Chapter 526: Final Round: Part 1

Unmistakable tension took hold as the person literally known for their destructive abilities took a stand in the bowler position. Ares' specialty was precisely this, offensive magic, and now it was finally his turn at long last to demonstrate what exactly a fundamental champion was. Other champions might have been able to leave a bigger mark on this trial as a pin, although Ares hadn't exactly been a slouch in that department ether, but this now? Bowling? Three back to back attacks in a row, of his own choosing, that he could take however long he wanted to charge up? Gram, Marlar, Alice, and the cloaked woman were about to learn the difference between them and him and it was not a small one either. Hell even Finnian was in Ares' sights, there was no lenience to be found in his actions. Not that he was necessarily bearing down on everyone in any way, his general demeanour was still the same old Ares and he was wearing a casual smile... Though it did possess a hint of mischief not dissimilar, almost the exact same actually, to what 'Alice' had back when she was bowling. Ares was definitely going to get payback but, then again, it's not like thinking that way really changed what he had to do. Though it was unreasonable, his goal from the start was to get a perfect game, sixty points, three strikes in a row (Sometimes referred to as a turkey), so aiming at one pin specifically was pointless. If Ares ran everybody over then Alice was bound to be a part of that equation somewhere down the line!

Was sixty points feasible?... Honestly, maybe. Finnian's strength as an anchor for the pins was unknown. Only the cloaked woman's ball of light even made it back there and the magic posed no threat to hm whatsoever at that point because it had basically run out of steam by then and couldn't harm a fly. Nonetheless, Ares was going to probe thoroughly and discover just how resilient this Brotherhood legend was when push came to shove and he was on the back fence. Ares' first art was going to be a Perish Armillary so if this didn't kill Finnian then Ares would seriously have to give the guy serious credit because an art like this was typically overkill for just about any living creature not at least three to four realms above him in cultivation. Even then, depending on how accurately the Armillary struck the target, there was room for an even wider gap to be crossed by this magic. It transcended the normality of what an art should be and blocking it... Well you really had to be someone quite special to accomplish such a thing.

Ares took stock of the pin order, though it meant nothing, and was pleasantly surprised to find Alice, AKA Mimi, right at the front... Though she didn't seem happy about it. Chances are, Finnian was punishing her for her earlier inability to function like an responsible adult for five minutes. It seemed Finnian was loosely aware that carnage and chaos were both coming so he was using Mimi as a sponge to try and absorb some of the monstrous magic heading their way. Perhaps he was still expecting Ares' magic to get blocked before reaching him if everyone put in a good deal of effort and worked together as a co-ordinated group... How naive. Ares was still being underestimated but that was going to change real fast when his Armillary hit the scene. Better yet, before he even threw it there ought to be an understanding of how deep the crap these lot were in actually was. In Ares' estimation the number of pins could multiply by ten and it still wouldn't change much of anything; a strike was on the horizon and no amount of geniuses across multiple generations was going to change that. They would all crumble before the might of the destruction pillar, just as nature intended.

Ares stretched in exaggerated fashion, curving and twisting his waist while extending his arms to their very limit, as he sportively winked at the tense pins. "Alright, the star of the show is here. All the spectators can wake up now and stop staring at their phones." Ares' grin grew proportionate to the grumpiness on Alice's face as the insinuation that every bowler prior to him bored the spectators to death and lost their interest in the competition. His remark scored a double knockout, Gram also seemed to reel in anger somewhere in the background where he belonged, but Ares' main goal was mainly the ninja twerp in front of him so he'd been incredibly successful in that regard. Ares chuckled to himself as he began weaving all three mana types of his pillar with a casual set of experienced movements; so experienced, in fact, that he was able to chat openly and take his eyes off the procedure to communicate with the pins. "Say, have any of you ever survived a nuke before? Weird question, I know, but if not... Rejoice! For I'm oh-so generously giving you a chance to try!"

Ares' words were rightfully concerning and deep frowns appeared on every single face in front of him. The pins were weighing his words and trying to figure out if he was being completely honest with them or overselling his magic because his claim sounded far too absurd to be even remotely realistic. A nuclear weapon was the pinnacle of modern weaponry for the most part, only a few exceptions existed and even then they were secretive weapons not displayed or talked about with any regularity so they were closer to myths if anything. The destructive capabilities of nuclear weaponry were well known after their first few appearances and a cultivator daring to say they had the necessary means to replicate such mayhem was already pushing it. Now a sensory enhancement teen was saying he could summon nukes at will? Even if he was the fundamental champion of destruction it didn't seem likely... And yet, the more his mana rolled over itself, forming some manner of twisting, primal nebula of mayhem, the more they were worrying his words held any sort of truthful basis whatsoever. Even if not directly comparable to a nuke, if whatever came next was somewhat close... what they were about to witness... No, what they were about to be put through next was not going to be smooth sailing.

Ares created a ball of annihilation which flattened out between strings of red nothingness that kept it all clinging together. This mosaic of golden shards with red outlines formed a circle encased by a disintegration sawblade with highly sharp edges. This formed the basic building block of Armillary, a single Perish Wheel and it was a work of art for the ages even by itself. This magic had been seen before during the second trial and so the pins looked relieved, having mistakenly come to the wrong conclusion, thinking Ares was going to end it here and simply throw that Wheel at them. It would be devasting, and probably knock over everyone regardless, but it wasn't a nuke and it probably wouldn't kill Finnian either. This ring of death was still within the realm of feasibility and logical comprehension... Though it did raise questions about Ares' ordering of attacks. If this was his first attempt then would the next two get even stronger than this!? His first art was already at a power level equal to Marlar and the cloaked woman's final attempts!... Little did they know they were completely wrong on all accounts and the future was more bleak than they could ever possibly know at this moment in time. Yes Ares was going to gradually ramp up his power over the course of his three attempts, that much was accurate at last... But if they thought his first attack was a mere Perish Wheel, they were sorely mistaken.

As the pins eased up and begun to relax, before their very eyes, Ares begun weaving a second Wheel that intersected with the first and this was where confusion set in; the first of many emotions the pins were about to cycle through. The seven stages of grief, minus hope, were on the horizon as Ares somehow managed to merge the two Perish Wheels into a single entity; a golden core surrounded by rotating disintegration blades which were held firmly together by red void string. This was a despairing moment if ever there was one because a single Perish Wheel already held so much energy, with shocking amounts of concentrated power, within it that it could probably wipe out all the pins on its own. What exactly was this mad man aiming for by mixing two together!? Still, his practiced and quick merging made it easy to grasp the horrifying fact that he'd done this before and more than once. This was a trick he was familiar with an not some spur of the moment crazy experiment...

And then Ares added a third wheel...

And then a fourth...

And then a fifth, and then a sixth...

And then a seventh...

And finally an eighth...

Mouths had drooped dumbfoundedly at least four wheels ago and now they were something far beyond slack. Some spectators had even fled, opting to be teleported out of the courtyard now that Ares' claims of dropping a literal nuke were looking to be mighty verified right about now. To be honest, this was stupid. There was no way in hell there was anything residing in this world they all shared that needed this much killing; such a thing did not exist and that level of resilience was an impossibility. Finnian would not survive this. He would not have even survived three Wheels stacked on top of each other let alone the octa-Perish Wheel threat looking to bury his existence and relegate his life to the past tense. He was starting to worry this art might even destroy the Training Field and kill everyone here for real. Thankfully the runic markings protecting the area were put in place by the sect master, so probably not, but the fact Finnian was even having to contemplate such an issue was making him wonder if he'd hit his head and gone insane. There was part of Finian's brain nagging him, telling him this was a mere illusion because it couldn't possibly be real, and yet both he and the rest of the pins knew it instinctively. Their bodies, when they weren't lying to themselves and calling this fake to bring them comfort in the last moments of their lives, were screaming at them to run away and go hide on another planet. Not even another country or landmass, their first instinct was to fly off the planet and retreat deep into the vastitude of space.

"Perish Armillary!" The multi-layered globe of raw volatile energy pulsed as Ares gently discarded it from his control with a resolute chant. His palm gesturing forward acted as the impetus for the globe's descent towards Mimi who looked like she'd seen a ghost. The way it ambled towards her, hobbling like a drunk spirit, was creepy and for a brief moment she felt like she'd transcended her own mortality in the face of foreboding finality. She felt as though she was already in heaven before being sent there because the tranquility and peace around her was orderly, like the rest of the world had heard the humming of this singular magic and decided to quieten down until it had passed. Though doom incarnate was impending, Mimi's world had become calm an accepting of the inevitable end that faced her. She meekly lifted her head, looked at the floating beacon of gold that was Ares shimmering behind the art he'd summoned, and aimed her last comment at his despicable smile. "Bastard..."

Ares' smile wasn't even one of mockery or condescension, like Mimi's was prior when she aimed ot bully him, it was just one that showed how much fun he was having in the moment now that he could let loose and throw his personal favourite art. At least it was his favourite in terms of theatrical value, anyway, as the explosion was the very definition of opulent magnificent. There was no other art in his repertoire quite like Armillary and it brought him great joy to use it which was like a dagger to Mimi's heart because he wasn't even paying her any attention anymore. Their mock rivalry had ended the second he found something better to do, she was just in the way of watching his art explode and meant nothin to him anymore, not even taking up the bare minimum space in his conscience. How quickly he forgot about her... And for the sake of internally eulogising his own magic no less! This sheer overwhelming difference in quality as a cultivator had drilled itself into her psyche, wormed its way into her brain, and given rise to a new determination that wouldn't be relevant in the short term. After all, after today, Ares wouldn't be seen again for a long while and, in turn, he wouldn't see the Brotherhood again for a while. Still, change was on the horizon for Mimi who would not let this one-sided defeat go in the future...

Though, right now, Mimi had no say in the matter as the Armillary tore her into pieces, reducing her to severed atoms and then obliterating those too for good measure on contact. She didn't even get to die to the explosion which was complete humiliation the likes of which she never even knew she could possibly suffer from. Though to be fair, for what it was worth, nobody else survived the Armillary either. It cut through Mimi, then Gram, then the cloaked woman, then Marlar one by one without anything stopping it because it was a invincible nightmare given form. No art or magic thrown at it could destabilise the magic, which just went to show how phenomenal Ares' mastery was that he could create such a sturdy thing despite the incredibly volatile energy it contained within, so the Armillary was free to ebb and flow towards Finnian at its own pace. The angle Ares threw it at was such that the art would collapse right at Finnian's feet and introduce him to a world of gold from which there was no escape.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Even with a barrier in place the scale of the explosion was such that everyone in the city outside the courtyard could bear witness to the ensuing spread of decadent dread. At bare minimum, it covered the entire courtyard and everybody in it in the blink of an eye and that was still only really a start as it looked to leak out and and escape beyond these walls. Thankfully there were measures in place ahead of time incase something went wrong during the tryouts, so the attempted expansion of Ares' art was contained and the danger mitigated, but it was still a wild flurry of pure force that had become quite the incident regardless. People shopping across the city stopped dead in their tracks as an ancient and destructive force rose into the sky and distracted them from their daily habits and schedules. A light display like no other was taking place, forming a golden curtain that wrapped around and hugged the air like a school bully placing his arm around a wimpy nerd's neck. Who was in charge here was evident and it was clearly not the universe at large as even ambient mana in the air was dyed gold amidst the resplendent anomaly causing tiny shards of brilliance to hover in the air.

The city became a regal holy site as twinkling golden dust softly glided down from the heavens and illuminated the dimming roads before puffing up and gently sparkling out of existence with a warm and inviting glow. This unexpected oddity lasted for around ten minutes before a certain uppity brat got tired of being dowsed in Ares' magic and forcefully unrestricted her cultivation base to remove the magic. Mimi summoned an army of knives and cut through the golden wall like scissors through paper, turning it into shiny ribbons that fluttered away along with the breeze. She'd committed a pretty serious infraction by undoing the limiter, and she would face a backlash for it, but it was doable specifically because the Brotherhood had requested permission to undo the limiter in case of an emergency. They were a trustworthy group so the domain overseer enabled it if necessary for them and them alone. Whether or not Mimi really truly needed to get rid of Ares' art or not was debatable but that was what she chose to do... Because she was fed up of waiting. After dying, the pins were resurrected in a safe location off to the side and covered by a barrier, set up by the sect master himself, and so they had to just sit there waiting for the lingering nuclear detonation to get lost for good and disperse. The same was also true of the spectators.

Though everyone else was content with patiently waiting on their benches for the situation to pass, they were enjoying the spectacle and the lingering mana was pretty to look at from up close, Mimi wasn't getting any reception on her phone. Boredom was creeping in at a rate she wasn't ever going to tolerate for long hence her current actions of tearing apart the Armillary and restoring everyone's rebreathing room that had been snatched away from them. It gave away the fact that she clearly wasn't Alice but it was already long past that point. In fact, the real Alice was already in the spectator area and had reunited with her family... Though the first thing she did was scold them for the Ares business because she hadn't gotten a chance to yet. Alice, the real one, had been kept in a spatial pocket in the sky above the courtyard thanks to some runes here and there that enabled comfortable viewing from a remote and safe space. She was fed plenty of scones and tea as payment for letting Mimi borrow her visage and she'd been in on this from the start, watching basically everything... Though she was very eager to return to reality and give her family what for, reprimanding them for everything they'd done when she wasn't here in person. They tried to protest and claim they'd already been berated by Mimi for their crimes but such cries fell on deaf ears as a particularly energetic mother talked their ears off...

Anyway, back over by the pins... Ares was gobsmacked! Downright incensed and mired in disbelief! Stupefied and mystified! Finnian was alive, the rat bastard! His barrier wasn't even fully destroyed, merely riddled with countless cracks and on the verge of breaking but not quite there yet. Forget killing the guy, Ares hadn't even gotten though his frontmost layer of defence. Even if the Armillary broke the barrier it probably wouldn't have killed him as his flesh would have resisted it... What was this guy made of!? How the hell did he muster such a strong barrier with mana limited to the transition realm?! Granted he was two whole realms ahead of Ares, and an expert to end all experts so he was hardly a pushover, but even still! He wasn't a body temperer, at least as far as Ares could tell, nor did he seem to specialise in barriers like Enyo did. There was fuckery afoot! Ares shifted over to Finnian's side and poked him. "Hey! Why aren't you dead?! You're supposed to be dead! Please die! Be deceased! Promptly experience death!"

Finnian wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry but he was having trouble formulating a response to these particular 'innocent' requests spewing out of Ares' motor mouth. Not just because Ares goofball attitude was silly to the extreme but also because his mind was still caught up on that last art... The truth of the matter was that he had no business surviving it whatsoever and he'd accidentally... Cheated, a little... Mimi wasn't the only one who broke the domain wide limiter on cultivation while the art was raging on, he did too. Finnian had no intention of breaking the rules, and he felt guilty as can be for doing precisely that in the end, but his life well and truly flashed before his eyes in the moment the Armillary went off and his body acted on its own to do everything in its power to live to tell the tale. Finnian was a powerhouse but his greatest flaw, and depending on how you looked at it his greatest strength, is that he's never come close to death before and there was a reason for it that was tied to his legendary reputation.

Not many people knew this about Finnian but his body, in difficult situations, moves on its own to rectify the complication at hand like someone else entirely is controlling it. When he's about to lose a fight, he loses control and wins. When he's trapped and about to be stuck somewhere in a bottomless pit for eons on end, his body takes control and solves the puzzle locking him in place or finds an exit. Hell even when he's in a meaningless competition, be it board games or sports, it's entirely possible he'll lose control once the goal he wants to achieve is no longer within his grasp. There's something rather unusual going on with Finnian, something about him that isn't right, but even he doesn't really know the specifics. All he knows is that whenever his body enters full-automation mode, nothing bad can ever possibly happen to him. It's not just a matter of getting stronger while in that state, he does, but it's as though he's taking the optimal path through life and nothing can possibly go wrong. Almost like he's being dragged along the path with the best potential fate amongst countless alternate dimensions, outcomes, and timelines. It's utterly ridiculous, and those few who know of it call it a cheat code because that's basically what it is, but it wound up causing a bit of trouble here today when it possessed him and forced him to do something rather embarrassing.

Finnian was supposed to die and yet his instincts kicked in and saved him from trouble... Usually it didn't take effect within Training Fields, because that unidentifiable thing manipulating him knew better and, to some extent, Finnian could prevent it if he really tried, but Ares art was so unexpectedly staggering the invisible parasite kicked into overdrive and saved him regardless. Finnian had never been so close to death, even though it wouldn't have been real, and his hands were definitely sweating a bit, so it was understandable his other side took the wheel and steered him clear of that fate... Though he really felt terrible about it. Ares should have had twenty points and yet his scoreboard was only showing half that number. It was a good result when looked at from a broader perspective, only the cloaked woman had scored ten on a single attempt so far so Ares was already matching the current best performance, but it should have been even better than that and Finnian was painfully aware of his messy screw up. Thankfully only Mimi saw, and was aware of what transpired underneath the cloak of gold the Armillary provided, it but this would be a great source of shame whenever Finnian looked back on this moment as he really didn't intend to save himself in such a cheap manner. The sect master was not going to be a happy camper when he rewatched the footage but he'd also thankfully be lenient because he knew Finnian couldn't always control that other side of him as much as he wanted to. As for the kid, Ares, asking him to go die in a ditch somewhere... Finnian would consider giving him the reward if Ares wound up being ten points short of it by the end of the tryouts. He'd take Ares aside and mention what happened privately so as not to look like he was showing any kind of favouritism and giving Ares a reward just because of who he was... But then again maybe not, this damn chatty menace was still encouraging him to commit suicide! What was his most recent declaration in the background again? 'I hear seppuku is all the rage lately'? And what was it he literally just said while Finnian was stuck in his own mind contemplating giving him a reward? 'Summer is the perfect time to go jump in an active volcano'? Ares must have really been bamboozled by the fact that someone lived through his Perish Armillary to be spouting off like this and, honestly, he had every right to be confused...

Wait a minute... Finnian caught sight of the scoreboard hanging above and he soon remembered something vital that he was currently glossing over... That was just his first attempt... The rest of the pins were walking off as if the trial had ended. It seemed everyone was so engrossed in the Armillary, because it was like the fireworks that signalled the conclusion of a long and tiresome event, that they forgot there was more in store... What the hell is he going to do next? blow up the entire damn planet?! Finnian's internal outburst was wrong... Technically... Though Ares wasn't going to annihilate the planet, his third attempt, yet to come, did possess enough power to functionally serve as a planet buster under the right circumstances...