Ares closed the distance, not giving Ramsey enough time to get his thoughts straight, and leapt left. As Ramsey took the bait and chased Ares with his eyes, Ares used a Double Jump to veer right, crossing up the slow brute. In a futile attempt to defend himself, Ramsey held his arm out behind him to create a pitiful block. "Stamp Out!" Ares performed a rolling thunder kick that snuck over the top of Ramsey''s arm and kicked him straight in the face.


    BANG


    Ramsey was blasted away as the Stamp Out / Voidwalk combination chipped his skull and rattled his brain. He rolled along the floor, kicking up dust until he crashed into a wall which cracked under his weight.


    Cough cough


    Blood trickled out of Ramsey''s mouth and down his chin as his head rocked side to side. When his blurry vision caught sight of Ares, sitting on the wall above him with his feet dangling over his head, Ramsey stumbled to his feet. He fumbled and tripped onto his knees because he was still recovering from the last attack but still managed to desperately scramble away from his previous position. He turned around to face Ares but was taken by surprise when the man in question was standing right in front of him with his hands behind his back as if he was out for a stroll. "Hey fella, you''re looking worse for wear. Why don''t you pick a fight with someone more your speed?" Ares took a step to the side and Li Li came charging through the empty space with her blazing fist lunging at Ramsey''s chest.


    Thud


    Ramsey managed to block the attack with his arm but he still winced in pain as the blow was no joke. Li Li was much happier to be here fighting this opponent instead as the previous one had been a real nightmare for her. This matchup was nowhere near as atrocious and the opponent was wounded to boot. Li Li spit a magma bullet at Ramsey to throw his rhythm off and rushed after him to deliver another punch.


    Ares, on the other hand, was now going head to head with Hark the shark. He''d noticed Li Li on the back foot and sent her a mental note to come swap with him. She wouldn''t have lost necessarily, but she wouldn''t have won anytime soon either.


    Hark''s defining features were the blue sharkskin that covered his entire body and his pointed facial features. Jagged teeth, narrow eyes hiding behind a pair of sleek sunglasses, a forehead that curved back, and a pierced fin poking out through his pink-mottled mohawk. When combining his features with his shiny black clothes, it gave off the impression of a biker who thought he was too cool for this mortal coil. The back of his jacket had a picture of a giant skull on it and his Kevlar jeans were littered with silver chains and zips. Hark''s smooth, suave voice was tinged with confidence and condescension. "Yo! Aint you the guy who who''s been at it with ol'' Ramsey?" Hark glanced over at his compadre. "Hm, seems ya roughed him up a bit. That''s no good pal. Guess Imma have to stick it to ya in his stead! Aqua Slicer!" The flow aspect art Hark casted summoned tonfa blades of water along the length of both his arms and legs giving him a sharp weapon to slice and dice Ares with.


    No wonder Li Li was having a bad time over here. Water pillar and a long weapon counters her fire pillar and close combat style. She wouldn''t have been able to attack into this. Ares analysed the situation as he dodged the flurry of slashes and spin kicks coming his way. Hark was quicker than Ramsey but his strikes had less power behind them. His real strength lay in the water blades that could cut though just about anything and his high cultivation base of sensory enhancement, 2nd stage. Hark was a specialised fighter who did one thing and one thing very well, keep up the pressure with a rapid series of attacks. Thanks to Ares'' Voidwalk, however, he wasn''t feeling too swamped, so Ares took this time to ignore Hark and spectate the other fights to see how things were going. Hark noticed Ares not paying attention and upped his aggression but couldn''t catch up with the slippery bastard no matter how hard he tried. The first fight Ares started watching was the one between his cowardly brother and his equally cowardly opponent, Oat. This was truly an uninspiring ''battle'' if ever there was one as, really, it couldn''t even be considered as such...


    Aejaz scratched his head as he and Oat stared at one another with wry smiles. "So, uh, nice weather we''re having, huh?" Aejaz took a seat in front of the tree and made no effort to attack his opponent. At the end of the day, he didn''t really need to. Most of his team were winning their fights now that Ares had assisted Li Li, and they had the talisman too. If Aejaz did nothing, he would win by virtue of other people''s effort! Also, why would he bother himself to mess with the tree? He couldn''t do anything about it unless he used his secret art, but that was reserved for the international. Without that magic, how was he supposed to assail Oat? Climb the tree while the rodent attacked him? Ha, nope.


    "Could be better... I wish it was raining. Birds don''t like rain... Or so Hawkins tells me." Oat partook in the friendly conversation with Aejaz. These two were birds of a feather. They had a penchant for avoiding fights and a talent for it to boot. Still, Oat''s team weren''t doing so hot, so he knew he needed to do something. "Sorry pal, but I''ll get chewed out if I don''t at least make you sweat a little." Oat pulled out a treasure that resembled an oaken crossbow and aimed it at Aejaz who sat in place without moving a muscle.


    Sigh


    Aejaz clicked his tongue and reached forward with his hand when it became apparent sitting around idly wasn''t an option. "Relocate."


    Oat looked down at his empty hands before looking back at Aejaz who was now wielding Oat''s own crossbow and aiming it right between his eyes.


    "Yeah, same for me. Don''t take it personal." Aejaz shrugged as he pulled the trigger and fired a sharpened branch from the weapon he''d stolen.


    Oat''s usual gameplan was to pepper his opponent from afar, luring them into his turf where his nature magic would give him an edge. Now that his ranged weapon was gone he could do nothing but hide on the opposite side of the tree. Every time he poked his head out, ''TWANG'', a bolt was fired straight at him. He wasn''t sure how his weapon was taken from under his nose at this great-a distance, but right now his main worry was getting berated after the match ended for not carrying his weight... He couldn''t leave the tree because he wasn''t really a good fighter without it and he couldn''t attack from this range without his weapon... As it turned out, this ''fight;'' really wasn''t going to happen. Neither opponent would willingly walk up to the other. Aejaz had a ranged weapon, but Oat had an impenetrable shield as long as he hid behind the tree. Ares was not even remotely surprised that the only two cowards in the arena had somehow managed to accidentally achieve an unbreakable stalemate. If it weren''t for the fact that his brother was ''technically'' ''winning'', even though he was just sitting around and playing target practice, Ares would have stormed over and kicked him in the rear! These two may as well have been having a stare down for all the difference it would have made to the fight overall. Even the spectators had taken to booing these two lazy bums. Their stubbornness, however, was legendary as neither Aejaz nor Oat would make the mistake of putting themself in a unfavourable position just to kickstart a meaningless fight.


    Esme and Leopold''s fight was drastically different as it looked like a game of minesweeper. Ares could see the sheer quantity of traps that had been laid out thanks to his Omniscience. Both combatants were tiptoeing around their current position while firing off magic to try and force the other person to move into one of their arts they''d sneakily hidden. Esme had placed countless Wind Mines that, individually, held less power than one of Leopold''s traps but could also push the victim around, maybe forcing them to land on more than one. She was firing off blasts of wind that were quick but didn''t do much damage as their goal was simply to move the opponent into a Mine and set off the chain reaction.


    Leopold was hunched over on all fours and prowling along a route he already knew was safe thanks to his earlier testing. Small shocks would roll off his paws and scout ahead along the floor, detonating any nearby Mines as he kept firing off his own magic at Esme. Although Leopold had the advantage currently, he was starting to get annoyed at the wind blasts that were threatening to remove his top hat and tear away his brown suit. He''d freshly ironed it this morning and it was bad enough that the tie dangling below him was ruined! His beautiful, tan brown tie that he specifically picked out because it matched the colour of his black fur and his brown eyes, ruined! He occasionally let out low growls of discontentment and scratched the floor with his claws in frustration as fixing the tie was always a nuisance. If he''d just spilled wine on it, that would be one thing, but he was going to have to hire a tailor to fix it because the damage was notable. Leopold ducked under a gust of wind and coated his claw in lightning magic as he poked it in Esme''s direction, setting another Shock Pocket in her immediate area. Shock Pockets were an art of the amp aspect that created an invisible guetapens of ghastly lightning that would burst the moment it was touched. The lightning it contained would streak out and seek nearby opponents when it detonated, frying anyone they could catch which, considering their respectable speed, was usually anyone and everyone. This attack also had a decent chance of paralysing the part of the opponent it hit. Leopold having a cultivation of 10th stage mental accumulation also meant these attack would be painful to say the least. As for the magic he was firing off in order to force Esme to move, Flash Thunders were enough to do the job. They weren''t as powerful as Thunder Strikes but he didn''t need power right now, he needed to force errors. Quick Flashes that came roaring down from the heavens were the optimal choice to cause Esme to make a mistake when carelessly rushing her dodge.


    All it would take for this fight to really kick off and devolve into a shitshow for the ages was for one person to set of a trap and then all hell would break loose in this section of the arena. They would both have to dash around like headless chickens to escape the clusters of magic that were currently tormenting their mental states. All of the audience members watching were secretly hoping for this as that would be a real spectacle for them to enjoy.


    It looked like Esme would be the first to fall into a trap, but a well timed Aero Authority helped her fly to a safe spot and continue the dodging. It was undeniable that she was struggling though as she very nearly clipped a trap that had been cleverly placed in the air by Leopold earlier. Even her escape routes weren''t really safe anymore. The cattian''s nimble hops and slinking form were making it really difficult to land an attack to boot. Right now, she was playing to her opponent''s strengths and not hers. Leopold was better at setting up traps, Esme was better at remaining mobile. They could each do both, but right now one was a much better skillset to have than the other. Esme had been winning in the early stages of the fight when there were fewer traps and she could move freely, but she hadn''t capitalised on her advantage in time and now the situation was reversed. Still, Ares wasn''t worried and neither was Esme. This was just the early stages of the fight and there were tricks up everyone''s sleeves that had yet to be revealed. If anything, despite how terrible things looked for Esme, it was all going according to her plan. The more traps, the merrier.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Li Li was doing considerably better now that she could actually hit her opponent without having to risk it all. The fight between her and Ares'' good friend Ramsey would have been about even if it weren''t for all the work Ares had put in earlier. Ramsey deserved credit for holding on in his current state, but that was really all he could do. Li Li''s magma bullets kept harassing him and putting him in awkward situations whereby he couldn''t block both it and the follow-up punch at the same time. He''d started to just let the bullets hit him because he was used to being set on fire and he could tolerate it more than the punches. The real issue he faced was Guesswork which allowed Li Li to skirt around his block and land clean blows over and over again. Magma curtain after curtain forced Ramsey to play a guessing game he kept losing. Ramsey occasionally tried to retaliate but his options were limited. Being a fellow fire pillar cultivator, Li Li was mostly unbothered by the magic and could shrug any weak attacks off with ease just as he could, so that would be a waste unless he immolated himself again or used it to create an opening. All of the injuries he''d sustained were making him tired too so his punches, while certainly devastating in their own right, weren''t hitting quite like they would have previously the few times he was able to swing back. Not to mention his new opponent was physically superior to his previous one. Ares relied on magic tricks to nullify the disadvantage of his weak physical strength whereas Li Li was just a straight up powerhouse. Even without magic her strikes were fast and effective.


    If things kept up long enough, Ramsey would lose here. He opened his mouth and tried to launch a point-blank Flamethrower when Li Li used guesswork. His plan was to take her by surprise as she passed through the curtain, land the Flamethrower, and then do some actual damage with a heavy punch after. His expectations were shattered when the namesake of Guesswork lived up to its moniker as Li Li was nowhere to be found. She hadn''t popped out from behind the magma curtain at all. In fact, when the Flamethrower ended, all Ramsey saw was a pillar of hardened magma behind the curtain that had taken the brunt of his magic. Li Li had seen the desperation in his eyes mounting and figured he would launch a counterattack the next time he had a moment to breathe. She took advantage and tricked him into leaving an opening, and that meant it was time to punish him for his mistake. Li Li emerged from behind the hardened magma and slid into position to unleash "One Flaw, Five Strikes." Unlike the last time she used this against Slick, Li Li didn''t bother adding fire magic as that would be pointless against a resilient Ramsey. Instead, she put more effort into the strike itself, making the impact, and all of the subsequent five hits, more deadly. Her blow to Ramsey''s stomach was mirrored across the rest of his body and his organs were battered. He coughed up more blood but didn''t fall down, standing tall as he readied himself to continue taking a beating. He could have just accepted death and come back to re-join the fray in a minute, but he didn''t want to bother his team mates and make their life harder because of his own failures. Maybe if someone else had already died he would''ve considered it so he could come back fighting fit, but in no world could he ever allow himself to fall first. That would be disgraceful.


    Aside from Ares'' own ''fight'', that only left Enyo vs Hawkins. Hawkins was dressed in warm clothes, which made sense considering he could fly and he would be cold as all hell if he was wearing lighter clothing at high altitudes. His pure white layer of feathers helped, but the custom made aviator jacket with a warming rune kept his temperature high through any and all storms. Alongside basic blue jeans, he wore aviator goggles to keep any detritus blowing in the wind out of his eyes. He was nearly blinded one time he took to the sky, when he was younger, by a transition realm cultivator who spit out a pear pip from above the clouds. Thankfully it missed his eye, but it did leave a pretty big scar across his face. Ever since then he''d kept his trusty goggles on at all times when above the ground. He also had an earring shaped like a feather in his right ear which was a memento from his wife before he left Bhorashka to come to the competition. The only other piece of clothing on him was a pair of gloves of which there was nothing particularly special about them, Hawkins just really quite liked them is all.


    Although Hawkins cultivation wasn''t the highest amongst all the Bhorashka lot, coming in at 9th stage mental accumulation, he was definitely the strongest cultivator in the group overall. His skillset was varied and he knew a decent amount of arts for any situation, making him an all-rounder type cultivator with a solution up his sleeve for every occasion... Every occasion other than Enyo, anyway. Hawkins was truly learning how frightening defensive oriented cultivators, rare as they were, could be. He''d started the fight with a barrage of feathers that Enyo effortlessly repelled with a single barrier. Hawkins'' next attempt was a mental attack, but Enyo ran holy magic through her brain and cleansed it immediately as the holy pillar was naturally good against mental attacks. By this point, Hawkins was starting to get antsy because the woman he was facing off against looked completely unperturbed by his existence. Enyo could probably just turn her back on him and go do something else and feel completely safe in the process. Hawkins was the strongest of his team, but right now he was being made to look a fool. Hawkins major weakness was that he didn''t have anything that really separated him from any other cultivator. He didn''t have some final move up his sleeve that could break through Enyo''s barrier. He wasn''t a specialist in mental attacks so he couldn''t overcome the holy pillar''s innate ability. He was good at close combat, but getting past Enyo''s barriers only to have to deal with her shield after was a death sentence. His only real option was to leave and help someone else. At least that way he could force Enyo to move and do something other than just sit there, shrugging off everything he did. As he was about to turn and part ways, though, Enyo took action.


    "Blinding. Aletheia."


    Enyo sequentially activated a rune on her Steadfast Aegis and chanted an art. Blinding was the first of four runes on her shield and did exactly what it said on the tin. The grooves on the shield reflected a bright flash of light that robbed anyone in front of Enyo of their vision temporarily. It also somewhat stunned the victims, disorienting them and slowing their movement making it the perfect tool to lead into an offensive art. That would be where Enyo''s Aletheia came in. While Hawkins was swerving through the air in an effort to move unpredictably, Enyo took a deep breath and focused on clipping Hawkins wings. Hitting him directly would obviously be preferable, but being safe instead of being greedy was the correct approach. If she could just floor him things would get a lot easier from then on out. Luckily, Enyo''s frequent whack-a-mole sessions in which she thwacked Ares for his stupid comments had drastically improved her aim. Of course the major contributing factor was actually Aejaz. Ares had put his brother up to the task of teaching everyone how to aim at a moving target. Aejaz was the moving target. He was a difficult little weasel to hit so the training had actually been harder than most of the other things they''d done with Sadie up until that point. Still, the repeat attempts gradually helped everyone improve; even Aejaz as he was now more adept at dodging than he ever was before, although it did come at the cost of him being impaled occasionally during training. All of this to say that when Enyo unleashed her Aletheia, it did way more than just clip a wing; it burnt a whole one off despite Hawkins best efforts to dodge. Hawkins was an expert in aviation and could probably have kept himself afloat if he had any idea which direction he was currently facing, but he was still blinded by the artifact and couldn''t tell up from down. He made an effort to keep himself in the air but that effort was, unfortunately for him, accidentally directed right at the floor, meaning he''d caused himself to crash more violently than he would have had he just done nothing. This had been a do or die moment and, had he guessed correctly, he could have turned everything around. He would have regained his bearing and darted off to go aid someone else before Enyo could catch up. Now though? Now he barely managed to pull himself up to his feet before he was knocked down again by another one of the runes on Enyo''s shield.


    "Tremor."


    This rune was the main reason Ares had changed the design of Enyo''s shield to be like that of a heater shield. The pointed bottom could be buried into the ground, thus making the tremor rune easier to use and more effective when it was activated. The ground rumbled and Hawkins, who was still semi-blind at this point, tripped onto the ground again, giving Enyo time to start charging straight at him with her shield up front. Hawkins could tell this would be a miserable experience as there was no escaping, so he instead chose to try and mitigate the problem by compressing wind magic into a ball. It wasn''t an art of any kind, he was just constantly gathering wind magic and shoving it all into the ball and keeping it compact.


    Enyo raced along the fiery trail as the flickering holy magic danced along her shield. Hawkins gulped seconds before Enyo ran him over and started dragging his body along atop her burning shield. She carried him to the opposite end of the arena and rammed him into the wall with brute force.


    Crack


    Bang


    Hawkins spine was injured and he had trouble detaching himself from the wall he''d been buried in. He saved himself from Enyo somewhat as he released the ball of air at the last second, blasting Enyo back and away from him. If he hadn''t done this, he would have been crushed into a mushy bird paste against the wall. As for Enyo, her shield had taken all of the brunt of the attack and she was completely unharmed, she''d just been pushed back slightly is all. Hawkins looked around and came to the conclusion that they were likely going to lose. Ramsey was on death''s door. Oat could do literally nothing. Hawkins himself was losing atrociously. Only Leopold was doing decently out of everyone, and Hark''s situation was odd because Ares was outright ignoring him. Ares had proven himself to be quite a menace thus far so Hawkins assumed Hark was losing and Ares was just messing with him for his own amusement. The Red Sun team had the talisman since the beginning so stalling for time wasn''t even in the cards unless Hawkins could snatch it and try to hide in the air for the remainder of the fight. Hawkins was regretful. He hadn''t expected to win the international or anything, but to fall so early in the national was disappointing... Still, he wouldn''t go out without putting up a fight and everyone else felt the same way, clearly, as they were all still struggling against the inevitable fate looming over them.


    What little hope they had left was soon to be crushed, however, as Red Sun was about to start taking this fight seriously. Red Sun could have very easily stalled until the cows came home and the chickens came to roost, but these animals weren''t the ones they were interested in; no, they wanted to skin the Bhorashka team down to the bone. All of the Red Sun members had spent weeks practicing together to come up with combination arts for every plausible situation and, now, they were about to go on a spree; unleashing all their tricks and tactics to blow their opponents out of the water. For the first time during the national, but definitely not the last, Red Sun were about to prove why they belonged in this competition.