Chapter 440: Feline Fracas

"We've arrived." Sandy, who'd been sitting in the driver's seat of the Roving Elliot for the last ten minutes and been having fun steering it, was peering out the nearest window. "And our first target is also in sight."

Ares put his notebook away and turned around on the sofa seat to look outside the window behind him and he was left flabbergasted with a half-smile on his face. "... That... That thing..." Ares truly couldn't believe his eyes because what he was looking at was not something he would ever categorise as a ''monster'. "Are you seriously telling me that giant cat is a monster?" Outside the caravan, currently entangled with the fellahin hunters, was a giant Persian sitting around on its rear and licking its paw. It was probably bigger than Garmr but... Well... "It's literally just a giant cat..." Ares couldn't get over this detail! Up until now, every other monster in Xasca was some kind of interdimensional cosmic horror or a regular animal bestowed the powers of advanced technology... This was literally just a cat and Ares could not stress this point enough with the confused gaze he directed at Sandy. Was he really needed here to kill a cat? Sure they had nine lives but what was it gonna do? Crush everyone with humongous hairballs?! Treat people like valuable objects dangerously close to the edge of a table and swipe them off their feet?! Better yet, Sandy mentioned earlier the monster she was bringing him to fight first was one that got away from her at an earlier date because she was tending to a hunter's wounds at the time but was it seriously this thing? Ares was truly not impressed! He knew better than to judge by appearances but... 

MEOW!

... It was seriously just a cat... Ares didn't know whether to laugh or cry as a fellahin hunter got smacked in the rib cage by an oversized tail and was sent flying into a dune off to the side... Before the misunderstanding got any worse Sandy filled Ares in. She was admittedly worried if she didn't Ares would take the caravan and leave to go find a monster more worth his time at this rate!

MRAOW!

And this stupid creature wasn't helping! Sandy shook her head and cleared her throat. "This monster is called a 'copycat'. It looks normal but if you use magic anywhere near it you're gonna be in for a real rough time. It can't copy arts one for one but its magic allows it to imitate any art you chant and, well, that can be really problematic. It's quite nimble so it dodges your magic and fires it right back at you with twice the power. The reason it escaped last time is because one of the hunters used Blink to barely dodge the copycat's copied magic and then it stole Blink as well and ran away with it. It's an annoyingly smart creature and it has great reflexes with a tough body. All that fluff and fur drastically reduces the effectiveness of physical attacks so both those and magical attacks have their own respective issues and aren't perfect... I mean... It really is just an incredibly big and obnoxious cat but, and I hate to say this because it makes me look like a fool, we really can't deal with it... I'm too slow to catch it even if I can damage it without magic, our magic reliant cultivators are useless if not actively hazardous to our own health, and the sand we can control freely doesn't pierce its fur or penetrate its body. It's a perfect storm, regrettably, so as much as I hate to say this... Our clan has been bested by a Persian... The shame is truly unbearable..." Sandy felt awkward even saying such a ridiculous thing but it was the uncomfortable truth that couldn't be denied so she swallowed her pride and explained in detail how a single cat caused an entire race a great many issues.

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttttttttttt

"Hahahahahahahaha" Ares had no sympathy but he did have tears in his eyes as he rolled around on the sofa laughing like he'd just heard the funniest joke of all time.

Meow!

"Hahahahahahahaha" Ares clearly wasn't going to stop laughing any time soon of his own accord so Sandy walked over and gave him a light kick. She sighed after realising that hadn't done the trick so she picked him up, brought him outside the caravan, and tossed his heaving body towards the Persian while folding her arms and waiting to see what happened next. Interestingly, the cat stopped focusing on everyone else the moment it spotted Ares.

Sniff

SniffSniff

The cat poked its head toward Ares and smelled him a bit before recoiling in disgust. MRAAAA! This visceral reaction from the cat seemed to quell Ares' laughter as he was now wondering what on earth he could have possibly done to bother this oversized kitty. Better yet, what did it smell on him exactly that whipped it up into a frenzy? It tried to swipe at Ares with unbridled rage and ferocity but he simply darted away with annihilation enhancement as it began chasing him like he was a ball of yarn laden with catnip. 

"The hell is your problem?" Ares was offended! A monster smelled him, let out a sharp cry, and then started relentlessly attacking him! He took a shower this morning! This was insulting! Sandy let out an 'ah' noise and pounded her left palm with her right fist as though she'd come to an understanding of some sort and figured out why this was all happening.

"Ares!" She called out to him. "I think it doesn't like you because you're a revenant!"

...

Cats and dogs!

"I get along just fine with cats!" Ares yelled back.

MRAOAOAW!

"Yes but I don't think it gets along fine with you!" Sandy watched as the copycat mindlessly chased after Ares who was wearing an expression of disbelief. He didn't want to believe it! He actually secretly really wanted to pet the giant kitty but it looked like his dreams were going to be dashed! This world was far too cruel! The animal kingdom was truly a ruthless place.

"Ah whatever!" Ares kept running though because this situation was a bit awkward for him. What was he supposed to do here exactly? Use his destruction arts here and guarantee everyone else's death when the copycat loosely copied the sheer devastation his arts could bring forth? His magic was too strong to give to this enraged kitten so he had to come up with another solution. He was maybe strong enough to just hack away at the cat with a disintegration coating on his weapon but he was at least a bit curious to see how well the fellahin hunters could do on their own without him. Or without too much assistance anyway. He was going to be working with them for the rest of the day so he might as well get a feel for their capabilities here and now. "Fellahin hunters! I don't know which one of you it is, but can you use Blink again? I'll set up the kill on this monster for you lot so you can all get payback, but I need you to use Blink first!"

Right off the rip this seemed like a terrible idea to everyone who heard it! The copycat was just going to run away again! Ares saw through their concerns though and kissed his teeth. "Just bloody do it already! I know what I'm doing! I can kill this cat myself or you can all get vengeance for being made a mockery of at the hands of a cat! I don't particularly care which but if you really want your reputation to keep this permanently etched stain for the rest of time I really don't mind!" Despite Ares' provocation, the fellahin who could use Blink, somewhere in this crowd of hunters, didn't take the bait. They must have felt like it was too great of a decision to make by themselves because they didn't know if they could trust Ares to ensure the kill. If they used Blink, without permission from their commanding officers, and the cat got away then they felt like they would take the blame and be heavily reprimanded by their fellow hunters later. It was a hard call to make without any external guidance but they were clearly leaning towards the safer route of ignoring the outsider and doing nothing. They'd rather waste an opportunity than give the opponent one and, actually, that was a pretty fair conclusion to come to in the heat of the moment when the future of this fight was resting entirely on your shoulders. This was the hunter who got clipped by magic in the last fight against the copycat, after all, so payback was their top concern and giving the monster Blink seemed counterintuitive.

"DO IT!" Sandy commanded her hunters with authority and a bellowing voice to match that immediately spurred the Blink user in question into action. They might not have trusted Ares but, even if she didn't know what his goal was, Sandy definitely did and they trusted her. She felt a little embarrassed that her hunters were ignoring Ares and she was hoping this wouldn't reflect poorly on her for not disciplining these lot to listen to orders from their superiors mid combat. She was planning on apologising profusely for their lackluster behaviour but Ares really didn't care much. The fellahin seemed like a bunch of real die hard 'by the book' types and taking orders from someone who wasn't part of the clan likely just wasn't ever going to happen without at least a bit of trust and rapport having been built up over time. He needed results and proof of his capabilities before they would adhere to anything he demanded of them. Even still, there was a hint of anger in Sandy's voice so it was clear she was annoyed at this entire situation and the hunters were slightly regretting their inaction. "Be prepared to kill the copycat after it Blinks!" Sandy roughly understood Ares' plan but had gotten one key part wrong. She knew that the copycat was far too engrossed in Ares to Blink away, and would instead use the magic to pounce on him, but what she didn't know was that Ares didn't plan on letting the cat Blink at all! Ares had to shout out to correct her lest things spiral out of control and everyone winded up setting up an ambush in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"NOT AFTER IT BLINKS! AS IT BLINKS!" Ares shouted as loud as he could, even carrying his voice with pressure, to make sure everyone could hear him properly no matter where they were. Some of the hunters were stationed further out with long range arts and weaponry at the ready and some were underground currently so Ares couldn't just say it causally without a few people not catching on. Still, he checked with divine sense and, judging by the hunters confusion, they definitely heard him... They just didn't understand him... After all, the window between a Blink starting and finishing was infinitesimal at best and attacking a target during that specific small period was nigh impossible for anyone who's name wasn't literally 'Ares'. "WHEN IT TRIES TO BLINK, I WILL PREVENT IT AND GIVE YOU ALL A CHANCE TO UNLEASH HELL UPON THE CAT!" Ares couldn't make things much clearer than that and Sandy was starting to get impatient with the Blink user, staring daggers at them like they were a puppy kicker or something, so things moved along regardless of how much anyone understood the current scenario. Nobody wanted to irk Sandy even further, as her reputation proceeded her and people were starting to worry they would see her rampaging side very shortly if her orders weren't obeyed immediately. All they knew was that they were being told to attack the cat when it tried to Blink but they were going to go along with it regardless because soon Sandy would be the bigger threat if they kept ignoring Ares...

"Blink!" Finally the hunter in question used their magic and, as if on cue, the copycat smirked and began channeling spatial magic all around it. Though the hunters didn't quite understand why they were being asked to attack the cat now of all times, as it would likely result in failure, they all started hauling ass towards the target and preparing their most devastating attacks, treasures, traps, and weapons.

Ares swerved through the desert and changed his direction slightly, running between the hunters on his left and right so that when he felled the giant cat it would crumble in the middle of a pack of prideful fellahin looking to claw back their reputation. The copycat nimbly followed along and even managed to gain some ground on Ares but it still wasn't capable of catching him regardless and so it activated the copied Blink and aimed to leap ahead through space and flatten Ares' back with its paw. It was unknown to everyone present why Ares raised his finger and clicked it with a smug grin, as his eyes were covered in brilliant gold flames, but, in the next second, the cat galloping through the sand burst with blood splattering from every pore and every paw. It screeched as it tumbled through the sand and rolled to a halt, leaving a trail of red sand and mangled fur everywhere. It was in massive amounts of pain and hissing at the sky while waving its slightly bent out of shape paws around in every direction to try and strike the invisible foe that just bullied it into the dirt but there was nothing there. The warm embrace of spatial magic had utterly betrayed it, ruptured countless blood vessels, and even damaged the cat's meridians, affecting its cultivation base and mana reserves. Ares' method had been beyond effective and the fellahin were like sharks who smelled blood in the water, now that the overall goal of all the actions taken prior was clear, so they wasted no time in delivering multiple death blows simultaneously. If they were too slow and not in sync the copycat would be able to start a chain reaction of stolen arts and block everything. Thankfully the timing and coordination of the fellahin hunters was impeccable and arts of all kinds, most of which were primarily sand based, came bearing down on the cat laying on its side and crushed it in a deafening explosion. Mana whipped through the air and a small sandstorm was kicked up as a result of the magical battering but it looked like things would settle soon and the fellahin were pretty certain they'd finally gotten the revenge they needed to wipe away the shame of their previous defeat. They weren't satisfied until the corpse, so they hung around and waited patiently, but they were pretty confident nonetheless!

As for Ares, he was experiencing a kind of enlightenment. Not the official cultivator kind that would boost comprehension of something and required him to actually sit around and think for a minute. No, this was just regular old enlightenment that even a mortal could have in a moment of understanding when wisdom and ingenuity became the source of newly found knowledge about a tricky subject. Ares' Grim Cessation flooded meridians with nothingness to kill a person and he'd just witnessed nothingness' ability to cripple a monster / person if it attacked the meridians in the right way too. Ares hadn't had too many uses for nothingness other than highly specific and niche use cases typically. Shift and Voidwalk were his real crowning achievements and what he typically used the aspect for but there was undoubtedly more to do with it and it seemed he would have to investigate the kinds of things he could do to meridians with it.

Ares might become the first person to ever create a cultivation crippling art that could permanently erase a person's cultivation base partially just by hitting them with it.

This was a pretty miraculous type of art, if Ares could create such a thing, but there was definitely a lot of untapped potential with the nothingness aspect he would need to start considering. Ares hadn't sat and cultivated normally in a long while so it was this sort of development he was constantly missing out on as discovering more about his pillar was best done in this manner. Sure he could find out such a thing in combat, nothingness' prowess at affecting meridians that is, like he had now, but it required much more luck than time comparatively and he wasn't always guaranteed to discover things like this if he wasn't paying enough attention or didn't encounter the exact right scenario. Still, Ares' mastery over shutting down spatial magic was evidently monstrous otherwise the effect of cancelling the Blink wouldn't have been this devastating against such a powerful monster. Ares only originally intended on making the cat crash and stunning it for a brief second but he almost singlehandedly put it on its deathbed. Ares knew it would hurt the monster, but to this extent? He honestly surprised himself a little. If he put a bit of extra mana into his snap he might have been able to shatter the monster into pieces all by himself with that one attack. The monster didn't make any effort to guard against the pain train, because it hardly even saw it coming, but this was still a result worth being happy about for Ares at least.

While Ares pat himself on the back, the dust finally settled and the thoroughly beaten and dead cat was surrounded by onlooking hunters on all sides. They all collectively looked up at one another and nodded silently but there was definitely a hint of jubilation in the air for getting payback after whatever happened last time to them. As it turned out, trusting Ares paid off big time so they all looked in his direction and gave him a nod. Ares nodded back but wasn't too sure how to feel about this because they were honestly pretty useless to him. Ares could have killed this monster alone, he would have been better off without worrying about his surroundings too, and from now on he would be able to use destruction arts with reckless abandon, further cementing his ability to deal with the monster list without aid... Still, it would be somewhat rude to waste the hunter's resolve like this so he figured he would play along. They were only helping for today anyway and would go back to operating on their own terms after while Ares did the same. He was mostly here today because Sandy asked him to be here. She still wanted to talk about something and that was Ares' main concern so he'd give the hunters a bit of an ego boost and enable them to hunt multiple monsters today compared to whatever their usual haul was. Two, maybe three successful monster hunts? That was roughly how much Ares assumed the hunters were capable of when they set out and had a good day. Of course they would have to reconvene and restock on supplies as well as rest so it wasn't as efficient as it sounded, and they couldn't pull off such a result daily, but it was better than nothing... Although Ares and Sandy's rate would be way higher by themselves...

The hunters all set off towards the next target, after skinning valuable materials and meat from the monster, while Ares and Sandy hopped back in the Roving Elliot and set off. They'd arrive at the location of a three headed crocodile, that could spew water jets out of its mouths, about thirty minutes later and take care of that monster in a flash too. Afterwards they returned to the caravan and repeated the process yet again and this cycle continued over and over until nightfall. The group had racked up a kill count that was astonishing when considering the usual metrics as over twenty six western monsters had been slain in half a day from when they started. Plus there wasn't even a single injury amongst the entire crew. Ares always intervened whenever anything looked dicey, and any monsters that were too powerful to be dealt with by the hunters alone were swiftly dispatched by Ares, Sandy, or a combination of both. When Ares and Sandy worked together on the battlefield they were truly a sight to behold. Sandy could lock down opponents with giant hands made of sand and then Ares would deal the final blow with his destruction magic that barrelled through any and all opposition. Not even the sturdiest of monsters could withstand blows from both the expert cultivators and every single monster fell before them at record pace.

The hunters were actually starting to wonder if they'd even have a job in the coming weeks at the rate Ares was going. Sure he was tasked with annihilation the western monsters but nobody expected him to be this quick and efficient at it. Plus there was recognition that the hunters were slowing him down which was even more crazy. If he was allowed to Voidwalk through the desert alone he might even be able to wipe out an entire third, maybe even half, of the western monsters in a single day from the crack of dawn 'till midnight. That was a horrifying thought as the power needed to do something so absurd was not trivial in the slightest. Dead monsters were dead monsters, though, and that was cause for celebration even if the hunter's job security was at risk! More people could safely traverse the desert without being unsafe, and Xasca city would pay good money for helping rid the desert of these pests, so it was a win win all around. The hunters enjoyed their work, and they liked being revered by their clan for doing a lot of difficult tasks others would shy away from, but they would still rather not have to do it if that meant every single troublesome monster was long gone. Many people died in this line of work and most fellahin were only here out of a sense of duty and obligation to protect their home, this desert. As such, food was plentiful and drinks were being uncorked at a frightening rate as cheers, singing, and dancing took over the small camp that had been set up under the moonlight. in particular, Sandy was getting somewhat rowdy over in the corner by herself with only Arla and Ares to keep an eye on her. She... Well she couldn't hold her drink well... Or at all, actually... She'd probably be happier right in the middle of the party with everyone else but she also knew everyone would get quieter around her and make things tenser than they should be, again because of her reputation, so she was having fun by her lonesome of to the side. She didn't want to ruin the atmosphere but that's not to say she was in a bad mood or anything, far from it. She seemed upbeat as can be as she was a jolly drunk capable of entertaining herself... Even if she did trip and stumble a few times, face planting the sand... She was seriously worse at holding her drink than Sadie was and that was saying something...

"I'll leave her to you..." Arla made the decision to leave here as quickly as possible before she got roped into entertaining drunken Sandy. Drunk Sandy was also a talker and could very well talk a person's ear off if left to her own devices.

"Eh? Wait a minute!" Ares was being abandoned! "How am I supposed to handle this?! I would rather fight another giant cat! Better yet, didn't she want to say something to me? Can she even have a proper conversation in this state?!"

Arla shrugged with a mysterious smile poking out of her clothes. "Yes. If anything, this is actually perfect. It might have even been her intention to speak to you like this as I'm sure it will make her life easier..." Arla glanced at the Roving Elliot parked nearby and Ares took the hint that it would be for the best to have the conversation in private... Although he still didn't know why Sandy had to be drunk first; that seemed highly unnecessary! He sighed and gave up as there was only way way to find out what all this was about and that was by confronting Sandy directly... Arla was already running away anyway now that her job of guiding Ares was done so it's not like Ares could have her explain things either... Ares shook his head and started heading over to the silly drunk rhino who was chasing around a tumbleweed and giggling to herself all the while. Well, might as well hear her out. What's the worst that could happen?