Chapter 223: Not a Fussy Eater

Everyone in the coliseum watched the reddish white liquid pour down Ares' throat with baited breath. They didn't know what was happening but they knew it was going to be a big deal. There was just that kind of air about this whole situation that inclined people to believe roles were about to be reversed. There were enough stories about cultivation prodigies turning seemingly impossible tides that the prospect of it wasn't lost on these people. They may have never seen such an occurrence first hand but, chances are, they were about to. Everyone's hawkish gaze was fixated on Ares right now, none more so than the four seasons hidden throughout the venue and the local area. They were all deeply invested in the results of the next few minutes for various reasons.

Glug

Gulp

Ares finished downing the drink and now things were really going to get interesting! Sho and Lo had been too far away to stop this development so, now, they had to watch on as Ares transformed before their very eyes. There was a golden glow near his stomach which was where the draconic seed was currently taking effect. The Canis Stimulant essentially temporarily skipped the unchaining so Ares' revenant form had just gotten access to the seed prematurely, meaning Ares would no longer need to worry about this step when going through the whole process later. It also meant his revenant form's eyesight would be fixed too and that would benefit human Ares' vision too. After the whole berserk spree stuff, his revenant's beastly sense of eyesight would come into affect as well as his draconic sense, improved by the draconic seed, amplifying his base vision. It wasn't a massive benefit but getting a permanent benefit out of this at all was still a good thing.

Ares could feel his consciousness slipping as his body cracked in various places. Bones were being stretched and flesh was being covered in fur rapidly but, underneath it all, Ares was holding onto his sanity for dear life. He'd underestimated how hard it would be to not go fully berserk. Verv made it look too easy! Ares felt like he was in a whirlpool of blood that kept agitating him with every rotation. He thought he had a chance to climb out but he was just flung mercilessly back in, angering him further. He was annoyed he couldn't escape and that annoyance was only growing the longer he sat in the stupid red maelstrom. Crimson winds also sprung forth and kept battering him, encouraging him to just sink and hide safely under the waves but Ares knew that would be the end of it. Keeping his head above water was the trick to not losing hi sanity entirely. If he hid under the water there would be no one left to control his body up here. Under the red whirlpool he wouldn't have any contact with the world outside his head and he would be guided by nothing more than natural instinct and rage. He couldn't allow that to happen. Sparing the Legions and not wildly attacking the innocent spectators was imperative. If he failed on those two fronts the consequences would not be anything he could fix. Trust in him would fall to an all time low, be mostly irreparable, and speed up the Legion's involvement with him tenfold. Not drowning here was crucial no matter how much staying awake stung. There was no way for him to actually climb out, as that would mean going berserk but retaining full control which was the best possible outcome, but he could hang around in the water and give up partial control. It was currently a state in which he decided what needed to happen but had no say in how it happened. He was just giving his body orders and it was following them loosely. Kill, stay, rescue, specify a target, maim, etc... These were the sorts of commands he had in his repertoire that would be followed not quite to the letter but closely enough that he didn't need to take any other action for now.

While Ares was tossed about inside his own head, his body was still undergoing changes. As he'd forced this change via the Stimulant the lengthy transformation process made sense. He wasn't as closely intertwined with his revenant self as he was back during his clone's syncing in the pagoda. Even after transforming, the draconic seed digestion needed to be finalised which almost definitely meant he would be roaring again. The world outside the Blade's interference would seriously wonder what the hell was going on but everyone inside it was about to get some answers. Only when the pagoda Ares made it to the outside world, and revenants out there discovered his true form, would the outside world understand the cause of these two roars.

As for the current state of Ares body, he was currently the size of a revenant lord and still growing. Nobody in these lower domains had ever seen a revenant lord, let alone whatever the hell Ares really was, so the fact that he was give or take 20ft tall and still growing was deeply concerning. The Legions in the audience were very nearly pissing themselves at this sight because not even the strongest revenant they'd seen throughout their entire life came even remotely close to this. By the time Ares reached 30ft, and still showed no signs of slowing down, some of the Legion disciples and elders had fainted dead in their seats. A good chunk of weaker revenants in the crowd were already kneeling on the floor and being driven by their natural instinct to worship. Ares was not a revenant lord, he was a revenant God and a lot of his clansmen intuitively understood that just from his mere presence. Even if these revenants were blind and couldn't see the sheer size of Ares, the aura he gave of was enough to clue them in that he was big deal. When he finally reached his max height at a little over the 40ft mark, the draconic seed started to swirl around through his body and repeat the same process as it did in the pagoda. It spread throughout the giant and made Garmr glow golden in a brilliant spectacle of light rays. The Ares' clone hadn't seen this in the pagoda due to how dark everything was at the time down in the pit but it was a rather pretty and enrapturing sight.

Garmr was a colossal sized, majestic werewolf with sharp and detailed but also glossy and smooth, pitch black fur. His body was well proportioned and looked incredibly mighty. Both his legs and arms were bulky and his chest stuck out somewhat, making it somewhat pronounced, despite the jagged fur covering it up. The dark revenant had a shadowy air, almost as if the fur was alive and constantly seeking prey to assault and impale. His facial fur was perfectly groomed and slicked back to form a rather aerodynamic and sleek look. Again, everything about Garmr could be described as sharp and stoic. There was an implied level of intelligence, that was missing in some revenants, due to the seemingly aware and wizened look of the creature's face. Each fang that poked out of its mouth was the size of a large hand and it was terrifying to think of the damage they could cause if let loose on a victim. The creature's blinded eyes were apparent but, as the golden glow overlapped with them, it seemed that issue was slowly being rectified. The ears on Garmr's head were pointed near the tips and leant backwards slightly which contributed to the aforementioned streamlined look. Two golden dragon horns were gradually appearing underneath them and extending straight backwards, almost causing Garmr's head to resemble that of a dragon's. In some ways, the ears resembled the horns and the horns themselves resemble a dragon's whiskers. It was an interesting combination that kept the revenant's wolfish and bestial brutality but merged it with the regal splendour and kingly nature of a dragon.

Additionally, the draconic seed cause Ares / Garmr to grow a few extra feet, bringing him up to around 45ft total. This wouldn't even be his max height as Garmr would no doubt increase in size as Ares' cultivation did. Ares could control the size to an extent, making himself smaller to be more convenient, but, one day, it wouldn't be impossible to become a planet sized wolf monstrosity that gorged on stars and drowned the cosmos in golden fire. The draconic seed didn't just improve his eyesight and grant him horns, those were just minor additions. Fire breath was a new attack in Ares' repertoire and, importantly, it could be combined with his pillar. Disintegration fire, annihilation fire, and nothingness fire, all of which had unique properties, were now available for free use in this form. maybe Ares could one day learn to breathe fire without changing into Garmr but, for now, if he wanted to do it then transforming was a requirement he couldn't avoid. Other than that, his senses had improved even further, alongside his physical strength, mental prowess, and all-around toughness. Plus being a dragon just gave him a certain kind of indelible status that could never be questioned or rivalled.

Put simply, by the time Ares was done growing to his upper limit, just before he'd let loose the howl that would shake the universe yet again, he'd become a majestic and magnificent beast that towered above the scrawny fools beneath him. He was tall enough to see eye to eye with spectators on the fourth floor of the coliseum which was a horrifying sight for those in the crowd. It might not have sounded like much, considering the coliseum went up to nine floors, but the height of the coliseum was generally considered to be extremely tall. Being high up enough to see people on the fourth floor was something no competitor had experienced as of yet. Even the flying cultivators taking part had no reason to fly this high and, yet, Ares was simply standing and could reach such a point. it did not need to be explained how powerful a creature this massive would be, it was painfully obvious. None of the other amenities that benefitted Garmr needed to even be mentioned because the sight of the towering giant was enough to answer any and all questions. Brute force supposedly couldn't solve everything and yet there didn't seem to be a wall or obstacle in the world that could match up to this revenant in the middle of the arena right now. It was a different kind of strength that Garmr packed, something transcendental. An unyielding, uncompromising, murderous, highly effective well of raw, unfiltered power that could not be contested. Even the matriarchs, dumbly staring down at the would with vacant eyes, would never want to go toe to toe with such a disastrous entity. They held an advantage in cultivation that Garmr would not be able to overcome but they were the ones feeling fear right now, not him. His explosive strength undulated off him in waves and pressured everyone passively. With a deep inhalation of fresh air that satisfied Garmr's soul. he leant his head back and roared towards the seemingly infinite abyss of space above.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once more, for the second and final time ever, the howl to end all howls rippled through every corner of space. It traversed countless biomes, planets, solar systems, domains, everything. Not a single inch of land was spared the auditory pummelling off the soul stirring shout. It reverberated within ear drums and caused hearts to beat in sync with its rhythm, making the entirety of all life march along to the beat of its drum. Reverence or fear were the only two options available to all lifeforms and there were no exceptions, again not even the Gods could escape it. The revenants, globally, were once again forced to bow their heads and silently whimper under the majesty of their absolute superior. All the revenants in the arena had lowered their heads and most were on their knees now regardless of whatever status they may have held in the hierarchy back home. Planets were shaken to their core and some weaker stars, those on the verge of fading to dust, even outright exploded from the echoing roar.

Though this was a relatively serious moment, it was worth mentioning Ares would go on to make a lot of enemies as a result of this specific roar. So many cultivation experts had been interrupted during enlightenment, losing everything they'd attained, and thus forming an everlasting grudge. Even those who were trying to focus on menial tasks that required precision were hampered by these damnable roars so Ares would have a domain wide queue of people who wanted a word with him because of this incident. In fairness, it really wasn't his fault and he had no say in the matter but whether or not these people would be forgiving or even care for such excuses was another matter. Cultivators typically didn't care about the reason 'why' for things of this nature. There was a pretty well known example in a popular story in the upper echelons of cultivation society whereby an expert was enjoying a meal at a high class restaurant. Two other guys were having a fight outside and one of them punted his opponent through the restaurant window and sent him flying onto the expert's dinner table, knocking over all the expensive dishes. The expert then proceeded to beat up the poor victim instead of the guy who launched him because 'it was his weakness that caused this issue in the first place'. Unjust beatings of this sort occurred with regular frequency amongst cultivators as they were an unruly lot with a propensity for selfish reasoning buried in their veins. The people annoyed with Ares right now were no different and, the second they found out he was responsible, would make it a mission of theirs to get some payback. The severity of the vengeance would vary from person to person but some people would take this matter very seriously and that would cause problems for Ares in the future but, well, that was a problem for future Ares!

Now that Garmr, or rather Ares in his true form, had fully developed and left no room to grow any further, there was an awkward and pervasive stillness throughout everyone present. Ares semi-berserk state was silently daring anyone to oppose him but his presence turned his foes cowardly and they were having a hard time mustering the will power needed to even attempt to tackle the monstrosity before their eyes. Take Lo, for example... What was he supposed to do? Walk up to the monster and punch it in the ankle?! Would it even damage him? Would he even care? Lo was at the peak of bloodline awakening currently, so the exact same as Ares after his temporary boost, and yet the wall of fur and flesh before him looked utterly indomitable. Lo's strongest punch would be nothing more effective than a light breeze to Ares and he had no other tools to deal with this creature. The entirety of the Chen clan could do little more than bow down to Ares right now and pray for forgiveness because damaging him in the slightest was an impossible task. It felt less like they were up against a bloodline awakening cultivator and more like someone who had already shot past the transition realm.

The first person to regain their wits, funnily enough, was the peak transition realm cultivator who'd fired off the Psysplitter earlier. He'd been reprimanded for being too quick on the pulse but, now, he felt extremely vindicated. If everyone else had done things properly and actually just assassinated the kid without fussing around with petty garbage they wouldn't be dealing with this nonsense right now. This guy was pretty furious but he still felt confident everyone could throw themselves at Ares and take him down eventually. He felt fear just like everyone else but he trusted in his cultivation advantage and assured himself it would make a difference. So what if Ares was huge? This guy could punch a building to dust if he wanted to. Size didn't matter! It was all a matter of how strong you were and the assassin was desperately convincing himself Ares wasn't as strong as he looked. "Psyblades." As mentioned previously, this art spawned two see-through pink blades along the length of the users arms that dealt 80% damage to the physical body and 20% damage dealt to the mental realm. The cultivator dared not risk diving into the mental realm of this unknown foe so he kept it safe and went for an attack against Ares' flesh and blood. Though his chances would have been higher if he actually did go for a mental attack, the harsh truth was that it didn't matter at all what he did. He ran up to Ares' leg, all the while he was watched by the person in question, and swiped at Ares' ankle...

Crack

The two blades shattered on contact and the assassin nearly stumbled forward and fell onto Ares' tree trunk of a leg. A shadow appeared over him so he looked up and the last thing he saw was a silver dot shoot through his head.

Splat

Ares had lowered one of his hands over the assassins' head and pointed a finger directly downward. Less than a second later, a claw, roughly the size of a small dog, unsheathed itself from within Ares' fur and blasted the assassin's head into a burst of blood and grey matter. Nothing fancy was done here other than unveiling his claws and yet one of the strongest people here was already dead. The beast's immeasurable strength hadn't even been put to the test yet and things were already looking dire. Dire wolf, dire straits. The lack of effort and concern in Ares' actions told his assailants all they needed to know about their chances. The only 'hope, if it could even be called as such, these people had was that the Canis Stimulant only lasted for five minutes. It was no longer a matter of whether they could kill him in thirty minutes, it was a question of whether they could survive five and, honestly, the probability of that was looking very low.

THUD

Ares got down on all fours and kicked up enough dust to choke anyone nearby. His back two legs scratched along the floor as he prepared himself to bound across the arena, straight towards Lo and Sho. This was where these two started to feel like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. This bulky, massive monster would surely not be quick on its feet. It would cumbersomely lumber and bumble towards them and, while it would still be quick, the assassin and the user of the Haste art would surely be able to escape for as long as they needed to... Right? Lo shook his head to get the awful thought out of his brain of what would happen to him if Ares caught him at any point during this hunt. It would certainly not be pretty... Lo stopped shaking his head and looked back up only to see another cloud of dust and nothing else...

Ares was gone...

And worse still, he knew exactly where he was. Lo and Sho could both feel the heat of a snarling monster on all fours less than an inch behind them. Ares' head was big enough to dwarf both humans in terms of scale, depending on the perspective, and they looked like sacrifices to an angry God right now. Lo gulped and turned around slowly, horrified at the discovery that, actually, this revenant was fucking fast. Big brutes were typically hampered by their speed but, if this thing was that quick... What was the way out of this situation for anyone involved? They were trapped in a dome with a monster that could sprint around at the speed of light and crush anyone whenever it wanted. This wasn't an assassination anymore, it was a horror show. The spectators would get to watch on as these assassins scurried around in vain like a bunch of frightened mice getting toyed with by a giant cat. Lo finally turned around to face Ares and had to immediately take a step back due to how uncomfortable he felt staring death in the draconic eye. His hands trembled and he nearly had a heart attack as he tripped over backwards. Sho, not being the first target on Ares' list, was able to scramble away and watch from a small distance what kind of fate, exactly, would likely befall him shortly after.

Ares raised his clawed paw and casually lowered it over Lo's head. He wasn't going to pierce him, this time Ares was going to crush his opponent like an ant. Lo felt like a horse-drawn carriage was descending upon him but he knew that was inaccurate, this hand was infinitely more deadly. He couldn't escape it because its size was simply ginormous and he couldn't out speed Ares anyway. With death knocking, Lo managed to regain some self-control and move his limbs in one final bid to defend himself. He screamed at the top of his lungs to boost his confidence as he put every ounce of strength he had into a punch. He channelled his deepest hatred for the man who killed his family into a single strike and yelled with fervour. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Crush

With an effortless smack, Ares' hand squashed Lo and silenced him instantly. The loud, screeching bug had been flattened and, even after Ares lifted his paw, Lo's voice did not return. Rather, nothing other than a splat of blood could be seen poking out of a small crater. Some shredded parts of his robe were lying around here and there but the human that was once Lo was nothing more then a few blood red particles strewn about the arena. This wasn't even a show of strength, Garmr was just toying with weak little dolls. It had been the exact same back in the prison where it was chained up. There was no such thing as a challenge to Garmr, it was all just incredibly boring. It had hoped there would be some manner of challenge in the wider world for it to enjoy but apparently not. Everything was just pathetically insignificant. The only 'opponent' here that might put up a fight worth mentioning was the giant bird outside the barrier that belonged to Maro. Though Maro was only at the peak of transition, like the Psyblades assassin from earlier, he was a far stronger individual and cultivator so maybe Garmr could play a bit after escaping the barrier... Escape? No, that wasn't the right term at all. He could leave this place whenever he so desired, there was nothing stopping him. This 'barrier' looked like a piece of paper to Garmr and that was being generous. It was see-through as well so this 'barrier' was about as effective at trapping him as the air down in the arena was, that is to say not at all. 

Garmr turned to the nearest enemies, a bunch of Legion, and was about to go and bite them to death but Ares, who was still raging against the tide, denied him permission. With a kiss of his teeth, Garmr, who was basically just Ares' second personality at this point (and would disappear for good when Ares attained the bloodline awakening realm by merging into him), turned around and looked for his next kill. There were a few options, Biggie, Sho, the remaining Chens, or the remaining Glimpse lot. They were all going to die, and the order didn't really matter, so Garmr just chose the next closest person to him which happened to be Sho. Being stared at like this caused Sho to have a panic attack but he was still able to turn himself invisible with his bloodline ability, the same one Aejaz' possessed, and try to hide somewhere in the arena. He started calming down as he slunk away from his previous position but, when he turned to see what Garmr was up to, he froze on the spot because the monster was right beside him, staring into his soul. The draconic eyes were pointed straight at him and the monster was very much aware of his presence. Not only did the monster have access to Omniscience, if it really wanted to use it, but Garmr's sense were all more than enough to track an invisible human. Garmr could smell everyone in this arena if he wanted to. He could feel the discrepancies in the wind throughout the arena if he wanted to. He could hear even the faintest of steps if he wanted to. He could also just see Sho if he wanted to because draconic eyesight, combined with that of a revenant's, would no doubt not give a crap about such weak invisibility. If Sho really believed he was going to escape just because he could turn invisible... Well he was sorely mistaken and learning that the hard way right about now. He could have been a couple miles away from this coliseum and Garmr would still be able to track him down in due time. His attempts at hiding were laughable and, now, death was leaning over him with many teeth pointed in his direction.

"W... W... Wait..."

Chomp

Garmr did not wait.

Garmr waits for nobody.

Garmr chomped.

Garmr chomps everybody.

It wasn't any more complicated than that so, from the waist up, Sho had been ground into paste by Garmr's teeth in a single bite. Thankfully for Ares, Garmr's stomach was essentially a bottomless pit of destruction magic. Annihilation would break down anything that went into it, disintegration would turn everything to dust, and, if by some miracle anything survived that, the nothingness would send it to another dimension instead. Also, Garmr could turn off his taste buds so the taste of human was not stuck in Ares mouth at all. This was easily the thing Ares was the most grateful for probably ever. His teeth were an invaluable weapon but he would have been reluctant to use them in such a fashion if he had to taste everything he devoured like this... Honestly, it still wasn't a pleasant thought. He was a carnivorous beast that ate everything meaty by nature but he'd lived for so long as a human that he couldn't deny he felt a little uncomfortable at the prospect of eating other humans... Garmr had no such qualms so down the hatch Sho's upper half disappeared. In a way, this was good. Ares could get some experience eating people while being able to say he himself didn't technically do it! He would have struggled to chew on a person if he were in control but this autopilot session might ease the difficulty a bit in the long run.

Though the two main pillars of this roughshod gathering were both dead now, that being Lo and Sho, there were still a few transition realm cultivators remaining. These people were mostly those that had been hired by Sho so they worked well in a group which would explain why they were huddled together in a corner right now. There was also still Biggie, the leaderless Chens, the leaderless Glimpses, and maybe even Maro. Ares and Garmr were not done yet and there was a lot more chaos to be wrought. Garmr had definitely not had his fill of entertainment yet as nothing had bothered to even put up a fight so far. He wanted even the bare minimum of a thrill before he was sent back to the prison or else he might even start a God-damn jailbreak out of boredom. Still, Maro was the likely candidate to give him what he wanted so it was time to take out the remainder of the trash surrounding him first.