Day three came and went and now Ares was starting to become a real menace. His pressure total by the end of the third day had reached a whopping 80% and looked like it was going to stay here for the remainder of the day. Progress had been good up until this point but it was starting to slow down again. 80% Felt like a barrier of some kind and his body was trying to reject going any further; almost as if it was convinced it couldn''t handle such an absurd number. No wonder Veteran got stuck here, it just seemed like the natural limit for enhancement for ordinary people. Of course Ares had gone further during his initial calibration, though, so he had more left in him yet to come. His body would get over the hurdle eventually and keep climbing... But whether he even needed it to beat Veteran was debatable. His matches had been getting closer and closer over time. Even when his enhancement was in the low to mid seventies Ares was putting up a respectable fight against Veteran and came close to inflicting grievous wounds on multiple occasions. Now grievous wounds didn''t necessarily mean Ares would win, as he typically had to trade his life to even have a chance of damaging Veteran to that degree, but the fact he was actually capable of potentially winning a match against a full powered Veteran already was a real confidence booster. Even if he didn''t go any further than 80% he would win a match eventually through sheer determination and force of will. Veteran knew it and was on edge for the last couple of bouts as he felt pressured, like he''d been backed up into a corner and had to repeatedly fight for his life. Every time he scraped by, and avoided Ares'' attempts to injure him beyond repair, he would be thrust right back into another fight as Ares reappeared inside the pagoda immediately after. Veteran had no breaks and it was starting to weigh on his mind a bit. The toll of going up against a gremlin like Ares who used every underhanded method in the book to win... Knowing that even a single careless slip up would result in his loss... Veteran was not having a good time. At least not from the perspective of someone trying to hold onto his position. As a cultivator he was having a blast as these were the most difficult fights he''d ever had in his entire time serving as an overseer.
Ares'' constant assaults were mounting a prolonged offensive that was tiring to repel and Veteran knew it was only a matter of time. One more fight, two more fights... He was seriously going to lose. The only question was would he lose today, before the fourth day started, or would he lose tomorrow when Ares finally breached 80% on his enhancement. That all depended on how long Veteran could keep up with Ares'' shenanigans mid-fight. The second he fell out of step and Ares fooled him, or even simply outperformed him, it would all be over... His reign of pure, unfiltered dominance would come to an abrupt end... The training would still continue but he wouldn''t even really be the master or teacher anymore. Ares would graduate and, in some ways, he would become the student. With that in mind, and reluctance in his heart, Veteran stepped up to the plate once again and squared off against Ares. Before the fight started he donned the silver cape... And Ares didn''t move an inch. The cape was no longer some kind of cure-all that could solve his Ares related problems by pushing him away. He couldn''t help but think that Ares was like a mosquito that had just become immune to bug-repellent. Equally as annoying too and he was even coming for his blood so the comparison was doubly apt. Veteran sighed to himself and trained his eyes on the kid opposite him. If he lost focus for even a moment Ares wouldn''t make the mistake of letting him go unpunished, Ares was already at that level. All of the laziness had been beaten out of Veteran. He needed to carefully select every single move he made and have backups prepared for all of them otherwise Ares would exploit his subpar foresight.
The fight kicked off when Ares fired a bullet of pressure. A simple attack but one that could be followed up on in any number of ways. It served no purpose other than being annoying and, yet, Veteran had to pay it due attention. Ares'' pressure bullets hit like an absolute truck now and could cause Veteran great harm if he let them smack him without doing anything in response. Just last fight one clipped his arm and he lost a chunk of it on the spot because he failed to deflect it. To be fair, that specific pressure bullet had been imbued with annihilation mana but even the normal ones weren''t to be trifled with. Veteran carefully ducked under the bullet and was forced to raise his arm above his head to defend himself against an axe kick from Ares.
Thud
Veteran''s arm wobbled as he pushed back against the kick and threw Ares away. He disengaged the fight but took a second to be able to stand back up as the kick made his knees go weak and nearly even buried him into the floor. Now that Ares'' attacks had some real weight to them his spontaneous bursts of aggression were incredibly frightening to be on the receiving end of. Veteran stood up and punched the ground underneath him. The strength of the punch travelled through every single floor beneath the one they were currently sparring on and obliterated them all, causing Ares to fall all the way to the ground floor while Veteran could fly after him. One thing Ares still couldn''t yet do was hover with pressure so Veteran forced him into a position where it actually mattered. In this case, while Ares descended to the bottom of the building, Veteran was able to chase him down and launch an attack that Ares couldn''t dodge in mid-air. He wouldn''t be able to replicate this scenario unless Ares chased him up to the top floor but even having one opportunity to reverse the tide and put him in the driver''s seat during this fight was incredibly valuable.
Veteran made the most of his advantage and charged up a powerful attack that could very well annihilate an entire row of buildings if he fired it off in a straight line through them but Ares remained unperturbed by this series of events. Instead, Ares'' eyes practically glazed over as he stared intently at the fist charging towards him. Milliseconds before Veteran''s fist could send him back outside the pagoda, Ares'' hand shot up and his palm pushed Veteran''s fist upwards. The fist sailed cleanly over Ares'' head, thanks to the last second deflect, and took no more than a few strands of hair away from Ares. When the attack finally stopped moving, a silver tunnel of pressure shot out of Veteran''s fist and raced through the city, destroying everything in its path as it travelled down the street. It passed by many-a red light and uplifted the pavements on either side of it until it disappeared off into the murky distance, leaving behind a trail of carnage. As the street was inclined, it now looked like a concrete slide with jagged edges and shiny shards of glass from nearby broken windows decorating the walls. If Ares had taken that punch head on, he would have ended up with his head coming clean off.
Ares,, now safe, thrust out his palm and smacked away Veteran who was sent stumbling backward. Sensing an opportunity, Ares stomped on the floor and sent out a shockwave that tripped Veteran and made him fall onto his backside while Ares ran up and swung his foot out to kick him like a football. Veteran took the brunt of the blow with his arm and slid back across the floor until his back rammed into a wall, bringing him to a halt. The mouldy wall crumbled on his dirty hair and dust crept into his mouth as he stood up and kissed his teeth. So far this match was going horribly at every turn. Ares'' attacks were hitting in all the right ways and his were being dismantled and avoided perfectly. This was easily the roughest start to a fight he''d had yet but he shook his head and put that thought to the back of his mind. It was still go time and he didn''t have the leeway to be worrying about the past when the present was as much of a struggle as it was. Ares walked over and Veteran took the imitative, throwing out a few quick jabs, all of which were avoided by Ares. Veteran''s prods were only there to help him search for an opening but he was unable to find one and, the longer this went on, the more desperate he was to do anything productive. He wouldn''t win a battle of attrition because his pressure reserves were smaller than Ares'' by a large margin and the kid wasn''t even using as much as Veteran to being with. If Ares took the fight slow he would win eventually by default and it didn''t help that Veteran''s last big attack missed completely. All that wasted pressure for no benefit only meant the invisible timer he was on was ticking down even faster now.
Veteran kicked out with his foot and Ares took a step back to avoid it, giving Veteran some space to create a series of silver squares in the air above Ares. These attacks were made of physical pressure and would crush anyone beneath them when they fell. More than that, the spaces between them were intentionally left empty to force Ares to stand in a specific spot, turning him into a deer in the headlights or a fish in the barrel. Ares, as expected, was forced to manoeuvre between the dropped blocks and ended up right where Veteran wanted him. With a swing of his fist, Veteran struck the nearest wall and sent a tremor through it, one that reached the very top of the building. The wall he struck collapsed and now the building had lost so much structural support it couldn''t bear the weight any longer and started to topple. Every single object, be they chairs, desks, or any other office furnishings, on the floors above were raining down on Ares, followed by the entire rest of the building.
CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Rather than strike Ares with his own flesh and body, Veteran had brought the whole house down on top of the guy. Even he''d only barely managed to escape in time so Ares, who''d been corralled by the boxes into an awkward spot, should have stood no chance of making it out... The building wasn''t regenerating though, it was just sitting there underneath his feet in a broken state, so Ares was alive somehow... The question now was ''what state is he in?'' logically, borderline dead would be the correct answer but Veteran wasn''t convinced. If he went digging for Ares to finish him off and there was an ambush then Veteran would suffer for his carelessness. On the flip side, if he waited, he was giving Ares all the time in the world to recuperate from any difficulties he may be having right now... Veteran made the final decision to go deeper in and check. He wasn''t so weak he couldn''t fight back against the ambush and he would rather regret falling for another trick than regret not being assertive and winning when the opportunity was being gifted to him on a silver platter.
Veteran sifted through the top layer of the collapsed building and kept and eye out for any black feathers. Ares'' Zephyr was a fantastic treasure but it was also very visible and more than capable of giving his location away if he wasn''t paying attention. A kick here and a kick there and yet the amount of rubble remaining was still far too great for Veteran to spot his target. This was getting riskier and riskier the longer he kept searching and he figured now would be a good time to retreat. Ares would have fixed any issues he had by now and was almost definitely already on the prowl. Worse still if he''d been ok from the start then he''d been given ample time to stalk Veteran and cook up a plan. Thinking all of the above, Veteran decided not to take things slow and started hovering up into the air as it was the quickest way to escape from his current location. He made it off the ground safely and looked around but he still couldn''t see anything nearby. His bird''s eye view didn''t solve the issue and he was starting to wonder if Ares was just slowly dying somewhere under the rubble. Maybe, at this point, it would be for the best to just bombard this entire area and reset the floor because this didn''t seem to be going anywhere.
In order to unleash his orbital strike of pressure properly, Veteran ascended further into the sky, an action which led to him finally understanding what was happening back down on the ground. He hadn''t been able to see it before due to his limited field of view but it was clear as day to him now and he very nearly accidentally let go of his enhancement in shock. What he was seeing here was something wholly unexpected because he wasn''t even aware that what Ares was currently doing was even possible. Similar to how Veteran could heal with his pressure, it seemed Ares could do something unique with his too... What Veteran had missed earlier, due to his closer position to the floor, was that the rubble he''d been standing on wasn''t touching the floor! All of the bricks he''d stepped on, and hovered over, were floating a couple of inches above the ground. This was telekinesis! Ares was using his boundless normal pressure to lift things by reversing the direction of the applied weight.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Normal pressure always weighed ''down'' on people and objects from ''above''. It functioned similarly to an over-abundance of gravity, the starting position of which was normally set in stone. No matter the orientation, pressure would always pull the target ''down'' to the nearest surface. If you were standing on the floor, it would start on your head and push down. If you were doing a handstand on the floor, it would start on your feet and push down. If there was no nearby surface and it was being used in outer space, for example, then it would simply push ''down'' relative to the person or object affected by the pressure.
No one had ever attempted to reverse the direction of pressure because not only did it not seem like the most useful thing ever, as it ran contrary to what people typically used pressure for in the first place, but also because there was a sort of assumption that it just couldn''t be done. Veteran himself had toyed with the idea and found no potential avenues to even suggest it was even remotely doable. What the first group had misunderstood about the utility of reversing pressure, however, was that it could lift objects and not just people. What the second group, including Veteran, had misunderstood, was that it was theoretically possible to reverse pressure if the person in question had an anomalous amount and the specific, required trait.
There was one scientist who came up with a relevant theory about ''reverse pressure'', that was actively being shown off by Ares here, but he''d been severely ridiculed for his suggestion at the time because of how impossible the requirements were to meet. As for what Ares was actually doing, he was using pressure on his own pressure. As pressure inherently always moved ''down'', if pressure were to be used on pressure, the second instance would move ''up'' instead to counteract it. This was because pressure itself functioned like a surface. If you used pressure on someone standing on the floor, an invisible ''surface'' would appear on their head and push down. A second instance of pressure would start on the floor, at the person''s feet, and push upwards towards the pressure surface above their head. That was how the theory went.
Provided the second instance of pressure was more abundant than the first, you would get ''reverse pressure'', or telekinesis, as the pressure would lift the object upwards. As for why this was impossible, supposedly, it was because a cultivator''s pressure was uniform across the board. Attempting it was like trying to speak two different words at the same time; all that happened was a single, conjoined and garbled word was spat out instead. The two ''different'' pressures were actually just the same thing merging with each other the second they met in the middle. The theory, in other words, was that if you had a fizzy drink in one cup, and water in another, mixing them in an empty, third cup would create a new result. This was true. The problem was that everybody effectively just had two glasses of water or two glasses of fizzy drink at their disposal, they weren''t ''mixing'' anything that wasn''t already there. Fundamentally changing the essence of a person''s pressure was impossible and they only ever had one type throughout their entire life. Plus, trying to use another person''s pressure was also a no go because they would clash and one would just disappear after being snuffed out by the more powerful pressure of the two. One person could use the same type of pressure twice but that was useless. Two people could use two different types of pressure at once but one would always be cancelled out, leaving one behind which was useless because two was necessary for reverse pressure to be generated. There needed to be a middle ground, in which one cultivator could use two different types of pressure, to create reverse pressure... But pressure wasn''t something that a person could create ''variants'' of. To add onto that, even if it was possible, the amount of pressure a single person would need in their body to use this in a way that mattered was not small...
And yet, here was Ares, telekinetically lifting the rocks. Veteran felt like he''d been slapped in the face because, in hindsight, it was obvious Ares could do this! This kid had two different kinds of pressure thanks to his unique bloodline and there was a shit ton of it thanks to Dominus''! The golden annihilation pressure and the silver standard pressure! They wouldn''t delete each other in a bid for supremacy because they belonged to the same person! A solution had been found! As it turned out, the scientist was right; it''s just that his theory had never been definitively proven until now. How happy he would be if he could see it in action. Veteran figured he would spread news of this achievement because this development might reinvigorate the study of pressure once more. As for Ares, he was effectively dual wielding water and a fizzy drink to create something unique to him. He was using normal pressure on all the rocks while also overlapping it with his annihilation pressure to keep them steady in the air. If he increased the amount of silver pressure, he could lower the rocks. If he increased the amount of golden pressure, he could lift them! In fact he had so much pressure tucked away in his heart that he could do a whole lot more than just lift them. Veteran was about to find this out the hard way...
Whoosh
Was that a brick? Veteran dodge some kind of incoming projectile and craned his head upward to look at what it was Ares had tossed at him. As he did so he, first, saw that it was in fact a brick and, secondly, he realised it was coming right back towards him like some kind of boomerang. Ares hadn''t thrown the rock, he was directly controlling it like a puppet act. This brick wasn''t going to stop chasing Veteran until he either destroyed it or gave Ares something else to worry about. Right now Ares had the freedom to focus on his pressure but if Veteran started attacking him that would change. Ares was too far away to hit and, even then, he was underneath the building''s remains and couldn''t be seen. To end this farce, Veteran simply punched the brick and shattered it. Having telekinesis was great for Ares but if he was just going to be tossing a brick or two then Veteran wasn''t going to fold over just like that!
...
Veteran IMMEDIATELY wished he could retract his smug assertion because he looked back down and saw thousands of bricks flying toward him from multiple angles. Assuming Ares could only control one at a time was, evidently, misguided. Ares could propel all of them, simultaneously, at great speed, and with full control. This wasn''t some wimpy ''I can lift a few things here and there'' telekinesis, no, this was ''I''m chucking everything in a one mile radius at you with the speed of a bullet'' telekinesis. Dodging was impossible. Veteran would last all of two seconds before he was swamped by the onslaught so he had to take a different approach to dealing with this annoying attack. In mid-air, he curled into the foetal position and kept his pressure bundled up tight around him in a small radius. The bricks all converged on his body and created a ball around him as they tried to crush him. His pressure was preventing it, though, like a sort of barrier but it was also building up to a massive blast which would destroy everything nearby. To have to use this attack on bricks instead of an actual enemy was a humbling experience but Veteran didn''t have a choice right now and couldn''t be picky.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
A silver sphere lit up the night sky and warped the air. Almost every brick had been turned to dust and the debris was scattering in the wind. Specs of brown and white paint whirled around inside a silver swirl orbiting Veteran like he was some kind of planet. He looked down once more to see what Ares was plotting next only to see an oval platform of sorts coming towards him. It was made of concrete which meant Ares wasn''t limited to untethered objects and could actually pull up the ground around him to use telekinesis on if he so desired. As long as Ares wasn''t in a vacuum, there was always a projectile available to him. A valuable tool indeed! Still, Veteran wasn''t very much impressed by the constant onslaught of meaningless projectiles. It was different when Ares lobbed a whole horde of bricks at him but this one platform meant nothing... Actually, why was it just one? Ares could have dug up the entire street and chucked it at Veteran if he wanted to try and hit him... Ah hell, not this again... Veteran hated it when he didn''t know what Ares was doing. Still, there was nothing he could do about it so he punched out at the incoming platform and waited to see what Ares would be chucking at him next. Probably something stupid like Rox or the Primordial Blade...
Bang!
The platform stood no chance and shattered instantly but what really shattered in that moment was all hope of Veteran winning this fight. His heart rate spiked when he saw Ares'' fist come flying through the platform''s rubble. Milliseconds before his head was rocked by Ares'' Annihilation Echo'' he''d seen the kid standing on a second platform that had been closely following the first one underneath it... Of course... Ares didn''t know how to fly using pressure but he knew how to lift objects... He could just stand on them as he lifted them and ''fly'' that way! Telekinesis wasn''t only useful for spamming projectiles at people and Ares had essentially ''thrown'' himself. Veteran''s lack of creativity meant he hadn''t seen this coming at all, which was fair because telekinesis was an entirely unexplored realm of possibilities for him, and Ares'' fist was now about to punish him hard for that mistake. Thinking he could hide from Ares in the sky would result in his downfall.
B A N G !
Veteran went careening towards the floor while his head was drenched in blood. His eye had bust the second Ares'' knuckled dug into it, his lip was completely bust, his nose was broken, and his skull was severely dented. He needed to somehow ignore all of this and regain his bearings before he hit the ground but, luckily, Veteran was still an expert at the end of the day so this was a simple task...
Thud
... Or it would have been had Ares not just landed on Veteran''s chest with his foot. Veteran knew... Knew it was all over. He was crashing down to the ground and couldn''t remove Ares'' boot for love or money. Everything had come full circle. During their first match Veteran had stomped on Ares'' chest in the staircase and flattened him and now it was happening in reverse to him... Oh the irony... Ares'' enhancement was strong enough now that Veteran struggled to contest him so the foot couldn''t be removed. To add insult to injury, Ares'' telekinesis was still active and there were platforms all around, meaning even if Veteran threw Ares off he would be able to ''fly'' right back and do it again. Veteran didn''t have the time he needed to throw off Ares and correct his position before Ares could kick off a platform and land back on Veteran. Not that he could remove the foot anyway. He''d been trying ever since it first touched him but it just refused to budge. Veteran even tried to fire off a pressure bullet but Ares just brought a chunk of a platform over with his telekinesis and blocked it without needing to raise a single hand or even deflect it. No attack in Veteran''s arsenal was freeing him from this situation and he didn''t have the raw power to escape... So yeah, he knew. He knew it was all over... He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. He was already close to hitting the floor so this ought to be over soon enough...
...
...
...
Veteran felt something on his back and he was confused. He hadn''t crashed into the ground? He wasn''t dead? He opened his eyes and muttered a weak ''ah'' before closing them again. Ares had saved him by putting a platform underneath him and carrying him down to the floor. Right, he won''t kill me yet because he still needs me. Ares'' pressure mastery was officially higher than Veteran''s but it was because, and only because, of his unique telekinesis. Ares'' enhancement was still residing at 80% and he hadn''t mixed annihilation mana into it yet either. Ares wanted his clone to be perfect but, if he won now, there would still be room for improvement that it could never achieve as a mere simulation. The real him would go on to improve but the clone would be trapped in its current form and that was no good. The telekinesis was a neat trick that pushed Ares over the edge, allowing him to take a victory here, but it wasn''t the end goal. Until there was no room left to improve upon whatsoever, Ares wouldn''t deal the killing blow... Although, mentally, he kind of already did. Veteran felt defeated down to his very last cell. Every bone in his body ached even if they hadn''t directly suffered an attack and his heart was dismayed. He was already missing his spot as number one but, unfortunately, he knew he would never get it back. Yes he still had some more tricks up his sleeve but nothing that would either A; matter or B; be legal to use in a match here. Most of it required a sword and that wasn''t permitted. Even if he could use it he would just be delaying the inevitable as Ares'' 100% enhancement with annihilation mana mixed in would beat him even then anyway. Long story short... He''d lost. Veteran was dethroned and, as of now, although he''d yet to officially become the overseer of floor five, Ares was the new king of the pagoda!