Ares spent the remainder of his free time practicing how to effectively utilise divine sense up until it was the day of the next match. He felt comfortable with it now and could activate it on demand, like with his Omniscience, so his acquisition of it had been fairly smooth minus any hiccups regarding a lack of knowledge at the start. As for the match today, the Red Sun team was going up against the Akarala team. Akarala was a mostly tribal country with a few major tribes running three key areas throughout the country. They had quite a lengthy and convoluted history to them as most Akaralans were aevysqualls with a tendency to be slightly deaf. You would think this didn''t really matter but, again, their history was fraught with some pretty unbelievable nonsense as a result of this inherent trait. Still, that was something Ares would regale his fellow travellers with should he ever visit the place so there was no need to discuss it all now.
Akarala was an interesting country as they had a serious connection to the divine. Not many people in Sheryashka knew of the Gods but the Akaralans had definitive proof of it. Of course people were still sceptical of things they could never see or experience in person but most people who visited Akarala changed their minds real quick when they saw the extent of one particular God''s involvement. Now that Ares and Mako were known quantities it likely wouldn''t take long for confirmation of the Gods, as well as how they functioned, to spread across the world, lending credence to the claims of the Akaralans... Not that they needed it. Their proof was two fold as the Goddess of the Lightning pillar, Thundraga, had left her mark on their country in two major ways, both of which were fairly recent happenings compared to other long standing myths. Of course to mere mortals and people who''d only lived a few hundred years at most the mythology of Akarala was borderline ancient but, on a bigger scale, it was a pretty mediocre amount of time all things considered.
Both pieces of evidence had been dropped in Akarala around the same time for the same reason, Dominus, and it was worth explaining his connection to all of this before describing in detail the proof of Thundraga''s involvement. Thundraga was a tiny little dragon girl with a temper at least a thousand times the size of her stature. She''d always been a bit of moody brat because her parents had abandoned her at a young age and she just sort of stumbled through life. Not just anyone could become a God or Goddess though so, naturally, she was an incredibly talented youngster which made the fame she racked up go to her head. Being both a dragon and a serious candidate for becoming the next Goddess of the lightning pillar gave her a reason to act smug and grandstand in front of her parents on the world stage. The reverence caused her prickly attitude to spiral even further for quite some time. This reached a peak when she eventually, finally, became the Goddess she always wanted to be and set out to obliterate her parents with a thunderous clap of concentrated extinction.
Along the journey, the tiny dragon child happened across a travelling Dominus who was busy skinning a dragon. On the one hand, the only other dragons Thundraga knew were her parents who she hated. On the other hand, watching her own kind be brutally toyed with in death as some unscrupulous man rummaged around inside their corpse for valuables was not an easy sight to digest. Unsure of whether or not she should kill the man, Thundraga descended right next to him and warily struck up a conversation... Or tried to but Dominus beat her to the punch and said something along the lines of ''ooohh, more dragon scales to sell.'' Thundraga was understandably pissed off at this and so she burnt him to a crisp then and there before leaving. She made no effort to double check his melted corpse crackling with lightning as she had assumed that would be the end of the matter but, when she came across him again a day later selling one of her scales that she hadn''t even noticed he''d stolen, she realised there was more to this idiot than meets the eye.
Thundraga descended beside Dominus again and stared him in the eyes as he casually waved back at her. The dragon child was curious and, thus, although Dominus seemed to be friendly, she burnt him to a crisp again. If he could live through it once, Thundraga believed he could do it again! His general, un-fearing demeanour was evidently not one borne of ignorance so she put this strange man to the test. As she''d never met a revenant prior to now, when the strange man reformed himself entirely like some kind of fleshy blob, she assumed he was a slime in disguise or something of that ilk. Dominus was reborn and didn''t seem particularly ticked off at having been unjustly murdered as he was attempting to wave at the dragon child again... And then Thundraga melted him one more time with her electrical fire for good measure. While Dominus regenerated, Thundraga picked up her scale from the floor and put it back in place only to find another one missing! She turned around and saw Dominus, the real one and not the clone she''d just melted, sneaking away in the middle of the street in broad daylight. He wasn''t fooling anybody but his brazen disregard for a dragon Goddess annoyed Thundraga to no end so she struck at him with her lightning rod tail. The tail swept through Dominus'' body and severed him in two but that didn''t stop his bottom half from picking itself up and running away in one direction while the top half scarpered in the opposite direction. Thundraga blasted the upper half and chased the lower half only to find Dominus fully regenerated like some kind of worm on steroids.
Getting fed up with this charade, Thundraga ran up behind Dominus and tried to tail swipe him again, only to unceremoniously end up up on her rear, facing the sky. She heard Dominus giggling to himself as he ran away again while she lay on the floor coming to terms with her unexpected defeat at the hands of some random stranger. It really put things into perspective for her. If she couldn''t beat him, then could she really beat two mighty dragons? She was a Goddess but evidently that meant nothing to the people who didn''t necessarily outrank her but certainly outclassed her. There were all kinds of people in this world and she''d just gotten a taste of one of the weirder ones. Still, she had her pride and arrogance so she wasn''t going to let this matter go just like that.
Thundraga got up and flew over the town, chasing Dominus as he made numerous attempts to disguise himself and flee Thundraga''s hunt... Although whether he was really trying to or not was pretty obvious because the extent of his disguises was laughable at best. It was more so disrespectful tomfoolery than it was any kind of meaningful trickery. We''re talking trench coat and fake moustache levels of effort here. Although, to be fair, putting all of that on as fast as he did required more effort that it would have taken to just hide like a normal person but that was clearly not his goal with any of this. Yet again, Thundraga was being mocked. She was about to swoop down and strike at him again but she noticed another scale of hers had disappeared... Now she was deeply concerned. She''d been spectating this guy constantly from afar and he was still somehow picking bits of her body off her without her being aware of it... Being outclassed as a new Goddess was one thing but the extent to which she was being humiliated right now was worrying. Was she truly this incompetent or was this guy actually someone important? If she was provoking someone with a bigger name and reputation than her then this was a bad decision and, yet, she couldn''t help but chase the idiot. He had a certain kind of ''he''s within arm''s reach and if I just expend a little more energy I can get him'' appeal. Like you just couldn''t stop running after him. Thundraga was a bear and Dominus was the juicy fish that kept flopping out of her hand and slapping her in the face whenever she went to bite into it.
Thundraga dive kicked Dominus from hundreds of feet in the air but she was halted in place by Dominus'' pointer finger and now she knew something was very wrong with this guy. She hopped back and stared him down while he used mana to make himself blush. Eventually a ''proper'' conversation was had, or at least as proper as you''re going to get with a childish revenant, in which Thundraga finally learnt the name of her opponent. Dominus hadn''t been wearing his trademark armour so he wasn''t visible at a glance which was why Thundraga had shown him zero respect. Although she''d never met a revenant she knew all too well of Dominus who meandered about in various circles in the upper echelons of society. No wonder she''d been getting her ass beat, this guy was in line to become the next God of the weapons pillar which, unlike her own position, had been highly contested! Still, at least everything had been cleared up now. She knew why he was able to regenerate to such a degree and why she''d been beat, the latter of which disinclined her from pursuing her previous objective as she was still far too inexperienced to attempt such a thing.
Over time a friendship of sorts formed between Dominus and Thundraga, the latter of which saw the former like a kind of father figure in a weird, roundabout way. She clung to him, not literally but metaphorically, and followed him around to all sorts of places. Most notably she went along with him to his home down in Sheryashka once and made a mental note that this was where Dominus would return to one day if he ever needed to actually be revived from scratch. An unlikely scenario given Dominus'' supposed immortality but one she kept in the back of her mind nonetheless. Dominus was the only interesting person around, and one of the only important people in her life, so she learnt a lot about him over the course of many years. In particular she learnt about the how the bad rap sheet he had was mostly incorrect and just a result of various revenant oriented smear campaigns. He wasn''t perfect by any means but, really, who was? There was nothing about him that bothered the dragon child so she had no trouble getting along with him. Dominus seemingly had no issues with her following him around everywhere like a puppy on a leash either so the status quo remained up until he eventually bit the dust proper. Yes his wife, the one he actually cared about and not the hundreds of others, was the most devastated by this news but, off in her own cave, Thundraga was equally as sad. She had faith he would return but it was taking a while and that irked her as it''s not like she wasn''t still a moody brat most of the time.
This was when she got frustrated and went to go pay Sheryashka a visit. She could check to see if Dominus was back and recovering his Celestial Cluster parts or if he''d yet to be brought back into the world. If he hadn''t recovered yet then she honestly wouldn''t know what to think as this situation was highly strange compared to what normally happened whenever Dominus ''died''. Thundraga, like everyone else, had no idea that Dominus couldn''t regenerate right now because he was trapped inside the Primordial Blade, delaying his return. This led to widespread rumours that maybe, just maybe, there really was a sure-fire way to kill off revenants but most people dismissed the thought. Just because Dominus hadn''t been found that didn''t mean he wasn''t out there being a menace in some backwater domain. That was what Thundraga believed too but still she decided to go and have a looksie herself down in Sheryashka. Unfortunately for her, and everyone else around her (as she became immensely moody after this, more so than usual), Dominus was nowhere to be found. She was starting to get a tad worried he''d actually gone and died so she threw a bunch of small temper tantrums here and there, terrorising domains and planets she didn''t like to get her frustration and anger out. She never gave up though and repeatedly checked in with Sheryashka from time to time to see if she could spy him hiding out somewhere. At the very least if the Celestial Prisms, or the Celestial Moongate Mountain which he''d hidden in the Isasz region, ever disappeared without a trace then she''d know he''d collected them and was out there somewhere. She checked and checked but never were they claimed and things were starting to look grim. The last time she paid a visit to Sheryashka, however, she noticed a tear in the fabric of reality and that was when everything kicked off.
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Venators, as briefly mentioned previously, were void creatures that took on a wide variety of shapes. Sometimes they were beastly, sometimes they were human, sometimes they were indescribable eldritch abominations that took no specific shape or form. What was true about them, however, is that they formed armies like it was a hobby. They waited behind cracks in space to jump out of from the void and terrorise anyone and everyone they could find. Though they weren''t mindless or lacking in free will, they served no other discernible purpose than to kill living creatures as they viewed that as their morally bound duty. Plus they revelled in it so whenever a chance came by they would strike while the iron was hot. Thundraga had been in Sheryashka when a flock of Venators broke through into Akarala so she did as her Godly duties demanded of her and went around smiting them.
Venators were usually a massive problem for most cultivators as they were strong and basically indestructible. They didn''t have the regeneration of revenants but actually splitting them in half or putting holes in them was considered to be impossible by most. Even someone like Thundraga took a good few minutes to kill even a single weak venator and it wasn''t through lack of trying either. Still, she was a Goddess so sitting around for a few hundred years and zapping these dumb creatures wasn''t actually a problem for her. Sometime during her crusade the God or potentially Goddess of the water pillar showed up to aid in the venator eradication mission. Nobody really knows much about the, presumably, God of the water pillar because it''s just a giant, and I mean GIANT, megalodon that floats through the air surrounded by a bubble of water. It had understandably taken the liberty of altering its appearance to hide its genitalia so figuring out if it was a he or a she wasn''t really possible. Plus it never spoke either so that wasn''t going to help determine anything. It was just a prehistoric, absolutely massive creature that floated around doing whatever the hell it felt like. There were rumours, unconfirmed, that the megalodon did open its mouth once but the ensuing noise destroyed roughly three quarters of the domain it happened to be in, and permanently deafened everyone who lived, so maybe that was why it kept silent? Again, not much was really known about this God so a lot of stories crept up in place of actual facts and it was hard to tell which ones were to be believed and which were to be ignored. As for the venators, eventually, they were all but wiped out entirely...
... Or so the two deities believed, anyway.
A final wave of sorts came barrelling through the tear in space and, along with the weaker foot soldiers, a colossal Venator, roughly the size of two skyscrapers glued together, bulged through the gap and into this reality. What ensued was a difficult fight that spanned a century or two with snow, thunder, lightning, and tsunamis galore. Countless billions of snowflakes froze over everything they touched while Thundraga brought yellow and blue electric magic down upon anything with a pulse. To end the fight, Thundraga used an immensely powerful art and was followed up by the megalodon which froze everything in a wide range. They weren''t able to kill the massive venator but they did lock it in place for all eternity alongside some of the riff raff that came along with it.
This massive venator still exists today in Akarala and can even be climbed. A group by the name of the ''Frozen Thunder League'' lives atop the thunderbolt that struck the giant venator as it was also frozen by the water God mid strike, creating a platform many miles up in the sky. It was a fascinating place where snow fell eternally and lightning struck the ground at regular intervals. The clan that lived there made it their sworn duty to keep an eye out for venators or any signs of them returning. In essence, they were the first bastion against another invasion. Though even Gods struggled to kill the Venators, these people had been working on means to entrap and seal them so they wouldn''t be helpless should their mortal enemies come back for another round. These people were the only living experts in venator physiology throughout all the lower domains meaning they were a pretty niche group that not many people had heard of before. Anyway, this was the first mark Thundraga had left in that country and could still be seen today. Anyone who didn''t believe in Gods would change their minds real quick when seeing not only the colossal venator but also the thunder strike nearly three times its size buried in its cranium. Plus whatever froze both had to be packing proportionate power so if not a God then who or what else?
Regarding the second mark, before leaving Sheryashka, Thundraga left behind a gift for Dominus should he ever find himself back in this domain. It was his home so she figured this would be a place he actively sought out after returning, meaning there was no place more likely to have her message seen than here. It didn''t much matter where she put the gift within the domain because as soon as Dominus heard the rumours about Thundraga''s involvement he would know where to head to get a leg up over his competition via some timely aid. If he was restarting from scratch then aid from a God would prove to be an invaluable bit of assistance. As for what she''d graciously left him, it was her legacy treasure... For the sake of clarity, a legacy treasure can be considered to be roughly the same as a personal treasure but on steroids. It has all the properties of a personal treasure plus a bit extra. These treasures are generated at some point during a cultivator''s stay in the ''legacy everlasting'' realm and are based on the cultivator''s affinities to various pillars and aspects. A person can receive up to three legacy treasures, supposedly, for their highest affinity aspects. It goes a bit further than that though as the treasures also tend to be related to the cultivator''s most used arts within said pillar.
Effectively, legacy treasures are highly tailored, dedicated treasures that will go on to help a cultivator forge their own legacy by amplifying their ability to do what they are known for. These treasures are usually synonymous with the cultivator and stay with them for life. Generally speaking, any cultivator''s favourite treasure / treasures will always be their legacy treasures due to how well they synergise with the owner''s specialties. Legacy treasures can also be lent out to others, like personal treasures, but the conditions to borrow them can be specified down to a tee. With a personal treasure, you need direct permission from an owner to take it. With a legacy treasure, the owner can set a test, a password, or require the DNA of a certain somebody in order to borrow it. Like this, people can leave behind their legacy and entrust it to someone who fits their criteria. Personal treasures usually disappear under most circumstances when the owner dies but legacy treasures do not if they have been intentionally left behind.
Also, for the most part, while it isn''t always true, legacy treasures are stronger than personal treasures. They are the height of treasures excluding anything mythological or legendary. So this realm is extremely important for people as it defines what kind of cultivator they''re likely going to be forever more. A cultivator with their legacy treasure is said to be at minimum, twice as strong as without it. Fighting after reaching this realm meant that almost everyone had some kind of unique treasure up their sleeve and it was something everyone had to watch out for. Point in case, all the matriarchs had their own legacy treasures too it''s just that there was rarely a reason to use them. Even Sadie had her own. For the most part, legacy everlasting was considered to be every cultivator''s favourite realm because it tends to be when a cultivator really comes into their own as an individual within the cultivation world. Plus the legacy treasures always had a little extra something personal that only the owner could do with them be it a passive benefit or an art. Even if you loaned it out, only the true owner would be ever able to make use of its full power so it was somewhat of a source of pride for a lot of people. Some Gods even lent out their personal treasures for various reasons just so they could indirectly showcase a fraction of the power they wielded. Of course some also did it for influence or allegiances but every God was different in that regard so there was no point searching for commonality in their mindsets.
TLDR, legacy treasures were just better personal treasures that every single person would get at some point, provided they lived long enough to reach said point. They were designed from the ground up to suit their owner and there could very well be multiple of them one any given person. How many you got was dependent on way too many factor to list but one was the minimum, two was the average, three was the known limit, and 9 was the hypothetical limit. It could give you three per aspect affiliation and the average number of affiliations per pillar was three, so three times three equalled nine hence this answer. There were typically limits to things like this so, even if a pillar had four or five aspects under it, it would wind up just being the three that the cultivator had the highest affinity for. That was how it always worked prior to now anyway. Nobody had ever gotten more than three legacy treasures, be it all three from the same aspect or three from different ones, but... Well... Some people didn''t exactly play by the rules of reality so it wasn''t impossible for the fundamentals to maybe go above and beyond like they always did.
But that was them and Thundraga was Thundraga.
She only had one legacy treasure but she still placed it in Akarala for Dominus'' sake because she felt like he would need it more than her. Her trusty bow remained in Akarala to this very day, waiting for Dominus to come and pick it up. If it detected him, he was allowed to wield it no questions asked. Being a legacy treasure belonging to a God meant it was very well guarded by the locals, though, and they practically worshipped the thing 24/7. Thundraga had left a note, that explicitly stated only one person in the world could pick it up, so the locals were just sort of endlessly waiting for the prophesized person to come and pick up the bow but so many generations had passed that it was a kind of folklore by this point and little else. Still, it was sitting there, ready to be plucked up by Dominus... Not. He was trapped inside Ares right now so... It looked like Ares was gonna get a brand new toy to play with at a later date!
And that about summed up the country that the opposing team hailed from. Culturally they were quite important but historically... Their ancestors had brought them unfathomable shame. Still, that was a story for another time. Right now it was almost time for the match to start and that was the more pressing issue for Ares and co who were waiting in the usual room for the light to indicate they could walk down the hallway. Something was amiss in the room, though, as a certain someone, who''s name began with ''A'' and ended in ''res'', was playing around with a brand new weapon; the very same one he''d gotten from the farmers back in the sect. After watching Pali''s Scytheguards, it seemed like Ares was interested in learning the how to use the same weapon they did. Dominus had no knowledge of them in his data bank, or at least not enough to be worth mentioning, so Ares gravitated towards it like a dog to an oversized stick. The match wouldn''t be too interesting but, if nothing else, maybe he could learn how to swing this awkward weapon around! it had been far too long since Ares made use of his weapon mastery and now as good a time as any to get some practice in.