Sigh
Ares woke up and found himself tied to the bed. This wasn''t the first time this had happened although last time it was Appa trying to prevent him from leaving. This time Blo Blo and Enyo were working together to make life hard. Why they even bothered with such a token resistance Ares didn''t know but he quickly disintegrated the rope binding him and turned to face the two imps to his right. They were lying down right beside each other with Bellona, the shorter of the two, in front so Enyo could peek over her head. They were both peering at him with sad faces and beady eyes but Ares wasn''t going to budge! He had a journey to go on so he painstakingly looked away from them and got changed without ever turning his head back towards them!... This had not been a wise idea as Enyo was very quick to try and sneak up on Ares and fiddle with his junk from behind. Ares was quick on the uptake, however, and Shifted away into the bathroom to get some peace and quiet. Unfortunately for Bellona, Enyo''s switch was currently flicked on so she betrayed her comrade in ''Ares guilt tripping'' arms and went on the attack, giving Ares the freedom to get changed without being hassled anymore. Bellona''s sacrifice was much appreciated.
Ares Shifted straight out into the hallway and gave the sisters time to cool their heads off while he went to go wake up a certain sleepy head brother that would absolutely snooze through the entire day if Ares didn''t hassle him now. The Federation only left in a few days from now but it wasn''t worth missing it just because this guy was sleeping like a log. Ares knocked on the door and Allie opened it for him a few minutes later with a greeting. Ares gave her a pat on the head, responded in kind with his own greeting, and ventured deeper into the extraordinarily messy room. Allie''s pill concoctions were occasionally done in her cubby over in the corner, Aejaz was naturally messy and lazy when it came to cleaning, and it seemed Trixie wasn''t really much better even if she was definitely neater than Aejaz as it looked like she''d given up on keeping the mess in order... Ares was seriously going to have to consider hiring a maid or something down the line to clean up this shmuck''s room for him... Ares sighed as he waved to Trixie, who was looking through her wardrobe for something or other, and then finally walked up to the bedside while staring down at the soundly asleep thief. Aejaz was smiling away at whatever pleasant dream he was having and Ares decided that this shmuck deserved to be taught a lesson for constantly oversleeping. Ares had learnt Past-Present Polymerisation as of late, when he wasn''t busy pressurising his Backfire Bindings, because he wanted to share memories of his trip with the sister wives after returning but he''d already found a use for it before he''d even left! Put simply, it was time to give Aejaz nightmares!
In Aejaz'' dream world he was the debonair owner of a happening casino with bustling buzz aplenty. This was his paradise and it had finally taken form in his wildest dreams in a way that he could pinpoint exactly what he wanted out of life which was coincidental because he would actually one day get it... That aside, he was slinking through the isles in this dream world, watching the stardust roll in as smooth jazz and the melodious clinking of chips flowed straight into his ears. He double and triple checked the ground floor for any potential thieves, which was extremely ironic, before leaving contentedly to head back to his luxury apartment elsewhere. He swaggered through a pair of double doors leading to the back area of the casino but paused on the spot when the room he sauntered so confidently into was unfamiliar. He had the entire building plan laid out in his mind, and ought to have known what was where, so the fact he''d stumbled into an unknown, pitch black room of sorts was bizarre. Did he rearrange things for convenience and accidentally put the electrical room here instead? Was it malfunctioning for some reason? Aejaz liked to play the hero in his head every now and then so this might have been one such instance where a bunch of terrorists sabotaged the lights and went to rob everyone in the casino of all of Aejaz'' hard earned stardust! He would swoop in, save the day with cocky brilliance and overwhelming bravado, and then walk away with one wife in either arm to the tune of applause and reverent cheers, all the while stardust rained from the heavens!... But this wasn''t looking like it was gonna be that. Maybe this time the darkness pillar had been corrupted in the higher realms and a nightmare being born of it was descending onto Aejaz'' realm for him to fight off? Regardless, the lights weren''t coming back on and he couldn''t feel around in the dark successfully to find either a door or a switch for a backup generator... What an odd dream...
... But it was about to get a whole lot stranger as Aejaz started falling backwards through this black void until he crashed suddenly onto what felt like a table of sorts. He couldn''t feel his spine after the fall but he could tell he was strapped to the table via restraints and unable to move, making it feel like an operating table, as something clip-clopped towards him from beyond the darkness. An evil, pervasive aura sunk into his bones and he had a bad feeling something truly horrific was coming... Chop.... Chop? What was that strange cutting noise and why did Aejaz feel a small surge of pain down near his mostly numb legs? Something was messing with him but he was unable to peer directly at it thanks to the restraints around his neck but, luckily, they were starting to get looser with every wriggle of his head. Bit by bit he regained some of the freedom he''d lost up until he was final able to crane his neck down and spy the haunting monster in question.
Chop
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Aejaz woke with a piercing scream and had to take in his surroundings with ragged breaths as he finally spied the devil responsible for his unpleasant dreams. Ares was snickering to himself off to the side but Aejaz was seriously freaked out! The monster in question was none other than the cleaver exemplar herself, Bellona, chopping off his lower half! That shit was freaky! To look down and see your body being lopped off like that... Eugh. Aejaz shivered down to his core before glaring at his psychotic brother. "The hell was that about?! Better yet, how''d you even do that anyway?!"
Ares had to clear his throat to stop the laughs from flowing freely but he did eventually manage to calm himself down and explain. "Past-Present Polymerisation can share memories one to one but I also used the Nyxian Prowler to combine it with some darkness magic and turn it into a nightmare. First person POV and a dark room and voila, Bellona''s chop shop is open for business!"
"Tsk, you can be a real fucker sometimes... I''m pretty sure that violates various human rights in at least half the countries in Sheryashka and can be considered a form of illegal torture you know!" Aejaz slid back down into bed and waited for his rapidly beating heart to slow down a bit now that he was safe and back in reality where that devilish woman couldn''t hurt him anymore.
Ares shrugged. "Cultivators torture each other all the times. Rules and laws are more like guidelines. None of us read the fine print. Anyway, I wouldn''t have to do this to you if you stopped being so lazy. Have you forgotten what day it is? Get your ass up and get moving, we got a boat to catch... Well multiple boats technically but you know what I mean." Ares tapped the side of the bed a few times. "C''mon, up and at ''em." And with that rude awakening, Ares left Aejaz alone. There was one more quick task he wanted to take care of and that was crafting a bountiful breakfast to leave behind for those who were staying in the sect for now. Ares would pack some in the Blade, otherwise Aejaz might actually start crying like a man-child for missing out on the food, but this was more of a parting gift so he went all out and made a massive buffet with just about everything imaginable available. From Eggs benedict to waffles and bacon with maple syrup. Orange juice, freshly squeezed, and coffee galore. It was continental with all the bells and whistles as well as various breakfast classics all lined up and ready to be devoured by anyone who was feeling peckish. This would surely go down a treat but, once he was done, he simply left it on the table without having any and went to go wait outside as he wasn''t going to stick around for the meal. About five minutes of doing star jumps to mitigate his boredom later, Ares finally spied everyone else leaving the house with Allie and Trixie having to borderline drag an unwilling Aejaz out the house. It seemed he caught sight of the breakfast and wanted to stay in the house forever... Ares held out a plate to grab his attention then shoved back inside the Blade to let this doltz know there was plenty for him to which seemed to put his aching heart at ease.
The family, Leo included, made their way to the sect entrance / exit to send off the bandit brothers while playing around with one another. Bellona hopped on Ares back and demanded he carry her while Enyo kept trying to wrestle her off so she could take her place. Unfortunately for Enyo Bellona''s gorilla strength was far too impossible to contend with directly so she had to be content with Ares giving her kiss every fifteen steps... It was either that or Ares junk was getting fondled in public and his arms were too busy holding the primate on his back to stop her... Troublemakers, the both of them... As for Aejaz, Allie was pestering him to make sure he hadn''t forgotten anything important like some kind of mini mother while Trixie was just being more subtle and planting care package bombs on Aejaz'' person for him to discover later that contained all the minor stuff he''d forgotten like toothpaste and so on. Lacy was quietly following and playing with Appa while the tiny tiger Leo was held gently in her arms. It was all a heart-warming sight as the deadliest family in all of Sheryashka, bar none, approached the exit.
Bellona had to eventually begrudgingly get off the Ares train and was the first to say her goodbyes. Blo Blo being Blo Blo, she kept it short and sweet. "See you in a bit, yeah? Don''t do anything stupid and go off dying in the middle of nowhere." After she was done, she leant in and confidently gave Ares a kiss... ''Confidently'', in air quotes because her face was pretty red. Public displays off affection were still pretty new territory for her and it was ever her weak point like back when Ares toyed with her at the pagoda. She was already taking names and remembering faces of the disciples who were around and staring... She''d shrink the sizes of their wieners / breasts after Ares left...
Next up was Enyo... Who went straight for the mouth to try and find whatever taste her sister had just left and savour it... Not even a single word before the kiss... Yeah, that was Enyo alright. Anyway, Ares was made to separate the vacuum from his lips at some point otherwise she would just keep going, spectators be damned. only when she was done licking her lips did she finally say something about Ares'' departure. "Stay safe, try not to commit too many crimes if you can avoid it, don''t worry about me and Bellona as I swear to keep us safe, and don''t pick up any more wives without my permission. I''m serious about that last one!"
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Shouldn''t she have been more serious about literally any of the other things she said? Then again, this really was still just Enyo being Enyo... Ares smiled softly and gave his goodbyes while Aejaz was giving his own in the background. "You know that you two and Appa are my biggest concerns so please keep yourselves safe during your trip to the Grecian lands. If anything comes up then send me a letter via Transmit and I''ll come right back as soon as I can... Well, don''t wanna end on too heavy a note so, instead, Bellona, I wish you luck fending off your sister... Although I don''t think her advances can be prevented this time. You''ll be a changed woman when I return and you absolutely won''t be any purer... On that note, don''t think I won''t want a piece of you too so bear that in mind. Anyway, have fun you two and I''ll see you in a month or two." Ares and Aejaz finished up their goodbyes and went to leave but, before they could get outside the sect, Ares stumbled atop a pile of weird green goop... Ares looked around and realised there were multiple of these strange things dotting the sect entrance for some reason and he''d never seen anything like this in the sect up until now... But how did he not notice this before? This goop wasn''t here before he said goodbye to everyone so where did it come from?... As Ares pondered this, Slick happened to step down from the shadows on the roof of the sect entrance and give Ares a wry smile while flicking away a piece of goop on the wall next to his landing point.
"Hey Ares, been a minute... About the goop... Don''t worry about this fella, he''s just interested in you is all..."
"... He?" Ares was really confused now and he honestly felt a little guilty stepping on this creature if it was truly alive as Slick claimed it to be...
"Ah, yeah, don''t worry about this slimy guy. He''s one of the sect HQ guys that Yulo must have told you about. He likes to spectate humans when he gets bored, it''s his hobby. We ask him not to leave his clone cameras out and about like this, and he usually does a good job of hiding them, but I take it he wanted to see you up close and personal before you left the sect. It''s been officially announced you''re the next sect leader so you must have caught his interest. Try not to worry about it, he''s completely harmless for the most part." Slick pointed down at the green goop and a part of it morphed into a thumbs up that was directed at a bewildered Ares. One of the sect HQ lot was a sentient slime! Fascinating! And he seemed to be a pretty covert fellow as supposedly these goopy cameras had been scattered throughout the sect this whole time, since before Ares first arrived even. Also, if they were here now when they clearly weren''t before then the main body must have swooped by and placed them here when Ares was caught unawares... Stealthy slime! Furthermore, based on the thumbs up, these pieces of slime could maybe turn into mini clones and walk around on their own... No wonder Yulo said these HQ guys were useful, this slime guy was a living hive consisting of multiple of Allie''s tracking Mini-Pillie. Infiltration and scouting was a valuable asset, especially during war time or when trying to get a feel for sect competition in new domains. This guy was neat!
"Hello friend." Ares waved and gave polite greetings to the slime which waved back, grew a pair of legs, and then ran away.
Slick chuckled with a mechanical croak and talked to Ares once more. "He can be a bit shy sometimes, so it''s kind of a miracle he even came out to say hi like this, but he means well. Definitely the most sane of the HQ lot... Although he does go along with their pranks without fail so he''s got a bit of a cheeky streak in him for sure. Anyway, don''t let me hold you up on your journey. Go show the world what for you fleshy bastard." Slick gave a salute and then disappeared back onto the sect entrance''s roof to keep watch on everyone''s safety like some kind of vigilante hero. Ares turned around with Aejaz and waved once more to the family before finally setting off on the journey for real. He and Aejaz both used Voidwalk and they exited the town in under a minute, at which point their journey had officially begun!
There were two small things worth noting that had changed with Ares as of late, one of which being that he removed the Shatter rune from his Black Ice Bane as he basically never used it anymore. Detonate was far superior even if it costed a bit more mana and state percentage on the Bane so, considering they both did the same thing, Ares saw no need to keep Shatter around. This boosted the overall quality of the weapon, reduced state percentage consumption by a decent degree when doing just about anything, and made the sword a bit sharper as less of its power was diverted to the rune. Ares would be able to use this Bane for a bit longer still as a result of this change and have it be relevant in his fights up until a realm or two after transition. From there he would either need to upgrade it or replace it with a treasure and Ares was leaning towards the latter because, actually, he''d been working on internalising crystalised void arts such that he wouldn''t need the sword to use them. The tricky part here was the ''crystalised'' part and Ares was going to have to come up with a way to alter his mana to enable it but he was feeling confident he could do it if he tried. It would take a while but if it meant he could replace his sword with something way better, something that wasn''t an artifact, without losing out on any arts then that was 100% worth doing in the long run. For now though, shatter was gone and Detonate was here to stay.
The second thing, and this was really a small thing, the Backfire Bindings had been fully pressurised. Ares didn''t know what changed regarding them but he would have plenty of time to experiment and find out over the course of this journey, not that he''d discover everything anyway as that was but a pipe dream. Still, now that they were out of the way and done with, Ares was going to finally start work on pressurising the Primordial Blade... He was almost definitely not going to finish until he returned from his journey as this was absolutely an arduous, multiple month kinda deal. He didn''t have anything else to pressurise though, other than his back massager which admittedly was very tempting, so this was the behemoth that stood between him and ticking off a major task on his internal checklist. There were a few other things he wanted to do on Freeride, like talk to Astraeus, consume the body tempering stuff from the international, and maybe purchase some other resources, but that could all be dealt with when he was actually there.
Ares and Aejaz kept Voidwalking for a solid few hours but Aejaz was starting to run out of mana and he was getting moody because Ares hadn''t fed him yet... Was he a pet? Anyway, Ares agreed to stop because this served as good training for Aejaz who stood to gain from practicing with the destruction pillar. Ares could just carry him but there was enough time left to account for Aejaz using Voidwalk the entire way there, breaks included, so doing things this way was for the best. The more Aejaz ran out of mana, the bigger his reserves would grow whenever they refilled. Also, familiarity with a pillar meant it would cost less to use magic from it over time or when reaching aspect assimilation / bloodline awakening. It was relatively minor but did matter over the course of a cultivator''s multi million year journey so Aejaz had every reason to take this training seriously. The two ate and relaxed for a while but, just before they were about to take off again, sounds of a fight getting underway could be heard nearby behind some trees. Based on context clues it was sounding like one guy was getting ambushed by multiple people. Ares was somewhat interested both because he was nosy and because this was still close enough to Red Sun that he felt he should check. If he did nothing and whoever the ''evil'' individual, or individuals, was /were won, there was a non-zero chance they headed towards Red Sun and caused trouble there too. Might as well take care of the problem before they could bother Hans or the locals ad cut them off here...
Ares and Aejaz both headed over while keeping a low profile, which was made easier by the Prowler and the Concealed Serpent / invisibility bloodline respectively, and finally caught sight of the fighting cultivators... And everyone involved had been met before! What were the chances? Also, this was an particularly weird combination because the monk from the regionals, the one on the Legion team that broke his vow of silence when Ares threw the Perish Wheel, was being ganged up on by the lady merchant from Baja and her four horsemen of the axe-pocalypse. These guys were seriously still picking fights like this? After that beating they received last time? Did they not know shame or were they really this big a bunch of losers? Ares almost felt pity for them, almost anyway. He was still going to beat these clowns up again for being a colossal nuisance to society! Ares stepped out into the open, before the fight escalated any further, and made his presence known to all!
"Ah shit."
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Was that the monk? That was the monk, wasn''t it? Did this guy''s vow of silence mean diddly squat? This was the second time he''d broken it! The first was understandable, the Perish Wheel was spooky, but just seeing Ares'' face was enough to remind him of it and cause him to accidentally speak again?! Was there something on Ares'' face?! Rude! Actually, better yet, now that Ares thought about it, didn''t this guy break his vow every time he chanted an art?! Was this fucker a conman?! Ares was no mystical expert, and he wasn''t sure how any of this religious stuff worked, but surely there was something dodgy about this guy!? Of course the truth of the matter was that art casting was fine, and the monk had only really messed up with regards to vocally reacting to Ares, but that didn''t stop Ares from finding this spiritual flunky suspicious!
"Ah shit."
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...
This time it was the merchant lady swearing like a sailor and kissing her teeth. Her axemen were staring silently at Ares and slowly backing away, as what happened last time clearly left its mark on their psyche, but the woman in question was still trying to look tough like always. She was reminiscent of one of those tiny, yappy and scrappy dogs that never backed down... This woman needed to learn to read the room. Hell she was seemingly still expecting the axemen to go and fight Ares as she turned towards them and nodded her head in his direction... Yeah that was never happening, these guys were going to willingly accept the pummelling from Ares in the hopes he would go easy on them. The difference between them and Ares was made apparent last time and this despicable bomber-man''s cultivation had risen extraordinarily high, like a giant''s morning wood, so it would only be even worse if they tried to tango with him now. It didn''t help that Ares'' name was a known factor throughout almost of all of Central Land nowadays and so these guys, who were up to date on cultivator news, knew precisely who Ares was. It was bad enough they picked a fight once but there was no way they were going to make the same mistake twice. Once bitten twice shy and that first bite wasn''t a nibble either, it was a nasty mauling. They were still missing body parts!
As for the merchant lady, she''d raised her cultivation from non-existence and had stepped into the realm of cultivators. Good for her but that wasn''t changing jack shit about this current situation and her lack of knowledge about Ares wasn''t exactly going to help either. The axemen were going to have to have a word with this woman off to the side after they were done getting smacked around by Ares... Honestly, they weren''t even sure why they still followed the merchant lady anymore, they just kept getting dragged into all kinds of nonsense with her at the lead. They were literally about to attack a peaceful monk for crying out loud! Surely the axemen were going straight to hell for this transgression? Also, the monk looked decently strong and might have even beaten them so this whole situation was a pretty massive failure... Then again, so was what most of what this group did so there was nothing new there... The axemen could do nothing but sigh as the merchant lady started berating them because the more pressing issue was Ares who was advancing on them steadily while cracking his knuckles. A verbal and a physical beating at the same time... Poor axemen...