for the team with possession of it. Whichever team has the tag for the most amount of time, as displayed on the timer, at the end wins. That is not the only win condition, however. When a contender is killed, they will be resurrected outside of the Field and 'incapacitated' for a minute, after which they may return to the fight. If all five members are simultaneously incapacitated, they will instantly lose the fight, regardless of the timers. It was an interesting enough concept as it meant there were two vastly different approaches you could take. You either sacrifice the direct involvement of the tag wielder so they can hide in the back and be safe, or you commit all five members to killing the other team. In other words, there was a defensive approach, and an aggressive one. This actually complicated matters somewhat for Ares as he wanted to be aggressive, obviously, but with a team consisting of Enyo and Esme, it was probably better to play to their strengths and slow the fight down... That or he could just trust Enyo and go and do his own thing! At this stage in the competition, there probably wasn't a group of five that could bust through Enyo's defences even if they were given an hour, never mind five minutes.

"The first match of the day is between Red Sky and Red Sun, may the disciples please take up their positions so we can begin!" Having said his piece, the announcer / judge / rules master moved over to the side-lines. Rud shot him a pitying glance a he felt like he'd found a kindred soul, one swamped up to his neck in work he wasn't being paid enough to do.

"Good luck." Trew gave a simple send off which gave everyone the creeps because this man had seriously undergone unfathomable levels of change in the last 24 hours. Ares almost wanted him to go back to normal because this was rather off-putting. If Ares tried to explain to a stranger that Trew had been one of the most annoying people to ever walk this planet not even a week ago, he would've been sent to an insane asylum no doubt. The current Trew was completely harmless, like he wouldn't even disagree with a fly lest he hurt its feelings.

Ares shook his head and just decided to ignore it. He, alongside Aejaz, Li Li, Enyo, and Esme lined up on their side of the Field. In between their group and their opposition, a floating, yellow talisman was hovering off the ground at roughly chest height. The inscription on the talisman looked rather profound so, when Ares gave it a once over with Omniscience, he wasn't too shocked to find out it had been done by someone above the transition realm. The person in question was probably a little weaker than Sadie overall, but whoever it was was undoubtedly a very competent runemaster as the talisman looked sturdy enough to even withstand Armageddon itself.

After checking out the talisman, Ares looked up at the opposition and almost did a double take when, finally, he realised they were all staring evilly at him. Do I know these people?! What's with the unprompted hate?! Ares would never know this, because he would never care enough to ask these nobodies, but these people were technically indirectly involved with Ares as a few disciples of Heaven's Path had stolen some of their prey during a mission using his Shock Beads. That was only one of the reasons for the unwanted attention, the other being that Ares looked pathetically weak. He wasn't even in mental accumulation yet, after all, so it looked like he truly didn't belong in this competition. It was an affront to those who'd earned their positions as they assumed he was a nepotism baby of some sort. All of the above combined meant he was a pretty easy opening target. the goal was to kill him quickly and move onto the others who looked to be a bit more of a challenge worth their time. Ares didn't quite realise this yet, but he most certainly got the hint when a loud horn signalled the start of the tournament and they all began channelling their mana in his direction. Screw the talisman, they weren't even looking in its direction. Ares was like a fish in a barrel as far these people were concerned. What they failed to appreciate, though, was that fish were slippery creatures!

Ares, thanks to his omniscience, could predict the nature, timing, and direction of every single one the attacks. Simply put, Omniscience was disgustingly powerful against magic; essentially being roughly akin to foresight. Ares decided to have some fun with these guys and really drive it home that they were making a huge mistake wasting their time on him. Ares might have let these goons have some fun for a bit if they hadn't attacked him, but Ares was a good host if nothing else. If these cultivators came all the way here from Red Sky in search of an ass-whooping, he would gladly oblige!

As for the attacks that were milliseconds away from being launched, they were all fairly standard arts of their respective pillars that effectively created a projectile of elemental magic. It seemed like every member on the opposing team was a wielder of a different element as they were trying to go for a balanced approach to the composition of their sect's formation.

The earth pillar cultivator's attack would come out first and was essentially just there to to throw Ares of balance so he would be hit by all the follow up attacks. The earth magic was an art by the name of 'Shove Earth' under the 'kick rocks' aspect. As the name of the aspect implied, it was centred around kicking earth magic around to turn it into projectiles or enhance close range combat. Stamping the ground to create spikes, flicking pebbles like a scattershot, covering your legs in earth magic and kickboxing, or in the case of Shove Earth; creating a waist high block of earth that would glide along the floor when kicked, creating a massive impact whenever it bulldozed into an enemy, knocking them over backword.

Next up to bat would be the water pillar cultivator who was charging up an ice aspect art known as 'Mistral Shrapnel'. The art would launch a frozen, spiky ball that detonates on contact, releasing the frigid winds held within. The initial contact would hurt, yes, but the real kicker to this art were the winds that came after as they could very well freeze you on the spot, giving your opponent ample time to walk up and shatter you into a thousand pieces. In this case, the power was lowered so that the cultivator could throw it faster, chaining it after the Shove Earth and hitting Ares when he was knocked onto the ground. Ares didn't really play games as they weren't readily available in this domain, but he was familiar enough with them to know the term 'stun-lock'; and boy was it appropriate here with what they were attempting to do to him!" There was actually an entirely virtual planet in the Vraizon domain, one that Ares wanted to visit because it sounded incredibly fun, but that was for a later date.

Third in the 'hurt Ares' queue was the fire pillar cultivator. His art was relatively normal and the name alone made it pretty obvious what he was going to do, 'Flamethrower'. This conflagration aspect art really doesn't need explaining, its literally just a jet of flames that burns the target to a crisp. Nothing more, nothing less, but hey, sometimes simple is best! 'No need to change what works' is essentially the motto of cultivators who rely on the conflagration aspect as it really is quite basic, especially when compared to the rest of the pillar and what it has on offer.

Second to last was the wind pillar cultivator of the group and his art, or rather aspect, was a bit more exciting than the previous individual's. The aspect he had an affinity for was named 'God hand' and could create a gigantic wind fist to strike foes with direct force and blasts of wind. This hand could be summoned and resummoned around the enemy, launching various attacks from unexpected angles. Spawning it was slow, and the hand itself wasn't exactly the fastest thing either, but it had a significant amount of power behind it, causing havoc wherever it struck. As for the arts, most were named in a fashion that was fairly predictable, I.E the type of attack launched followed by the direction it was launching in. In this case, the cultivator was about to use 'Pound Down' which summoned the hand curled up into a fist and directly above the foe, ready to come crashing down on them and unleashing a powerful gale directly on top of their head. This attack was rather lethal as a direct hit was known to blast open the heads of cultivators like crushing a melon.

Finally there was the lightning pillar cultivator. His attack was the simplest as it was literally just a thunder strike. No really, 'Thunder Strike' was the name of the art and it came under the thunder aspect. The only information about this art that was worth knowing was that there was a version of the art that came out quicker, but had less force behind it, named Flash Thunder. The art was incredibly slow to channel, but hit like a truck and could very well vaporise an unsuspecting cultivator. In fact, a few assassins throughout history had tried, and somewhat succeeded, in creating a branch of assassination called 'artillery theory'. The goal was long, slow casting arts that would just evaporate the target on contact without the need to get up close and personal. It required good positioning, roughly ten seconds of freedom to cast without the target leaving line of sight, and optimisation of arts to be chant-less. It was distinctly different from the usual hide, hit and run approach but some people made it work for them. You could imagine the shock on people's faces when they were talking to a high profile individual who was suddenly, inexplicably turned into ash by thunder magic that came out of thin air. There were a few other variations that used other magic as assassins had experimented quite broadly with artillery theory but, for the most part, most stuck to the old-fashioned ways... At least up until sniper rifles became worth using. After their resurgence a few thousand years after their original appearance, artillery theory had a new trick up its arsenal. Now these assassin didn't have to be near the target while they cast their magic, but could be an entire planet away if the rifle was a rare enough treasure. These were pretty dark times and was arguably the most powerful guns had ever been. Those with power in their domains conducted domain-wide searches for anyone in possession of such weapons and confiscated them, somewhat reducing the frequency of these long range murders, but they still happen every now and then even today in the wider world. Actually, while on the subject, wouldn't Ares' magic be perfect for artillery theory? Just a thought. A harmless, little thought...

Anyhow, now that the plan of attack had been laid out in front of Ares, he knew what he must do... Crush their wills in typical revenant fashion!

"Shove Earth!"

Ares' response was to bring out the Black Ice Bane and finally, finally, get a chance to wield it!

"Crystalised Void: Wall." And the first thing he did with it? Create a boring wall... Of all the cool things Ares knew he could do with it... He created a wall. Well, it was needed and he was here to mock, not to show off; although whether what he was about to do was classified as 'showing off' or not was debatable.

The black-ice wall looked sturdy as a mountain, comparable even to that of one of Enyo's mid-strength barriers. It was quite a pretty wall to look at, actually, as its black and white marbled appearance was easy on the eyes. It had an alluring, mystifying effect as the void swirled within the crystal ice, ready to lash out the second the wall was detonated. For reference, a poxy wall like this, sturdy though it was, only cost the Black Ice Bane around 3 state percentage; which was effectively nothing to Ares who even had a trick up his sleeve in the Crystalised Void: series of attacks that cost all 100%. Again though, now wasn't the time and place for it. As Enyo had once correctly described him, Ares was ostentatious. Using said trick here was nothing if not a waste of his showboating talents.

CRUNCH

The earthen block slammed into the wall and came to an immediate halt as the wall was blatantly superior in pretty much every single way. The elemental squad were taken aback momentarily by Ares' ability to stop the attack, but then promptly guessed it had something to do with his artifact. He wasn't that strong, he was probably just rich! So they assumed. This did complicate their strategy, unfortunately, as, now, Ares had free reign to actually dodge their attacks instead of being helplessly subjected to a never ending barrage. The fire and water pillar cultivators who were next in the sequence fired off their respective magics.

"Mistral Shrapnel."

"Flamethrower!"

There was some coordination here as Ares was currently stood behind the wall. If he dodged to the right, he would be hit by the shrapnel, if went left, he'd be incinerated. If he stood still, the next attack from the God hand cultivator would squish him. Contrary to their expectations, however, Ares did neither of these things. Instead, he held onto the wall and jumped around it, landing with his butt firmly seated on the rock that had been thrown at hit earlier. With the wall behind him, Ares had essentially created and taken a seat right between the two attacks. As if that wasn't bad enough, he brought out, from within the primordial blade, a drink in one hand and a skewer of meat in the other. He raised the pina colada, complete with a tiny umbrella, up to the Mistral Shrapnel which exploded on the glass he'd reinforced with mana. The frigid winds chilled his drink while his other hand raised the meat to the flamethrower, roasting it for him like it was a high-powered campfire. 

"Pound Down?"

The wind cultivator was so beyond befuddled he didn't even know if casting his art was the correct thing to do anymore. This fight, in the span of three seconds, had taken a turn he never could have predicted even in his wildest dreams.

Ares felt the wind above his head gathering so he stuck the skewer into the rock to free up his hand. Was he going to use it to defend himself? Yes, but not right now anyway... His first order of business was to take a straw hat out of his primordial blade, alongside a pair of sunglasses, and equip both. Only after that did he raise his hand and click his fingers, forming a layer of disintegration positioned horizontally above his head.

The mana finally formed an ethereal, green fist with mirage like qualities as the buffering winds were swept around within the confines of the hand shape. The partially solidified raging gale came crashing down as a bow shock formed ahead of its knuckles, tearing through space.

Ares paid it no mind and didn't even glance upward, instead holding onto his hat to prevent it from flying off somewhere as that would be the real problem here. Ares was trying to enjoy himself and having to actually get up and fetch the hat did not coincide with his plans!

The bow shock was first to reach the disintegration layer and it simply vanished from existence. There was no theatrics, no noise like with the Earth Shove and the wall, nothing. It was just gone, never to be seen again. The layer of disintegration wasn't even an art, just a basic thing Ares could do whenever and, yet, its ability to just flat out erase things was truly horrifying. It had been mentioned before, but disintegration was technically his most powerful aspect, it was just harder to use than his other aspects. When it came to disintegration's defensive utility, however, well... The God fist was there one second, and gone the next. It almost looked as though the hand had sunk straight into a murky, black swamp, and never came back up; but the truth of the matter was that it was de-atomised and utterly devoured. Not even any lingering traces of mana were spared as that too had been completely gobbled up.

Meanwhile, underneath the disintegration layer which had just faded away now that its job was done, Ares was still holding onto his hat with his free hand while he took a sip from his drink with the other. This insane bastard was not in the middle of a fight, he was in the middle of a beach if anything! The only things his opponents hadn't yet done for him were create sand and an ocean, but as there was both an earth and water pillar cultivator amongst them, they could technically do even that if they tried attacking him again!

The final cultivator, unlike the rest of his teammates, was born with sturdier guts and continued onward in the face of humiliation despite the pretty ominous feeling he had inside said guts.

"Thunder Strike!"

Ares' face couldn't be seen properly under the hat he was pulling down over his eyes, but the cocky smirk peeking out indicated rough times ahead for the elemental crew. Ares put his now-finished drink down and brought out an object everyone present was all too familiar with, a Shock Bead. Actually, most people were familiar with the name Shock Rock, but that was neither here nor there. Ares slowly raised the Shock Bead to the sky, revelling in the looks of abject horror forming one by one his opponents' faces as they came to a conclusion that they really didn't want to on what was about to happen to them. As if to confirm their fears, Ares lifted up his other hand and brought it slightly underneath the Shock Bead, leaving a small gap in which he formed a miniature Not Even Light. This was the basis of the Block Rocks he'd started creating, just not in bead format. The mini Not Even Light functioned like a normal one would and drew all nearby magic toward it. As the thunder was approaching from above, it was essentially funnelled into the Shock Bead... Shock Beads were dangerous enough as is, and their normal aura was awe-inspiring to begin with. Now that Ares' Shock Bead had been supercharged with thunder though... It was on another level. Actually, it had skipped the second level and just jumped straight to the third, maybe even fourth. The Shock Bead reeked of imminent death and it was now a matter of deciding who to sacrifice to the miniature WMD that was crackling away with a disturbing aura that tickled their spines. That wasn't to say anyone else would come away unscathed, it was basically guaranteed everyone on the other side of the Field was getting hit whether they wanted to be or not. Naturally, everyone one of the elementalists were firmly in the 'not' category, but that didn't stop Ares from lightly flicking the Bead of doom towards them. The poor bastard Ares aimed the Bead at didn't even bother moving, he just stood still and watched the Bead arc towards him with a despondent look on his face. He accepted fate. He hated his fate, but he accepted it because he was acutely aware there was no running from it. As for which cultivator was about to take the brunt, ironically, it was the lightning cultivator. Whether Ares did this intentionally was anyone's guess, although the answer was very likely yes knowing him.

CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAACKLE

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

A series of golden sparks turned into an electrical dome that shook and encompassed the entire opposite half Field. The zapping noises caused all the spectators to cringe as their ears were wormed into by static with a few even scratching their ears until they started bleeding. When the more-literal-than-ever Shock Bead was done destroying everything in the vicinity, the smoke dissipated, leaving a large indent in the floor and snakes of electrical mana slipping into the earth. As for the 'fifth elements', one of whom was in fact named Bruce, they were struggling to stand, let alone comprehend what they'd just been through. Three were injured, but safe with mostly inconvenient injuries like broken bones and twisted body parts. Their clothes were torn and their flesh bruised and battered, but they were still in a position to fight. The lightning cultivator was dead. His corpse was nowhere to be found and that wasn't because he'd revived already, but because he'd simply been thoroughly annihilated. When he did finally revive, he looked around in a panic before finally calming himself down as he held his hand over his erratically beating heart. This man would go on to have plenty of nightmares about this experience; even therapy would not help him. As for the fifth member of the team, the fire cultivator, he'd had his legs blown clean off, one of his arms was gnarly and warped, chunks of his head were missing, and he couldn't scream because he'd lost his tongue in the explosion. Everyone looking at the poor man, who was wriggling and writhing in agony, jumped in fright when something pierced his head, causing him to slump dead. On closer inspection, the deadly tool with which he was murdered was... A skewer... Because of course it was... This meant that Ares had killed the lightning cultivator by redirecting his attack via the Shock Rock, and the fire pillar cultivator with the half-eaten skewer he himself had roasted. It became apparent Ares was messing with these people which made them unreasonably mad. How could he treat brutalising their comrades as some sort of twisted game?!

The wind pillar and water pillar cultivator used what little strength they had left to charge at Ares and try to take him with them. If they were going to lose, they were going to drag this bastard down and let him feel their suffering first hand!

Thud

Ares disagreed with that sentiment, however, and kneed the water cultivator in his stomach. he then placed both hands on the man's shoulders and stepped on his chest, using it as a foothold to launch into a somersault kick on the man's face. At the tail end of Ares' half-backflip, half-attack, he pulled out the tiny umbrella he'd placed in his drink earlier, landed, and rushed down the man who was still clutching his face in pain, stabbing him in the chest. Unfortunately, the umbrella was tiny and couldn't quite reach the man's heart, so he lived for now. The wind cultivator tried to swing at Ares from behind, but Ares promptly ducked and turned around. While still low to the ground, Ares threw his foot back and upwards, kicking the tiny umbrella out of the water cultivators chest with the heel of his foot and launching it into the air. Ares then brought that same foot down and Infront of him, kicking the wind cultivator in his chest and repeating the same move he'd just done previously, using it as a platform to gain height and somersault kick the man's face. This time, though, there was another step involved as Ares performed a bicycle kick in mid air, smacking the umbrella which was then sent flying into the water cultivators skull, piercing his brain and killing him on the spot. Ares landed and used the clockwise momentum of the bicycle kick to swing his foot at the wind cultivator again, this time bringing his foot up higher and kicking him in the face, throwing him to the floor. Ares jumped on the man and raised his fist, imbuing it with an echo before raining it down on the man's head and crushing it, causing blood and brain matter to splatter everywhere. Now Ares had killed the water cultivator with the umbrella he had chilled for Ares' drink and the wind cultivator with an imitation of his 'God hand'. All that was left was the earth pillar cultivator and he was truly worse for wear, practically shaking in his boots. Ares whipped out the Stygian Zephyr, piercing the unsuspecting cultivator in his gut and dragging him unwilfully towards Ares. When the man stumbled at Ares, Ares placed both his hands on the man's shoulders and his foot on the man's waist. It looked as though Ares was about to kick him in the face like how he'd done with the other two, but his attack was different this time as he leant backward, slowly falling to the floor, pulling the man with him into a freefall. Halfway down, Ares extended his foot, performing a beautiful Tomoe Nage and tossing the man squarely onto the earthen chair he'd helped Ares create. The man, sprawled upside down on the rock, dazedly looked at the shimmering black crystal wall towering above him and his heart stopped when Ares spoke from behind him.

"Crystalised Void: Detonate!"