Chapter 451: Generally Speaking, You’ll Want to Keep Your Head Attached

"WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" A timid and shaky guard approached Ares with a cautious stance and questioned him in as authoritative a tone as he could muster given everything he'd just witnessed. There was no way he'd feel comfortable talking to a monster in human skin like the absolute freak that just blew up an entire segment of the slums with a single art. Still, he was a dutiful and morally upstanding individual so his compulsion for upholding peace got the better of this goody-two-shoes guard and fuelled his shaky knees to push onwards. His voice came out of his throat but it was weak and lacking such that even a child could probably do better. It was admirable given the person he had to face down and follow procedure with, though. Ares sighed at the guard behind him but didn't turn around to meet him eye to eye as he was busy. The stepper wasn't going to die from just this and if he took his eyes away from the raging explosions he was afraid he'd lose sight of the troublesome foe and pay a heavy price for his negligence later.

"Name's Ares. You know who I am. This is the black market and I was here for information. Now that I've gotten it I'm doing the entirety of Xasca, if not the entirety of Sheryashka, a huge ass favour. I recommend you leave this place before you die because this fight is still just getting started, it's out of your league, and I'm more focused on it than saving you if you get into a pickle." Ares was blunt but he was also right. There was no way the guards of the city weren't informed about a big shot like Ares, especially after the random nuke he dropped in the desert, so his arrogant statement had merit to it and was entirely true. As for the latter half, he was pretty unspecific about what he was fighting but that was intentional as telling them the truth might not hit the mark. 'An ancient, demonic, psychopathic stepper mass murderer and I are having a grudge match in this oddly specific place'... It was true though! The guard might think Ares was schizophrenic, however, so Ares didn't bother explaining. If the guard was going to have to learn the hard way regardless then wasting breath on him was pointless.

The guards definitely didn't seem like they were willing to leave, even if they really wanted to, so Ares now had a group of deadweights to try and keep alive... Normally he wouldn't bother, his own life and plans were more important, but these lot had their uses, actually. Specifically if he could get them to alert other guards and prevent them from showing up, that would be swell. They could cordon off the area and safely evacuate citizens, allowing Ares to go all out. They should have been doing as such right now but they figured they could contain the spread of chaos here by apprehending the suspects responsible for it. They weren't aware that either of the suspects in question could singlehandedly wipe out this entire city by themselves and could not be stopped by a few measly guards. It was far more prudent to move people away from the brawl than to feebly attempt to stop the brawl as only one of the two was even going to work. Ares would also do his part and try to keep the fight contained here to the slums so this was as good as it was going to get for the nosy do-gooder guard and he had to just accept that.

The guard was stunned stupid by Ares' matter-of-fact tone and response but he was still willing to press for a more informative answer. He was about to open his mouth again but the explosions encompassing the stepper had finally died down and another maddening roar emanated from the invisible creature stunning the guard on the spot until he resembled a statue. He had previously thought Ares had gone loco, and was battling an imaginary foe, but now it seemed like the matter was more complicated than he assumed it to be. It wasn't unusual for those who visited the black market to get a little loud after consuming illegal substances and he originally assumed Ares was such a case... But why couldn't he see the enemy? This was all rather strange to the guard but he could absolutely tell that the atmosphere was getting more and more tense with every passing second and that two expert cultivators were going to continue duking it out shortly, everyone else be damned.

Ares watched as the stepper leant back, stood tall, and wriggled its eyes around in its heads as it made that God awful noise again. There was no mouth on this thing so this seemingly random noise was actually rather disturbing but thinking about it wasn't going to do Ares any good so he ignored it. This wasn't the first time he saw a creature without a mouth make noise, Appa could do it too after all! A small detail like that wasn't going to daunt him or leave him too perplexed to think about the battle at hand; though he might give it due consideration after the fight was over out of sheer curiosity...

The stepper had definitely suffered after being hit point blank by those two arts and though Ares still couldn't really properly count how many limbs it had in total, it had, at a rough glance, lost about half of them. The full amount of limbs was overkill to begin with, and even now there were still far too many for losing a few to matter, but progress was progress and chipping away at the stepper's arsenal was for the best. Ares would have to chew through all those limbs if he wanted any chance at actually beating and killing this thing so slow and steady was going to have to win him this race down the line. This massive art chain had given him a huge burst of progress towards that goal, however, so things were looking good. Another solace was that the stepper didn't seem capable of using every limb at once, and there was an upper limit it could control due to it being too mentally taxing, otherwise Ares would have been run down, trampled, and cut apart by now. Ares was a believer in his own prowess but even he couldn't possibly fight this stepper to a favourable conclusion if it could control every single limb simultaneously, that was just too farfetched given his current cultivation deficit relative to the stepper. Actually, that just reinforced the notion Ares had that he simply must kill this scourge here and now for the good of all living creatures. If he let it go, and it decided to finally start cultivating again... How strong could it get? If it could one day control all those arms then t would become a real unstoppable horror that would undoubtedly rival, and perhaps eclipse, even the Vraizon matriarchs. It would be verging on the territory off fundamental pillar users if it perfected every inherent ability it had. The poison and the limbs, with the shadow too, would put this monster firmly above anything even a prodigious cultivator like Enyo or Aejaz could achieve. It was a threat for sure and the one thing keeping it down was its willingness to cultivate further. Granted its reluctance probably stemmed from whatever injury it suffered all those years ago making it hard or painful to even try. It had been raiding the black market to try and find a recovery treasure, resource, or pill so the fact this thing wasn't technically at full strength even now was even more baffling. Ares didn't mind killing this thing while it was injured and down and out, however, because it needed to go straight to hell without passing 'go'.

The stepper finally finished roaring its non-existent lungs out but its anger was still unabated. Yelling in frustration was well and good but the stepper wasn't going to calm back down until either it or Ares was dead, that was the kind of manic obsession that drove it to pursue prey with dogged ferocity. Its eyes had become thoroughly bloodshot now and they were both more red than white as the monster bent down low to the ground. It was swapping stances between upright on two legs and skittering around on all fours... Or more like all sixes, it seemed. There were definitely more than four limbs propelling it forward as it kicked off the ground and began crashing through the market stalls towards Ares. The area around it warped and the stepper's maddening aura had returned, seeping out of its enraged self and painting the world in the warped and twisted color of insanity. Walls and the floor both collectively gave up on maintaining logical structure and swirled inside themselves, giving way to an impressionistic form of lunacy and mania intertwined and looking like portals to another dimension.

The guards from before were fearful of this unknown entity and couldn't bring themselves to move from the spot they were stuck to despite how desperately they wanted to frantically flee via any means necessary. They would be even worse off if they could see the abomination striding towards them, perhaps even fainting dead there and then if not winding up in a coma due to mental stress, so maybe it was for the best that this thing was invisible to the naked eye. As for Ares, he was fine. He'd been through much worse back near the fountain. There the aura was concentrated and dense, here it was spread out and wild but lacking in impact. That didn't mean it was any less effective, not at all, it just felt less suffocating and overbearing. And yet it was more directly impactful on his body which was feeling partially sluggish as result of the resurgence of the aura. To put it simply, earlier it felt like a tool for subjugation and now it felt like a tool designed for combat application. A fear inducer to reduce the will to fight and now a heavy mental weight that affected the body and slowed it down, essentially. This aura was a handy thing and quite versatile, having use in multiple different scenarios depending on how it was utilised, but that didn't mean Ares was going to sit around and do nothing. He had to stop this carelessly brutish stepper from destroying his plans and act fast. His runic setup could take a bit of a beating as he designed it to be resilient, so some stalls with chalk on them could be sent flying away no problem and it wouldn't change much regarding the rune layout, but if this kept up for too long then the runic structure would collapse and his hard work would be for nothing. If it was destroyed after he got some use out of it, and the stepper finally broke it once it was tired of being bullied without an avenue for recourse, then so be it. Until that happened, though, Ares would defend this place to the death! Literally! This rune setup was legitimately worth doing so because of what it provided Ares with. It wasn't immediately obvious how it was beneficial but its effect would be impossible not to understand once it did its thing.

Ares took a few steps forward to intercept the oncoming limb train but had to jump back when a blade of wind shot out form the stampeding stepper. It had flicked one of its arms and sent out a destructive force that Ares had to respect but it seemed like more were on the way and headed in his direction so the threat wasn't over yet. He was going to duck under the next one, and avoid it completely, but realised the stupid guards were still here and rooted to the ground so he had to do something to save them as well. Thankfully he had an art that was perfect for this situation as he'd invented a magic that was highly synergistic with Quietus Edict that just so happened to also be usable here. Ares turned his upper body and pointed at the guards behind him

"Genuflection Mandate."

All of the guards fell to the floor and were brought to their knees by a force that was impossible to resist. A strange pulsing gold orb was making itself home in all of their kneecaps and threatening to blast their legs off if they resisted this pressure. Annihilation magic was used to pummel the knee bones, preventing the targets from standing or causing them to wobble controllably, while annihilation pressure added to the threat and pushed the victims further down, reducing their ability to fight back against the force. Once Ares was sure the guards were safe and low to the ground he ducked his own head down low, and just in time too, as a wind blade went sailing over his hair and sliced its way clean through a building. The building in question instantly tore into two halves with the top half keeling over and crashing down onto the floor on the next street over. The guards watched it happen with their necks turned and a look of horror crept its way on to their faces as that could have very well been their own fate if they hadn't been forcefully repositioned by Ares just now.

It was incredibly lucky for these guards that Ares' newest art happened to primarily be a bug-squashing art. Every cultivator worth their salt had one or two arts that would allow them to beat hordes of insignificant weaklings with the click of a finger and this was one of Ares'. Genuflection Mandate was nigh impossible to resist if the victim was considerably weaker than Ares' magical and pressure output combined. Overcoming that hurdle to remain standing was not easy and so Ares could filter opposition like he was a talent sieve. More importantly, when combined with Quietus Edict, resistance became an impossibility for anyone who was susceptible to them. No arts, no physical attacks, and Ares was completely immune to pressure... How was anyone under the effects of all three at once supposed to escape? Well, they weren't. That was the point. Ares didn't have unlimited precious time to waste on people who couldn't deal with even this much so it was a sort of bar to entry if someone wanted to fight with him. Also, as an aside, for what it was worth, Genuflection Mandate was usable against tougher foes, the effect just wasn't as drastic as instantly winning the battle. It could slow down movement by putting a highly obnoxious pressure on foes knees, sort of like an Esoteric Compression that didn't hit as hard but followed the target, but it was also capable of inflicting pain in that region constantly if left unchecked. If it wasn't removed in short order the constant annihilation pulsing would eventually maybe even break the bones down there so it was a good tool to keep people occupied in more high-end fights. It was a bit expensive on the mana front to do this all the time but the Converter made it more plausible to be a bit of a spendthrift with mana so Ares could maybe apply this once or twice a fight without feeling the burn.

All that being said, however, Genuflection Mandate had accidentally come in handy for a very different reason here now as it allowed Ares to force weaker cultivators to duck under attacks they couldn't see coming or react to. An oddly specific use, and not one he'd ever planned for or expected to be too relevant again in the future, but he wasn't complaining now that it had proven itself useful in such a fashion. Although it was humiliating for the guards, being forced to kneel like this, they too were likely very grateful for it deep down. They wouldn't have been able to dodge it by themselves and they were too confused to follow Ares' orders out the blue if he commanded them to duck without prior warning. Were it not for Genuflection Mandate they would have to have been hit with an Esoteric Compression for a similar outcome but they were far too weak to survive that art and would have been turned into paste instead so it wasn't quite viable...

Ares' kingly combination of edicts and mandates aside, the stepper was still trampling over stalls and being a real pain the neck so Ares had to take measures to stop it. He first used telekinesis to fling away the guards, and shouted at them to clear the area which was a command they would eventually follow, before bringing out his scythe and charging towards the stepper head on which was an act of bravery quite unlike any other. The stepper, right now, was an unstoppable menace of madness and willingly approaching it took serious guts. It was a freight train of hideousness but Ares simply activated Black Blossom in response and dared the stepper to take this hit like a champ if it could. Ares had yet to really properly smack someone with a slow black blossom swing, because everyone was too smart to dare face one directly, but maybe this stepper was too blinded by rage to make the smart choice here. If it was persistent in running Ares down it would suffer a monumental setback and Ares was fine with any kind of result so long as it stopped the stepper in its destructive tracks. If it backed off, fine; if it got hit, also fine. Either way, it just couldn't keep destroying his runes like this! It was the equivalent of a gardener spending many tens of years creating a wonder world of colourful plants only to have some idiot in a tractor come steamrolling through and wrecking his life's hard work in the span of a few seconds! Unacceptable!

Ares ran destruction man through is veins and Zephyr, activated his annihilation enhancement at full blast to replace the aura of madness surrounding him with a beautiful, resplendent golden domain, and pushed his body to the utmost limit as he committed to an overhead swing that could tear asunder anything in its designated path. The stepper felt a hint of hesitation but powered through it nonetheless and responded in kind by launching six limbs all at once to contend with the blow but it realised pretty quickly this was a decision it was going to regret. As the limbs coalesced into a single weapon, and collided against the scythe, there was no immediately apparent victor but therein lay the problem. As Ares and the stepper vied for supremacy in the strength showdown, which the stepper would naturally win eventually given Ares' adept trait handicap, a black tear in the void was gradually enlarging between the combatants and swelling to problematic proportions.

The stepper wanted to dodge this unknown magic but it was too entangled with Ares right now and would be sliced in half if it gave up without pushing Ares down a bit more first. In the end, it had to make a compromise, though, and give up on the power struggle with Ares because the disintegration tear was about to burst and the stepper felt death knocking on its door for the first time ever. It, like everyone who fought Ares before him, understood that this 'Black Blossom' art was not something it could contend with because it was simply too domineering when it came to controlling space. Trying to match Black Blossom blow for blow was stupidity even despite the stepper being over two realms higher than Ares in terms of cultivation. Once more, Black Blossom wouldn't get to shine and display its raw power but, again, that wasn't what it was supposed to do so this result was more than acceptable. This entire scene, of the stepper turning tail, getting its back partially sliced off by Ares' scythe that hunted it down, and it fleeing around a stall to take cover, was precisely why Ares valued Black Blossom immensely. It gave him full control over the battlefield and allowed him to slow down the pace of fights that weren't currently in his favour as well as play a game of king of the hill that only he could ever possibly win. So what if the stepper was more than twice his size and looking to barrel straight through him? The stepper had to respect Black Blossom, it didn't have a say in the matter. Nobody did.

RRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

A blackened maw spread out from the tear and devoured the space all around it after a short delay. The magic passed harmlessly over Ares, as it was his own to begin with, but, him aside, everything else suffered immediate evisceration and extinction. Teh air caved in, leaving nothing but void in its wake, and any physical entity was atomised and subsequently removed from existence on the spot. All the black petals from Black Blossom's other effect were scattered away from the initial explosion creating a flowery scene of hell wherein the raining floral magic burnt away everything within a large area. Honestly, Ares had probably done more destruction to the black market square with this one attack than the stepper did with its reckless charging... Still, it was an investment for the future. The stepper wouldn't do something so foolish again, unless it had a death wish and was incapable of learning its lesson, so a display of might now was worth it in the long run, Arse reckoned. In fact, Ares was willing to do it once more so he took off running, grabbed the pole of a stall nearby, swung around the corner to chase the stepper where it fled to earlier, and launched another slow slash pre-emptively at the place it should have been... And yet nothing was there... Ares withheld his slash at the last possible moment to prevent another disintegration bombardment, as doing so was a waste of mana and would pointlessly destroy the surrounding area, but he regretted this decision immediately when the stepper leapt out of a shadow to his side and was too close to stop. If he had followed through with his attack he might have been able to use the momentum to bring the scythe up and push the stepper back but, in the current situation, his scythe was halted near the floor in front of him. It was too heavy a weapon to make any quick flicks with and, worse still, Ares' arms were too low to the ground to raise up in time and block. Shift was too slow, he couldn't dodge n time, he couldn't block in time, he couldn't...

SLASH

Going through his options one by one was pointless. He was already dead, after all. His head was no longer attached to his body as he'd fallen for the stepper's trick and lost to its surprise attack utilising its shadow. It had kept this card hidden for this very moment and reaped Ares' life just like that. Ares simply couldn't contend with the might and trickery of the stepper once its shadow was in play and that was all there was to it. Ares' head dropped to the floor, followed shortly by the rest of his body, and the stepper's eyes were jumping about in its heads as it celebrated its overwhelming victory. Ares had been decapitated. His regeneration could not keep up with such an injury at a low level of cultivation. He hadn't consumed a Canis Stimulant in time so that wouldn't save him. This was no illusory magic. No medicine in the entirety of the lower domains could undo such a vicious attack. There was categorically no mistaking it. Ares was dead.