Ares had lowered the disintegration barrier and there was no more noise so he poked his head around the corner and had to retract it immediately lest he hurl. It was definitely not a pretty sight in there right about now but, thankfully, it seemed like Enyo was using her barriers to clean everything. She''d laid them out on the floor so she could lift up all the mess after, throw it away in a pile, and burn it with holy fire but, honestly, even holy fire was going to purge the evil lingering on those body parts... Not a chance! Ares waited a little longer, until he heard the sound of a blazing fire and saw some white flashes coming from within the restaurant, and finally walked back inside with his tail between his legs where it was nice and safe from the butcher from hell. Maybe there was some deep seated issue Bellona had with being flat and this was her way of taking it out on the world? A kind of ''if I''m to be small, everyone else shall be made smaller!'' type of deal? Ares didn''t want to find out and asking was not a clever idea. Quite frankly, he never wanted to speak of this matter ever again! That cleaver could be disintegrated and this event memory holed and nobody would be any worse off! Speaking of the devil in a woman''s body, Blo Blo was merrily whistling to herself as she kept flipping the blood stained cleaver in the air and catching it by the handle. It seemed like she was going to go and wash it but, really, it was highly unlikely Gavel wanted to keep it anymore... Rather, no one in their right mind wanted it! A tool for cutting other... Tools, was a device best kept under lock and key if not outright banished to the void! So why did Blo Blo seem intent on keeping it!? Was this going to become a common occurrence going forward?! Ares hoped not! If nothing else, he hoped he didn''t have to be around when it happened.
While Blo Blo slunk off the kitchen as she was playing with her new toy, Ares looked down at the young master with a disgusted and cringe ridden face that made it obvious he did not envy the guy. His legs had deep cuts in them as they''d acted like a chopping board so whenever the cleaver tore through his lower half it would end up embedded in his ankle, calf, or thigh. The young master had tears streaming down his face and even a little blood from how hard he accidentally bit his tongue while he was yelling earlier. His head was still rocking side to side as his brain coped with the pain. For the first time in his entire life, the kid felt genuinely sorry down to his core. He''d lied about it before, sure, but this time he''d been taught a harsh enough lesson to actually drill humility and humbleness into him. If he were to live beyond this day of repentance he would actually become a better person, it was clear as day. Still, that wasn''t going to happen. Ares was lenient but he was not merciful. You could push his buttons a little, especially if it was just him you were aiming for, but go on for too long or aim for someone around him and then you were in deep trouble and there was no way out of it. Tolerance but never forgiveness. The young master could make an oath to be Ares'' little pet, walk on all fours, and carry him around for the rest of time but Ares would still not spare him. He might accept the oath, to give the kid false hope, and then do him in anyway just to watch him feel betrayed... But let''s face it, the poor bastard had gone through hell and back already and didn''t need insult to be added to injury like that right about now...
Ares looked over at Enyo who was heading over to do her part and presumably kill him during the act. Whatever she had planned would likely result in his death as Enyo wasn''t the type to drag things like that on for no valid reason. She didn''t enjoy it so anything non-lethal just wasn''t in the cards. It would hurt like hell, and be torturous all the same, but there would at least be a light at the end of the tunnel for the young master. Probably a bright orange light because he was going straight to the pits of hell, if it even existed, and not taking even a single detour on the way. As for Enyo, she''d pulled out her trusty shield and was walking behind the young master and lifting it up. It seemed her brutality was going to be a lot more plain but no less devastating. All she was going to do was bash the young master''s head in again and again and again. He would go from completely sane, or at least as sane as a man who just went through what Blo Blo put him through could be anyway, and end up a brain dead coma patient in a vegetative state. The pain would be immense but short lived as his head was dented and subsequently caved in, at which point the shield would start digging into his brain. The sooner he died the better but it wasn''t likely he would bite the dust before he''d had tremors sent through his whole body at least a couple of times. Enyo could have encased her shield in a pressurised barrier and, at that point, she would have killed him in a single swing... But that wasn''t the point of this and so she brought her shield down the old fashioned way, even holding back some of her strength so as not to accidentally end things right away.
CRACK
The first strike came crashing down with a thunderous blow that split the kid''s head and caused blood to flow out all over the table. Part of his brain was visible through the cracked skull and he was rolling around in his restraints in agony, screaming once more. This didn''t end up benefitting him, however, as all it did was cause Enyo''s next attack to miss its mark slightly and prolong his suffering as it hit him on the side of the head instead. This attack took off his ear and scraped the entire left side of his face.
CRACK
CRACK
CRACK
CRACK
CRACK
SQUIDGE
Again and again Enyo brought the shield of justice down on the tyrant and crushing his head piece by piece. Bits of skull were tattered and lying on the floor as the young master had stopped moving entirely. He wasn''t dead but he wasn''t conscious, or could be ever again, as he was permanently brain damaged. Even if someone could restore his awareness he wouldn''t be able to speak properly or function like a regular human. He was done for as a living creature but, luckily, he was about to be put out of his misery right this very instant. The last strike Enyo did had been uninterrupted by bone and simply dug into the kid''s brain, drilling through the grey matter and severing all sorts of important looking things within his head. The twitching and the spasming didn''t stop, though, and whether or not the kid was feeling pain in these last few moments would never be know to anyone other than himself as he was about to take that knowledge to the grave.
Enyo raised the shield up high, gripped it with both hands this time, and slammed the bottom of the shield down so hard she sliced through the head entirely and broke the table in half. The shield kept going and even sunk into the floor, causing a tremor and cracking the ground at that location. Enyo had set up barriers to easily deal with the mess but where the shield fell there wasn''t one so Gavel''s floor had been ruined somewhat... Ares would have a word with her about compensation afterwards... Between the wall and the floor, almost all off the stardust Ares earned by melting down the transition realm cultivators would be gone for good... Que sera, sera. It was a night out on the town! Gotta be a little bit of a spendthrift here and there, right? Although perhaps this wasn''t what most people had in mind.
Enyo raised the barriers filled with brain matter, blood, eyeball bits, and shattered skull to burn everything but Ares was quicker on the draw and simply waved his hand to disintegrate it all. Enyo''s barriers did come with a thin layer of disintegration but it would take a while for it to chew through the thickness off the blood that was lying atop it. Ares'' disintegration, on the other hand, was immediately effective and, now, there was no proof the young master or the two guards had even existed in this place save for the damaged floor and wall... That and the parka Bellona had taken off the kid earlier before she went to town on him. That was something! Although things had gotten a little sour, and more than just a little out of hand, the parka was now in good hands! Hooray for murder! Ares turned to Enyo with a wry smile and spoke to her to see what was going on in that strange head of hers. "So, uh, you wanna talk about it?"
Enyo just shrugged and sighed. "No, that''s alright, we can talk tomorrow about it. Let''s not ruin the night over this. Besides, if Bellona can still be chipper as ever then we shouldn''t be such fuddy duddies and take this more seriously than her. Can''t go ruining the mood when it''s not really that big a deal, right? Speaking of, where is that dangerous woman anyhow? She was just cleaning the cleaver, she should have been back by now..." As if on cue, Bellona came out the kitchen with a huge smile on her face. Not an evil one like before, one of pure joy. Enyo raised an eyebrow and queried where exactly this good vibe had come from. "What''s gotten into you? I take it you''re not over the moon just because you have a ceremonial man-slaughter tool in your possession now?"
"Hm?" Bellona looked over at the two as she had been making her way back to the booth, "Oh, no! Enyo you would NOT believe how cute the tiny elf chef is! She''s so small and hardworking! I just had to give her hugs and head pats!... Although I did squeal a bit at one point which scared her but I apologised and hugged her some more to make up for it! I even made sure to hide the cleaver otherwise the poor little thing would have freaked out. Ten out of ten on the cuteness scale though! It''s worth eating here just to see the elf! To think there was such a talented and adorable kid working back there! Ares! You should have introduced me earlier! You know I like cute stuff."
"Yes ma''am!" Ares stood upright and to attention as he saluted the scary lady with a cleaver.
"Eh? What''s gotten into you?" Bellona seemed to be completely and blissfully unaware of the scale of her horrors but that didn''t make her falter. Instead, she simply changed the conversation topic and allowed Ares to keep being weird for no apparent reason... Even if the reason was extremely apparent to anyone with a pair of balls. "Anyway, here ya go! As a reward for showing me that dope ass flying kick earlier, one like it had just come out an old eastern movie, I present to thee.... A parka!" Bellona pulled out the parka and lobbed it at the still stock still Ares. It landed on him and draped over his shoulder like he was some kind of mannequin but he almost jumped in fright when the thing became a personal treasure instantly! This thing wanted him real bad! And he could tell why, it was actually a draconic treasure.
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The design of the parka wasn''t meaningless, or sowed on or anything, it was actually symbolic of the nature of the treasure. Ares hadn''t even put it on, and probably wouldn''t right now as it was hot enough in here as is, but he could feel the sweltering heat of a dragon''s breath emanating from the parka. According to what he could gleam from this treasure, it was known as the Scaled Insulator and was a treasure that had long been hidden under the ice in Isasz from way back when the Primordial barrier wasn''t even yet a thing. A dying dragon curled up around its human friend''s corpse and voila! Dragon jacket! The story regarding the dragon and his friend wasn''t anything too complicated, they won a fight but paid a heavy price and so they crash landed on Sheryashka and died in Isaz. Tragic but all too common a fate in the cultivation world. Of course their story probably went a lot further back than that but none of that was shown in this small capsule of knowledge he could gleam directly from the treasure so their tale would be long forgotten and made meaningless by the annals of time. Maybe they''d fought against one another in the past or maybe the human raised the dragon since it was a hatchling, either way they were both dead now and Ares was wearing the culmination of their final moments together.
As for what this bad boy could do, the obvious one was regulate temperatures in cold environments. There was some scaled plating inside the parka, so it was even thicker than it looked, and those scales would act like hot plates to heat up the wearer. They also functioned as defence to block out some of the impact from attacks so that was neat. The other ability this thing possessed was an art similar to overheat that could pump out a blast of fire around it, turning Ares into a furnace bomb of sorts. It was slightly better than overheat though as the art could be maintained instead of being immediately detonated on use, serving as a permanent aura of heat that was quite severe and could maybe burn a person if they stayed in it long enough. Of course the main usage of this was actually to heat up fellow travellers whereas the full detonation was for combat. Regardless, for any cold regions Ares would happen across on his journeys, this parka was absolutely invaluable and then some!
It was way too good a treasure for the kid though as there was more to it that could only be utilised by a person with draconic heritage. Ares might not have been able to awaken it before but, now that the golden seed was fully digested, the parka had reacted to his bloodline and became a personal treasure on sight. It also gained an interesting ability that allowed Ares to bring out his draconic bloodline a little and breathe fire. Not destruction oriented fire like Garmr, just regular old fire breath. Pretty neat! It gave him another means of attacking while he was wearing it that didn''t cost mana. It was just a permanent tool provided he was wearing the treasure. That more than made up for the inevitable loss off mobility he would incur when wearing this bulky thing but Ares had enough means to speedily dart around anyway and he could sacrifice some innate speed for this. In cold, icy regions fire breath would see plenty of action against the local monsters and no doubt be highly effective so it was particularly handy! Also, not only was it a fire source anywhere and at anytime, it was also access to fire breath that he wouldn''t have otherwise had. Yes it was weird that Ares, being part dragon, couldn''t breathe normal fire before acquiring this treasure but, well, he had a better variant anyway so who cared! Also, that slight inconvenience had been rectified so although it wasn''t a massive deal it was pretty great in its own way. Good haul!
Now that the trio had sorted out all their immediate problems, Ares turned around to Gavel with a wry smile. She''d seen some serious stuff go down in her restaurant tonight! Any normal person would be a little frightful but, despite being a mortal, Gavel was just giving the trio an impressed thumbs up. She''d lived the kind of life where people met similar ends, if not occasionally worse, so none of this was new to her. Now, if she was truly business minded she might have been a little annoyed at having had this happen inside her restaurant, as it might deter potential customers, but right now she was basking in the afterglow of a good show. If anything she liked Ares'' wives even more now! Especially Bellona, that was one fiery woman when riled up! Still, even if she was perfectly accepting of everything that happened here Ares was not and wanted to give renumeration for the expenses she would have to pay. Granted she earned a metric ton of money due to the nature of the restaurant being fine dining as the prices she could gouge... Ahem... The prices she could throw on the menu were pretty jaw dropping sometimes. Well, jaw dropping for a mortal-based business anyway. There were fine dining cultivator restaurants, which this establishment could very well become one day with Remmy at the helm, and that was where the biggest of big bucks started to flow. Although it was worth mentioning that locals got a very different price than foreigners did... Anyway, point being that whether Gavel made money or not was irrelevant, Ares was going to pay her by hook or by crook. "Gavel. I''m not taking no for an answer so let me pay for the floor and the wall. I don''t know how much you need but I''ll give you three high grade as that ought to cover it and then some. The extra can be considered the rest of my apology and then we''re all squared up. You''re already letting me eat for free so this is non-negotiable otherwise the food will only end up tasting sour in my mouth."
Gavel was stubbornly shaking her head and tried to deny Ares. "It''s really not important. It was my fault for dumping the problem on your head to begin with so I should accept the means with which you solved the problem. I couldn''t prevent the issue and required the aid of a customer to solve it so it should be me apologising to you and those lovely lady friends of yours."
"... Lovely... Very..." Ares couldn''t get the image of a cleaver out of his brain but shook his head and carried on discussing the stardust issue with Gavel. " Look, Gavel, you don''t have a say in this! I will hide the stardust in this restaurant somewhere and just leave it there for you to find one day when you''re cleaning up if you don''t take it off my hands now. Hell I might even give it directly to Remmy and tell her to go spend it willy nilly. Even if you don''t use it on the floor and wall you should have some fun with it at least. Maybe buy Remmy some new clothes or take her on a trip somewhere. She works hard and could do with a break... Not that she wouldn''t want to cook on holiday anyway. Point being, whatever you use it for, you will be using it!... Ah wait a minute, I nearly forgot about this..." Ares just realised the Tricky Rink was lingering around on some parts of the floor. He almost completely forgot but one portly middle-aged man who was trying to leave the building had stumbled, tripped, and face planted due to the ice... Whoops! Although, to be fair to Ares, this guy could have just asked him to remove it. It''s not like Ares would bite his head off or anything! If he should be worried about anyone it was Bellona but she was already safely secured and contained within the booth. Ares removed the rest of the rink and turned back to Gavel while holding a small pouch with the high grades in them. Gavel stared at the pouch in silence for a while before sighing as she realised there was no hope of winning this argument. Remmy could get extremely lost in her cooking so all Ares had to do was walk into the kitchen and put it in her pocket and she would be none the wiser about it. If Gavel couldn''t'' fight it, she would just accept it instead and make sure the rest of their meal was enjoyable and went undisturbed.
"Alright alright, twist my leg why don''t ya?" Gavel took the pouch and stored it in her back pocket. "Go on and sit your ass back in the booth and choose what you want from the menu, I''ll have Remmy prioritise your order whenever you''ve decided what you want exactly. Gavel walked away leaving Ares to re-enter the lion''s den... And he was sitting next to her too! He kept repeating the words She won''t do it to you in his had over and over again. It''s not that he didn''t believe it, and needed to drill it in or anything, it''s that it was a comforting mantra that soothed his soul and relieved his trembling mind of the fear that ailed it... For all of five seconds before he had to say it again... Ares boldly dared to go where no other man wanted to and hopped inside the booth. He close the door behind and sat down all in one fluid motion, so as not to allow himself to chicken out, and somehow manged all of that without looking in Bellona''s direction... Which earned him a poke in the ribs causing him to jump in his seat!
"What do you want from me, devil spawn!?"
Bellona''s jaw dropped because she had no idea what she''d done to deserve this treatment! "Alright, that''s it punk! You''re gonna get the chop!" In a karmic twist of fate, Blo Blo had pulled out the cleaver again and was swinging the blunt end at Ares who was using Voidwalk to cling to the walls and ceiling of the booth in order to keep as large a distance as humanly possible from his manic wife! She was getting far too comfortable with that damn cleaver! Ares was going to pry it off her and hide it in the ocean! What did she even realistically need it for anyway?! She couldn''t cook to save her life! Unless it was bubble tea, in that case ignore the earlier statement.
Speaking of bubble tea, Blo Blo eventually got tired of waving the cleaver so she sat down to look through the menu again as she sipped on some homemade bubble tea she brought out of her spatial ring. Normally she wouldn''t do such a thing in a restaurant but today was all over the place and there were no drinks in the booth currently, as they''d been knocked over during the earlier kerfuffle, and so she was making do with what she had. Plus it''s not like she could order extra wine to make up for it as she was getting everything for free... Taking advantage of that would be pretty low so, rather than order more drink than was necessary, having her own was actually the more polite thing to do right now! It was also non-alcoholic and Blo Blo could tell Enyo was going to load her up on wine throughout the night so she was enjoying a very different flavour right now before the booze was brought out. As for Ares, he''d cautiously taken a seat and was patting Blo Blo on the head like a feral animal in a bid to ease the tensions. She called him an idiot but made no other moves towards him so he considered this trick to be a success!
Now that the young master and his cronies were dead and, more importantly, the cleaver was MIA, it was time to finally enjoy the night as things should have been from the get go. Of course none of this had changed the fact that the sisters still hadn''t chosen the other two meals yet... Or which wine to have... Or which dessert to order... Ares could tell he was going to be waiting here for a while before he could call Gavel over... Oh well, at least they were having a good time and not dwelling on everything that just occurred, that was for the best... Although he seriously wished they would hurry up...