Chapter 453: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

A small, curved and wriggly line of shadow slithered around Ares' foot and rose up out of the floor. It was a nondescript black entity, the shape of which could be moulded freely, but it had a playfulness to its bouncy movements that matched the stepper, giving away its identity. A sort of rectangular head with two little devil horns formed and it gave Ares a wink, blew him a kiss, and then raced back over to the stepper to openly give it a shadow. The stepper hadn't bothered making use of this shadow earlier against Ares because his immortality made it pointless. Displaying the hidden aces up its sleeve against a foe who would never be affected by them was a complete waste but, now that the situation changed, it was ok to parade it around openly. Ares already knew of its existence so having it on standby was fine and, now that the fight was going to resume, meant the stepper's strength was going to go up a notch but Ares wasn't too fussed. He wasn't so desperate he would chase after the taunting shadow and try to kill it before it could return to the stepper's side, it had its own tricks and Ares knew better than to run around after an opponent feigning weakness. He was curious, though, to see what manner of changes would come about in the stepper now that it had a shadow. It could teleport in makeshift ways, mental magic was going to be a problem, and the shadow could probably launch a few offensive attacks here and there. That was the bare minimum and Ares had a gut feeling there was maybe more he should keep a watchful eye out for lest he get fooled into complacency and actually bite the dust for real this time.

The stepper swiped down at the Training Field chalk lines and smudged a large portion of them to fully switch the art off. It was a cheap prank that had overstayed its welcome and was easily removed from the equation. Rather than bound across the smudged runes to attack Ares, and seek immediate payback gratification, the stepper simply took a few steps back, raised its arm, and fired off a mental magic in the shape of a chattering black skull. This had clearly come from the shadow and Ares was interested to know more about it. He didn't know every single art in existence and the shadow didn't speak to chant so he had no idea what this thing was or what it could do. He wasn't going to let it hit him obviously but there was another way he could test, give or take, how powerful this thing was and he didn't even have to personally contend with the magic. He had some tools on him still from the Federation that were perfect for this exact scenario so he whipped out a handful of Mental Blockers, the gadgets he received from Hunter before his untimely demise, and threw two of them at the oncoming magic. The capsules detected the threat, split in half, and released a rune-filled grey smog that acted like a fluffy net and trapped the skull, preventing it from moving any further towards Ares while slowly diffusing it, reverting it back into harmless mana particles that vanished into the night.

Ares' analysis on the matter was as follows; two mental blockers for this art had been overkill. The skull wasn't particularly deadly nor was it powerful and, thus, he didn't need to waste mental blockers on it any more. He only had another ten left so throwing them at attacks he could handle on his own was silly. As for the effect the skull would have had on him... Probably just something to make him feel fearful and shaky, reducing his overall effectiveness in combat? The aura of fear he felt earlier, back at the fountain, was very real but there was no way the stepper had it. There were no known accounts of a person or creature having more than one aura, not that Ares knew that, but the point was that cultivating even a single one was a herculean task so it was safer to assume the shadow had its own aura separate the stepper's madness aura. It made sense too given that the stepper's pursuit of fear was lacking, giving the shadow a chance to pursue it with greater clarity in its stead. The shadow witnessed, first hand, the same fear in the stepper's victims' eye as it did but the shadow also felt a little fear towards the stepper too.

When the shadow was first plucked by the stepper it was overwhelmed by its power and had no right to refuse becoming its sidekick of sorts. For a good many years its safety was questionable because the stepper could remove it and kill it like a normal shadow whenever it felt like and, given its personality, that seemed likely. It enjoyed seeing fear and the shadow felt like it would be toyed with one day when the stepper's madness compelled and commanded it to do so. It lived on that edge for a long time and, though nothing life threatening ever came of it, it couldn't shake that worrisome feeling of inevitable, lingering dread. The shadow could relate to the stepper's victims and became an expert in 'fear' in a way that surpassed even the stepper, hence the aura. This angered thee stepper greatly but, when it realised it could indirectly control the aura through combining with the shadow, it was placated and accepted the situation for what it was as there was no other way utilise the power of fear other than through the shadow. Nowadays the shadow was a cocky and arrogant little thing, well aware it had a special and uncontested place by the stepper's side, and believed itself to be a king of this world, untouchable and undefeatable so long as it clung to the psychopath's thigh.

The shadow was also strong enough now that it could safely flee from the stepper, if it ever harboured foul intentions for it, so its life wasn't at risk in any real way. It would never die before the stepper did and, even then, it could scurry away pretty reliably so it had a strong backer as well as many options for the future should disaster strike. It had worked hard, and soldiered through a ton of stress inducing moments in the hands of the fickle stepper, so it felt lie it deserved to be in such a power position after years of putting up with that crap. Body temperers and refiners went through agony to make themselves tough and the shadow went through mental anguish for a similar purpose, it was only fair it was compensated for the effort it put in and the aura of fear was very much that reward. As for the mental attack it just launched, the black skull, well it was testing the waters. The shadow's preferred method of fighting was to grasp the opponent's strengths and weaknesses before engaging in a full on fracas. The fact that Ares chucked up a gadget to block the mental attack was a sign it didn't miss and it knew which direction to pursue when looking to rob Ares of his life. He would run out of those tiny gadgets eventually and, when he did, mental arts would rain down upon him like piss in a toilet bowl at a kegger.

There were many ways to strike fear into a person's heart and exhausting their options before launching an unstoppable tide of death that capitalised on their inability to conjure a proper resistance was one of them. Shutting down a blind person's divine sense. Cutting the arms off a person in a wheelchair. Crippling an expert's cultivation and then leaving them to get eaten by monster. All measures the shadow had taken before. Targeting a person's weaknesses and amplifying them, or their strengths and removing them, was a pretty surefire way to get that feeling called fear flowing and, once that happened, anyone and everyone was ripe for the picking. The shadow's aura inspired fear but it really shone the more the victim despaired so that was the goal, hence the rather simple art. It was mental magic that was looked down on often due to its inability to inflict any kind of real damage, whilst being under the 'assassination' pillar, but it fit the shadow's goals perfectly and so becoming proficient with the art was well worth its time. It knew better ones, of course, but something simple and sweet to say hello with was always valuable as a test and could be used to keep Ares on his toes mid combat. While the stepper occupied Ares' defences the shadow could sneak in a few of these to add into the mix and blindside him. The stepper mostly fought alone but the shadow independently launching well co-ordinated attacks was going to be a problem.

As for Ares, as far as he was concerned, his biggest issue was that he only had ten Blockers. Generally speaking one Blocker would stop a weak attack, two would block a medium strength attack, and three could stop a heavy art in its tracks. That sounded great, and it was, but if the shadow was stubborn he would run out of Blockers eventually. He did not have enough Blockers to outlast the shadow's mana reserves, he was sure of it, so he'd have to take matters into his own hand and dodge, guard against, or destroy some of the mental attacks by himself. That didn't mean he would skimp out on using the Blockers either though, he was going to acquire the Moongate Mountain at some point and the gadgets would be useless after. The Blockers couldn't possibly compare to a cluster treasure with the exact same purpose so using them up now was preferable as they were actually potentially helpful in his moment. Ares didn't want to be the guy, in a hundred or so year's time, fighting some mystical, ten-armed demon with fifty heads only to have to sift through basic healing pills in his spatial ring to find the good stuff. Hoarding had its uses but there was a time and place and keeping these gadgets tucked away, when there was no other use for them in the foreseeable future, was just being plain silly. They were good and deserved to be used before they became useless to him! Plus he wasn't exactly going to have an easy time fighting the stepper here anyway so this was a good battle to use them in and alleviate some of the pressure he was going to have to put up with.

Ares paced towards the stepper slowly while readying a Grand Annihilation on the off chance he had time to launch one. This threat was pretty empty however, and easily cancelled out by the shadow firing three more skulls at him from a low angle near the floor. The stepper threw out the first skull previously but now the origin of the art was the shadow itself so Ares was going to have to pay attention to see who fired it from now on. It changed the way he had to go about dodging so that was yet another thing he had to keep his eyes peeled for. Still, he avoided the three skulls with ease, weaving between them as they sailed by his left, right, and over his head sequentially in that order. There were many more where that came from but Ares didn't fret and pushed on, coating a sword in disintegration and kicking off the ground to dash at the stepper with a burst of speed. He wanted to take the initiative here and maybe try to hold the upper hand, but that was quickly proven to be a fruitless endeavour as he was soon overwhelmed by the number of limbs coming at him.

Ares was forced to quit curving his blade towards the stepper's neck and had to redirect it to fend off the ferocious limbs leaping out at him. He flicked away one, grabbed a second and threw it back, blocked a third with the Zephyr, and cleaved another two with his sword. He was forced to roll to the side to dodge a close range skull which left him in awkward position but he was able to stumble backwards while deflecting another three limbs, and two Spikes from the shadow, and regaining his footing. Were it not for the way he deftly swivelled his feet during his retreat he would have sprained his ankle and collapsed on the floor but thankfully this was a talent he'd honed for a long time now and what was hard for others was a walk in the park for him. Ares had to make full use of his abilities here as he was putting himself in dangerous situations to claw whatever wins he could before then relying on his footwork to bail him out of tough spots. It was risky but he didn't come into this fight expecting to win without feeling like he was on a tightrope the entire time.

Ares made space between himself and the stepper but that was short lived as the monster vanished and reappeared by his side with two arms cleaving at him in an 'x' shape. Ares Shifted away in the nick of time but was chased down again by the stepper who teleported to the nearest shadow to him. Ares wasn't going to be able to retreat safely for long, and catch his breath, now that this movement magic was in play so he had to bite he bullet and just suffer through the tiring onslaught of limbs, skulls, and Spikes. He waved aside countless attacks, and threw his body around to dodge countless more, but the swarm of limbs was suffocating. Not to mention the devious skulls that were flung at him from all sorts of weird angels. Down low was common but the shadow could twist and relocate like a speedy snake as it could crawl up stalls, walls, the stepper even, and launch the skull from annoying places. That wasn't all it did either as Ares was forced to use two more mental blockers when a strange dark pulse threatened to creep its way into his brain. He'd just thrust his sword at a limb to pierce it and stop it from attacking him when the stepper let off an eery black glow. From its body came a ring of darkness that threatened to engulf Ares if he didn't back off soon enough but he opted to throw out the mental Blockers instead of running and they just about barely worked.

Ares almost needed three Blockers to stop the 'o' shaped ring magic but it ended up working out in the end luckily. This art seemed a bit more dangerous than the skulls because it actually damaged the victim. The ring looked as though it would enter the ear canal and worm its way into a person's head, wrap itself around the target's brain, and squeeze it, causing immense pain due to the constant constrictions. It probably couldn't outright kill but the fear a victim would feel when one of their most precious organs was causing them such suffering and agony would inevitably lead to death at some point as it was distracting as can be. This art was a tricky one because it could originate from the stepper who was able to freely teleport directly at Ares and close the gap. The obvious solution was to back away but if the stepper kept following him all the time then it technically had its own 'Black Blossom' style art that won it space whenever it felt like it needed it. This made things complicated because Ares couldn't really push small wins and strike back anymore now either, as being aggressive would jsut get him pushed away by the ring, which further cemented the fact that he had limited options. He was going to have to go back to using magic to fight but that wasn't a great solution either. Bigger magics would work but could be dodged by the stepper hopping through shadows to get away while more precise magic required him to get up close and personal to deal a blow worth mentioning and that was where the ring became a problem. The shadow had only recently introduced itself and was already making the situation quite dire as it neatly cleaned up any and all opening Ares could have possibly looked for. Still, Ares didn't give up and pushed his aching muscles to move and launch another strike. This one was a bit different from the others though as his weapon gleamed a brilliant gold as he swung it. "Grand..."

The stepper recognised the name that was about to come out of Ares' mouth. It had been blasted by a Grand Annihilation back in the alleyway and didn't want to go through that again so it had the shadow relocate him to Ares' flank. From there, while Ares was launching the art, it could punish his greediness and impale him. That was the plan at least but when the stepper remerged from the shadows Ares was in a strange position...

"... Gambit Annihilation!" Grand Gambit Annihilation last saw the light of day during the international as a tool to redirect Grand Annihilation against mobile foes or to skirt around blocks. The wind up of Grand Annihilation was a bait that transitioned into Gamble, meaning the follow up could no longer be fled from if the opponent had already attempted to do so before as there just wasn't enough time. Grand Annihilation became a fifty fifty guess when trying to dodge it and that was a pretty mean guess to force a foe to make. Blocking the art was definitely preferable, if it was possible, but, if it wasn't, this Gamble variant would really do a lot of good work for Ares. This case was a great example of that as the stepper had been greeted by the blinding golden light of annihilation instantly after swapping location and there was no avoiding as the initial attempt to dodge backfired horrendously.

Ares had flicked off his sword, swapped directions, and that was the last thing the stepper saw before drowning in cataclysmic explosions from head to toe. As it was being battered, it felt more danger coming its way so it threw itself backwards through the golden energy rampantly tearing at its body and narrowly avoided a disintegration coated scythe that cleaved through the golden void. A black trail was left where the weapon struck and the danger emanating from the linger blow was mighty lethal. If the stepper hadn't been cautious it would have been split in half Just then. Ares was definitely more dangerous when wielding a scythe instead of a sword, that was for sure. The only reason he wielded one earlier was because the sword was better at point blank and the stepper's ability to teleport meant a longer range scythe was doing him no favours and he predicted that ahead of time. In a situation like this, though, were Ares had a few seconds to pick his method of engagement, the scythe made its presence, and undisputable superiority amongst Ares' arsenal, known. One slash was all it took to force the stepper to retreat and it knew it could, under no circumstance let Ares continue wielding that weapon freely. It had a plan, and now was time for it to unveil its greatest power against Ares specifically, but first it needed to get him away to buy time to activate the art. Ares, in this mist of golden chaos, could track the stepper pretty reliably, and it knew that thanks to the accuracy of the scythe strike, so it opted to generate more of those mental magic rings to ward off the troublesome pest Ares. If he wanted to use more of those Blockers to prevent what came next, by charging through the rings safely to attack the stepper and disrupt its chant, he could only do so so many times before he ran out of the gadgets and so it was more likely he would let it happen. The stepper was only using the rings as a defensive measure so, daunting though the repeated ring summoning was, and as impenetrable a barrier of black death it conjured, it wasn't actually going to harm anyone.

Ares naturally saw all this happening from within the Grand Annihilation rumbling over his skin but he made no effort to intervene given how pointless it was. The stepper was clasping multiple of its limbs together in what seemed like a prayer of sorts as a strange silvery mist wrapped around it. Ares had a bad feeling in his gut this was going to be a game changer but he could hardly do anything other than watch as the stepper let out guttural growls and the shadow coiled around his full form slowly but surely. The art it was using didn't appear to be anything violent, as Ares didn't get that kind of feel from it, nor did his Omniscience clue him in as such, but that was arguably even more worrying. The stepper had more than enough methods to attack Ares as is so he was perfectly comfortable dealing with one more form of assault. Ares would rather deal with one big attack any day of the weak than some miscellaneous effect that would be a bother for the rest of the fight. Unfortunately for him it seemed like this was going to be the latter of the two options and now it was simply a question of what the effect was...

The Grand Annihilation was chipping away at the stepper's body but it ignored the pain and stared at the floor as its arms folded in unnatural ways, bending light around them while guiding the silver mist through every part of its frame. Ares frowned deeply when one of the stepper's limbs disappeared because he had a rough idea what was about to happen and didn't like the implication of what he just saw one bit. To his dismay, his guess proved accurate as time passed and more and more of those limbs gradually popped out of view. Following the limbs, the stepper's heads vanished and, soon after that, its legs became invisible too. Last but not least was the body and the shadow and, now, the monster was completely invisible. It already technically was invisible to the naked eye, and only Ares could see it with his treasure, but now, even with Omniscience, the stepper had become imperceptible entirely... Ares one advantage against this thing was that he could actually see it but now it seemed like that wasn't something he could rely on anymore... Even the auras of madness and fear looked to have up and left, as though the stepper had just teleported away from the city, but Ares knew better than to assume it was really truly gone. How the stepper had fooled his Omniscience he didn't know but, if there was one thing Ares was certain of right now, it's that this fight just got a whole lot more complicated and he was in a for a rough ride because of it.