Chapter 279: Going at It With Hammer and Staffs

How?

How was it possible for Ares to see an art once, get hit it by no less, for all of about two seconds and copy it perfectly? He didn't even fully understand the intricacies of the art because it wasn't his so, really, what had actually happened here was that Ares didn't copy the art, he invented it on the spot. He came up with every single part of the mana manipulation process, all the finer details of the art, and recreated it mid crash. There were probably some very minute differences between Ares' version and the clone's but, fundamentally, they would be doing the exact same thing. Sort of like two different drivers taking differing routes from one another but still reaching the same destination regardless.

If inventing a preposterously good art on the fly had hit Dominus' brain like a speeding truck then whatever it was the hell Ares just did was like being hit by a hundred trucks travelling at lightspeed. This kid's reaction speed and combat senses were off the damn charts! Even Dominus wouldn't have been able to do something like this at Ares' age! Hell, at Ares' age, all Dominus was doing was wasting his talents and chasing skirts all day! His assessment of Ares prior to this needed to be shredded and chucked in the garbage bin because it wasn't even remotely accurate. Nothing about Dominus' existence was relevant to anything that just happened, so it had very much been all Ares, and even exemplars would be hard pressed to copy whatever the hell it was the clone had just done, let alone the real Ares. To think Ares was so indignant about being showed up he used that anger as a springboard to do something borderline impossible for 99% of all cultivators... It wasn't even necessarily the 'creating an art on the fly' thing, he'd done that before, ridiculous though it also was, it was how fast he'd done it! He got hit by the art and, before he could even bite the dust, he'd already thrown it out in response as a counter to the counter! The clone had only just barely finished getting the art out of his mouth by the time Ares threw it right back at him! So unbelievably petty Ares was! And talented, obviously, not just any Joe Shmoe could pull this off. Better yet, not just anybody could pull this off in a do or die situation at match point in an international tournament! Crazy bastard...

As for how Ares escaped his current predicament, crashing down headfirst into the floor, he swivelled his palm on the ground to keep slightly altering the angle of his fall until all the momentum he had was just about moving horizontally. In short, he was no longer really falling any more as he'd converted all the speed from his downward spiral into a counter clockwise spin around his palm, forcing the clone to let go otherwise it would be dragged around for a wild ride it really didn't want to be on. It didn't end just at this though as Ares was planning on doing a full 180 degree rotation such that he could convert the spin into a drop kick and go flying back towards the clone. Waste not want not and, currently, there was still a Stamp Out, Annihilation Echo, Voidwalk, and Double Jump combination lingering in his feet, ready tp be expelled and fired off into a vulnerable victim. Right now, as the clone had committed to the attack much the same way Ares committed to his, the victim had already been decided and there was no longer any way out for him.

The clone was still partially hunched over with his leg off the ground as he'd really leant into the swing hard. It wanted to end the fight here and now so it went all in on the throw over the shoulder but that was coming back to bite him hard right now as Ares spun like a top and reversed his travel direction on the spot. Ares' golden tinted boot was hurtling towards the clone's stomach and it just had to accept the inevitable here and pray it would somehow live through this attack. It was going to be devastating because the clone couldn't even really muster a proper block with his arms so he was going to receive this maelstrom of arts dead centre. It wasn't completely screwed, and could mitigate the blow somewhat via a well enough timed Echo, but that was hardly going to be enough tp prevent a massive turning of the tides here. The clone couldn't turn the tables with a counter yet again because, frankly, this was its limit. It had already defied the upper boundary of what it was capable of and, although Ares himself could maybe go a few more inventive rounds with the clone here and now in the heat of the moment, the clone simply couldn't do it again even if it wanted to. Once was a miracle, twice was asking for the impossible. Ares, however, was in the zone and could go all day at this rate. He was honestly a tad disappointed that this was where it ended as this momentum hot potato game, where one person or the other was going to suffer at the hands of it, was kind of exciting. Ares' life was hanging in the balance but he knew this was the perfect opportunity to push himself to attain new heights in his combat mastery so he almost wished the clone had something more in store for him.

When both Ares' feet connected with the clone's stomach, however, he realised that his thin strand of hope had snapped, was all for naught, and that he truly was the superior Ares. Of course he knew that from the start but definitively proving it with a brutal victory of the imposter was for the best. It would ease Ares' bubbling rage at having been played the fool and this was just the natural order of things anyway. If Mako won this fight by pitting Ares against a clone of himself then Ares would feel highly robbed... And he was the bandit here! Unacceptable! Ares was going to beat this clone black and blue and make it call him daddy!... Or not, that was kind of weird actually. Ares was getting a little too heated and just accidentally thought of something incredibly strange... Not that Enyo wouldn't enjoy watching that if it ever came to pass, she'd want front row seats... This was a subject best not touched upon, and rather relegated to the very back of Ares' mind where it could be buried under a pile of the other junk back there, because if Enyo ever had and / or supported this idea then Ares was going to go and live life as a hermit for a few million years until she forgot about it. Not happening!

As for the clone's imminent death, it had circumvented it by thrusting its stomach forward to generate a last minute Echo and save itself from certain doom. The Echo couldn't stop the impact, not even close, but what it did do was extremely important. Essentially, it acted like a bouncer, denying the Annihilation Echo entry into its body. If the Annihilation Echo could rattle around inside the clone freely there was a 101% chance of death when combined with the impact of the kick. Lights out and no money to pay the energy bill to get them back on after. Death, no questions asked. The Echo created a wall at the clone's stomach that caused a dissonance between it and the Annihilation Echo, halting it in its tracks and preventing it form going any further. Now this didn't stop it from going off where it was stopped and detonating, blasting the clone away like it was subsonic jet breaking the sound barrier, but it did stop the clone's life from being reaped by this attack and that was what truly mattered. Ares' feet had connected with the clone's stomach and the brief pause that followed enabled everyone to hear the crunching of bones that was utterly agonising to even listen to, let alone actually get devastated by first hand. An air blast emanated from Ares' foot and the clone had then shot backwards faster than anyone's eyes could follow, save for the matriarchs but even they had a tough time of tracking the battered clone, crashing into a wall with a deafening CRACK that was most definitely not strictly the sound of the wall breaking.

Whatever injuries the clone was left with were going to be nearly equally as severe as the ones Ares was currently suffering from. There was no way he just got hit by an attack of that magnitude and shrugged it off so Ares felt a little better knowing that as he hunched over and coughed up blood. He'd strained himself a lot in order to deliver that attack as the Absolute wild ride he just went on was making his head spin even now. The adrenaline had worn off and his body was not happy with him for taking such drastic measures but he needed to tough it out and keep on keeping on. letting this whole situation go to waste by not pressing the advantage, just because he was hurting across parts of his body, was a foolish mistake that would only make his life harder in the minutes to come so he picked up the nearby spear, that the clone had dropped earlier, and threw it towards the dust cloud where the clone had struck the wall. Ares didn't even wait to see if it even hit and followed it up by sprinting over to the wall and pulling out a hammer to wield as a weapon. It was on the smaller size but that meant swinging it around was easy and didn't hurt his body like hell every single time he wanted to attack the clone. Plus it was versatile thanks to the claw on the back side that could be used to catch lazy strikes from other weapons, forcing the clone to have to think carefully every time he wanted to try and swipe at Ares. The hammer wasn't sharp, so its lethality was on the lower side along with the overall range, but Ares was able to get close thanks to his previous attack and that was where this weapon would really start to shine. He didn't know if the spear hit but it hadn't been flung out of the dust cloud so there was also a good chance the clone was glued to the wall and impaled yet again. Ares almost felt sorry for the clone as this was the second time it had been run through in such a manner and that must have really peeved it off. Ares was proud of his mobility so if he spent half a fight unable to move he would seriously blow his top and just stop fighting the asshole responsible.

The dust did clear eventually as Ares stalked the outer edges of the cloud, revealing within the clone who'd been smacked clean into the wall and even left an Ares' shaped imprint on it that it was currently stuck inside. Its arms were practically welded on and buried deeper than king Arthur's Excalibur so the chances of it getting out anytime soon weren't great if it didn't have a plan. As for its current state, the front half of the clone was torched and its stomach was leaking a few guts here and there. Flesh was ripped and shredded and the entire area around the point of impact was a funny black looking colour thanks to the death of every single nerve nearby. A few organs had shut off and moving was going to be a real struggle. This was excellent news for Ares who had the playing field evened out nicely with this. If anything, it was probably worse for the clone because its mobility had been more harshly impacted than real Ares' and that was a core component of his fighting style. It could stay on the go still, it would just be painful but that mattered to an extent. Even a tinge of pain could delay a brain's ability to think straight so, in a relatively even fight like this, it all mattered. Also, yes, the clone had been impaled again but it wasn't in the mid region, rather Ares had hit the clone's arm with the spear and unfortunately missed anything that would have given it long term trouble. It was a minor wound compared to everything else but it did further help in locking the clone down against the wall and cutting off its escape. Now it really needed to take drastic measures otherwise Ares was going to crush its head in with his hammer or, if he had time, maybe dig out the clone's heart with the claw instead. This fight could very well end here if the clone didn't get a move on. Ares ran up to the stuck clone with a hop in his step but had to pause halfway to his goal when the clone spat out both a wad of blood and a chant. Ares didn't have hemophobia so that clearly wasn't the issue, the real problem here was the art the clone chanted...

"Chaos Reigns!"

The Shock Beads from before? The ones Ares sniped out of the air with his Block Rocks? They had been scattered far and wide, meaning they weren't in a position to affect Ares, so the questionable use of this art temporarily threw Ares for a loop until a batch of Shock Beads came flying out of the wall behind the clone. After crash landing, rather than try to dislodge himself from the wall, the clone set up a bunch of Shock Beads behind him to ambush Ares with after luring him in with his feigned weakened and trapped state. The explosions form these Shock Beads would free the clone at bare minimum and maybe even catch Ares unaware, blowing him up a little. Again, Ares annihilation mastery meant this was going to mostly tickle him, hell the guy blew himself up on a regular basis for the excitement he got out of it, but a hit was still a hit and the clone wasn't in a position to complain about small victories. Thankfully Mako hadn't skimped out on the clone when manufacturing the annihilation side of things as it had the anti-friendly fire protocol mutation that Ares did so it wasn't going to hurt itself by doing this. Part of the reason it struggled in other areas was because Mako made sure this specific function existed. It wasn't particularly useful against Ares but Mako was a future conscious individual and knew this was more important than other small additions he could have made so he begrudgingly worked on it first. Having a portable Ares for his adventures was incredible but his bright idea would seem a whole lot stupider if he kept getting blown up by his teammate all the time and so prioritising this was teh only real solution. To think Mako had worked on something that might not even be relevant to this fight because he was actually using his head for once... Ares was honestly a little shocked because everything the elf had done up until now was almost solely for the sake of winning this match. Maybe he wasn't completely obsessed? Maybe only, like, 99%? This was character development! Maybe Ares should buy some clone talismans like he did for Appa to help Mako get over him? Although, then again, he had his own Ares clone now... Creep...

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Roughly fifteen Shock Beads had come flying out of the wall but Ares didn't falter in the face of them and simply brushed aside any that flew by his head before they detonated. He was rapidly engulfed in the golden domes but couldn't have cared less as a few segments of his flesh were torn near his face. He lost some skin here and there, and there was a ever present stinging sensation for as long as he stayed within the gold domes, but that was mostly the extent of it. his body was also rocked around but the force wasn't enough to sweep him off his feet and push him back so he was able to bust through the explosions with only a slight wobble. If Ares had his apotheosis form he would have been able to remain completely unharmed during all of this and maybe even hijack control of it like he did with the Shift earlier. This was partially why he wasn't too concerned about this clone because Ares' advantage over it would become massive as soon as his control over destruction deepened as that was something the clone could never do no matter how strong Mako got.

The clone was fantastic but it wasn't really a great measure against Ares himself and was mostly beneficial to Mako to up his lethality against literally anybody else. Also, whatever niche Mako couldn't fil with his magic would be taken care of by Ares who was his diametric opposite in every way. They covered all bases together and, in that sense, Ares almost wished he could have a portable Mako too! Mako's defensive options would inevitably become infinitely better than Ares' at a later date, as he would still mostly rely on destroying attacks rather than blocking them, and having a pocket elf be able to summon unbreakable walls at will would be handy. Ah well, creation was its own thing and there was no way for Ares to copy it. He had his own tools that the other fundamental champions would kill for and he was already lucky enough to have the fundamental pillar tailor made for combat to begin with. Point in case, ignoring any extraneous oddities like God summons or mythical treasures, Ares would have likely won this fight already and without much pushback from the elf either. In terms of, if you put Ares and Mako in a room and asked them to brawl with no outside aid who would win, the answer would be Ares 100% of the time. He didn't need to pine over other people's benefits but he was also a cultivator at the end of the day so not at least thinking about the stuff other people owned or could do wasn't in the cards.

Anyway, that aside, Ares pushed through the explosions while swinging his hammer where he predicted the clone to be. This guess had been accurate and the clone was nearly caught completely off guard by the immaculately timed and aimed swing. The clone almost thought this bastard was cheating the way he blindly hit the nail that he was on the head! Did this guy tamper with the Training Field to be able to see his opponent no matter where they were or what was obstructing them?! If it wasn't for the fact that Ares was just a proven genius, and that nobody knew that better than the clone himself, there would be some serious suspicions raised as a result of this! Still, regardless, now was not the time to be ruminating over such matters otherwise, if he kept it up, the clone wouldn't have a head to dwell on such things with anymore. His brain would be squashed into a fine grey paste and that was hardly conducive to winning. The clone pulled out a bo... As in a bo staff but calling it that was kinda redundant because 'bo' already meant staff. It was like saying staff staff but 'bo' on its own was kinda hard to figure out what someone was talking about so bo staff, or staff staff, it was!

Anyway, the clone pulled out a metal staff staff and imbued it with mana as he held it horizontally to block the hammer. As this was a last second block, the vicious strike buckled the clone's knees thanks to a good chunk of the shock not being absorbed by its missing stomach region. There was no support for the knees and nowhere for the force to disperse on the way down so the clone was brought low by Ares who then abandoned the thought of a lethal bow entirely and went to try a sweep against the clone's knees. The clone could always lean back into a handstand and escape if Ares went for an attack above the chest region and so Ares followed the time old advice of 'keep it simple, stupid' and went for what was readily available to him to hit. If he could trike the clone's knees then this fight was as good as over but the clone wasn't going to just sit there and take it so it thrust out the staff with steady aim towards his foe. Ares had to acknowledge the staff barrelling towards his throat so he spun the hammer in his hand and swiped the claw end at the staff in a bid catch it but, alas, a split second alteration to the staff's angle thanks to clone's quick reaction meant that plan was a dud. The two weapons clashed once more but Ares had the advantage, as his weapon was noticeably heavier than the staff, so he was able to swat it to the side and charge forth once more. With the staff flung to the side the clone appeared to be wide open but that wasn't entirely true as it had predicted this outcome in advance and had a plan already prepared for this exact situation.

"Gamble!"

The end of he staff that had been pushed to the side was poked into the ground and, now, the clone was doing a very strange, almost completely diagonal, Gamble. Ares usually held himself aloft over the sword he buried into the ground when Gambling but the clone had taken a different approach. The clone was hanging below the bo, near the end of the staff that wasn't buried in the ground, ready to swing as though he was poling, or pole dancing as it's more commonly known. Rather than a horizontal orientation around his weapon, the clone had opted for something vertical on his diagonally buried staff to throw Ares for a loop and almost literally at that. This position meant that if the clone Gambled straight upwards he would kick Ares in the face so, naturally, that was the option it took as it both leapt over Ares' low sweep and managed to punish him on top of that. The clone executed this flip up and around the pole beautifully, smacking Ares in the jaw. Ares had missed his swipe underneath the clone and got a face full off boot for his troubles.

The clone flipped up and over Ares' head, landing behind him where he launched another attack, this time a series of swipes and pokes that were rapid and precise. Ares' hammer wasn't well suited for dealing with something like this but he managed to stumble his way to a decent stance after fixing his jaw, which was nearly coming off at this point thanks to the earlier impaling, and deflect most of the attacks. A few did connect but thankfully this was a bo and not a spear so it was painful, certainly, but Ares didn't have anymore holes drilled into him which was a positive thing overall. Still, he didn't like that he was slowly being forced to retreat in defeat here as the clone was chaining together smart moves that put Ares in a bind. This was why it was better to choose a weapon second as it was incredibly easy to pick something that would force the opponent to struggle with their own choice if they were too hasty. Ares was going to have to think on his feet to make this hammer work. He could put it back but then the clone would just follow suit and not only would this never end but it wouldn't even help much anyway. The time it took to swap a weapon was small but still meaningful and Ares was already in a bad position right now so pushing his luck, just because he wasn't feeling confident with what he had, was stupid. Ares was better than that! He wasn't going to fold and abandon the weapon because of his own faults! Even though he really shouldn't treat this match, of all of them, as a training exercise to get better with various weapons, he was damn well doing it anyway!

So now how to get past the bo and strike down his foe? Ares didn't know how to overcome this woe! He was going to have to rely on his brilliant brain again even if it was being a little moody right now after Ares had been so dismissive of it earlier. Stubborn thing! Work, damn it, work! I'll apologise later and feed you brain food like fatty tuna! Whether this specific proposal worked like a charm or Ares just so happened to come up with an idea at this very oddly precise moment was impossible to tell but, regardless, Ares had an idea he could act on now so he waited for his opponent to strike again before he took action. This back and forth with the clone was just getting started and Ares wanted to toy around with him a bit longer before he brought Dominus out to play as this was proving to be invaluable for him. His weapon wielding would go up several notches off the back of this fight alone so he'd forced upon the clone a duty to entertain him and, honestly, it was doing a very good job! Ares was starting to wonder if he could steal this clone away from Mako somehow... Probably not unfortunately... Also, then, Ares would have two clones of himself, including Rox, just sitting in his Primordial Blade, floating around in the vast nothingness of space... It would be hilarious chucking two other Ares at a foe and ganging up on someone but, at that point, it would be massively overkill anyway. Ah well, Ares was just going to have to settle with having Rox in his back pocket, that was good enough. If he couldn't have Mako's clone, then it was just going to have to die!