Chapter 276: Costly Mistake

The clock above Astraeus' head spun rapidly, gaining speed with every rotation until it became an indecipherable blue and purple blur. The time displayed on the clock was impossible tell as the hands were also in a frenzy, wildly flicking around ot their heart's content. Though it was supposed to be nothing more than a tool to tell time, the clock was slowly becoming a portal of sorts that led to a space which housed within it some of Astraeus' greatest treasures. He'd witnessed the birth of countless rare weapons throughout his life and he was free to occasionally pluck them from their respective dimension whenever he found anything that took his fancy. Of course the clock did way more than just act as a place to store Astraeus' weaponry but it was a side benefit that allowed Astraeus to not worry about misplacing his tools. It was incredibly organised within the clock with each hour location on the clock holding various different categories of treasures so finding what he wanted was a breeze. Plus the amount of storage was unfathomable so he never needed anything silly like a spatial ring in order to carry his stuff around. He was the God of the space-time pillar so if he needed a spatial ring he would become a laughing stock on the spot as such inadequacy would be indefensible.

As for the treasure Astraeus was summoning, it was a powerful weapon that amplified the damage that all arts cast while using this weapon did. It didn't have to be an art that came from the treasure specifically, it just had to be used in the casting of the art and that would suffice. For instance, you could fire a Fireball through it and that would work but if you used Shove Earth, which originated from the floor and not the treasure, then it wouldn't. Basically it was an art amplification device for projectile arts known as the 'Timepiece' and was a legacy treasure of all things. Regarding what form it took, the treasure was a .44 magnum with a futuristic and timey aesthetic. The chamber was yet another clock and could hold twelve shots in each of the respective hour positions. The barrel was a standard greyish colour but there were some dark blue streaks along it that had small, light blue lights bouncing up and down the length of them. Overall it maintained its original fashionable look but had a more modern finish... Or, well, it was probably more futuristic than modern but for someone like Astraeus it might even be considered old timey. Also, although it hadn't been summoned quite yet, the Timepiece did also grow to match the size of the wielder, like most personal and legacy treasures, so it wasn't going to be a giant God wielding a small gun, comical though it would be. It would actually be rather fearsome as Astraeus with a massive gun was either cool or worrying depending on who's side you were on. Add on to that the fact that the name of his Commandment art translated to 'gunshot wound' and the incoming pain train was going to be rather severe one would have to imagine...

Astraeus reached up towards the portal with one hand, creating a scene that was reminiscent of various paintings of mortals stretching their hands towards God above. In this case, the painting was reversed as the God was simply reaching out for his personal favourite tool and it answered him in kind by slowly sinking out of the portal and hovering down towards his grasp. This was a gradual affair but it really made it hit home that this art was going to annihilate absolutely everything because a show this grandiose was rarely if ever followed by anything uninspiring. Astraeus' hand wrapped firmly around the dark blue handle and he lowered the gun at arms length while making sure to keep his aim steady on Terros' body. Mako was stuck directly behind him so this was going to be a doozy of a shot as Mako couldn't move right now. Not that accuracy mattered a ton here as the art wasn't really the pinpoint type. It did go where it was aimed but it also hit a few other places so Astraeus could have fired it directly down at his feet if he really wanted to and still probably hit his target. Still, he did very much enjoy pulling the trigger while a helpless target was in his sights. He hunted the occasional venator with this bad boy by firing ordinary rounds and treating it like a spot of good sport. Unfortunately a single hit was always enough to blast the venator into smithereens no matter how big it was so his fun time was short lived typically. 

Mana flowed through Astraeus' wings, making them glow with a hint of purple as his frame was covered in a sheen of a similar colour. All that mana continued rolling through his machinery until it reached his hand, at which point it transferred directly into the gun so that it could fire off the spatial magic. This art had no trace of time in it whatsoever so it was a heavily specialised art that did one thing and did it well. Create holes, much like the name implied, by, ironically, summoning more space. Astraeus' spatial magic was all powerful and would replace any normal space it touched so all he had to do was launch his magic at any given spot, force out the normal space, and then remove his own to create... Something... It wasn't quite void / nothingness as there was no tear leading beyond reality so the result of such a strategy was something that couldn't exactly be explained. Wherever and whenever Astraeus performed this trick, nothing other a blob of stale blackness remained. It was unmoving, untouchable, unbreakable, and very mysterious. If anyone touched it then the hand they used to feel around with would disappear for good. It wasn't transported somewhere else, like with spatial or nothingness magic, nor was it obliterated like with disintegration... It literally just stopped existing.

That was all.

This black stuff was something that went beyond the scope of reality and void combined and it was a power nobody could realistically wield. Even Astraeus could only make it appear and, even then, he had to be careful and considerate of it himself. Much to his dismay, however, it was surprisingly ineffective against Xhilihx as the stupid puppy just ate the black stuff like it was some kind of burnt dessert. That just went to show how frighteningly tough the creature was if it could brush off something that even Astraeus had to worry about. More than anything, the issue with the black stuff was that neither Astraeus nor the pillars could figure out just what the hell it was. They'd had hundreds of millions of years to experiment with it and no results had ever come of it. Even now in the void, whenever Astraeus wasn't busy, he would be toying around with this bizarre existence in the hopes of getting at least some kind of answer. Funnily enough, however, if Ares saw it he'd know instantly what it was and could even explain it very clearly to Astraeus... Not that he would anyway, this stuff was a secret! It's not like Ares could wield it or anything but he was indirectly familiar with it and had heard of the stuff a while back when he first entered the void. Technically he would be able to wield it one day but that was nowhere near coming to fruition so, for now, he just had to hope he was never hit by it because that would give the game away. If Astraeus couldn't survive it and, yet, Ares could just walk it off without so much as a scratch then Astraeus would really start pestering him for answers he truly didn't want to give. Astraeus, after using his art, would notice Ares raise his eyebrow at the black stuff but he wouldn't think too much of it because he assumed Ares was having the same initial thought as him, that this stuff was disintegration of some kind. Even now Astraeus felt like that answer was the closest he'd come to discovering the truth but he wasn't able to connect any dots as he just didn't have enough information.

Anyway, right now, whether he knew what it was or not didn't much matter as what it could definitely do was kill Terros without exception. The real question was could Terros protect Mako? Yes the elf couldn't move of his own volition but that didn't mean Terros couldn't move him and play an annoying game of 'which earth pile is Mako hidden underneath?' Due to not being in his real form Astraeus would just have to take a bunch of guesses and simultaneously attack a large chunk of them while hoping to hit his target via sheer luck. It was the first time he'd ever relied on such a thing and his weakness was killing him internally. He'd never invested in methods of detecting foes because, well, the vast void didn't really offer much space to hide... Other than one annoyingly large clump of treasures floating through the void, which Astraeus would introduce Ares to at some point and explain something that was pretty much unknown to most cultivators, there was simply nothing in the void that could block Astraeus' far reaching divine sense. What use did he have for a detection art or magic? With his spatial magic it would be a cinch to locate anyone, anywhere. Hell, he pretty much did it all the time with his voyeurism on Ares' dimension so the tool was already sort of there, he just needed to repurpose it. As a result of today, Astraeus would go on to create such an art so as not to humiliate himself in the future if Ares ever summoned him again in a similar situation. Astraeus, primordial God and official numero uno, bested by clumps of dirt. For the first time in a long while he felt agitation welling up within his heated circuitry. This had happened in front of a junior, no less... Or, rather, this had happened because of a junior so Astraeus made sure to channel a little extra mana than he would have otherwise to really pulverise this pebble construct and send him packing down into the dirt where he belonged!

BBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG

Astraeus had charged the shot for long enough to satisfy him and so he deftly pulled the trigger with quick flick of his finger. The gun was naturally extremely loud given its size but it was a crisp and very pleasing noise that never got old. If anything, hearing it on such a large scale was an auditory experience worth the ringing in everyone's ears afterward. Astraeus was capable of lowering the volume, and controlling the absurd level of recoil after firing, but he chose not to alter either and simply let the gun do its thing because handling this beauty was addictive at times. it was a a wild, bucking bronco and simply pulling the trigger was a form of entertainment in and of itself. After Astraeus shot the Timepiece the recoil propelled the gun upwards where he held it vertically aloft as the art went about destroying everything in its path... Not that the path, or even the shot, were visible. There was a bang, that couldn't be missed no matter how hard you tried, but there was no bullet! No magic, no bullet, no impact, no holes. This was an unusual sight as it almost looked like Astraeus had fired a blank but the truth was that this art was insidious as it snuck around by travelling through space. Essentially, this art fired a large clump of hidden spatial magic through the pre-existing space and it eventually scattered, breaking off at various points t go indifferent directions. The spatial magic that deviated would go on to fire off the same art in other, semi-random places. Astraeus could angle his shot such that these spatial offshoots were aimed to an extent but, for the most, part, like the previous art, it was way more interesting to just let chaos take the wheel and dictate the flow of Astraeus' arts. A lot of them had this scatter property as he was rather fond of fire and forget arts that hit hard and in a wide area. His arts already packed a tremendous punch so making them unavoidable like this was the next logical step. It was a simple addition he made to most of his arts but, hey, if they were all un-block-able and un-dodge-able then he was the one who had the last laugh! Plus it's not like the extra shots and scattered projectiles were worthless against a single foe as they could all bounce around and hit the original target anyway. The arts were all still primarily single-target focused it's just that they had a pretty good matchup against swarms of opponents such as the weaker venator armies roaming around in the void.

As for what the outcome of Astraeus pulling the trigger looked like, it took a second to understand just how devastating this art was going to be because the first 'hole' had only just been pried open. From Astraeus' perspective, a part of the landscape was now blacked out in a spherical shape that was nearly perfectly rounded. Outside the coliseum, an empty house in a back alley had a strange, deep black ball embedded in the middle of it. This ball had seemingly spawned out of nowhere and was now blotting out the view of everything in or behind it. A number of these balls cropped up all over the city in worrying places near the foundation of buildings, walls that were integral to upholding the rest of the architecture it was attached too, the arena floor, and even Terros himself had a giant black ball stuck in his chest. Terros had been directly at gun point as far as Astraeus was concerned so he was never going to miss his shot. Sure the art took a while to travel but, the second Astraeus pulled the trigger, the art had technically already arrived. The target was already bloated with both natural space and Astraeus' hand crafted space, it's just that the mana took a while to reach it and dig out the two types of space. Everything within this double space-bloated area was frozen in place, unable to move through the infinity trapping them.

Yes Terros had seen the art coming, it was pointed right at him, but he felt a weird circle obstacle in his stomach that was elastic and never ending. It was like gum that stuck him to the floor and prevented him from moving even a single muscle. Next thing he knew, that ball had become an opaque, abyssal, and deadly black ball but still he felt nothing right now. He was frozen, petrified on the spot, but, much like the other black balls dotting the city, they weren't really doing anything right now. They just sort of existed as a means of locking down the surroundings and Terros was wondering what came next. The simple answer was...

Nothing.

The black balls just disappeared and that was the end of the art... It looked and felt extraordinarily underwhelming as it happened as there were no loud and showy explosions or anything of the sort really... Although it was worth mentioning the initial impact of it had been far inferior to the result, that was for sure. Everywhere a black ball existed, now stood nothing. The arena floor had semi-circle shaped holes dug out of it, countless buildings throughout Red Sun crumbled as the black ball had effectively become their foundation before disappearing and taking the original wall with it, and Terros' entire body, including a small segment of his head, had vanished. The black ball arrived, overlapped reality, and then disappeared while taking the reality that existed there with it. It was a quiet process, and not a massive spectacle in any way, but the destruction wrought was impossible to measure as the city had only just begun collapsing. Nearly a thousand of these black balls had torched the immediate landscape and there were perfectly round holes absolutely everywhere.

Even the coliseum had been clipped because what this truly art did, that was truly horrifying as soon as anyone realised it, was that it wasn't technically just a single area each ball affected. Oriented from Astraeus' line of sight, each ball would create a hole in everything that was in its travel path. Put simply, every black ball Astraeus saw became a bullet wound tha travelled forward forever, unburdened by distance or obstacles. The black ball that had been inside Terros also shot further down and behind it, penetrating the earth and creating holes throughout multiple earth layers until it reached Terros' core. Terros' core no longer existed but there were a bunch of holes behind where it once was that signified Astraeus' art had been here and passed through. In fact, the art was so misleading, in terms of the scale of damage dealt, that people were only now realising it wasn't impossible to peek through one of these bullet's pathways and see all the way through to the other side of the planet. Astraeus would fix this before he left, because it would be awkward for everyone here if he didn't, but the fact that he'd just effectively shot a shotgun blast of reality eradicating bullets that pierced through an entire planet was not lost on the spectators. They'd originally believed he just created a few holes here and there but, for every hole, there were at least another hundred behind the first one on the same path it had taken from Astraeus' gun. Add each of the thousand black ball's hundred or so extra holes it created and the result was, ironically, unholy. If viewed from high up or from space, this planet looked like a ball of cheese in this one specific area. Astraeus had just done more damage to Sheryashka with a single art than it had ever suffered throughout the entire rest of its life thus far. It was like taking a shotgun to a basketball except for the fact that Sheryashka, thankfully, wasn't deflating right now although no one could blame it if it did. Again, though this art looked plain fir a brief spell, it was undeniably the most terrifying thing anyone here had ever seen and likely would ever see for a good chunk of their lives. Unless the people here went on to cultivate and reach much higher domains something like this would be the magnum opus of arts they'd witness from birth to death. It's magnitude was only really retroactively hitting these people but it was certainly hitting them hard.

Terros, who had been caught up in this art directly, had done little more than deflate and die as he was booted out of Sheryashka and sent reeling back home. Even his tiny, rocky ball clone was long gone and couldn't be supported anymore because of the severity of the attack he'd received so Mako was going to have do without his Godly pal for a few days, maybe even weeks. Terros expected maybe a small chip on his well hidden core but the entire thing was gone! Not just broken but outright gone. Even he had no idea how much this would affect him. He had support from various other Gods if he needed it, especially the nature pillar deity whom he had a rock solid relationship with, but the fact that he needed it after his summon was obliterated, which should have been a small inconvenience and nothing more, just went to show how preposterously powerful Astraeus was. Terros should have had the advantage as he was less restricted by his summoner's cultivation base and, yet, this had been the result. A one sided slaughter wasn't even entirely a correct assessment because he was somehow still underselling what had happened to him. The one consolation here was that he would not be ridiculed by the other Gods for this because A; Astraeus was Astraeus and, B; Terros had actually done a very good job here. Not only did he protect Mako by shuffling him around at the last minute to somewhere safer, which was the main goal Terros had from the start, he'd even managed to launch his own sneak attack while Astraeus wasn't being vigilant.

Regarding the first point, Mako was 'safe' and sound as he lay in a pool of his own blood... Half-dead... Yes Terros saved him but that didn't mean he wasn't smacked around by the art a bit too. Terros had miscalculated the potential area that could be affected by the art, as it's deceptively monstrous range was tricky to gauge at a glance, so Mako was nicked in his abdomen and now the blood was flowing without pause. He had to patch himself up but it was still way better than what could have happened had Terros been even a micro second slower on the uptake. Terros realised that he was about to become stuck, unable to move thanks to the overlapping space, and manged to swap Mako's position one final time underneath the earth and hide him somewhere else before he was halted in place and unable to make any further adjustments. It was like the shell game, the kind that Aejaz was proficient at, and Terros had won this round by keeping his hidden object safe from prying hands. Thankfully it was the only round he had to play because he was very much no longer capable of playing anymore anyway as he was deader than dead. Long story short, Mako was just about alive although he'd certainly seen many better days. In fact, he'd probably never seen worse days. He'd died in simulated fights against various trainers on his home planet, and against Ares in the pagoda, but most of those deaths were instant and punished his mistakes or his lack of cultivation compared to the person doing him in. This was a slow and painful process that was eating away at him gradually as he was beaten and unceremoniously kicked around the arena. He'd held the upper hand at one point, multiple points actually, but right now he was once again on the back foot... Kind of. He did still have his one final art up his sleeve, a final gambit of sorts, but there was also a little something else going in his favour that Terros had done.

As previously mentioned, Terros had fired off a sneak attack at roughly the same time he swapped Mako around underground. This sneak attack wasn't aimed at Astraeus, however, because he wasn't the problem that was going to persist throughout the rest of this match. No, much like how Astraeus aimed at Terros' summoner, Mako, Terros' aimed at Astraeus' summoner, Ares, who was still struggling from back when he used Timeline Splice. He was resting on his knees, and letting his regeneration piece himself back together, so he would naturally find it hard to avoid an attack that was sprung on him from close range. Ares had been so engrossed in everything that he'd forgotten something very basic. Terros was the earth God. Sitting around on the ground was a death sentence! There was a reason Astraeus had been floating in the air this entire time. Sure he didn't need to but it was a force of habit to always respect his opponent's strengths and play around them. Ares, on the other hand, instead of Voidwalking up to safety, had sat his dumb ass down on the arena floor and forgotten to move. Astraeus was so concerned with attacking his opponent he forgot to defend his own ally which just went to show that, no matter how strong a person was, their experiences shaped their weaknesses in ways that could be exploited by anyone with a keen eye.

Since when did Astraeus have to protect anyone? He hunted alone in the void and, at most, had to defend idle dimensions from Xhilihx. Even then, though, he was mostly on the attack to push the beast back to where it belonged in the depths of the void so trying to keep someone alive was something he'd never done before. He'd done an excellent job of striking down the opposition but Ares had just been impaled directly underneath him as an earthen spike shot up through the ground and took away roughly 1/5th of his body. Ares' right knee, a chunk of his own abdomen, much like Mako's, one of his lungs, a part of his shoulder, and his right eye were all impaled as he was strung up on the spike like a war trophy of sorts. It wasn't uncommon to make an example of the losing side in a war and hang up their corpses from pikes and such and this looked quite like that as Ares had been lifted off the floor by this deadly attack and hoisted above the arena. His cries had gone unnoticed by Astraeus up until now but he was already fading away and could nothing to help him. Had he anymore time here Astraeus would have been able to reverse time and undo the attack but Terros had aimed it such that Astraeus would run out of his summon duration before he could do anything.

Astraeus arts were powerful but that just shortened his stay here in Sheryashka and worked against him. Had he used weaker arts he still would have gotten the job done but he might have actually been able to aid Ares as well after. This was all a result of his narrow mindedness due to this being a real combat scenario, something he was unfamiliar with. He had mud slinging contests against Xhilihx but that was nothing more than a one to one comparison of brute force. He had play dates with the venators but that was the equivalent of bitch smacking a child around for the fun of it. He had no real experience in a war zone or in a fight were underhanded tricks were valid and winning the battle didn't always mean winning the war. In short, though he very much beat Terros, that could never be denied, he'd lost overall and been outdone by his junior. This was why nobody would fault Terros because, objectively, he'd done more here during this match than Astraeus who'd been a bit of a let down, actually. His arts lived up to his reputation but his errors in judgement did not do him any justice.

Sure some blame could be placed on Ares for not being hyper aware but he'd already done a lot more than Mako had done. His Omniscience and vigilance allowed him to inch to the side and partially dodge the spike, preventing death, so he'd already performed a miracle of his own here. Mako had been basically unmoving and yet Terros defended him while striking a moving Ares harder than Astraeus struck Mako. As far as being a bodyguard went, Astraeus sucked! Though he was more concerned with the sheer agony he was experiencing, Ares made doubly sure to curse that useless star bastard for his ineptitude in this whole affair.

Astraeus cared not for the curses that he could feel emanating off Ares' foul aura but he did feel a hint of admiration and respect for Terros for capitalising off his lacking data. This scenario would be pivotal for filling in his data banks which is what Astraeus cared about more than anything right now. Ares would live and so it wasn't a complete failure. Not that he really cared if Ares died, this wasn't a real fight anyway and Mako winning wasn't a big deal from his perspective... What a loser mentality! If Ares could hear this shmuck's thoughts he would get up off the spike, pick it up, and shove it up this robo's ass! Quite frankly, Astraeus could fuck right off back the void and stay there for the rest of eternity for all Ares cared! Deep breaths. Deep breath... Ok, maybe not, deep breaths hurt right now... 

Ares groaned in pain as his right side had been badly mutilated in that last ditch attack. Worse still, seeing Ares in a worse state than himself lit a fire in Mako and brought him back from the brink of insanity. With Astraeus having fully faded away now, the remnants of his aura disappearing meant Mako's mind was functional at a normal rate once more and so healing himself up in a jiffy was no problem. He just summoned more mechanical parts to keep himself afloat and he was a good as new practically. As long as his heart and / or brain wasn't destroyed, he could just keep doing this. Meanwhile, though Ares regeneration would fully heal him properly without the need for spare parts, it would take far, FAR too long to be relevant, at least a couple weeks which meant nothing as the match would be over by then and the Training Field would fix him itself, and so he was going to have to tough out these miserable injuries and fight on with them constantly nagging away at him. Ares was confident he could still pull of the win against Mako because the elf surely had nothing left and was pretty crap in head on fights up close and personal. All Ares had to do was walk over to this insufferable opponent and read him his last rites while strangling him to death for dragging this on for so long.

All of the thrill Ares had once felt was replaced by agitation and he was starting to realise that these long and drawn out fights were really not his style. He would way rather lose quickly than win painfully slow because watching every single one of his plans fail or backfire was getting on his nerves! Although a large part of his anger was that the last issue wasn't even his own damn fault! He wasn't responsible for the recent failure, Astraeus was! Stupid robo... Wait and see how I punish you for this one day... Ares shook his head with a belaboured sigh and started advancing towards Mako but had to halt in place when he saw the elf sporting an evil grin... "Shit." Ares cursed out loud because this sight meant the elf had one more trick up his sleeve and was about to play it.

Ares didn't know what was coming next but what he did know is that his own options were well and truly limited. If Mako had one more means at his disposal that was significant then Ares would probably bite the dust here as a result of Astraeus' stupidity. He was still feeling energetic but his body was not holding up very well and it was a testament to Ares' will power that he could even still move let alone fight. Regardless, Ares was about to find out what was in store for him as Mako walked over the nearest wall and sat down against it while chanting. As Mako was preparing himself to be put out of commission, Ares assumed this art had some recoil to it, much like Timeline Splice, and that was a both good and bad thing. Good because it meant Ares could try and sneak attack the wretched elf to end this here and now because he wouldn't be able to defend himself. Bad because it meant this art was going to be a powerhouse and might make Ares' life borderline impossible to live freely. If this art could hound him, and keep him stalled for long enough without being able to advance upon Mako, Ares would keel over and his body would just stop moving. He was on a time limit here and it was basically half-dead Ares with nothing vs incapacitated Mako with a single art defending him. As for the art in question, the one that would decide the end result of this entire gruelling match, it's name was...

"Ersatz."