The water at Dominus'' feet bubbled up and violently gushed vertically. Dominus had already moved but the spray from the falling water still landed on him, wetting his clothes. A series of spots in the whirlpool all started bubbling simultaneously and Dominus now understood the jellyfish''s first means of attack. Random geysers. The attack was slow, and took a second to prime before launching, but the power behind the spout was no joke. Even a single one would be enough too put him out of commission if he didn''t guard against it and that was hard to accomplish when considering the attack spawns from underneath the victim. Even just being able to passively cover a wide range with these random bursts was already pretty decent. All the casters would have to do is lob a few more arts at anyone caught in the whirlpool as distractions and the combatant would probably get hit by one of these water bursts eventually. Throw in the tentacles and whatever else the jellyfish could do and this thing was a real dangerous nuisance. Speaking of tentacles, the jellyfish no longer held back and fired off all fifty odd tentacles simultaneously at Dominus. Their approach was spread out and timed carefully to avoid clumping up so Dominus had a bit of breathing room to deal with them individually.


    Dominus leapt over the first and landed back down on it, severing it cleanly. The tentacle wriggled around before sinking into the water. Dominus looked back over at the jellyfish and caught sight of the tentacle regenerating before he was swamped by the others heading towards him. Can''t take it slow then, have to kill the big guy all at once. This wasn''t really a problem or anything but he did want to kill it with an art. He still had the Stigma but this was too good of an opportunity to pass up on. The main reason was because he had a hunch this specific art might come in handy for Ares in the future so using it now would simplify him learning it later. Muscle memory was the name of the game. Dominus also didn''t want to spend forever slowly advancing through the tentacle storm so he decided to use two arts total to tackle the jellyfish. One to approach, and one to kill. Ares would be a little sore after this but, then again, the reason Dominus was even resorting to this in the first place was because Ares'' body was weak. If he weren''t an adept, he would have the physical strength Dominus needed to be a bit more aggressive. Not that he couldn''t do it regardless, he just didn''t want to waste time and get kicked out of the driver''s seat before he''d done everything he wanted to do. His time was limited here and he still had to deal with the mimic after!... Although objectively speaking he probably wasn''t going to get there in time. Oh well, maybe a punch or two before he went back to the cold cell in Ares'' brain would be good enough. Dominus kicked up the Black Ice Acrimony that Aejaz dropped earlier and twirled it in his hand. With the dagger held firmly in a reverse grip, Dominus moved the dagger behind his back and started walking forward.


    "Enticement." Dominus was immediately lit on fire but he made no noise. He didn''t scream nor did he flinch. Like a true champion, he soldiered on trough the pain as white flames danced on his skin. It''s not like it didn''t hurt or anything, it really did, it''s just that it wasn''t his body he was burning in the first place so he didn''t care! When Ares took control again, he would be the one with burn marks all over the place. Well, at least until he exited the Training Field anyhow. In some ways, Dominus was doing a reverse Enyo. Enyo left behind a mark to aid her teammates while Dominus was leaving behind pain and wounds!


    With the one arm he had left not defending himself, Dominus left his flaming body wide open for the tentacles to come and kill him. Unfortunately for the jellyfish, this was just a ruse. Enticement was an art that not many people would be familiar with in the lower domains because it was something typically only ever used by courtesans and escorts in the higher domains. Specifically, it started off as a unique art that Dominus invented during his trips around the universe. He entered a pleasure district one day and decided to create something to help the women there fend off pesky men in a way that worked for them. It had to be something elegant, lady like, unassuming, and efficient. Something that allowed them to become dangerous for an instant and deal with the problem before returning to normal to avoid tarnishing their image. It was by no means an easy task but Dominus wasn''t travelling for the sake of living an easy life, he wanted to improve. In the end, this art was what he''d come up with. The premise was simple, you carry the dagger behind your back and, when attacked, mana would flow through the cultivator''s body and drastically increase their dexterity for a split second. In this split second, the cultivator would unveil the knife, stab the attacker in the brain, and withdraw the knife before anyone could see it. It allowed the ladies to remain graceful and safe as they walked around. Because the art started off behind the back it was always hidden so dirty-minded men had to be wary whenever they saw a courtesan. You never knew if the woman you tried to violate was going to murder you or not which single-handedly dissuaded so many creeps the rate of violence in the district decreased by two-thirds in a single week; all the while not affecting business. By the end of the month every lady in the district walked with one hand behind their backs at all times even if they didn''t know the art, and thus rates of violence plummeted and became a non-issue. Yes the ladies mostly became cold-blooded killers but that was impossible to see on the surface as their dignity was unyielding. The daggers hidden in their robes were rarely if ever seen due to how quickly the attacks came out, so their image was never besmirched by violence even if they killed a man in the middle of the day in a crowded street. So yes, technically Dominus was using an art designed for ladies of the night, but he was the one who created it! He was allowed to! It was also just a really good art. He''d really overachieved with this one to the point even some assassins and high-profile figures disregarded their image and learned the art themselves. There was even an emperor who invested time into getting good with the art to, ironically, deal with those very same assassins that harassed him on his walks. The art only activated when attacked, though, so it led to more than just a few awkward stand-offs. If the emperor was goaded into attacking the assassins, he would die. If the assassins were unnerved at the opportunity to kill their target and assaulted him, they would die. It even got to the point where they would start having conversations with one another to pass the time... One of the assassins even defected upon discovering he shared a liking for a specific vintage wine with the emperor which the two of them drunk together regularly from then on. It was every bit as ridiculous as it sounded, and Dominus got many laughs out of watching the hilarity from the side-lines, but the art was just really too good to stop using.


    A bunch of tentacles, roughly seven or eight, rushed Dominus down. It was hard to tell precisely how many there were as they dived into the water occasionally to avoid detection. Unphased by the rush of electrically charged limbs heading his way, Dominus started strolling towards the main body. The tentacles all resurfaced at the same time and came barrelling towards him. The closest made it inches away from Dominus before it flopped to the side and sunk under the water with a massive hole in it. The second, third, and fourth all met the same fate, inexplicably losing all life the second they got within a certain range of Dominus. Two more tentacles split up with one going left and the other veering around to the right. Dominus didn''t turn his head and just kept walking forward with his one remaining arm behind his back. As the two tentacles launched their attacks in sync, one which was a thrust and the other which came in the form of a sweep, they were thoroughly denied and riddled with holes. The severed tentacles crashed into each other and sunk below the whirlpool like the other tentacles before them. Even now, near enough no one had seen Dominus move his arm yet. The pressure combined with the art simply meant his movements were undetectable for most people due to the absurd speed. Even a few of the elders in aspect assimilation couldn''t see it so what chance did anyone else have? He was moving though. Every time a tentacle approached, his arm flung out from behind him, his hand darted to the tentacle, and the Acrimony took a chunk out of it before returning back to its resting place. There were only two more tentacles left but they, along with the rest, hesitated at the orders of the main body. They retreated backwards and hovered around Dominus as he kept pace towards the jellyfish. After regrowing all of its limbs, the jellyfish brought all the arms it had available to form a dome surrounding Dominus. He looked up, smirked, and looked back down. None of this would stop him. With every step he took, a tentacle shot out from a different position in the dome and assailed him. Failure after failure littered the floor, turning the surroundings into a watery grave for the tentacles that were aimlessly throwing themselves at death incarnate. No matter how many were thrown out at once, no matter which blind angle they struck from, no matter how fast they were, none of them could touch his flesh. Even when a horde of twenty tentacles washed over Dominus like a tide he walked right by after stabbing each and every single one of them in the exact same spot. Now he was just showing off. To still have so much room to spare he could precisely target the same spot on each tentacle meant this plan wasn''t going to work. This fact was drilled into the jellyfish when each tentacle started getting patterns carved into them before they were destroyed. While Dominus was having fun and drawing on its body, the jellyfish was watching its body get torn into pieces. If there was anyone with peculiar tastes in the crowd they could make enough jellyfish salads to last a lifetime if they snuck into the Training Field right about now...


    The whirlpool beneath Dominus started bubbling up and he''d almost forgotten about this. He''d been quite lucky thus far and not had any of these come up underneath him. Even now there were countless spurts all around the Field going off and Dominus had to subtract some points off the art for being clumsy. It was the kind of thing that could be fixed in due time but right now it was still sloppy. At the very least, the seashock atrocity should have realised how pointless the tentacles were by now. Instead of putting effort into them, it should have given up and done something else. Even increasing the frequency of the geysers would be better than nothing. The jellyfish was still in sentience infancy though so it needed prodding from its masters. Thankfully the Duo had just started giving it orders to withdraw the tentacles so they were being useful at least.


    CRASH


    Looking back at the spot he had just been standing at, Dominus scratched his chin. Hm. Thunder strikes? The jellyfish had started launching electrical attacks and this was the first. It was aiming to drop thunder on his head but that was only part of it. Wherever the thunder landed became an inaccessible area of shocked water that never stopped crackling. To make matters worse, if a water spout burst up in a shocked area, the shock would spread. In other words, it was a timer and, eventually, the entire Training Field would be covered in charged water making it impossible to stand.


    "Hydroelectric."


    The Lighter Duo had conserved their mana up until now to be able to cast a second combination art. This one Dominus remembered so he knew what to expect. The rain clouds manifested above his head and the drizzle kicked in, pouring yellowish raindrops on his unguarded head. All in all, this was a strong strategy. The rain slowed him down by numbing his body and shocking him. The tentacles obstructed him even though they couldn''t stop him. The thunder meant he couldn''t stand still and think, occupying his thoughts, and the geysers made sure he was paying attention to his surroundings at all times. Paying attention to everything at once was annoying. It was doubly true when taking into account the areas that had been shocked and locked off to him. To top it all off... He was still burning from the damn Stigma! How long did this cursed thing last?!… For a normal person, this would be sensory overload and their poor brain would implode. Dominus took things steady, though, as he wasn''t in any rush. He wasn''t in danger, he was the danger. No amount of obstacles piled on top of each other were going to stop him. He observed the situation and made the first move; the really obvious one that would prevent any unexpected problems in the future.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "Grim Cessation."


    The Lighter Duo had really overdone it on the mana front. They''d near enough emptied themselves out completely. It was hardly surprising considering the quality of the combination arts they deployed but to think they were this careless. They clearly hadn''t figured out the activation requirement for this art the first time around, and that was on them. Dominus had no intention of letting them harass him with what little mana they still possessed so he just took them out of the fight the gruelling way; by dragging them into an abyss in the floor and crushing every fibre of their being. The Duo where dragged kicking, but not screaming as they were surprisingly calm in this situation, into the nothingness portal at their feet by the red hands on their neck. No matter how they struggled the hand couldn''t be removed or interacted with and their fate was sealed. Not even anti-magic or disintegration magic could stop this art, it was really just an on-demand death sentence. Lightning Guy was the first to bite the dust as his body parts exploded out of from the floor in a fountain of blood. Water Guy kissed his teeth as he followed suit and disappeared under the floor, becoming a pile of viscera shortly after. They would certainly comprehend the art properly now that they''d bitten the dust to it first hand. If the magic flooding their empty mana reserves didn''t spell it out for them, nothing would.


    This left ''two'' opponents. The jellyfish and the mimic. And yet... The match hadn''t ended. There was a reason for this, a reason Dominus fully understood but made no effort to deal with. He would do his part and if Ares lost on his own afterwards, that would be his own problem. Not that Ares stood any chance against what was yet to come... To be honest, even Dominus really didn''t want to be in Ares'' shoes. He did not envy what was going to happen to his host at all...


    That was that and this was this, though, so Dominus focused back on the jellyfish which had floated as far away from Dominus as it could. The thunder strikes weren''t hitting Dominus, the tentacles were flailing around miserably, the water spouts were useless... The situation was hopeless for the jellyfish. Without backup from its masters, there was no way it could take on a freak of nature like Dominus! This was just bullying! Its masters should have de-summoned it before they died... The atrocity decided to just go wild and fire everything it had because there was no point trying to be calm about the situation anyway. Maybe if it went on a blind rampage it might actually get lucky or something? With that thought rolling around in its bell shaped head, it mindlessly threw out as many attacks as it could muster; trading accuracy for raw quantity and power.


    For Dominus, this was a fifty fifty. On the one hand, the jellyfish made the correct decision. The randomness of the countless attacks, when considering their newfound power, were actually much harder to deal with than before. The attacks weren''t as consistent but they were more difficult to anticipate and react to because of it. On the other hand, they still wouldn''t work. All the same issues the jellyfish had before applied here too. Also, the jellyfish was only doing this because it was scared, not because it realised this was correct. What the seashock atrocity should have really done in this situation was look for ways to evolve. Maybe try to learn new magic, maybe try and develop its ability to control its tentacles, or hell maybe even try and defy expectations and do something crazy like control pressure. Yeah, realistically this wouldn''t happen but at least then it could have died proud knowing it tried until the very end. What it was doing now was just pointless. The random thrashing about signalled to Dominus that it was time to end the fight so he put the dagger away and brought out his trusty spear. It was time for art number two!... Although the flames from the previous Stigma burn were still flickering away somewhat... This stuff really lasted a long while, it was actually a really strong art Enyo had come up with. It synergised well with her barriers too. Couldn''t get past them without powerful arts, at which point you''d burn. If you tried to brute force your way through, they contained pressure now. It was hard to navigate, that was for sure.


    With a spin, the spear was brought to his side as he eyed up the treacherous path ahead filled with tentacles and thunder. Thanks to Omniscience, however, it was basically a walk in the park. Dominus had really missed the Celestial Prisms. Of the Celestial Cluster, these were always his personal favourite treasure because of how invaluable they were against magic. Sure it served other purposes too, but as someone who mostly dedicated himself to weapons having a strong counter to magic that was delayed, created illusions, or could be tackled at the core was the perfect tool to round out his arsenal. Granted the Prisms weren''t actually his anymore and, one day, if he was ever actually able to leave this body, he wouldn''t be able to get them back. It was a shame but what was he supposed to do? By the time he could actually escape from Ares'' body, the man in question would probably be a infinitely more powerful than Dominus had ever been, even at his peak. Dominus knew how much of a freak Ares was to begin with but, after hearing the conversation with Astraeus, it had really sunk in that he couldn''t mess with this person. Ares was probably a descendent of his anyway. He had the pressure resistance bloodline and Dominus was like the Genghis Khan of revenants. Using underhanded means to con his own descendants was pretty low and Dominus probably wouldn''t be able to bring himself to do it anyway... Not that he could do much, he was really quite firmly trapped inside Ares. The destruction pillar had really done a number on him. Putting these miscellaneous thoughts to back of his mind, Dominus took off with a sprint. He dodged around Geysers, shifted course to avoid the incoming thunder, and hopped over some tentacles while sliding under others. As he drew closer, the number of attacks increased drastically but he was still every bit as untouchable as he was prior. He''d even started utilising the tentacles as footholds and was pushing himself further forward by kicking against them. A tentacle he hopped on happened to flick itself up and Dominus seized the moment by allowing himself to be launched. Angling himself towards another set of tentacles, he landed and slid down and along them, hopping from one to the next to avoid thunder strikes that got too close for comfort. He came back down to earth and disembarked from the tentacle rollercoaster as he continued dashing forward. He was close to the atrocity now and it was just a matter of gaining some height but he already had a plan in mind for that. He stood a couple feet away from a position that was directly underneath the jellyfish as attacks raged all around him. Waiting patiently amidst the storm of violence paid off as his opportunity eventually revealed itself in the form of a water spout bubbling up under the jellyfish. Dominus fended off the nearby tentacles with his spear as he barged past and onto the bubbling floor.


    Redirecting all the pressure Dominus was able to control to his legs, Dominus prepared himself for lift off as the water rocketed out from the floor. Dominus shot up into the sky thanks to the water pushing him and had to cleave his way through some tentacles above him until he was finally in the clear. His momentum started to slow so he leaned back with his back parallel to the floor and, at the apex of his ascent threw his arm forward and let go of the spear. Dominus had a wild smile on his face and he couldn''t help but let out a small chuckle as he fired off his last art for now.


    "Big Game Hunter!"


    Dominus watched the spear sail up and up, whistling through the air towards its target. The jellyfish sensed danger and immediately gave up on everything else it was doing to bring its tentacles back and defend itself. The geysers and the thunder strikes were stopped as all of the jellyfish''s remaining strength went into forming a barrier of tentacles beneath it to stop the spear. The spear itself looked plain, almost like nothing had even happened to it, and that was technically correct because the art was one that only took effect after it landed. The jellyfish, by trying to block the art, had made a catastrophic mistake that would cost it dearly. The spear made contact with the tentacles and time briefly stopped as a blue light roamed over the entirety of the jellyfish, scanning it in its entirety. That same blue light measured the size of the creature and its power relative to the cultivator who launched the art, and then increased in thickness as it returned back to the spear. The blue light became a casing around the spear that increased its power multiplicatively, giving it enough of a boost to pierce directly through the wall of tentacles, the eyes of the seashock atrocity, and finally its head. The spear emerged from the jellyfish after running it through but still had so much leftover power it went flying off into the clouds, even separating them as the spear eventually left the atmosphere and disappeared into orbit. A trail could be seen in the sky where the spear had parted the air and it was surrounded by a faint blue light that sparkled up and into the heavens.


    The jellyfish was dead and its corpse slowly fell to the floor, dissipating into water and lightning particles as soon as its body collapsed fully. The whirlpool came to a sudden halt and everything that had sunk below it previously was regurgitated in one spot in the corner. Limbs, blood, weapons, everything you would expect to find in a warzone formed a small mountain off to the side. Meanwhile Dominus had just landed. His graceful fall, followed by a light step to the floor, was rounded out by a bow he took. Inside his head, though, Ares was whining about how he''d just lost a perfectly good spear! This bastard didn''t have to throw it that bloody hard! How was he supposed to get it back now that the damn thing was drifting in space! It had gone way too far out of the Training Field to ever be returned so he would have to get a new one... Still, Ares had indirectly learnt a new art, so maybe that was fine. Actually, Enticement seemed pretty good too. He''d need to practice with both for a while before he could use them properly but having them was better than not having them. Especially Big Game Hunter. A decent ranged attack that took Ares cultivation disadvantage into account was really beneficial as his cultivation was pretty slow for the most part. It also factoring in size was pretty neat. Sure it restricted the art in some cases but the benefit in others was too good to complain about.


    Ares was dragged away from his peaceful thoughts by a searing pain across his entire body and excruciating agony in his arm. "Eh?" Ares looked down and realised he was in control again as Dominus'' time must have run out somewhat prematurely. Dominus had wanted to play with the mimic for a bit but that last art must have taken its toll and pushed him out forcefully. Ares'' arm was still missing and his body had been lit on fire again thanks to the Stigma. Ares'' silly prancing and pained yelping was indicative to everyone watching on the side that their beloved / utterly detestable goofball was back at the helm. Everyone who had died previously during the test wore evil smirks because now that Dominus was gone their grand plan could be enacted and their win was inevitable. Even now that they had ''all'' been sent to the side-lines, there was one person who had sneakily stayed hidden this entire time. Someone who had all the tools needed to beat Ares specifically, and it wasn''t the mimic... No, it was a threat far, far greater. Someone Ares, for as long as he lived, would never be able to beat...