Chapter 543: Thrones, Kings, Torches, and Lizards

Mountain climbing had been a relatively simple endeavour for Ares as he spent the rest of the day barreling his way through weaker creatures banished from higher mountains to the lower outskirts. More ice fairies, a few iciclops children, and some weird bird that followed him around and kept screeching to attack other predators to his position. That last monster, the bird, was an opportunistic monster that was extremely weak and incapable of killing its own prey so it functioned like a scout for bigger threats. It survived for about two minutes before Ares tired of the novelty and shot a hole in its head with the Racket to silence the incessant chirping. As for Ares' progress with various matters, his bloodline that allowed him to mix annihilation with pressure was doing a great deal to help Ares control the former better. There was still much room left to improve, and nothingness would probably be the key to unlocking pressure's full annihilation-manipulating potential, but having a solid foundation for later was beneficial. Ares had tried to create annihilation tethers to anchor his arm to the ground using thick gold ropes when he was firing the Racket. This nullified the recoil of the weapon to an extent by wrapping around his arm and using the energy of destruction to both dampen the upward momentum while simultaneously blasting the arm back down. Unfortunately Ares' control over annihilation wasn't quite where it needed to be for this to work 100%, as the annihilation tethers blew up when the strain became too severe, but it was an idea for the future that might see the light of day if Ares could make it work. Regardless, this was all progress towards raising Visitation and that was still the main goal with all of this. The little ghost pal was still meeping away and minding his own business inside the Primordial Blade, playing with Old Light whenever he got bored.

Tha aside, Ares also continued to level up his passive cultivation technique. He took about an hour or two to sit in the lotus position and become a snowman as he filtered out the frosty world around him. He was more snow than human by the time he quit, and had to shake off inches of the stuff to even stand back up, but he had gained a substantial amount of practice and he was starting to really believe passive cultivation was possible if he could experience a variety of non-standard situations and take full advantage thereof. He could cross off extreme cold from his list but he still needed more unusual environments to push himself further.

Also also, while hunting monsters and training his Skip proficiency, Ares was finally starting to finish up the pressuring of his treasures. He wasn't quite there yet but most of them were done now and only a small handful remained. There hadn't been any major changes to his treasures and artifacts but they'd all improved significantly as as result of his pressurising and so that was always good to hear. Interestingly, the Protection Racket could be pressurised further, more than Ares had already done to it, so it wasn't even really at full blast right now which was a spooky thought given the punch it already packed. Ares prioritised pressuring that for now and would likely have it, and every other treasure / artifact in his possession, fully pressurised by the time he departed from this region. The Primordial Blade and Backfire Bindings were technically an exception, because Ares couldn't tell how much they could be pressurised and it seemed like fully exploring that side of these weapons would take multiple years, but there was a limit he could reach for now and that was at least good for getting this longstanding task out of his conscious for now. 

Finally, as was mentioned, Ares spent a decent chunk of his time casting Skip. He could cast it on himself to move through objects, he could cast it on other people to phase them through reality against their will, he could cast it on objects, and he could also cast it on magic. All of the above observations had their own uses and really the biggest issue with the art wasn't figuring out what it was capable of, as there was very little limit on the possibilities, but rather actually timing it correctly. Using it improperly was a waste of mana and time at best but a hazard to Ares' health at worst.

During his practice, Ares tried to use Skip on a random berry he found growing in the wild. He tossed it up from his palm and tried to use Skip to bring it back down to his palm by cutting the fall time out of the equation entirely. Unfortunately, clumsy Ares happen to trip on a pile of hard snow as he was walking so he toppled forward as he cast the magic. The berry Skipped downward through the back of his neck and flowed right down his gullet. Ares swallowed the thing and felt sicker than he'd ever been in his entire life before as his face turned purple, his stomach rumbled like thunder, and his knees buckled as a pang of irresistible weakness spread throughout his body. Luckily he was revenant, so his body's automatic defensive and regeneration antidotal systems kicked in. The Extinction Converter also played its part and burnt away the remanets of the highly poisonous berry but the chaos it caused was not pleasant while it lasted. This was a brilliant example of the danger Skip posed, though, as Ares was more than aware that eating random berries was dangerous and yet he'd unintentionally done precisely that and briefly paid a steep price for it. He'd Skipped an object inside him and ninety nine percent of the time that would not be a good thing to have happen in the middle of actual combat, hence the need for precaution with this art. If Ares wasn't a revenant he might have even been killed or put in a coma by that berry, never mind what would happen if he used Skip on an arrow or something and said projectile wound up lodged in his heart or brain. Using Skip offensively was less risky, unless Ares was using it on himself as he might chuck himself off a cliff, inside a wall, or something equally disastrous knowing him, so Ares was tempted to put a ban on defensive Skips until he could use this troublesome art with his eyes shut... But the problem, though, is that Ares was Ares and no amount of telling his brain not to do something would actually prevent the brain from encouraging him to do that precise thing at a later date anyway. He would just have to wait and see if he could stick to his guns on this matter but the answer was probably going to be a no.

As for encounters of note, there was one in which Ares stumbled upon a duo of Frozen Thone guards loudly discussing their deployment. Grumbling about it, and competing with the chilly whistling winds to have their complaints heard, was perhaps a more accurate assessment but Ares wasn't complaining; it gave him a chance to eavesdrop and get a better understanding of the state of the clan after his earlier rampage. They hadn't given up on searching for him, in fact they cracked down on locating him any any means and upped their manpower by exploiting their connections. Ares hadn't expected their global relevance to come into pay during his temporary stay here but they sent out letters of summons, while he was in the Lowe domain, and demanded that everyone either relates Ares' whereabouts or comes to the Isaz region to search high and low for him. Provided Ares hadn't escaped into a bordering country and was simply yet to be spotted there, the Frozen Throne were seemingly convinced Ares knew something about the Isaz region they didn't. Ares had no real reason to be here and it was now known he didn't head back to Red Sun along the cohorts that arrived in Xasca with him, and his sect mission was already complete, so they weren't going to let Ares slip by and do as he pleased without their knowledge as his goal here was unknown. Their guess was on the money too as Ares was gunning for the Moongate Mountain.

The treasure was hidden by Dominus, so nobody who wasn't guided by him or destined to have it would ever find it, but trailing Ares would be one way of finding out about it in due time. There were Frozen Throne members dotted across the entire region but, of note, they had a significant presence on the upper mountains which was highly unusual in normal times. They were taking the hunt for him seriously and even sneaking men up to the higher altitudes wherein the Vikings typically ruled and booted everyone else out. There had already been some scuffles between the Throne experts and the Vikings but they refused to give in as they wholeheartedly believed Ares to be the key to finding a rare treasure that would make this all worth it. They misunderstood what he was aiming for, they assumed it was the treasure that kept Isaz frosty despite geographically being a terrible place for the type of weather tha occurred here, but there was a legendary treasure in this region regardless and which one they pilfered from Ares didn't much matter. They had the manpower to spare and were already antagonistic with the neo Vikings anyway. Picking a fight with those 'beard-o weird-os' wasn't detrimental as it won them space and resources they would have wanted anyway. A war between the Throne and the Vikings was brewing for years prior to Ares arrival it's just that now, in searching for him, they had justification to infiltrate territory that didn't belong to them. Killing two birds with one stone, as it were.

Ares was able to find out this information thanks to his incredible duplicity and subterfuge... As in he walked up the two Throne members, clearly ignorant about who he was, and had a casual chat with them about the matter that went something along the lines of...

'Oh hey, what are you guys doing out here?' Ares shot them pitying glances to capitalise on their general displeasure and ruffled mien, opening up the floor for them to rant freely and give him exactly what he wanted.

'Freezing our balls of hunting ghosts!' One replied.

With a shake of his head, the second guard mentioned the following, "Our cultivation is too low to tango with the Vikings up above so we were stationed here to report any suspicious individuals we come across.'

'Suspicious, huh? Would a suspicious person be handing out these?' Ares joked lightly as he gave the two guards a bowl of warm oxtail soup. He took on the identity of a charitable mountaineer who scoured the area regularly for stragglers dying in the snow in his spare time. He took out nearly twenty bowls of freshly prepared soup, alongside baskets of piping hot bread, to really sell the image and the guards, now with full stomachs, were inclined to believe him. Neither of the guards recalled seeing a person here like Ares before, handing out aid and food with expecting payment in return, but they weren't stationed here regularly enough to make a judgement call. There were all types on this mountain and even school children were traipsing around as of late, tourism was on the rise and it showed, so if some new wannabee egalitarian good samaritan popped up as of late then it wasn't actually that surprising. It wouldn't even be the first time a 'medic' of sorts appeared as one historical figure came here to train by utilising dying 'patients' out in the wilderness and there was no place better for practice than here. Regardless, the conversation continued with neither of the guards being overly suspicious of Ares.

'The fighting near the top of the mutated mountain has gotten pretty intense. It was originally just a clash over settlements, as in trying to expand territory, but recently something has changed and the Throne's intensity shot up a notch. Funnily enough, it doesn't even have anything to do with that Ares guy. While they were looking for him they discovered something else that was far more pressing...' This piqued Ares' interest so he nudged and prodded through the art of subtle conversation.

'Tell me.'

Or not.

Ares just asked without any sort of pretense whatsoever but, in its own way, this was oddly disarming. If someone had ill intentions surely they wouldn't be stupid enough to outright ask like this... Right? Also, by this point, Ares had used his Scaled Insulator, which the Throne members thankfully didn't recognise, to start a small fire and keep them warm. Humans were pretty simple in that giving them what they wanted in the moment made them much more amenable and open to forming a sense of misplaced trust. Not everyone was this careless but these grunts weren't paid enough to care as they hadn't even memorised Ares' face or rough details. The clan probably knew Ares' cultivation to some extent, the clothes he wore, and the outline of his face. Maybe even height and the sound of his voice depending on how accurate the depiction of him was by the survivors of his Asura Rondo. And yet these two dolts didn't know the first thing about Ares which was what made them the perfect target as their hearts really weren't in this clan or in making it thrive from the start. Money and resources were all they were here for and it showed. Most clans and sects had weak links like this, even Heaven's Path had a few lazy stragglers that would abandon the place the second it went through hardship, so Ares was jsut capitalising on the rotten apples he happened to find and it worked a charm.

'Well you know how that Ares guy got involved in some 'Torchbearer' plot to destroy Xasca by turning it into a series of sinkholes? The whole 'blow up the fine grind quarry' thing? Apparently our Frozen Throne executives intercepted messaging between the Nu Kings, the Vikings that rule the mountain, and some shady robos from Neo Gear. The leader fo the Nu Kings spent a good few years in Neo Gear a while back and returned with a suspicious amount of technology. They made their floating boats and neon-buzz axes with that technology which is partially what allowed them to reign supreme and carve out a place for them on the mountain so solidly. Turns out, the technology, and the knowhow regarding how to craft and utilise it, was gifted to them by the Torchbearer and now the Frozen Throne is getting suspicious of Neo Gear's broader involvement in this country.

Thanks to our global scouts we know the Torchbearer was also involved in the Firestarter incident aboard the Federation, which led to the wyvern and krakyrn assaults, so there's a lot of apprehension. Having a Torchbearer related plot pop up in our neck of the woods, so close to home, is deeply concerning because we don't want to be next on their list. Given how the other Torchbearer plans have attempted to play out our Throne is worried the Vikings might be unintentionally, maybe even intentionally, working towards the destruction of the region. We don't know enough about what the Vikings brought back from Neo Gear to judge but knowing they have ties to a terrorist group that has been actively causing chaos across multiple countries is... Well, I mean, you get the gist of it I'm sure.

Ares is an opportunity, and getting payback is secondary to discovering whatever secrets he knows about this mountain, but those Vikings represent an external threat that would undermine the Frozen Throne and bring immense danger to their longstanding rule over the the country. Sure the Throne mostly cares about the fact they can't rule a country that's been ravaged and burnt to the ground but, if it tackling the matter head on indirectly saves civilians, then it's a win win for everyone if we stop it right? The only issue is that the Nu Kings aren't co-operating with our investigation so forceful measures are being taken to apprehend them and analyse their imported tech. We haven't found anything out of the ordinary yet but we aren't convinced there's nothing under the hood and so that's where our forces have been dedicated mostly.'

Ares scratched his head and gave a half-hearted chuckle. 'Sounds to me like the Throne should be focussing all their efforts on that and not wasting any manpower on Ares.'

The guard shrugged. 'Why not both? Ares would obviously avoid the Frozen Throne, right? And Ares has been getting himself constantly involved in Torchbearer stuff too yeah? By that logic, if the Throne station themselves on the higher mountains, opposite the Nu Kings, then in order to avoid the Throne Ares would stroll right into the Vikings' territory of his own free will. We aren't sure if he's actively pursuing the Torchbearer or not but, regardless, he has every reason to go cause trouble on their side of the mountain instead of ours. Either the Vikings beat Ares, and we swoop in to steal him and extract info from him about the treasure he's searching for, or Ares beats them and the Torchbearer plot is foiled. The inevitable confrontation between Ares and the Vikings benefits us so all we have to do is block off the only path that avoids the Vikings and, hey presto, we come out on top in the end while other groups fight our battles for us. Pretty crafty, eh? Plus the Vikings are also aware of the rumours that Ares is aware of a hidden treasure so they won't leave him alone either. All we have to do is wait on the sidelines for everything we want to fall right into our laps!'

'I see...' Ares stroked his chin with a small smile but the vicious glint in his eyes went unnoticed amidst the turbulent snowstorm kicking up. 'Well I wish you all good luck with that. I haven't seen Ares wandering around but I'll keep an eye out for him. I'll let you know if I see head or tail of him.'

'Ah really? What a lifesaver. We don't know the first thing about him... Heh, we should have gone back to base for a handout but it's far away and neither of us could be bothered.'

'Understandable. In that case, keep an eye out for an extremely handsome, tall, muscular individual with an innate charm that could woo even a stone. He's magnificent from head to toe, has perfect skin, is modest down to the bone, and is probably the smartest man in the world even. Pretty easy to spot, I think.' Ares nodded his head solemnly as he spoke as if recounting an objective true tale of a previous meeting with the guy he was describing... Although it was certainly embellished a little. 'Well I'm sure he's around here somewhere so keep your eyes peeled. Also, he has a bad habit of stealing other people's spatial rings. The bastard took mine a few days ago and I just have to accept the fact that I'm never getting it back.' Naturally this was all falsehoods but Ares had already stolen the guard's spatial rings so he wanted a cover story and pinning the blame on this mythical ghost 'Ares' was far too simple of a method.

Ares kept chatting with the guards for another few minutes, not about anything interesting though, and eventually took his leave with a faux friendly wave. Ares reached the intersection point between the mountain he was currently stood on and the flat bottom of the next mountain up and traversed it. It was always a steep climb from one mountain to another and the massive drop visible at the edges of the mountain was enough to make Ares' scalp go numb. He had means to hover in the air or glide with the Zephyr, and he could use Voidwalk to make falling from this height a non-issue, but it was a view that sent butterflies to one's stomach regardless. The ground was hard to even visualise from this high up and people looked like ants that could be squished by dropping even a single hardback book from this height. Every single mountain from this point up was steep as an be so if you ever took a break on one you were at an incline that would slide you down to the bottom of the mountain, and off into the sky, if you weren't paying attention. Going to sleep on these mountains was a death sentence if you weren't properly prepared and strapped to the floor as you could easily roll all the way down and go tumbling into the air, resetting your progress or killing you if you didn't have a means of flying / preventing the fall. Most people tied themselves to the trunks of gravity-defying trees to prevent this issue or just flat out didn't sleep, it was that much of an issue. For now, Ares could use the Roving Elliot as it was stable and didn't roll about when stationary but he knew that the further he climbed the less valid this approach would be to getting some shut eye. The Throne and the Nu Kings probably had specialised gear to overcome this problem but Ares wasn't a native and would have to just wing it as he went.

Ares set up the Elliot, parking it between a group of bushes that obscured it from the outside world surprisingly well and gave him a camouflaged resting spot, and decided to take a quick nap. It was better to get as much sleep in early as possible on the off chance he needed to take a few sleepless nights near the top of the mountain... "Who the fuck are you?" Well sleeping was the plan, anyway, but some strange and excitable lizard poofed into existence and began rummaging around the Elliot with a greedy smile on its face. Ares didn't know what this firework-tailed salamander was looking for, who it was, or why it was here, but he had a feeling this intruder was not ordinary. Ares recognised the dumb look on its face, it was similar to his own at times, but he knew to look beyond that and this salamander wasn't a pushover. It's aura was like that of Terros' so Ares couldn't just pluck the lizard by the tail and chuck it out... Even if he really wanted to.