Chapter 524: Rounds One and Two

Big ol' fat zero.

Nil points.

Gutter ball!

This was the score that slotted itself neatly into the holographic display in the air above the mock bowling alley. It was a fairly standard score card, plastered in the sky for all to see, with the names of the five contenders on the horizontal and the attempt number on the vertical. Under Gram's first attempt a perfect circle sat comfortably and some heartless monster, that would be Ares, made a joke to liven up the solemn atmosphere about how they were supposed to be playing bowling, not noughts and crosses. Well, actually, Ares was joking but a strike on a bowling score card was drawn as an 'X' so it was theoretically possible to play tic tac toe if the bowlers were all equally terrible or incredible. Still, the main point here was that Gram's first attempt during his round wound up being quite pitiful. It was to the extent that some people were wondering if he maybe even deserved a negative score. After all, after the Not Even Light and Black Blossom amalgamation stormed through the knights, which took a hot minute because of how many there were loitering about, it began crashing down towards Gram himself. This might have been the first ever recorded incident in which a bowler had to defend against an attack during one of their own attempts.

Complete and utter degradation and humiliation of Gram's unique art, that was what had happened here. Of course it was definitely a strong one, and anyone with eyes knew Gram had kinda been jipped here by an unexpected arrival of a fundamental champion, but the harsh troth was the result everyone saw before them. Gram wasn't unimpressive, quite the opposite, he'd displayed something exceptional here today... But boy was Ares a real hoot! Summoning a black hole with a twist of the wrist had left more than just a few people stunned in their seats. Better yet, why was such a destructive object Ares' go to 'defensive' art anyway?! Any sane person would think it was something far more aggressive! It just went to show how difficult it was for the destruction pillar to muster anything exclusively defensive in nature. Some wiser analysts had claimed as such when Ares began making the rounds in the headlines but with no proof he was more offensively tailored people refrained from making hasty judgements. The exaggerated claim he had no defensive arts whatsoever was clearly wrong but the notion he would struggle with them comparatively had hit the nail on the head. Ares wouldn't ever deny it either and nobody would dare call him up on it by the time he was done being the bowler. Armillary alone would shut down any arguments about his power but that was getting ahead of things, there were still more rounds to go before he became the bowler. Ares had a gut feeling he would only get to bowl in the last round but he was perfectly fine with that development and was content to just get shuffled around as a pin by the others until then.

As for how the rest of Gram's attempts went... Well Ares was thrown directly to the back of the pin setup so he ever had a chance to go toe to toe with Gram again. Gram's second attempt involved an art in which he summoned a colossal sword in the sky which swung in a perfect vertical line, slashing through the air and leaving a silver streak wherever it passed. Being first in line, it was up to Marlar to block the incoming strike but he just about failed to do so. His water barrier was deliberately crafted to reduce the weight bearing down on him, and it seemed like the sword almost came to a complete stop for a short while, but ultimately he couldn't prevent it falling on his head. Marlar was perhaps a cultivator who's defensive measures took a little while to set up properly so being put at the front like this was quite a risk. It was one he chose to take willingly, however, as the potential reward for succeeding was far greater than those risks in his estimation. Unfortunately Gram was far stronger than anybody would be led to believe based on his highly unsuccessful squabbling with Ares. Just because Ares put him in the dirt repeatedly that didn't mean he was a pushover who'd get bullied by some old space fish!

In fact, Gram's showing on the second attempt wound up being his current best as the sword didn't lose any of its power in its confrontation with Marlar. Attempting To slow it down to a crawl didn't actively damage the sword, it merely impeded it. If this strategy of Marlar's worked then great but, because it didn't, all Marlar had done was give trouble to the people behind him which, in its own way, was a pretty twisted plan too. He either stopped it completely, and took all the credit, or made things hard for the rest of the pins by not weakening the sword at all. Truly a devious amphibian! As for who the second pin was, the person who now had to contend with the full might fo the sword in Marlar's deceased stead, that was the mystery cloaked woman. Alice initially wanted to be the second pin, or rather Mimi did but nobody knew her name yet, but she was denied on account of her already being a member of the Brotherhood and not needing to show off for anything in particular. She vehemently denied the accusatory claim but the nervous sweating and stammering really didn't do her any favours. It seemed as though she was a great pretender up until she was caught, at which point her act fell apart rapidly and crumbled miserably.

Regardless, that aside, the cloaked woman was able to stop the sword with a clever magical rebuttal. Poison magic. more specifically, corrosive magic. The second Marlar died in front of her the cloaked woman chanted and summoned a round shield made of acid that acted as a roof over the heads of the remaining pins. The clash between sword and shield lasted a while but that only served to benefit the shield due to its steel-melting nature. It was truly a perfect defensive art, custom tailored for the exact situation at hand. Maybe if she'd been at the front she wouldn't have been able to come up that measure in time but Marlar's efforts in delaying the fall of the sword unintentionally benefitted her more than him. Bowling, cultivator bowling anyway, was a selfish sport and the cloaked woman was quick to use Marlar's corpse for her own gain. At least, that was how it was supposed to go, but things reversed in the third round when she was put up front.

The cloaked woman had an excellent capability for using her brain and experimental nature to devise perfect counter measures but her mind needed time to formulate these ideas and actualise them. Gram took advantage of this weakness and unleashed a a twin Wind Blade in the shape of an 'X'. This was an advanced usage of the regular version of the art compounded and amplified its power multiple times over and the same was also true of its speed. It was incredibly hard to pull off, despite the regular art being essentially a beginner magic, if you weren't highly talented but well worth the effort if you were and could actually learn it. Ares had a rough idea how difficult this task would be thanks to his creation of Perish Armillary. Stacking the Perish Wheels on top of one another was a tough procedure and, even then, he had nothingness to mesh it all together comfortably. Twin Wind blades was a precise variation of an art that required sword finesse the likes of which even Ares did not currently possess and had no means of circumnavigating the requirements for. Gram clearly trained hard and often to be able to use this technique and even Finnian seemed rather impressed by it; perhaps even more so than anything else he'd seen from Gram so far. Twin Wind Blades at such a young age was not to be overlooked as it hinted at a proficiency that was once in a lifetime, dwarfing even the greatest prodigies of his own generation. If nothing else, Gram had it in him to become sword exemplar one day, even Dominus who was watching silently from inside Ares thought as such and if anybody was to be trusted on such matters it was undeniably him. As for how Gram developed in the future... Well, hypothetically, if those knights of his, in his unique art, were capable of mimicking his sword stye... And if they could copy the sword arts he was personally capable of... That was a scary thought.

Getting back on track, regarding how the twin Wind Blade fared against the pins, the cloaked woman was sliced in half before she could even conjure any sort of complicated magic. It all happened too fast for her. Marlar, who was next in line, almost stopped the sword magic but the spatial mana he was relying on to form a wall ended up being sliced through too. Finally, Alice halted the cut in its tracks although it took a good deal of effort even for her. She did it by slicing back at the Wind blades, retaliating with her own razor sharp strings. It turned into a cutting war, basically, but the Wind Blades had already dissipated a fair bit by the time they'd reached Alice and so couldn't beat her in the end.

In summary, Gram's first attempt at bowling netted him zero points thanks to Ares. His second attempt got him one point for knocking over Marlar. His third got him three points for slicing through the cloaked woman and, once again, Marlar. Four points total over three attempts... Was not impressive. Not at all. You could earn six points by just bowling over three pins in a single attempt... But Gram's performance was actually sort of ok! It wasn't a domineering performance, quite lacking in that regard, but his strength never really lay in head on confrontations like that to begin with so it was pointless to judge him according to those standards. He preferred to calculate and beat his foes through raw technique, speed, and sharp persistence. Gram would beat everyone here in a sword duel, that was certain. He might even generally be stronger than everyone but Ares in a fair fight too, he just didn't specialise in heavy hitting techniques as he preferred to skirt around defences rather than tackle them head on. He had no optimal arts for this bowling session at his disposal and came thoroughly unprepared. Even then, though, the twin Wind Blade was packing some serious power so he seemed to posses a good variety of skills up his sleeve.

If Finnian were to give any advice, which he ended up doing as Gram moved over to become a pin, it was that Gram needed to develop a finisher of sorts. Something to really kill the opponent he was leading around by the nose with his superior swordplay. It need to be fast, decisive, and lethal enough to fell giants in one fell swoop. Gram seemed to passively and quietly agree because he knew the advice came in good faith from a good place. Finnian had long since earned the respect of even someone overly proud like Gram... But his subdued response was also a result of his somewhat downcast mood. He had no belief in him whatsoever that he would be making it into the Brotherhood... As much as he wanted to blame Ares, as his points would have been way higher if Ares wasn't in the front during that first attempt with Knights, Assemble, it was his own choice to have him there and pick that fight. He literally asked for it. It was like slapping yourself and then blaming the persuasive man in the mirror for encouraging you to do it. there was still a grudge lingering but Gram was too depressed and caught up in his measly score to pick yet another losing battle with the same guy who'd trumped him multiple times today.

Next up as a bowler was Marlar. It seemed he was also somewhat despondent as he'd failed to defend against two separate attacks that came his way. The only two, so far, as well which only made him feel even worse as his failure rate was currently 100% as a pin. Was his age catching up with him? To be fair, no, the younger generation was just full of highly evolved monsters is all... That and, just like how Gran didn't specialise in heavy hitting offense, Marlar didn't really specialise in anything defensive in nature. Actually, in that regard, Marlar was quite like Ares. He usually dodged with his spatial magic or swam around attacks with incredible deftness and mid-air control. His mobility, for an old guy like him, was quite shocking and so he never thought to invest in proper measures to block incoming attacks.

This was the genius of cultivator bowling, though, because it tested every single facet of a cultivator's arsenal and exposed whatever flaws they thought were well enough hidden by their other strengths. Gram, one of the stronger people here, and stronger people in his generation overall, walked away with a meagre four points. This was a game but if you treated it like one you'd end up a laughing stock because it could be truly brutal when everything, every single measure you took, was just shy of actually functioning as it should under this specific rule set. Still, luckily for Marlar, he did have some Armageddon-style arts up his sleeve, he was ready to unleash hell, and so he wasn't as washed up as the spectators may have been led to believe in the prior round.

Marlar's first attempt summoned forth a giant, aqueous ball filled with tiny stars that massively increased the ball's weight while also helping its structural integrity by redistributing said weight to maintain a perfect circle shape. The ball was big enough to fit multiple cruise ships inside it and Ares' best guess was that this thing, under normal circumstances, was used to crush people. It would be dropped on their head, while they were tangled up in other spatial magic or various types of water prisons, bury them underneath or, if not successful in that regard, drown them should they survive the initial weight. In this instance, however, Marlar opted to roll it along the floor like an oversized snowball instead as it could pick a good deal of momentum this way. Marlar had the luxury of setting up his attack however he like and, as he wasn't in any kind of rush, could afford to take this slower approach as his opponents were not permitted to simply see it coming and move out the way.

Mimi was first in line to receive the starry water ball but there was nothing her strings could realistically do against magic of this variety as water, and space, were both terrible matchups for her and impossibly difficult to cut. Especially a magic of this size to boot, and one manifested by a brilliant mage like Marlar. For the first time during this bowling trial Mimi was killed and resurrected off to the side, leaving her grumbling and pouting in the corner with a sullen expression and a fire in her eyes that signified she wanted vengeance... Although for some reason she was directing all that petty hostility at Ares? It seemed she still wasn't quite over him making her feel a twinge of fear earlier and would be taking out her minor anger on him instead of the person who just killed her. Put simply, she knew who the biggest fish here was and it, ironically, was not the actual, living, breathing fish! She had a feeling in her gut Ares would be joining the Brotherhood and so establishing the hierarchy now was in order! Mimi was well and truly a bit of a brat. It's not even that anyone was having fun at her expense, just that she was being denied the opportunity to have fun at someone else's expense herself because Ares was simply too resilient to be pushed around by her one-sidedly. She was the newest recruit but wanted a junior to bully and play with a bit but Ares was not shaping up to be docile! Did that mean she'd give up? Absolutely not! She wasn't a member of the Brotherhood for nothing and just because she'd been going easy on everyone up until now that didn't mean she was willing to completely let things with Ares slide! Vengeance, when she bowled, would be hers! Vengeance for what, exactly? Well... Basically nothing but vengeance would be hers regardless!

Back by the pins, Gram was next in line to face the water ball and he faced a similar issue. His sword strike was precise but he was only able cause the giant rolling art to shrink in size, lopping bits off it, without actually fully stopping it. Marlar's first display was a real change of pace as it was already looking like he'd set a new bowling record by knocking over three pins, a feat unattained by Gram. All that stood between him and at least six points on his first attempt was the cloaked woman but, unfortunately, this was where his run with this particular art would end. The cloaked woman commanded the mana at her disposal to freeze the giant water ball and soon thereafter the magic was stopped dead in its tracks thanks to the rapidly fluctuating temperature. The weight of the stars inside the water were simply too heavy for the now-frozen ball so it cracked under the pressure that had once enabled it squash everything else.

Again, the cloaked woman put on a good performance and Ares was already pretty certain she, like him, would make it into the sect. Really, at this point, Marlar and Gram were just fighting for recognition amongst each other. They'd both had rough defensive showings but Marlar was only on his first attempt and had already pulled out a dangerous magic to set the mood and precedent for future brilliance. In fact, Marlar did not falter and his second attempt was a full steam ahead endeavour too as he utilised an attack with extreme piercing power to keep the pins on their toes. It was actually rather similar to an art Ares had seen before in Vortex, the unique water pillar art used by the 'water guy' half of Kazaz during the sect entrance exam a long while ago. Marlar created a watery bow and arrow nearly twice his size and stood to the side of it like a harpist ready to strum his instrument of death. With a graceful flick of his wrists, which caused his robes to flutter in the wind and paint a picture of an age old sage displaying his true resplendence amidst the gathering mana, Marlar dragged the massive arrow back with the power of space curling around his hands. The space also crept over the arrow, coiling around it and intertwining with it, constricting the water until its form was less liquid and more solid. Ares could tell this was going to be rough for the pins in the front.

Marlar let the art fly and it appeared in front of the cloaked woman before she could even blink or register its insane speed. She had a weakness for arts that hit her hard and fast but her death this time wasn't even a result of that because not many people would have been able to react to the art from that distance anyway. Even Ares would have bitten the dust in such a scenario, due to how unfavourable it was for the first pin, so she couldn't be blamed. It was definitely a sore spot for her, and what Finnian would go on to advise her about, but lacking in reaction times was inarguably not the issue here. Marlar's art this attempt was a real threat as it barrelled right through Mimi too and finally clashed with Gram, the third pin. Gram held his own not with magic but with simple swordplay as he didn't really have time for anything fancy. His hands shook, and his teeth were gritted to the point they nearly snapped in his own mouth, but there was no time to cast magic with how fast this arrow had flown effortlessly though the other unprepared pins. By the time Mimi had died in front of him the arrow was already tickling Gram's skull so this was really the best he could manage in this awful situation.

Gram's sword dug into the arrow with its sharp edge and, for a while, it looked as though he might be able to either cut the arrow in half or swat it away at least... But ultimately he too perished in the face of the massive and unrelenting arrow. All that was left was Ares, and Finnian in the back, but Ares didn't much feel like letting an art reach Finnian before his own turn at bowling came around. The arrow had already weakened drastically before reaching him so really didn't even struggle to take care of the remnants of the art. A simple, but expertly done nonetheless, scythe slash, one coated with disintegration, was enough to tear what was left of the arrow in half. It might have been a bit trickier if not for Gram's efforts earlier, Ares had aimed for the dent made by the prince in his final moments which eased his own burden, but Ares could have dealt with this arrow in myriad ways regardless so he became the wall that Marlar could not break on his second attempt.

Finally, Marlar's third attempt came and it was easily the most breath taking art as of yet displayed. Gram's ordering of his arts was complicated, due to Ares and Gram's plan to pay him back, but Marlar was approvability increasing the devastation he wrought with his attempts bit by bit which resulted in the current scenario. Imagine your minding your own business, pretending to be a bowling pin for whatever reason, and suddenly a killer whale, the size of a small star, crashed into, and merges with, the planet you're standing on, guzzling through the earth as it rampages towards you. What's the plan, exactly? If you answered, 'wallow in self pity and die a dog's death', then congratulations, your response was roughly the same as Gram's, Mimi's, and the cloaked woman's. There was absolutely no stopping this absurdly huge behemoth and so nobody even bothered trying. There wasn't enough time to conjure an art that could feasibly stop this thing from chugging along its current path and so the other contenders were more than willing to just let Marlar have his points this attempt. He'd get at least ten and, honestly, maybe even twenty if Finnian couldn't survive the giant whale.

Marlar had a nasty trick up his sleeve, the old fishy fella! This wasn't technically his own magic, it was actually a summon, and God only knows where he found that humongous monster, and how he tamed it was impossible to figure out without asking him, but it was undeniably a menace that could not be stopped with half hearted measures or ordinary means. The only 'method' was for everyone to just silently accept they were going to get swallowed, chewed, and eaten like mini-morsels at an all you can eat buffet. This whale probably ate asteroid swarms for breakfast, let alone some tiny humans... Well, Ares and Gram were human, anyway. It was unknown what race Mimi, not 'Alice', and the cloaked woman were and Marlar was most definitely not a human either.

Anyway, point being, the three pins in front of Ares fell like dominoes and it was only him remaining. He too was hoovered up into the whale's mouth, and it looked like he was going to bite the dust for the first time today... But things were never going to be that simple, and progress as smoothly as they should, once he pulled out his Primordial Blade. Spectators only saw a fraction of a second in which Ares boldly wielded his mythical weapon in the face of the hefty titan but he was soon swallowed out of view and it was impossible to tell what became of him and his daring attempt to fight back. Finnian saw this and wasn't sure what to do. It was hard to tell when the pin in front of you died and he wasn't entirely convened Ares was completely gone yet. If he summoned a barrier now, before Ares was truly dead, he'd be cheating! This was another reason why the whale summon was devious, telling when the pin in front finally bit the dust was hard, but it was permitted within the rules so Finnian just sort of had to take the loss on this one. Without a barrier he'd definitely get chomped to bits too and the whale was getting awfully close for comfort... That is, until it exploded in a gory extravaganza of blood and guts from its waist region. The giant whale split in half with both ends flying high into the sky as a lone, defiant 'human' stood tall with a weapon clasped in his raised right hand where the whale once roamed. A single slash to rule them all and Ares had delivered judgement to the oversized whale, massacring it from the inside with a spectacular attack. Nobody knew what that weapon he was holding at this moment in time was but there was one thing everybody understood, this guy Ares was indisputably a fucking freak.