Chapter 393: Rumble in the Desert

STOMP STOMP

Juggernaut had shaken the dust off her head and begun stampeding through the sand to tackle Ares and turn his world upside down. Ares grimaced as his feet shook thanks to the desert beneath him trembling with every one of Juggernaut's steps. She was causing more trembling than the qwaker from earlier did! Currently Ares was trying to figure out how to deal with this brute and it was actually a problematic task because, if annihilation didn't cut it, he was going to have to resort to the far more lethal disintegration. Ares was certain that would work, and even tear right through the artifacts she was wearing with ease, but that was the problem! His arts were TOO lethal and he was concerned he might do some very real damage that couldn't be undone. Maybe he should have set up a Training Field after al... Oh well, this could be practice for subduing, and not murdering, expert cultivators as there would no doubt be no shortage of situations exactly like this in the future.

Actually, if this was happening inside a Training Field, Ares could just use the Deep Blue's bubble art on Juggernaut, lock her up, walk away, and then Armillary her from miles away when she was about to break out. That was an evil tactic Ares had devised in his spare time but he was saving such measures for a truly problematic foe. It was overkill most of the time and, honestly, was better as a tool to help him flee than to kill someone. It was easily the most powerful combination he could pull off currently as it allowed him to freely cast his most dangerous art unimpeded while not being in the range of the ensuing explosion. Granted it didn't actually hit him thanks to the anti-friendly fire mutation he got from Enyo... But he wasn't actually too sure about that last part. Sure it worked on Grand Annihilations and so on but Ares was admittedly a tad concerned arts that were too powerful wouldn't adhere to the rules he tried laying out in place for them. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. The last thing Ares wanted was to check if he and others were immune to Armillary only to realise too late it didn't work the way he hoped it would...

Ares shook his head and refocused on the fight at hand as this was not a fight he could be dozing off in. Right now he didn't really have time to cast any big arts, and disintegration was still something he would rather not use just yet if he could avoid it, so, instead, Ares chanted "Stamp Out' on his right leg and lifted it. Next up was "Voidwalk, Double Jump, Annihilation Echo" and, last but not least, "Grand Annihilation." Ares had slowly raised his foot with every cast of an art and now his raised and bent leg hovered squarely before him oozing power and the aura of death. Anything this foot kicked would be sent to the afterlife under normal circumstances as Ares had layered on every single form of misery he was capable of adding to a standard punch or kick. His opponent, again usually, would just explode into bloody fireworks the second his foot made contact with literally any part of them...

Juggernaut was a different story however. Although this was overkill for most, Ares knew she could eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and only get a slight stomach-ache. It would hit like a truck, undeniably, and she would absolutely be hurt from the strike, but expecting a win just from connecting this foot was comical and Ares knew better now that he got a feel for her toughness first hand. Still, a well aimed kick to her head would screw with her brain a bit and maybe make her dizzy for the rest of the fight, throwing her off balance which mattered a substantial amount against someone who's main method of attack was close range beatdowns. She still had magic up her sleeve, and that couldn't be ignored, but she was respecting Ares as a foe that was tougher than the elephant and not trying to trick him by turning into a sandstorm. She could also still turn into a sand elemental whenever, which meant she'd intentionally not dodged Ares' previous attacks, but was also in the process of getting a feel for how strong Ares was. Plus, and this was the main reason, if she was careless she would get sucked into a black hole! Her sand elemental form still had her mana reserves, after all, and so she would be pulled right on in, never to be seen again. In that sense, Ares had a pretty massive advantage because he could deny her the ability to transform into her true self. Then again, Ares couldn't become Garmr either so it evened out in the end. Ares' magic countered Juggernaut's elemental form, as it would blow it away, and her physical form countered Ares' because he didn't have Garmr and couldn't hang. Thus the fight was trending towards Mage vs brawler but that didn't mean they couldn't each individually dip their toes into each other's current forte when it was relevant.

As for Ares' raised foot... Juggernaut wasn't sure how it was supposed to weather the storm that she had become during her unrelenting charge. She was not feasibly stoppable, unless she halted herself, so, even if that foot hit her, Ares would also suffer a blow at around the same time and only one person was walking away from that interaction with anything less than a broken spine and crushed limbs. Still, she knew she was safe to keep on keeping on so she didn't alter her course and ran Ares down with ramping speed. Ares, on the other hand, was taking deep breaths and calming himself down. He understood well how wrong things could go here if he wasn't careful but he was going all in! He had a plan, was going to stick to it, and was going to come out on top! He'd long since planned out his Absolute Reversal and predicted the entire flow of combat for the next few seconds which was typically easier to do against opponents like this. Sure Juggernaut wasn't flapping around like an amateur but her skill in combat was disproportionately smaller than her strength so Ares was going to leverage his own skill set which jsut so happened to be the exact reverse. Ares was going to win more moment to moment interactions, resulting in him hitting her more often than she hit him, but he would wind up taking a lot more damage the second she made contact soundly. Ares exposing himself to danger like this, and increasing the odds of getting hit just so he could do whatever he was aiming for, was perfectly acceptable as he was really in the zone and felt invincible. His concentration was soaring and he felt like he'd become Yulo, seeing seconds ahead into the future with his Omniscience analysing all possible angles of attack and distance with every passing millisecond. He could pull this off, of that he as sure!

Juggernaut blitzed into Ares' personal space, hopped forward and leant back, stomped her left foot down forward, and threw her entire body into launching one cataclysmic punch that could honestly destroy an entire pyramid if need be. Ares would either die or be left a cripple for months if he was hit by this and his pitiful revenant regeneration would have to work overtime to pick up his pieces, or whatever was left of him anyway. Even if he blocked this the fight would still be over as Juggernaut's herculean might had been amplified by the momentum she picked up and her fist was passively warping space around it, creating a sort of mirage that blended in with her red eyes and created a fierce glow. Ares responded in kind by launching his own attack and aiming straight for Juggernaut's head. His golden foot vs her red punch, both of which could fell giants, destroy unsinkable ships, and rend the earth in twain for multiple miles.

It seemed like Ares' strike would hit first but only by a fraction of a second so it wouldn't be in time to push her away and save himself from doom but he maintained his course and stuck to his plan of action, slightly curving the angle of his foot downward at the last second. No longer was he going to kick her in the cheek but, rather, his foot was now curling around her neck and shoulder, dampening the blow. This was an incredibly strange decision as Ares had all but cancelled his attack at the last moment to stick his foot there. The foot was still jam-packed with offensive might but Ares was choosing not to detonate it as of yet but, rather than try to figure out why, Juggernaut simply stuck to her guns and swung for the fences... Only to miss completely! Ares had slipped under her punch, that blew a hole in the desert floor behind him, by twisting his body and throwing himself to the floor. He didn't fall all the way, though, because Ares' foot was still acting like an inverse anchor and holding him up instead of weighing him down. He was upside down, dangling off Juggernaut's neck with his magic-laden foot, and facing her heavily armored legs. He could have used an Echo to try and trip her here, going for the follow up after but he assumed she wouldn't be toppled like that so easily and his plan needed to be far grander! He already knew what he wanted and he was in the prime position to enable it so he reached behind his back, aimed his body up at Juggernaut, and chanted "Echo!"

This was a highly pressurised Echo and packed some real firepower so Ares, as soon as his palm made contact with his back, was blasted directly into Juggernaut's stomach and chest, knocking her off kilter and causing her to stumble back while Ares corrected himself in mid air by stepping off his Zephyr. He kicked off the mid-air platform and landed facing away from Juggernaut with his left foot firmly planted in the sand and his right leg behind him. Juggernaut managed to regain her bearings just in time to see Ares throw all his weight into a roundhouse kick that tore through reality and blazed a golden trail straight to her unprotected head. He'd launched himself directly into the opponent he couldn't beat up close, which could have gone very wrong if she caught him, so that he could disorient and follow up with the attack he saved earlier for this very moment. The courage to let Juggernaut's fist come within inches of his face, and the balls to put himself in close proximity to Juggernaut and actually tackle her despite the size and strength disadvantage, was paying off big time as it should have. There would have been no reason to go through all that if the reward wasn't worth it so Ares' foot smacked straight into Juggernaut's cranium, right above her ear, and the impact was rather drawn out. Reality had to play catch up and comprehend the amount of force it needed to distribute. There was a brief glimmer of white light that collapsed in on itself at the impact location before action resumed with a deafening

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

There was nobody present other than Ares who thought this woman was anything other than dead on the spot. A mountain of sand nearly a mile away exploded long before anything else had even happened on the scene so it was clear from the aftershock alone that this was going to be a momentous strike. Everyone had no longer than a split second to understand this before a massive golden explosion rippled out of Ares' foot and Juggernaut disappeared within it. The immovable mountain had jsut been knocked off her feet and sent flying through a golden tunnel that was extending constantly along her flightpath at an astonishing rate. Ares had turned her into a golden meteor bringing destruction and chaos wherever her uncontrollable body was flung. Explosions rang out all across the desert and Ares was racking up his stepper kill count as his humanoid meteor was taking them out in droves as Juggernaut's fiery body gouged out land and monsters alike. She bounced off the sand and crashed headfirst through dunes for nearly two miles before eventually grinding to a halt nearly another mile away from her original landing point, leaving nothing but a golden burning crater at the end destination.

It was safe to say Juggernaut had never travelled in such a manner before. She had to take a moment to lie face first in the sand and actually comprehend what just hit her as, for the first time in her life, she was completely dazed and not even sure where she was anymore. She knew this desert like the back of her hand but, for a brief moment, she felt lost among the sea of sand that almost let hostile to her, like an entirely foreign and aggressive entity. Like tossing a landlocked creature deep into the ocean for the first time. The numbing sensation of being lost in a vast, infinite and unfamiliar expanse faded quickly and her hearing gasped back into existence as she took a deep breath while standing up... Or trying to, anyway, as she collapsed back down again because her dizziness got the better of her. She was hardly the most fleet footed individual before so, unsurprisingly, when her balance was thrown off, she would be clumsy until she adapted to this new experience.

Chances are, Juggernaut would be reeling from that strike for the entire week and standing up straight without occasional wobbles wasn't going to be possible. This was the most substantial injury she'd ever sustained and was awed at everything that had jsut happened to her. Even looking back at the trail she'd jsut formed, the massive half pipe in the sand that she'd brought into existence via her resounding defeat in that last bout, left her with a sense of disbelief. Is this what losing felt like? It was so foreign and ugly yet also motivating and inspiring in a strange kind of dichotomous way. She felt hollow with regret but also filled with renewed purpose at the same time. Like the loss of her current self was propelling her to never let it happen again in the future. She'd never felt this motivated to go train before and knowing her fight with Ares wasn't over yet was wonderful news!... But the broken bone in her shoulder was a painful reminder it wasn't going to be easy. He'd actually managed to break something with a physical attack so if he started utilising his magic properly she wasn't sure she could win...

And yet the fought of fighting back against inevitability and struggling for a hard earned win was exciting! From never losing and never facing a real challenge against another cultivator to being on the back foot and having to fight metaphorically for her life were two entirely different scenarios and she was glad to have finally experienced the latter. She truly believed this was something every cultivator should go through, limping through the carnage their body wrought after being treated like a common ant and thrown around in such one-sided fashion. An overwhelming defeat like this spurred everyone's inner cultivator and right now Juggernaut was feeling oddly revitalised. She stumbled, had to take a knee a few times to prevent another fall, and couldn't sees straight without having her vision tilt along with the rest of her head as it drifted from side to side... But the will to fight was burning brightly inside her. Underneath all those clothes, some of which had been shredded in the fiery explosions, was a determined cultivator ready to live up to their namesake. Although, if anyone asked Ares, he'd say she already did. There was probably nobody else in all of Sheryashka that could take that attack to the face and get up with nothing but a broken bone in their neck region and some other minor injuries. She was feeling the hurt, definitely, but to shake off the pain and reduce the severity of the injury from death to this was something that more than earned her the title of Juggernaut. Forget Digger the false king, there was only one ruler of this desert and it was this woman hands down. Nobody else even came close and only the monsters who'd lived for multiple generations now could contest her. No doubt she'd win against them eventually on her own too if given sufficient time to continue training.

Meanwhile, back over by Ares... "Owowowowowowowowow!" Ares kept trying to lower his raised foot and put it back on the floor but every time he did he felt a jolt of pain in his twisted foot. His foot had suffered on a a greater scale than Juggernaut's head! Moving around was going to be a pain going forward but it was worth it as Ares felt like a kickball champion right about now! He'd punted the Juggernaut and scored a meteoric homerun in the first inning and now he was looking to keep up his star performance and bring home the win. making Juggernaut dizzy was his goal from the start and, now that he accomplished it, things ought to go his way more consistently. Situations like before, where he was bear hugged in her grip, would happen less often now and that was very important considering how unlikely it was for the same tricks to work more than once. He would not escape with a headbutt next time. He would have to come up with a very different solution on the spot if he was careless but there was more leeway now that Juggernaut was not at 100%

None of this changed the fact that his victory here was just the first step and there was still so much left to do to come out on top in a convincing way... Ares looked over at the Yggdrasil and decided this was going to be his next avenue for success. It had seemingly gotten bored of beating a dead horse... Or elephant in this case, and was now just sitting there as the leaves idly swayed in the hot winds, waiting to be flung at another opponent. Thanks to the converter, Ares was certain he could make a Detonate with this art do great things and he had an idea for how he wanted the magic to be shaped. All that was left was to be polite and wait for Juggernaut to come all the way back over because he was giving her time to adjust. This was training, after all, and so a one-sided slaughter where he constantly pushed the advantage was in nobody's interest. He wanted a push and pull fight, not one where the first person to come out ahead stayed in the lead forever and just won in boring fashion! Not that he had to do this in order to get such a fight, that would be underselling Juggernaut, just that patience was a virtue and doing things this way made them more interesting for him. Also, bonus points if Juggernaut saw this as an insult and ramped up her own attacks in response.

While Ares waited, he took a quick glance around to make sure no stepper armies were on the horizon, or anything of that ilk, and he happened to catch sight of the gawking audience. Well not Aejaz, who had expected this outcome, but rather everyone else who jsut watched the person they assumed was strongest in Sheryashka get blasted away like a shooting star from a roundhouse kick. They'd never seen or heard of Juggernaut flinching, let alone this, so it naturally came as quite a shock to them. Especially Arla as the fellahins revered Juggernaut like a Goddess for her unmatched brawn and unshakeable presence. These people were getting an idea now of what a fundamental champion truly was because they were behind the times in their understanding of cultivation society. Hearing about Ares was one thing but seeing was believing and, though they could hardly believe their eyes, what happened just now was undeniable. His claims earlier about dropping by the Riddlemyd for fun to conquer it in his spare time seemed so much more convincing now! Treating that dangerous place like a tourist destination was unfathomable for a normal person but he was evidently not normal in any way...

That aside, Juggernaut was starting to make good headway on returning as she got sick of stumbling about and turned into her elemental form to ride through the sand and return faster. She was like a sandy hill that swam through the grains, a moving bump with two red holes for eyes. Ares could tell he would be swallowed whole by this thing, as it was like a snowball accumulating size during its travel until it became an unstoppable monster, if he didn't act before she arrived and so his time spent idling had come to an end. "Crystalised Void...." Ares turned to face the Yggdrasil, extended his arm, and clicked his finger at the giant tree with a bossy and demanding attitude. "Detonate!"

CRACKLE

As with this art's entrance, once it was detonated, the tree blinded everyone's vision in a frosty white flash. Crystals shattered as they were scattered through the air, shining as the sun's rays made them sparkle up in the sky. It was a shiny rain of sharp shards but what really mattered were the drifting leaves and the massive well of disintegration that was circling through the air like a dancing snake. The disintegration wrapped around itself, slowly forming the shape of a large dragon missing its wings but that was not an issue as it flew by the leaves and added them to its design. The golden leaves formed this monster's wings and armor while the disintegration took the form of a powerful and legendary creature. Níðhöggr had been summoned from the dead remains of Yggdrasil and it had gorged upon everything the tree murdered while it still stood. The numerous steppers, the undead scorpion king frozen and now broken, and the qwaker were all sustenance that further improved the power this thing possessed which was already substantial to begin with. A single flap of its wings would cause an explosive gust, spreading fragmented explosive leaves at foes while its fire breath could disintegrate cities after a few go arounds. Though the mana cost was atrocious, this beast was definitely up there in Ares' arsenal and not far behind his other cataclysmic arts. It was stronger than a Perish Wheel, that was for sure, and could act on its own according to the situation making it even more problematic for anyone who had to face it. Ares felt like this was a tad brutal so, rather than attack alongside this borderline secondary Ares, he simply took a seat and watched to see how Juggernaut would contend with this mighty beast. He'd never summoned this monster in this way before so he wanted to get a feel for what it could and could not do on its lonesome. It hadn't fed upon too many enemies, and was still going to be way more useful against armies instead of individual opponents, but this was a good way to measure its true potential by starting with the weaker circumstance first as it could only go up from here on out. Just when everyone thought things couldn't look any more bleak for Juggernaut, as it turned out, it very much could. Ares had a pet dragon of destruction!