Chapter 415: Prescient Commander: White Interlude Part 1

Then there were two fundamental champions left to cover. White and Sanity. What happened with White was a little simpler to follow along with so the clone that just blew Oliver's head off, as a mercy to get him out of the pagoda quicker, thought back on everything that happened in the other simulation of this room.

About ten minutes prior.

"Hmmmm." Ares scratched his chin as he stared down White who was returning the favour by silently eyeing up Ares. "I think I can guess which fundamental pillar champion you are... I feel like all the, you know, white is giving it away maybe?" Ares was obviously joking but this guy was really going all in on the white aesthetic! He'd make a legion member blush in modesty comparatively. He really stood out in comparison to the more subdued surroundings like a walking torch. He was particularly bright! At night he would be extremely easy to spot, Ares reckoned! White wasn't glow in the dark or anything but his clothes were seriously pure in terms of colour and Ares couldn't help but feel like even heaven would be jealous of this particular angelical shade of white. Though, then again, heaven likely specialised in the holy pillar more than anything or anywhere else, amongst all their cultivators, so they'd have plenty of reasons to be jealous of White. The white pillar was to the holy pillar as the black pillar was to the darkness pilar. That is to say a clear upgrade in every way as it could do everything the holy pillar could do and then some.

Furthermore, with the apotheosis benefits, White was effectively immune to holy magic just as Black was mostly immune to darkness magic. This was a bit more relevant compared to normal immunity, however, because his absolute control over all things white didn't just mean he could redirect opposing holy attacks but also, crucially, buffs and heals of any kind! Any and all support magic from the holy pillar could be stolen and redirected at whim and that was pretty rough in large scale wars or skirmishes wherein regiments of healers and supporters sat at the back to keep everyone going during arduous and long fights. All White had to do was merely passively exist, and drain all their magic towards himself like a magic sucking vampire, and the tide of the fight would instantly shift as the opposing army would no longer have the ability to heal their wounded at all. Never mind the fact that his own allies would then be the recipients of his foes' hard work, bolstering them even further.

Ares, Havanah, and White all shone in large scale wars and confrontations for their own reasons and what was true of each of them was that they were more than capable of wiping out armies on their own due to their individual talents. Ares infinite mana and wide range of devastation meant the opposing army would die long before he ever stopped blowing things up, Havanah's gravity magic would make it impossible for the entire enemy army to move either by sticking them to the floor or forcibly making them float, and White could create his own army that was immortal either via his own magic or the foe's that he siphoned freely. Generally speaking, if an army showed up to a battlefield and any of these three individuals were present it would be wise to immediately surrender and give up before the catastrophic loss of life took place.

This was doubly true for White here as he was a well-renewed strategist that had even been recruited, via the fundamental organisation, by generals in higher domains who sought out his expertise. This was not some innate gift but a well trained talent and White's ability to understand and command a battlefield remotely was second to none despite being entirely self-taught. Even if he couldn't directly participate in the war, as his cultivation base just wouldn't cut it in higher domains fundamental champion or otherwise, him just existing in the back lines was a problem in and of itself. As Oliver stated, he was nicknamed Phostradamus and it was for a good reason. Actually all the champions had nicknames, or would get them at some point in the future, and they were as follows: White, the immortal phostradamus. Ares, the wandering calamity. Havanah, the chaos weaver. Mako, the imperious creator. Black, the memorial parasite. And last but not least, Sanity, the cerebral architect.

Ares, White, and Mako's titles were all self-explanatory, and had been touched on before, but the others were entirely new and needed clarification! Black was well known for parasitising corpses, and running them around under its control, and this ability would later go on to extend to more than just one body at a time. Black would be able to become host to a whole network of the deceased and it parading around the dead was a constant reminder to those who knew them that their loved ones wouldn't know rest even in death... But Ares couldn't help but feel like the term 'parasite' was incredibly rude! Black was far too cute to be a parasite! It belonged to a well enough known race and wasn't anything even remotely close to some creepy bug or alien! It was more of a necromancer than a parasite if anything but people feared the unknown and nobody, at least currently, knew what on earth Black was other than pagoda Ares. Many rumours circulated but only Ares knew! He knew the truth about the most adorable fundamental champion of them all! Black should definitely be considered the mascot of the fundamental champions, not some kind of despicable monster lurking in the shadows!... Actually, now that Ares thought about it, only White was a human amongst the six champions! Revenant-Ares, K9-Sanity, panthera-Havanah, elf-Mako, and Black's race which was a secret. Humans drool, cool species rule! Well Ares still had to use his human form regularly to get around on a day to day basis but the point still remained!

Anyway, moving on, Havanah's title, chaos weaver,, was one based on her ability to weave reality into favourable, albeit crazy, outcomes. Plus her ability to control gravity would only go on to get more and more ridiculous. One art in particular would become infamous and actually spark discussions about her nickname, resulting in the aforementioned one, so it was kind of a trademark much like Ares' Grand Annihilation was. It was an art similar to Ares' Not Even Light just on a way bigger scale and for a very different pay off than jsut functioning as inescapable anti-magic measures. Absorbing everything, planets to space, with gravity and condensing it into a single bow and arrow shot that could pierce domains was a pretty iconic sight so it was only natural her title would revolve around it.

Then there was Sanity, the cerebral architect, and it was a simple enough name to understand when factoring in the way she fought people. Architects built things and Sanity could construct hundreds of inescapable layers within a person's brain to eternally trap them within a maze in their mind of her own creation. Wandering for days through a barren dessert, finally spotting a town and feeling some kind of hope, and walking over only to find out you were in an illusion and sent spiralling immediately into another one, was pretty miserable and demoralising. Meanwhile Sanity would just be watching you stumble through hundreds of scenarios she'd cooked up personally after delving into your brain to find your greatest fears and orchestrating them into a horror show for you to witness first hand. One of the Ares' clones, right now, in their fight with Sanity, was being besieged by an army of spiders and it was very much not pretty... Even if he told himself they weren't real the harsh truth was that they felt and looked real! Plus they hurt as if they were real, as Sanity could convert mental damage to physical damage and that was her unique trait, so it was hard to differentiate between real and fake. Killing someone in a dream meant little to nothing most of the time but against sanity it was a death sentence in real life too. Throw in the fact that she'd had nigh unlimited power to manipulate dreams and there was some very serious repercussions to letting her do whatever she wanted. The longer you spent trapped in her dreams the more power she gained until she hit a critical mass and could summon a literal infinite army that was impossible to beat or replicate in the real world. Millions of Scyllas? That was achievable if she wanted! Billions of mecha dryads? Yep, possible. Trillions of full power Ares clones? All she needed was time. To top it all off she could still hit you in reality while you were stumbling about like a lost child in these delusions so she was an extremely challenging opponent due to her rare specialisation in mental magic.

Fortunately Ares was fighting White here so he didn't have to worry about Sanity and could leave his poor clone in that room to figure things out themself! Heh, poor sucker! Ares mocked the other clone, even though they were one and the same person, and readied himself to fight White as the person in question wasn't responding to his petty jibes about his clothing. White was above childishness in general and would just ignore such provocations so it was looking like there would be no conversing and just a simple showdown between champions. In that sense, he and Black were quite similar and it was no surprise they got along, they never bothered each other! 

Crack

White cracked his knuckles as he stepped forth, towards a stationary Ares, and it seemed like he was trying to take this fight in stages to check Ares' abilities in different departments. How Ares handled various problems on the battlefield was important information for White. Again, he wanted to know Ares' capabilities in full so he could utilise Ares as a pawn on the battlefield when such a time came... But Ares was not someone so easily controllable and bucked like a wild bull when given orders he didn't like. White had a similar issue of non-compliance and stubbornness with Havanah when pulling this same stunt and neither of these two wild-child type cultivators appreciated being treated as such. They'd rather be underestimated by an opponent than be controlled by one, or have their foe assume they could be controlled, and White very much gave off the vibe that he was testing a new toy that was resisting futilely in his palm. At least when Ares fought Havanah she was just misguided about his talents, thanks to his lower cultivation base throwing her off the scent, and she quickly wizened up. In comparison, White's attitude was going to have to be wiped off his face and general demeanour the hard way but that would only serve to benefit him and his goals because he wanted to see everything up Ares' sleeves regardless of whether he won or not. Killing him wasn't really a win because it didn't prevent him from winning! If your opponent won, then regardless of what happened with you, could you really claim a victory? The rules of engagement weren't normal this time around and it was very much in line with White's strategist mindset to be here gathering combat data for future use. But even so, Ares wasn't going to let White dictate the flow of the fight. If he wanted to throw hands and punch each other silly then Ares would oblige with his full pressure mastery and not even a single iota less! Hell Ares might even pull Garmr out and crush the puny human!

For now though Ares played along. White could realise how much deep shit he was in bit by bit if that was what he truly was after! Ares responded to White's advance in kind by leaking his golden pressure and painting the world around him as he so desired. Credit to White here was necessary for he did not falter in the face of this worldly manipulation of reality even slightly. A small head tilt to appreciate the surroundings was all Ares got out of him as he continued charging up a brutal punch and walking straight ahead with conviction and stoicism. Ares wasn't tolerating this level of nonchalance in the face of his might so he begun channeling mana for a pressurised Annihilation Echo to really knock some sense into this guy! It seemed White noticed the ramping threat in Ares' fist and so he took action by covering his hand in a white fire of some sort. Ares didn't know exactly what it did, and he could have maybe checked with Omniscience if he really wanted to, but Ares was perfectly fine with taking it head on because he could do something similar!

"Black Blossom!" Yes, pagoda Ares had learnt how to imbue his fists with disintegration! A black fire raged across his hands with small petals flickering around in the wind beside him. He was a golden god with ashen black fists perfect for boxing and, for the first time since appearing here, White looked a little concerned. Still he never let up or gave in to fear and activated his greyscale aspect dimension. He kept the range of it small enough to just wrap around his fist temporarily while he utilised its effect by pointing down at it and marking his fist with a small target. The target was circular with a cross in the middle and there was a feeling in Ares' gut that something was arriving at that specific location. It was a hard feeling to explain clearly but it reminded Ares of when the Primordial Blade was homing in on him from outer space back when he first started cultivating. A high velocity, extremely lethal, weapon barrelling towards the designated spot... But he'd marked himself so it was a bit strange. Even still, Ares didn't underestimate White and assume a mistake had been made here because he was definitely a better cultivator than that and, chances are, whatever he'd just done was going to give his fist some extra oomph during their clash.

The greyscale dimension had disappeared now that its effect had come into play but White's hand still had the targeting reticle tattooed firmly on the back of his hand, near his knuckles, and it couldn't be shaken or peeled off even if Ares took to it with disintegration... Ares was curious what the result of this would be but he was ok with finding out the hard way what exactly was in store for him because it was finally time to clash! The two champions momentarily paused and squared off, simultaneously took one final step towards each other, and gave it their all to launch star-destroying devastation levels of power. If pagoda Ares launched this attack outside the pagoda he could wipe out the planet real Ares was on in Sheryashka currently. It was a planet in a lower dimension so the mana in the air would not be able to weaken or resist this punch. The giant space rock would be shattered and all life on it would be blown into outer space where they would choke without oxygen and die, if not outright explode, due to the sheer amount of pressure as a result of the atmosphere protecting them suddenly giving out in such violent fashion. This was why higher realm cultivators shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the lower realms! They could do in a single punch what entire planets full of people couldn't do with their powers combined! The same was also true of White's attack, in that it packed the strength needed to destroy a planet, but it looked less immediately imposing than Ares' own did and so he was fairly certain his win was in the bag if nothing changed... But that was when it happened. As if fighting a fundamental champion would be so easy! 

BANG

Ares nearly jumped in fright and had a heart attack when his ears were nearly blown off by the sound of a tank firing a shell right beside him! Where the hell did that come from?! Ares shook his head and refocused on his punch as the two fists were connecting while he was worrying about random jump scare noises! That was a recipe for disaster so he pushed his fist forward using every ounce of muscle he had and put that noise to the back of his mind for now.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Ares initially believed himself to be winning the clash handily. White was forced to give up ground and be pushed back half a step without making any real progress in fighting back against Ares' pressure. He'd mitigated the force of the Annihilation Echo but that was just the start of the onslaught as Ares' pressure was like ten thousand extra fists all fighting against his pitiful one at once. Not to mention his holy flames were being devoured by the disintegration blossoms ravaging his bare knuckles and even floating up to his chest to burn him there too so he was progressively getting weaker and weaker as the clash continued. Even still, White hung on without any hint of worry on his face because reinforcements were right around the corner in the form of the tank shell from earlier. Ares hadn't misheard nor was he going crazy, that was a real tank shot from one of White's magical creations, residing in outer space currently, and it was on route to the target he'd marked. There wouldn't be an actual tank shell in this case, although there very well could be if White wanted such a thing, although he wouldn't have targeted himself in that case, it was just going to be his fist getting the extra power of a tank shot instead... But that was more than enough. That lent energy, the extra magic that was blasted into his veins and rocketed his moment to moment ferocity by leaps and bounds, would allow him to weather this storm and not come out of this clash a loser. It was less about how much power the tank shot afforded White and more so about the sudden burst of strength that came with it! Point in case, he allowed the full force his tank shot energy to come drilling into his back and flow through his veins before unleashing it all in a compact blast from the target on his fist, taking Ares by surprise and reverting what little ground Ares had managed to take thus far by blowing him back with an unexpected surge.

The clash was even once more but Ares' recent stagger had thrown him off his game a bit and so he opted to just end this exchange here by threatening a much larger problem by turning into Garmr! Was changing mid fight cheating? NO! If it weren't for Ares' adept trait hampering his physical output to begin with he wouldn't have lost this fist to fist brawl at all! Garmr was his winning ticket from the start and it was unreasonable to expect Ares not to use it in a situation like this. Garmr was part of the equation, not a last minute addition.

Ares' fist remained still as he began morphing into his revenant form and White immediately made the wise decision to hastily retreat on sight and run for the hills. If he wanted to hang around and persist in the clash he would be crushed in under a second flat because the transformation was quick and oozed might out of every pore with every extension of a limb or the growth of a sharp hair. White had done his research and heard all manner of rumours about Garmr so he wasn't going to risk standing there as it just wasn't worth the risk of instantly losing. He realised pretty quickly his decision was the best one he could possibly make because Ares unimpeded fist was at least five times the size of White's entire body and had burrowed deep into the floor and shattered the surrounding earth. White's footing became shaky as the ground quaked upon impact and it was clear this wolf meant business for real.

Ares hadn't limited his size as much as Garmr as he did against Black for the same reason he didn't do it against Havanah, these were the big guns of the fundamental champions. It's not that Ares didn't respect Black, Sanity, or Mako, it's just that they weren't the bigger threats in a direct fight and so any extra strength was unneeded. He would rather cut himself a bit short in terms of stature against those three and have more speed to his name than double down on his exceptional bulkiness and might that didn't benefit him against those types of cultivators beyond a certain point. Maybe Mako was an exception to this rule, because he fought head on with his magic more than the others, but that was definitely not the case for Black and Sanity. Swapping to Garmr wasn't a brainless move! Ares needed to calculate roughly how big he should be to maintain the appropriate amount of speed he needed against each individual foe. That being said, Garmr was lightning quick on his feet even at larger sizes, so this wasn't a very complex issue and just going full size every time wasn't exactly unsafe, but it was worth calculating the ups and downs of each inch in tougher fights where every little advantage and perfect distribution of resources mattered.

It seemed it was time for the fight to escalate now that Ares was throwing his weight around a bit and White was prepared to fight tooth and nail. This didn't look like a Black situation in which the fight was going to end prematurely... Unless White was secretly a very cute animal and this was all an illusion or something; then Ares would immediately drop everything and go about chasing his adorable prey down for a hug again! Alas, White was just a grumpy teen with a small frown permanently fixed to his face so no hugs for him! Although, in this form, if Ares hugged White as Garmr he would definitely die so maybe it was a valid strategy after all! Though if Ares could get this guy in his grasp it would be easier to jsut eat him than break bones... Ares was now wondering what a fundamental champion would taste like... In this case... Maybe whitefish?