A blinding light encompassed the Red Soil team for a good few seconds before eventually fading. Where the Legion team once stood was now a rather large chariot, just about big enough for five people to comfortably stand atop. The chariot had pure white, metallic wings decorating the golden plating on its chassis with two sturdy, spoked wheels encased in agonick brick. The front of the chariot had two poles, reinforced with mana, that were attached to two, large, domineering wooden horses. They possessed a fierce countenance that was rather animated considering their wooden make-up. Their thick legs were shaped like water organs and produced music whenever they trotted. Their steps would create the pressure that operated the organs, resulting in a type of holy music that would typically be heard in churches and inspire reverence as they trampled all who defied them. The horses neighs and grunts were accompanied by water vapour, creating a small mist that rolled over their red eyes and trailed behind them as they charged. The contrast in the sounds of divinity that emanated from the creatures and their violent appearance was similar to that of the chariot which looked as though it embodied the term, ''sanctity'', but created a racket wherever it passed by tearing through the floor and dragging up mud. All of the above combined in spectacular fashion to create a unique art under the righteous justice aspect that was every bit as blessed as it was brutal, like a contraption designed by the architects of hell in order to send you straight to heaven.
As the chariot carrying the other team sped around in the relatively narrow arena, compared to its size anyway, it forced the Red Sun team to constantly dodge it lest they be barrelled over, trampled, and removed from the fight. Trying to stop the chariot was a fool''s errand and they had no range with which to attack it, never mind the fact that Red Soil had a defensive specialist who would have blocked projectiles anyway. Ares remembered what he''d been told about this setup back in Baja, about how it was a combination of the five strongest people in the clan. It all made sense now. Gladius was the driver and spearman who occasionally threw javelins. Enyo would have been the defensive specialist to defend the chariot. Bellona would be the offensive magic casting mage. Charity healed just in case anyone somehow suffered injuries. Finally, there would be a weapon''s expert on the chariot, in case any foe attempted to climb aboard at which point they would be unceremoniously repelled and kicked off. In essence, it was a moving fortress not dissimilar to the mecha dryad, but the mecha dryad''s main flaw of being sluggish wasn''t applicable here as the horses were rapid in their movements. The logical approach, normally, would be to target the horses, but even the wind mines that Esme had been setting barely left a dent in them and didn''t even have enough power to knock the horses off course. In this case, it seemed the horses were the last thing you''d want to waste your time on as they were going to just keep barrelling onward; even in the face of Ragnar?k they wouldn''t skip a beat and would blindly charge into battle. The next bet would be the wheels or the poles, but they too were hard to break so that only really left assaulting the passengers which was an incredibly difficult feat. For starters, you had to avoid the defensive specialist walling you off, then you had to catch up to the damn thing, then you had to simultaneously fight off the weapon''s expert onboard while also dealing with Bellona''s magic and maybe even Gladius if he could spare a moment to turn and fight too. The skillset required to do all of this was not something your everyday Joe Shmoe was going to possess. In particular, Li Li could tell she was going to do basically nothing in this fight and was prioritising not getting run over. Enyo wasn''t exactly helpful here either and the same could be said for Aejaz. In order for them to pull anything off, someone else had to first get on the chariot so they could maybe support them from the side lines.
As for who was going to be the one to hop aboard the rampaging chariot... Who else? Esme was the only other person with enough mobility to even catch it but, assuming she could even get past the barriers the monk would set up, what was she supposed to do when she got on the chariot? She wouldn''t beat Trew, let alone Gladius if he joined in. Bellona could just immediately kill her if she didn''t pay attention too. Once again, Ares was going to have to bear the brunt of the hard work but that was really just because this Essedarius art was extremely difficult for their team to deal with. In normal fights the team would be able to function way better than this.
Ares, as he dodged the numerous attempts to run him over, had gone about placing multiple Shock Beads and Shift locations. His goal was to get on the chariot and the method was simple, in fact it was the same plan the Legion team used against him, distraction! As the chariot slowed down to turn around and begin another charge,
"Chaos Reigns!" With a stamp of his foot, Ares lifted up 10 or so Shock Beads behind, and to the sides, of the chariot.
As the Beads swelled with light, the monk wasted no time in raising defensive magic to either side of the chariot while Bellona prepared to deal with the backside. Once more, the monk held his hands together in prayer and silently casted his art. Om Muni Muni Maha Muniye Soha. As the monk''s hands separated, he spread them wide to his left and right, summoning from the heavens two walls that fell in-between the Beads and the chariot. On the walls were depictions of Buddha with a single hand raised in a gesture of reassurance, ready to halt the explosions in their tracks and keep those behind the walls safe from harm.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
The walls shook but held firm against the golden tide that threatened to break it down. Luckily for the monk, most of the Beads had been located behind the chariot so his workload wasn''t excessive. His peaceful expression was disturbed slightly when he noticed cracks form in the walls though. They''d held back the Beads, but his defence wasn''t as successful as he initially thought it was. Meanwhile, Bellona had completely stifled the explosions behind the chariot by reducing the energy of the blasts, causing the explosions to gradually taper off into to tiny puffs of golden smoke that, oddly enough, smelled like honey!
Sweet aroma aside, Bellona''s attention was drawn back to the front of the chariot when Ares Shifted directly in front of it, swinging his sword that was swollen to the brim with mana. The mana was similar to that of the Shock Beads, but was far more dangerous and there was a lot more of it. Bellona almost didn''t believe her eyes when she came to the realisation that the Shock Beads were not the annihilation pillar''s upper limit.
"Grand Annihilation!"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Ripples of golden mayhem came cascading over the horses and rumbling towards the chariot as the sound of the explosions drowned out the organs. The monk wasn''t going to make it in time and he didn''t really have an art that could deal with it anyway so it was up to Bellona to mitigate the art and stop it. Bellona slapped herself to escape the daze she was in witnessing the oncoming barrage and went to work halving the explosions again and again. She quickly realised this was a far greater task than she had anticipated though as, unlike the Shock Beads which let off a single explosion each, Grand Annihilation was a cluster of mid-sized chain explosions that needed to each be dealt with separately. In other words, she was going to have to spend a large chunk of mana here. She''d already used up the last of what she had thanks to the meteor so she was going to be reliant on her treasure''s reserves. Luckily it was massive, bigger than her own mana pool, but that didn''t mean it was infinite and attacks like this were going to be a problem. If she used all her mana defending against attacks like this, she would inevitably run out before the fight ended and then she would have to brawl hand to hand, never mind the fact that she wasn''t aware of Grim Cessation. It wasn''t the worst possible outcome, brawling, but she was considerably more effective when casting arts and magic. Still, ignoring the incoming art was against the question unless she wanted everyone to be on the verge of death afterword, so she went about mitigating the bombardment. After many halvings that chewed through her mana, she accomplished it with a sigh of relief that quickly turned into a sharp inhalation when she realised Ares had been chasing after the explosions. His aim wasn''t to hit them with any of the arts, but to cover his approach to the chariot so he could safely get on. The fact that such destructive arts were merely a small part of his repertoire that he could throw out whenever like it was nothing was a scary thought, one that made Bellona realise she was seriously underestimating whatever it was exactly that unique pillars were. She wasn''t aware of the whole ''fundamental'' thing yet so it was only natural for not to comprehend the vast gap between pillars.
Ares'' foot was currently planted squarely on one of the horse''s faces as he used it as a springboard to hop over its back and onto the poles that were attached to the chariot. His goal of making it onto the chariot itself and wreaking havoc was halfway complete, but this was where the thorough and meticulous planning of the Legion clan became relevant as this was the reason they had a weapon master as one of the five slots. It may have seemed odd to have a dedicated melee expert on a moving vehicle, but after going over every possible scenario, this was what the experts and elders of the Legion clan agreed would be the most stable setup that could weather any storm, no matter how unexpected.
Trew slid past Gladius and jumped over the front of chariot as he''d been healed to perfection thanks to Charity''s efforts. Trew, now that his unwarranted egoism had all but vanished, was well aware he wasn''t going to win a one-on-one fight but, then again, he didn''t really have to. Gladius was more than capable of launching javelins to aid him, the monk did know a few offensive arts, and Bellona could attack Ares indirectly, at least. With the smallest hint of confidence nestled away inside him, Trew advanced along the pole and swung at Ares, starting a risky fight on a narrow beam.
Ares held his Black Ice Bane sideways and gripped the blade near the hilt with his free hand. As his hand glided smoothly along the blade, Ares chanted.
"Black Blossom."
The blade became coated in black fire, the flickers of which turned into flower petals that drifted through the air. At a glance, this art was visually similar to Enyo''s Aletheia except, instead of a white, holy aura, it produced an aura of imminent death. Ares breathed deeply and unleashed a slow, but heavy swing to intercept Trew''s attack.
Trew was momentarily overwhelmed and frightened out of his wits. Every muscle, joint, nerve, and atom in his body were desperately trying to pull him away from impending disaster before his brain could even send the order. Move back, Blink to the chariot, jump off the chariot, hell even throwing himself under the chariot was one of the escape measures his brain came up with in order to get away from whatever that swing of guaranteed obliteration was. Although he wanted to run away as far as possible, he grit his teeth and forced himself to only retreat as far as was necessary by putting his back up to the chariot behind him. After giving up the attack entirely, he watched Ares swing miss him and decimate the space in front of him, cleaving through space and leaving a trail of murky black flames that flickered dangerously.
ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The lingering flames violently burst and momentarily expanded in size, devouring even the oxygen nearby and leaving Trew short of breath as he watched the fire disappear shortly after. The delayed disintegration explosion wasn''t the end of it though as the black petals had scattered and were raining down like ashfall, creating a haze of black misery. A single petal drifted over to Trew who could do naught but shake and cower in fear as it gently swayed to and fro before him. The petal, ever so softly, descended mere inches from his body, rocking dangerously close to him before giving him a temporary reprieve; after which the cycle would repeat. As this was happening, one of the other petals had landed onto one of the horses'' calves, immediately incinerating a massive chunk of its leg. The effects were twofold as the horse temporarily lost control, stumbling and rocking the chariot and its passengers while simultaneously letting out a warped noise from the damaged organ on its leg which was like a siren signalling disaster. This rocking caused Trew to stumble himself. In order to stabilise his body weight he stretched out his arm, giving him control of his body back to an extent, but the price was devastating. The petal that had been mentally torturing him prior by ebbing and flowing in his vicinity was now hovering directly above his outstretched hand. With one final sway, it phased through Trew''s wrist as though it wasn''t even there in its flight path. Trew blinked in disbelief, thinking that maybe the petals were actually harmless. When his eyes reopened after the blink and he noticed a small wisp of fading black flame where his hand once was, and nothing else, he screamed in fear and threw himself as far back as he could go. The chaos that had been wrought via a single sword swing was beyond measure. Never mind the fact that the main part of the swing hadn''t even hit anything, it was just the tiny petals that had been blown away after the strike that had done most of the deed. It also raised the valid question of ''if the petals were this powerful, what would happen to someone hit by the swing?''
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Of course, everyone who was staring at the art in horror knew the answer, your life would be extinguished with no room for doubt. Ares, as the creator of the art, knew it especially well. Black Blossom was, obviously, an art of the disintegration aspect. It essentially functioned in one of two ways, slow and heavy, or quick and annoying. If Ares committed to a slow, powerful slash, the lingering flames would explode violently, pushing the petals outward. This attack was good for creating space and fighting trapped opponents like Trew who could go nowhere else while trapped on the pole. If the swing was quick, however, the lingering flames would not explode, but it meant Ares could launch petals more frequently which was good for a sustained offensive. The petals would have no reach, but that didn''t matter because the sheer quantity would make it difficult to avoid them. If Ares kept attacking, the opponent would have to keep moving back, allowing Ares to follow them and push his advantage pretty much forever. Combined with the flames of disintegration, if the opponent made no effort to stop him and stayed on the defensive, their weapon would be destroyed eventually. In short, the best bet was to just not interface with this art unless you knew a weapon coating art yourself and, even then, you''d be on the back foot. Further more, Ares could switch from fast attacks to slow ones with relative ease so, if you weren''t paying attention... Well, goodbye. Plus, this way, he''d build up a large amount of petals with quick swings before scattering them all simultaneously with a heavy swing, creating a hazard zone that was completely unassailable. Of course, like all powerful arts, especially those that could be freely toggled on or off, it drained mana lightning fast. Unlike Bellona, Ares didn''t have a backup reserve of mana, unless he could use Grim Cessation any time soon and steal mana from the dead, so he decided to take one more slow swing on the trapped Trew before he would turn it off.
Bellona attempted to use her magic but everything fizzled out. The amount of disintegration leaking of the blade was no joke and it was like a no go zone of instant destruction for her magic. She couldn''t even affect the air around him as her magic frequently, accidentally collided with the petals. Naturally, Ares himself was completely unassailable to her behind his overwhelming magic. Gladius attempted to launch a spear but a single petal happened to be in its way and the spear lost that contest immediately, disappearing and never coming back as it was engulfed in flame. The monk made an attempt to help as well by casting an art. Om Zambala Zalendhraye Soha.
A giant golden hand, clenched shut, appeared in the sky. It''s fist opened and sprawled wide, releasing a tidal wave of coins that rattled as they fell through the sky towards Ares who didn''t even bother looking up. The art was one that unloaded extremely heavy coins, each of which was capable of causing severe trauma when landing on top of a person''s head, straight downward to form a sort of waterfall of money. Anyone who attempted to pass through it would face the consequences so it was typically more of a preventative measure. In this case, Ares'' slow advance gave the monk an opportunity to summon it directly above him, but this meant absolutely nothing as the cascading coins were being vaporised by the petals. It took tens of coins to finally remove even a single petal, but there were tens of petals by this point as Ares simply holding the sword was enough to generate them. At this rate, he would be here forever as the petal generation was outpacing the monk''s ability to destroy them. This was to be expected to an extent, the monk was a defence oriented cultivator in all fairness.
Still, none of this was reassuring for Trew who had to watch as an unstoppable Ares took sinister step by sinister step towards him through the storm of black petals with golden flames in his eyes. Trew could feel his heart quicken and he wanted to throw up or cry, maybe even both. If he turned to climb back into the chariot, he would be struck from behind and die. If he stayed, he would die. He bit into his lip hard to overcome his disorientation before throwing himself off the chariot, crashing onto the floor and rolling over the cold hard ground and breaking the arm his severed hand was attached to.
This was partly why Ares hadn''t just slashed the horses. Yes it would cause a massive crash and the fight would become normal after, but this way the Legion clan''s own magic had effectively trapped them in a small arena in which they were stuck with Ares. If they wanted out, they were going to have to pay a pretty massive price by throwing themselves of a rapidly moving vehicle. Ares could freely disembark, thanks to the Stygian Zephyrs ability to glide, whenever he chose. He wasn''t stuck in there with them, they were stuck in there with him!
As for the one-armed Trew, he was worse for wear, but not down and out! Despite the broken arm, he actually felt better now that he wasn''t staring down the grim reaper himself. He felt his confidence return the second he got away from that monster, so he was ready and willing to fight literally anyone else. He rolled onto his stomach and used both his forehead and unbroken arm to lift himself off the ground. Unfortunately for Trew, his life wasn''t going to get any easier as now he was staring down Enyo and Li Li who were bored out of their skull as they had nothing to do so far this fight. Enyo had been keeping an eye out for a chance to maybe summon a barrier to aid Ares, but he just didn''t need it so she didn''t have a chance to take part in this fight yet even though it had been going on for 2 minutes already.
The fight wouldn''t end if the Legion clan made it to 2 minutes 30 seconds as there was still a chance for them to all die simultaneously, so the fight wasn''t even half over yet and things were already looking grim for Red Soil. Ares was advancing towards the chariot and Trew was stuck fighting against two strong cultivators with a broken arm. Still he smiled wryly and raised his sword. He spoke to Li Li. "I don''t believe we''ve spoken before?"
Ignoring Trew''s attempt to buy time, Li Li slunk down into a boxing stance and snorted disdainfully. "Yeah, well, let me introduce you to lefty and right then."
Trew was screwed, and he knew it, but he readied himself anyway... Only for him to immediately regret having any hope whatsoever as his sword spontaneously disappeared from his grasp. Cowardly Aejaz, who hadn''t gone over to fight to Trew, had finally found an opportunity to do something. Of course, what he''d done was highly unnecessary to begin with, but he had done it! Now there was no way Ares would give him a hard time for standing by idly!... Right?
Trew sighed to himself as a barrier appeared behind him and Li Li dashed in front of him, surely this was overkill? Well, whatever. Go down swinging, I guess. Trew stood tall with his back straight and raised his palm. He turned the palm sideways and made his hand rigid and stiff. "Sharp." Sharp was a fairly common sword aspect art that allowed the user to turn anything from blunt weapons to body parts into a makeshift sword. The weapon in question would gain a mana coating that was no different from a regular sword, albeit perhaps a tad sharper. It was mostly used in emergencies such as this, or for taking an opponent by surprise. It really wasn''t a very popular art, but a few experts believed it was useful enough as is and that it fulfilled its role as was expected of it. It didn''t need to do anything other than give a determined user another chance. Trew''s hand was coated in blue mana and he went to slash at Li Li, but was pushed forward by the barrier behind him, causing him to stumble and almost trip. Enyo was running interference so Li Li could run up to Trew freely and sock him right in the face, breaking an inestimable number of body parts as he slammed back into the barrier. Next up was Enyo who used this chance to test out a new unique art. She pushed forward with her armoured hand and forcefully palmed Trew in the chest.
"Stigma!"
Trew felt a burning sensation in his chest, like he''d been prodded with a branding iron, as he was sent crashing through the barrier. The landing was rough and he was sent rolling again. As he looked up, he was greeted by Li Li''s swinging fist. Trew attempted to Blink but...
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Through the white flames that had sprouted from within him and begun clinging to his skin, he could see a mark on his chest where Enyo had hit him with the art earlier. He couldn''t see it for long though as Li Li''s fist sent crashed into his nose, breaking it and sending him flying again. Trew coughed and spat out blood but was able to shakily rise to his feet once again. Now that he had some breathing room, he could get a proper look at the ''Stigma''. It was a white mark that resembled a relatively barren tree. The tree had four major branches which stemmed from it, each of which were named in neat cursive. Weapon. Technical. Space Time. Support. Trew quickly pieced together the fact that he would be burned every time he activated an art that came under one of those pillars. It was a simple, but very effective art against cultivators that were dedicated to a specific approach. Actually, as it could cover four pillars, it would be highly effective against a lot of people as most never went too far beyond that. One for technical, one for weapons, one for another open pillar, and the last for the cultivator''s specialty was enough to shut down a shocking number of cultivators. It was a powerful art of the righteous justice aspect, and one that would take a long time to remove even at the best of times... But while he was mid combat? Outnumbered? Heavily injured? It simply wasn''t going to happen. Still, Trew admired the art nonetheless. Arts grew as the user did. If Enyo could make the art harder to remove, do more damage, and grow the tree so it could have more branches and cover more pillars... It would truly be a difficult art to deal with. Still, Trew was unfazed. He was going to die here anyway, but he wasn''t going to quit just because he''d been locked out of magic... No, that''s not exactly true, is it? Trew laughed at himself as he solidified his resolved to do something stupid. Sharp was still activated as set himself on fire again by activating Blink. Li Li was shocked to witness a burning man appear right in front of her while swinging to cut her in half, and she was hardly prepared to block an attack this desperate. She hadn''t expected Trew to burn himself just to launch this suicidal attack and was awed someone could be this tenacious. Still, she threw herself as far backward as she could to escape this mad man.
"Wind Blade!" The flames devouring Trew turned him into a living pyre as they doubled in ferocity, but Trew, as his flesh was being burnt to a crisp, smiled watching his art chase down a helpless Li Li who was still stuck in mid air. Trew had never intended to land the first hit, it was simply there to convert into a wind blade to chase down the fleeing opponent. He thought this far ahead and resolved himself to die in a blaze of glory, taking at least one person with him even in this abysmal state.
The Wind Blade rushed toward Li Li who grimaced and tried her best to bring her arms up to block even though she knew she wouldn''t make it in time.
Thunk
Luckily for Li Li, she didn''t have to as Enyo heroically leapt in front of her and took the hit effortlessly with her shield. Trew shook his head and accepted his loss as Enyo smashed her shield into his head, denting his skull and caving it inward.
Trew died a quick death and his corpse was mangled into oblivion as blood was gushing out of him and his brain was partly on display. The corpse eventually faded and he respawned outside the Field with a sigh. Just because he''d become a better person, it didn''t mean he''d become a stronger one which was rather depressing. Still, there was some good news for him as his heroic display of selfless bravery and determination toward the end gave him an opportunity he never would have had otherwise. He felt a tug on his arm and he looked around to see someone he recognised, a relatively pretty girl from his sect that he''d been training in his spare time. The girl had been a huge fan of the Legion clan and their strong ethical code of conduct so Trew didn''t turn down her request to study under him. Although he''d been strict at the time, Trew was still polite to ordinary citizens, even if a tad grumpy. Trew had actually come across this girl yesterday when he was brooding over his thoughts and he had discussed them with her. She listened openly and was just as surprised by his change as everyone else. Part of the reason Trew was able to change so quickly was the support this girl had shown him at the time, listening intently and reassuring him he was doing the right thing by trying to change for the better. As for why she was here now, shyly tugging on his arm... Well that much was pretty obvious. Trew gulped as he was familiar with this feeling in his heart. It was slightly different though as this time he felt like he had actually earned the right to feel this way as it wasn''t entirely selfish, plus the other person liked him back which made him far more giddy that he ever felt in regards to Enyo. As it turned out, Ares was right. It was far better to be with a person that actually wanted to be with you rather than obsess over someone who didn''t care and never would. The more Trew looked at her, the cuter she became in his eyes and the redder his face became. She was just a random cultivator who would never go on to become anything special, but she would be special to him at least. Trew could see himself happily living the rest of his life with someone like her, someone who was willing to ignore who his previous self was in spite of having experienced it first hand. Of course he would never go back to that, but the fact that she was tolerant of even that, or willing to pretend it never happened at least, meant she was almost definitely a keeper. His guilty conscious in the discussion they had yesterday, plus his final acts in the fight today, had seemingly convinced the girl he was a changed man and, suddenly, he wasn''t so depressed anymore. It had all been worth it.