Chapter 209: Captains for a Reason

Tyr wasted no time and made two moves to kick off the party. He thrust the bottom of his Staff Of Jako into the floor whilst lifting his Sword Of Damocles into the air and pointing it skyward. If Tyr's opponent wasn't within a short range of him then the Staff Of Jako increased the speed at which he chanted and casted any and all arts by a factor of two. It allowed him to punish enemies that were lenient in giving him space by allowing him to just endlessly chuck arts at people from a safe distance. This synergised quite nicely with his Sword Of Damocles as the bestowal aspect art it came with, that could only be used against enemies at range, was a little something called "Resolution To Disputation." A gigantic sword appeared a few feet directly above Scar and was effectively glued to his soul as it bared its sharp edge towards his cranium. The art was simple. This sword hovered above Scar for a random amount of time before dropping and doing a whopping amount of damage. There was no way to tell how long this random amount of time was but it was typically no less than fifteen seconds... Typically. Although nothing was supposed to be able to shorten that time, the Staff Of Jako's effect actually did meaning, if you rolled the worst possible outcome, the Resolution To Disputation could drop on your head in seven and a half seconds after being cast. That was not a lot of time to take appropriate measures, especially if Tyr kept hassling you from the side, but there was a silver lining in all of this.

The Resolution would disappear if you entered a certain range of Tyr.

Yes the Sword of Damocles would then make him stronger, as would the Staff Of Jako, thanks to their two dichotomous effects that operated at two different ranges, but it was still a better option than having the Resolution dropped on you. the Resolution packed an incredible amount of damage and blocking it was nigh impossible due to the penetrating power it packed. Saying the Resolution 'dropped' on you was a bit of an understatement as it was fired downward like a bullet out of a gun. Seeing as how the sword was roughly the size of a double decker bus... Yeah, it was going to hurt a LOT. It's not like it could be avoided or dodged either as the tracking on it was impeccable and followed you through Blinks and various other methods of instantaneous transport. The best option when dealing with the Resolution was to face Tyr like a man, walk up to him, and punch his face in! That last part was unnecessary but getting close to Tyr did rid the victim of the giant sword. Yes you then had to put up with an insanely powerful Tyr, who was reaping the benefits of two high tier treasures at the same time, but it wasn't a massive issue as you could skirt between the two ranges. Make space from Tyr to cancel out his close range advantage, then jump back in when the Resolution appeared to remove it.

A fight against Tyr became a sort of dance in which you were always attempting to circumnavigate the powerful attack or the empowered state of Tyr. If you tried to stay at one range for two long the Staff Of Jako would ensure Tyr's win by synergising with the Sword Of Damocles and making his advantages that much more severe. At range, if you couldn't get past the Staff-enabled onslaught of arts, the Damocles would bury you. At close range, the Damocles provided the user a chance, 10% specifically at Tyr's current cultivation, to deal quadruple damage on every swing while the Staff increased the user's speed drastically. Sure hitting the 10% was pure luck but, if you were swinging much faster thanks to the Staff, you had a higher chance of hitting that jackpot in the same amount of time as you would normally due to the increased quantity of swings made. The Staff's increase in speed wasn't just for weapon wielding either, though, as it also boosted the cultivator's speed of movement while it was equipped, allowing Tyr to chase down slower opponents and control the range of engagement himself. Faster and lighter opponents weren't as bulky, and would struggle to take a hit if it was quadrupled in damage, whereas slower opponents wouldn't be able to close the distance to prevent the Damocles art. This was what it meant to fight a true all-rounder. Nothing really worked because Tyr was prepared for all eventualities. His wide range of magic in his back pocket also aided him in remaining adaptable to any given situation. Most people had a plan B in a fight, Tyr had plans that extended beyond the alphabet. To beat him you just needed to have the talent to dodge his numerous arts, the talent to beat him at close range despite his enhanced speed, and the talent to understand the flow of battle and retreat / advance when it was optimal to do so. It's not that any of the three requirements individually were hard to learn or rare to possess but having all three at once was a different story.

As it just so happened, however, Scar was a man of many talents; all of those listed above included. This wasn't his first rodeo with Tyr and the two were somewhat familiar with one another's habits, tricks, and specialties. Scar made no effort to jump headfirst into Tyr immediately to remove the giant sword because he was confident in himself, yes, but also because he knew exactly what kind of person Tyr was.

"Overheat."

That was the kind of person Tyr was, a thinker and a strategist. By deploying the Resolution To Disputation, the pressure and looming threat it created was enough to drive many mobile cultivators to make a beeline for Tyr. With Scar's blink, if he made the foolish error of jumping right in to try and exploit the fact that Tyr just casted Resolution, he would have been burnt all across his flesh by a close range overheat that Tyr had pre-emptively launched. It made no difference whether Scar Blinked towards Tyr one second after the fight started or two, as he had at minimum 7.5 seconds at his disposal before things got ugly, so waiting patiently as Tyr's first plan went up in smoke was the correct choice to make. Even if Tyr wanted to keep launching close range bombardments to try and catch out him, Scar was willing to just watch Tyr waste all his mana. Even if the Resolution fell that wasn't a guaranteed death necessarily and so it became a sort of health and mana trade. Tyr would dry up his mana reserves and Scar would suffer bodily harm. He would have the advantage in the long run if he stuck to this plan and, seeing as how the long con was a winning option for him in this match overall, that was what he decided to do. Tyr needed to get past him to help Deimos so, if he kept prolonging this little frenzied art casting session then only Scar benefitted from it. Of course Tyr was also well aware of this and it seemed like he gave up on that avenue after the Overheat, opting not to make any moves to cast another art, and yet Scar simply snorted without moving. Scar kicked the floor with his toes and shook the nearby arena, causing a rumble that made Tyr kiss his teeth and jump back from his current location.

The reason Tyr fled was revealed shortly after his decision was finalised as a bunch of Wind Mines he hid in the ground were sprung up into the air and detonated om his previous location. Again, Tyr was a thinker. The Wind Mines had been silently cast during the obfuscating Overheat and buried in secret. The plan was to lure Scar into the real trap after the fake one but he wasn't going to fall for it. Again, so what if Scar waited three seconds to Blink in instead of only two? He had time to spare and time to analyse Tyr's every move as he wasn't the one pressed for time despite the giant sword hanging overhead. Plus if push came to shove Scar was willing to bet the Resolution wouldn't drop instantaneously anyway. The minimum was 15 seconds, technically always 7.5 thanks to the Staff, but the maximum was a minute, or 30 seconds with the Staff. If Tyr's luck wasn't great, Scar could drag this on for a painful duration to Tyr who really didn't want to see Skyzo back in the stadium what with Fate still alive. Fate's hijack of the Training Field was still in place as long as she lived so Skyzo would be nightmare fuel if he returned before Fate was dealt with properly and that couldn't be allowed to happen. But what was Tyr to do if the Resolution didn't faze Scar and force him into action? Launch a powerful art that could be sent out immediately? And have Scar blink past with little effort? It seemed like Tyr was now the one who was going to have to bite the bullet and make the first proper move, as much as he'd wanted to avoid it, so he started casting multiple different arts in a row. He could minimise the risk of Scar just avoiding everything if he used multiple smaller arts with different timings instead of committing to one big mistake.

"Thunder Strike. Pound Down. Thunder Strike. Pound Down. Thunder Strike. Flamethrower."

When some of the more elite cultivators in the crowd witnessed the impeccable line-up Tyr fired off, some let out a gasp of surprise because it was such an ingenious plan their heads almost exploded with information overload. For someone so young to have devised perfect countermeasures to his current predicament on the fly like this was an extraordinary feat that even experts would struggle to replicate. The positioning of the arts he was firing off, as well the specific order he chose for them, was all calculated with pristine accuracy and clever planning.

The first Thunder Strike was positioned directly in front of Tyr. The reason for this was straightforward as it would smack Scar in the head if he tried to blink in front of Tyr. Simple. The real kicker was the next art he cast, the Pound Down, as he cast it in the exact same spot. Pound Down took a long time to form and was more often than not used to force someone to move away from their current location so using it to predict movement like this was normally seen as odd. Still, the Thunder Strike was covering Tyr's bacon while he set up the Pound Down so it was safe to do it even against Scar with his quick Blinks. Although the first Thunder Strike hadn't landed by this point, as it wasn't a Flash Thunder, the second one could be safely cast as well without fear of Scar Blinking in lest he wanted to get zapped and smacked, in that order, by the first two arts. The second Thunder Strike was cast at Scar's current location and the same was true of the second Pound Down. These were the arts that were going to force him to move and, although the first Thunder Strike had just crashed down into the arena and hit nothing, if Scar escaped towards Tyr right now, he would still be in the zone of the first Pound Down. Still, he couldn't stay where he was as the second Thunder Strike was about to hit and paralyse him, trapping him inside the second Pound Down's radius. Even up until this point, Tyr's strategy was clever as, by intentionally 'missing', he was able to prevent any movement from Scar that would cause him trouble. That wasn't all though as a third Thunder Strike was cast in the same spot as the first. This meant that if Scar stayed where he was he was screwed, and if he went straight for Tyr he was also screwed. Tyr had set up two Thunder Strike into Pound Down combos without giving Scar an opportunity to prevent it. Yes this was heavy on the mana front but the sheer coverage of the immediate space, as well as the pressure it applied to Scar to finally make a move, was immense. To round out the series of arts, Flamethrower was just a catch all art that would cover any unforeseen manoeuvres from Scar. If Scar retreated, the Flamethrower would chase him and halt him in place, letting Tyr retreat as well and go help Deimos. If Scar held his ground the Flamethrower would lock him in place even longer thanks to the other arts that would follow, potentially leading to the Resolution if Tyr was lucky. If Scar went in, Blinking towards Tyr, he would get a face full of flames and be wounded while the Thunder Strike and Pound Down also rained down on him. long story short, every option Scar had to choose from had been considered thoroughly and made null and void by Tyr in a matter of seconds. His brain, in terms of combat strategy, was like a super computer and Scar couldn't help but feel respect towards his rival of sorts.

Still, respect didn't mean Scar was going to go easy on Tyr. Tyr wasn't the only person around here who was special in their own right. Scar wasn't the strongest of the Umbras for nothing. He'd lived a long life before his resurrection and he was well versed in war and violence. Though he detested it, he was a magnificent frontline veteran and was very nearly the gold standard, second only to... Well... Veteran himself, obviously. Though he didn't have his revenant form right now thanks to the cultivation reset, he was still an unrivalled force at the beginning of sensory enhancement. Much like Ares he was a serious threat to anyone and everyone within the realm, even if his stage in it was low, as he could beat people far more advanced in cultivation than himself. He had value as a soldier back home but chose to go through with his revenant resurrection to protect the younger members of his family and he'd done a damn fine job of it. He was known as the resolute monk for a reason and, although he didn't partake in combat often, the second he convinced himself it was necessary... You best pray to whatever God you believed in it wasn't you he was after.

Scar did not care about the deployment of these many arts as, due to Tyr's careful measures, they were all spread out. If they'd all been targeted at him directly then, and only then, would he have shown even a lick of concern for his predicament. Instead, Scar just Blinked to within punching distance of Tyr, causing the Resolution to vanish into thin air, and stood tall in the face of the Flamethrower that would melt the skin of anyone else. Scar puffed up his chest and simply looked down at the jet of fire with a glare laden with disappointment. After the Flamethrower ran out of juice, and had accomplished little more than singing a couple hairs on Scar's chest and maybe tanning his skin a little, the Thunder Strike was next in line to fling itself limply against the man of steel.

Crash

Though he was struck directly, from Tyr's perspective Scar was like an ominous creature from a horror movie as the thunder cast a shadow over him and darkened his face. The cracking thunder didn't peel even a millimetre of flesh and the remaining jolts skirting around his large frame didn't bother Scar at all. As he clicked his knuckles and jaw, sparks flew out of his body almost as if they were fleeing in fear. The ground Scar was stood on remained perfectly safe but a small area around him had sunk downwards and created a dented ring in the arena as a result of the art. Scar may have been more lightning rod than human in that moment as the art was deadly enough to cause widespread damage and, yet, the result had been minimal in terms of destruction wrought due tis mere presence alone. Scar had taken the brunt of it and simply shrugged it off. This was the problem with Tyr not being a specialist. Yes Tyr had a lot of tools at his disposal but none were honed to a point they could leave even a single mark on Scar but, surely, Pound Down would be different, right? The God hand aspect arts packed a serious punch, and Tyr hadn't skimped on his training with them, so things had to go better with this... And yet despite the spectators truly believing this line of logic, the face of Tyr had soured drastically before his art even hit and Scar stood motionless ready to prove the spectators wrong. Tyr realised in this moment that Scar, like the prodigy he was, had improved at ridiculous speeds since they last met as this was not something he was capable of doing before... The wind above Scar's head coalesced into a single point, a green ball of buffeting winds that shaped itself into a fist and swelled in size. It became big enough to triple Scar in size but he only spared it a single glance before looking back down at Tyr with a menacing glint in his eye that signalled he was the next minor inconvenience on his list after this art was done posturing before him. The art descended and Scar cricked his neck in anticipation of the art while leaning back and spreading his arms wide, as if he was welcoming the morning sun at the start of a new day. His face was not one of jubilation, however, and rather one belonging to that of an arrogant king who was unstoppable when in his element.

Speaking of elements, the fist comprised of wind may as well have been full of hot air because the plenteous power it purportedly packed paled when juxtaposed with the pure powerhouse that was Scar. The fist landed on his bare chest and broke like a real hand would when punching a building at full force. The fingers splayed, the knuckles frayed, and the art bade farewell to reality as it faded away with the winds howling in agony. The lingering winds blew outward and created a pulse that pushed Tyr back a step but couldn't prevent Scar from taking one forward. The man, the myth, the mountain had made his way in and now Tyr was going to have the fight of his life on his hands. Scar, with his hair messily strewn about as a result of the previous art, thundered towards Tyr with the arena rocking beneath his feet with every step he took. Scar ran up to Tyr with his right arm positioned to launch an punch that looked like it would tear reality in two. Tyr gulped at the sight but knew he needed to hold the line here as the further back he went, the further away from Deimos he wound up. Tyr swung the Sword Of Damocles upwards to meet the fist that he could have sworn looked like a descending meteor. To tilt things back in his favour, even if only a little, Tyr cast an art that made Ares raise his eyebrow at the sight of it. 

"Echo!"

And not just any Echo either, this man had stolen his pressurised Echoes and was using them against Ares' own family! Despicable! Perfectly reasonable and quite smart to do so but despicable nonetheless! How dare Tyr use every tool available to him like all good cultivators do?! It seemed Phobos wasn't the only one that had scoured the library and found the Echo tome. Or rather it seemed like Tyr had gone even deeper and checked in with the elders to get a hold of the pressurised Echo version via, presumptively, Rud. this wasn't an easy art to just casually learn in such a short period of time as Tyr had done though. For starters, the better versions of Echoes were the kind of art that would take considerable practice to even use at a decent level let alone at tournament level fights. Throw into that the pressure requirements and, again, it just went to show that although Tyr was on the back foot right now, that was only because the 'man' opposite him was really just a monster in disguise. Tyr was perhaps the best pressure wielder of the Legion family siblings in terms of control, otherwise Enyo might cinch the title with her brute force measures, and Ares was learning that in real time as he watched Tyr manipulate the pressure almost flawlessly. Hell Tyr might have even been slightly better than his mother so his mastery was no joke for a lower domain kid with no teaching. There was no doubt this guy had fought against Ares' clone in the pagoda at some point and learnt some really valuable lessons so, actually, Ares was feeling a tad guilty... He was, in some ways, culpable for the resistance Tyr was fronting against Scar via his improved pressure control and the whole Echoes thing... Whoopsie!

Tyr's sword trembled as it rose to the occasion and collided with Scar's fist...

Where am I?

Tyr blinked and he was halfway across the arena with a blood-soaked chest exposed to the fresh air down in the arena. His armoured clothes had been turned to smithereens and there were still shreds of it littered amongst the path of gauged earth he'd just been blasted through. Armour, Echoes, pressure, even a 10% quadruple from his Sword Of Damocles was he lucky enough to receive... And yet he'd just been pummelled like a nail by a hammer. He didn't even see it happen. All he knew was that the fist overwhelmed the sword with little to no hassle and pushed it along the direction of its attack without faltering. Tyr had a mark on his chest that was long and rectangular which was where his own sword had been driven into him via Scar's unwavering fist. Resistance had proven entirely futile against the brute and Tyr was going to have to rethink his approach to winning this fight.

He'd skidded all the way to the opposite end of the arena, and been beaten senseless literally when considering the fact he momentarily lost consciousness, and yet he was still confident in himself that there was measures he could take to come out on top... Those measures were cowardly and involved staying the hell away from Scar, yes, but what was he supposed to against this unbeatable brick wall otherwise? They were both captains but Scar was the prodigy of his own clan whereas Tyr was not. He was a human fighting against a legend.

He stumbled to his feet right as Scar Blinked directly in front of him. Watching a man of his magnitude magically materialise right before his very eyes was frightening but Tyr held firm and took action. he dodged an uppercut from Scar and snuck by his flank, under his raised arm, while turning round and dropkicking Scar's back. The man did not budge an inch as Tyr's feet dug into his spine, all Scar did in response was flex his back muscles and make Tyr feel like he just stubbed his toes against a sheet of metal. Still Tyr knew this would happen in advance and that hadn't been the point of any of this. What he really wanted was to treat Scar's back like a spring and bounce off it. Tyr did precisely that and kicked off Scar like he was a brick wall, giving him the momentum he needed to start running away. Tyr twisted in mid air to land in step with the start of his sprint as he booked it away from Scar. He wasn't necessarily done fighting with him but he needed to stop, or at least try to stop, Fate from EMP'ing Deimos. It was a race against time as is but the hulking behemoth behind him that kept Blinking after his fleeing back, and taking occasional pot shots, only made the situation that much more tense. Right now Tyr was a man on a mission, one that seemed borderline impossible to complete, and yet his face was composed. Despite the Legion's poor state, Tyr's determination shone brightly and acted like a beacon of hope for every supporter of the Legions throughout the coliseum. As long as Tyr lived, there was still a chance to turn things around. With the hopes and dreams of everyone resting atop his shoulders, Tyr could feel the burden of expectation but he simply carried it with pride. His opponent was a legend, and he was but a man, but it wouldn't be the first time a man had accomplished great things throughout history. So many times had they felled Gods, dragons, and various other indescribable horrors. In comparison, Tyr had it easy and that was what he truly believed. That was the thought that drove him to new heights each and every time he found himself stuck and it would be no different here today. Even if the Legions lost, Tyr would put up a fight for the history books, that he could guarantee.