Chapter 364: Chapter 364: Entrance to Heaven Denied
Hmmmm. Ares scratched his head as he stared at the ceiling directly above him. This was definitely not where he remembered being the last time he was conscious so it was a rather strange change of scenery. He was currently back in his temporary abode aboard the Federation and, just based on a rough guess, it was no longer the same day of the krakyrn incident anymore. Aejaz happened to catch sight of Ares awake and immediately walked over to pester him with a confused look in his eye.
"So... What exactly was that all about yesterday?"
Yesterday... I really have been out for a whole day... Ares scratched his head once more and wracked his brain over the events that followed Hunter's sacrificial martyr stunt. "... I was fighting for a soul."
"What?" This didn't answer Aejaz' question, exactly, so he pressed Ares further for a more comprehensive answer. "After Hunter blew up the krakyrn, you finally escaped from the bubble and took off at blinding speed straight towards Vraizon. You Voidwalked all the way up to the next domain and then came crashing back down and got knocked out by the fall. What were you even doing up there anyway? It looked like you were picking another fight or something."
Hmmm... Ah, right... That explanation rung a few bells so Ares took a minute to reconfigure his thoughts, such that they were laid out neatly before him and he could reconstruct the happenings properly, and recounted everything clearly to his stumped brother. "Right, so, it went a little something like this..."
Yesterday, at the very moment Hunter had just committed suicide to save the Federation.
Ares stared in disbelief at the giant explosion taking place about a mile away from his current position. He was still trapped in the bubble, it had about another five or so seconds left on the duration, but he was too gobsmacked to move right now anyway irrespective of the watery cage keeping hi locked in place. This idiot Hunter had really gone and done it now! There was no coming back from this as that bag of Shock Beads was not going to discriminate and everything in the immediate area of its detonation point was guaranteed dead. This was not going to have some kind of fairy tale style happy ending, Hunter was actually just dead. Not even a corpse because he was going to be blown to smithereens... It was honestly better if his body fragments weren't found... Ares was a little shocked, actually. Not at the fact that Hunter had the resolve to do this, that actually really wasn't that surprising given his personality, no Ares was shocked that this guy had just died.
Ares wasn't all too used to seeing people he knew die so he was taken aback somewhat by the incredibly sudden full stop to his existence. Ares wasn't attached to the guy, and he didn't really feel any deep seated sadness, but he still hadn't expected this from what he assumed would be an easy fight. It kinda still was 'easy', it just went on for a lot longer than it should have, thanks to the whole soul business, which enabled this particular ending. It was such a pointless death, and didn't need to happen if things had played out any differently, and, yet, here Ares was, staring blankly at the explosion on the edge of the Freefire Federation that signified and end to a fight and a life simultaneously. Everyone else must have been feeling roughly the same with Onno and Nibbler having it the worst... Especially poor Nibbler. He was probably trapped and injured underneath the rubble of Hunter's workshop so, even if he didn't see what just happened now, when he finally escaped he would be really depressed... In fact, Ares could already somewhat see him limping down the Federation layers and waddling towards the now-ruined and gold tinged docks where his adopted father just heroically gave up his life. That was heart-breaking to watch and Ares really didn't want to just sit here and spectate the poor little sharkdog cry so he diverted his attention elsewhere to news that was a little better and might soften the blow of all of this somewhat.
Hunter's soul!
It was no surprise people in this lower domain didn't know about the afterlife. Realistically, given their complex nature, how could they? But Ares did! Right now, Hunter's soul was about to go sailing off into the void and be caught in, presumably, heaven's net. Hunter would go on to live a peaceful life in what Ares figured would be a sort of mini paradise if the typical depictions of heaven were even remotely accurate. That wasn't a bad fate per-se, and entirely earned, but Hunter had people waiting on him back down in reality so Ares wanted to pluck up the soul and keep it handy in case he ever found a way to revive him. Reviving a person was way easier if you had their soul in your possession. Did it mean it would happen any time soon? Not even remotely! Treasures capable of resurrection were still incredibly rare, otherwise Armageddon would have revived his wife by now (although his situation was more convoluted), and there was no guarantee Ares wouldn't want to use such a treasure on someone else by then. People died all the time and if he lost someone he actually personally cared about then he would prioritise them 100% Still, resurrecting Hunter if possible, in maybe a few tens of thousands of years if Onno and Nibbler were extremely lucky, wasn't a bad outcome. To that end, Ares strained his Omniscience and his divine sense to catch wind of where the soul was fleeing to.
Thus begun the saga of what Aejaz had been depicting to Ares as he lay in bed the very next day. Ares originally had no intention of going anywhere near Vraizon for a good while but, when he saw Hunter's souls shoot up towards the sky, he knew he had no choice but to follow it and follow it fast. The thing was damn speedy without Hunter's body acting as an anchor! What Ares didn't know about chasing this soul, however, was that this was going to be a rather eventful few minutes! Point in case, after the bubble disappeared, it didn't take Ares longer than a minute of chasing the soul to almost crash headfirst into some kind of strange, mechanical pigeon. Its eyes were very obviously camera lenses and Ares was ninety percent sure this thing had been spying on him like some kind of undercover paparazzi looking for a scandalous scoop... Well, it could have been watching the krakyrn event unfold, that was also possible and newsworthy in its own right, but Ares figured it was a mix of both at the very least. It seemed to care about his actions but didn't expect to get found whilst hiding out in the clouds like this. As much as Ares wanted to hunt that bird down, and shove it inside his Primordial Blade to investigate later, unfortunately, he had to ignore it. The soul would fly away if he dawdled here any longer so he vowed to maybe try and come back for the robo pigeon because he had a gut feeling that this thing was tied to the Torchbearer in some way. It was almost guaranteed to be a neo gear product of some sort, as nobody else in Sheryashka should have been able to create something like this other than maybe some extremely proficient gadgeteer, so given everything that had happened so far it was likely tied to the overarching picture that was revealing itself slowly to Ares. Anyway, hopefully wrangling the soul would be a quick affair and then he could double back and Voidwalk after the now-escaping pigeon. It realised it was discovered and immediately bolted off towards the horizon, well aware that Ares was too busy to run along after it right this very moment. It was either a clever little automated AI or it was being remotely controlled. Either way, it was a decently fast thing so Ares redoubled his efforts on the soul so as not to lose sight of the bird before it vanished for good and he could no longer get any answers out of its construction and recorded data.
Ares darted upwards towards the sky like a reverse meteor, confusing absolutely everybody down below who were looking around panicked, unsure if there was another foe that had just now appeared and Ares was preparing to fight it. He was moving at incredible speeds that he hadn't even used in the previous fight so he clearly viewed this situation, whatever it was, with a sense of urgency! He didn't have time to clarify the misunderstanding so they were all just going to have to stay on their toes for a while as they dealt with krakyrn clean-up and aftermath. Be it wiping the monster's guts off the Federation, putting out the remaining fires and checking the civilians for a headcount, or searching for any signs of life regarding Hunter... Although that last one was nothing if not folly and completely pointless. Ares was literally chasing this guy's soul for crying out loud! He was deader than dead!
Speaking of the soul, though Ares had figured out how to interact with them, actually gripping the damn thing and maintaining a hold on it was tough. He'd been able to catch the tail end of the soul a few times so far but its speed and momentum was shocking. It was like a shooting star on crack cocaine and this damn thing was speeding off to the void like a puppy chasing a mailman van! A mortal would have had an easier time trying to stop a horse from going buck wild by grabbing its tail than Ares was trying to stop this thing but, still, he was committed and had to figure this out. Reviving a person who's soul was in heaven was doable but it would take forever and then some comparatively. Plus heaven was supposedly pretty picky about letting souls go, obviously otherwise death would have very little meaning, so even getting to see the deceased again once the soul was in heaven's possession was unlikely. You were permitted to visit but the rate at which you could chat with the dead was pretty miserable and once every few million years was considered a generous amount for the most part... It was far better to have the soul in your own possession than to just leave it to heaven or hell to hold onto; that was what Ares had gathered from Dominus' occasional musings whenever Ares had been playing around with the Converter and fish souls.
Actually, using the Converter here was a good idea. It would help reel in the soul but Ares was wary of using it as he didn't want to accidentally Convert the soul into magical energy. Sure he'd get a lot of power out of a soul as good as Hunter's... But he didn't want to make the guy go permanently extinct! Ares was concerned the pull of the treasure might actually be too strong for his inexperienced elf to handle and so he felt like holding back on that front for now unless things got desperate. He was pretty sure he could control the treasure if push came to shove, and not let things go awry, but why risk it when he could just put some more effort into catching the slippery thing and not even have to go down that route to begin with!? There was no reason to gamble it so he chased the soul down, and managed to maintain a similar speed so as to enable a steady apprehending of it, just before the boundary of Sheryashka ended.
Vraizon was a stone's throw away but Ares was too preoccupied to get a good look at it. Not that there was really much to see over there other than some floating rocks pointlessly drifting through space. The domain was empty in a good few spots and this just happened to be a relatively dead / quiet area of Vraizon. Most people who ascended to the next domain did so through a space station hub that was somewhere closer to Central Land and so other places in Vraizon, near the border between it and Sheryashka, weren't that interesting. You would occasionally come across travellers flying through space, traversing between planets in the proverbial 'back alleys' of Vraizon, but other than that there was no one and nothing to see here at all. That was probably for the best, actually, as anyone in Vraizon was almost definitely going to be above the transition realm. That would then mean there'd be a chance for the situation to become complicated if the individual in question was interested in whatever Ares was doing up here for some reason. Trying to latch onto an invisible soul would cause all sorts of misunderstandings and, depending on the other party's attitude, could go south rapidly. If they thought he was lying, and wrestling with an invisible, rare treasure or something then a fight would break out and it would not be in Ares' favour. Cultivation wise he would likely be severely outclassed and it's not like he could just let go of the soul either so that would be a massive distraction and disadvantage! As such, Ares was quite happy to not be watched by anyone as he undertook this soul catching endeavour.
The soul bust through the domain border and a small ripple appeared in the sky, like the soul had dipped into a pond in the sky, but Ares wasted no time observing this phenomenon as his hand darted through the border too in the same fashion to continue the chase. He felt a surge of mana as soon as he did, and his hand felt like it had entered mana heaven compared to the mud he'd been wading through down below in Sheryashka, but again none of this was his primary focus compared to the fleeing soul. Ares considered throwing his whole body to the other side and embracing the new domain, as the mana surge might actually be beneficial to helping him out here as it might power him up to some degree, but he opted not to due to the oxygen complication. Ares wasn't entirely sure how breathing worked out there, as he'd only seen it briefly mentioned in a book and needed to do further research, but apparently cultivators at a certain realm could breathe in space normally. Again, Ares didn't understand the specifics, but it had something to do with a mutation in the lungs that occurred around transition realm.
Regardless of what domain you were in, upper or lower, this was a major part of why transition was considered a 'big boy' realm as it allowed you to explore beyond the atmosphere of the planet you were born on or familiar with. Some races didn't have this issue, and could freely travel around through space from birth, but it was generally a requirement that couldn't be avoided... Sort of. Some people were born with this lung mutation. If their parents were both in transition realm there was as decent chance the mutation would pass down through genetics and transition realm wouldn't be needed. Most Sheryashkan mortals were not in this boat, however, as very few mortals here were descendants of transition realm cultivators due to how infrequently people reached that realm. Sure Ares had met a few here and there but his luck was pretty unique. It was entirely possible for a mortal to go their entire life without ever directly interacting with, or being in close proximity to, a transition realm cultivator. Seeing one at the top of the coliseum back in Red Sun during an international was about as good as it got so having an ancestor who was one was incredibly unlikely.
Ares' parents were obviously in the transition realm when he was conceived, far above it actually, but that wasn't an undeniable guarantee he had the mutation in his lungs that would allow him to venture in Vraizon. It's not like he knew what was normal or not; he'd been born with these lungs and used them like any normal person would their own for all these years. Unless he saw a diagram of the difference between normal and mutated he wouldn't be able to analyse his own properly and make a correct judgement call. As such, venturing into Vraizon, even though it would likely be safe, was a risk that didn't need to be taken right now. He was still keeping all of this in the back of his mind, though, as Red Sun, and the sect, were going to need a bunch of runes set up around them to aid mortals in breathing in outer space. Ares had given that conundrum a lot of thought, prior to setting off on this trip, so he understood that his best option here and now was to play it safe and not cross the boundary just in case as he was familiar enough with the potential results that he knew it wasn't worth it. He wouldn't die instantly but if he became light headed and weak now, and lost his grip on the soul, that thing would be gone for good. Ares couldn't spend too long in Vraizon without breathing so chasing it down with no oxygen was a death wish and he would rather not have such an experience. Staying over here in Sheryashka and just shoving his hand through to the new domain was more than enough!
It looked like Ares' plan was working too as the soul was struggling to release itself from his hand now that he had a firm grip on it. It was a tricky little thing but there was nowhere left for it to run so Ares was going to now have to figure out what to do with the soul now that it was actually in his possession... He hadn't thought this through in his head as of yet so the situation had become rather awkward as he had nowhere to put the damn thing! Even if he threw it into the Primordial Blade it would just hone in on the void and escape anyway. He couldn't just hold the thing in his hands forever and ever either so he was going to have to figure something out... While he was wracking his brains over where to chuck this unruly and energetic soul, a strange white tear in reality formed a few centimetres away from his hand gripping the soul and a pure white finger poked through it. Ares almost didn't even see it, because he was so preoccupied with his current problem, but he certainly felt it when it tried stealing the soul away from right under his nose!
Was this some kind of heavenly angel trying to fish up the soul? Ares probably wasn't supposed to see this, nobody was, but because the soul was being restrained by something, namely Ares, the heaven-dweller had to break through into reality and make their presence known to go through with the deed. This was a infrequent sight and something that would only ever happen under the rare circumstance that someone knew how to deal with souls and prevent them from runnin their natural course in death. So basically this should almost never happen and the person doing their job on the other side of the tear, in heaven, must have been very confused right about now as to why they had to go such lengths to pluck a soul from the lower domains of all places. That strangeness must have only been amplified when it was met by determined resistance! Ares swatted away the probing finger and glared at it like he was a dog guarding a juicy bone and some other mutt was sleuthing around in his back garden in search of where he'd buried it.
Unfortunately for Ares, these heavenly folk were very good at their job and could detect a soul no problemo if it was just out and about like Hunter's currently was. The finger darted for the soul and began forming some kind of creamy coloured tether to it while making circular gestures with the finger. It was tying the tether around the finger's circumference and dragging the soul closer. Ares felt a lot of force suddenly start pulling his hand towards the heavenly portal and this was not good! There was no guarantee the worker fetching souls on the other side of this portal was a high tiered cultivator but, given the odds, it was quite likely. This was not someone Ares could go head to head with in a fair tug of war and if he stubbornly clung to the soul without a plan his hand would be lost to heaven forever when the portal was shut. He was a revenant, and could grow a new one, but it would still be mighty inconvenient until then! Also, Ares refused to back down and give up the soul. He had no personal interest in it but he was curious enough to hold on to it and do Onno / Nibbler a favour... Plus, and this was extremely selfish, but Nibbler would probably follow the soul around and never let it out of his sight. If Ares kept it then Nibbler might become a permanent resident at the sect! Or, at least permanent until Hunter was revived anyway. But still, more cute animals in the sect = more good news for Ares! Also, if Ares was actually going to be building a moat for the Scylla heart at some point, then Nibbler would have some home turf to run around in and he could be an extra layer of defence in the waters for the sect. Ares wasn't being strictly selfish here, he was adding another warrior to defend the sect! This was definitely his main goal! It had nothing to do with petting the cute sharkdog!
Not that his resolve was changing the outcome of what was currently happening. The heaven hand was outclassing him by a fair bit but, actually, not by as much as Ares had been expecting. This must have been some kind of low rank worker, a mere cog of the machine that was heaven, and so he wasn't particularly powerful. Perhaps a little more so than someone like Fin? Still for such a person to be considered rank and file made it very obvious Ares was picking a fight he had to be quick about winning. If one of this worker's higher ups passed by and saw him struggling it would raise a lot of questions but, more importantly, a bigger fish might join in on this fight and then Ares was guaranteed to lose. Thankfully, Ares had a plan now and he'd even figured out a way to store the soul after enacting his strategy. He could freely control the void so, if the soul wanted to escape to the void, then Ares would simply fulfil that wish! He was going to create a small spot in the Primordial Blade that mimicked the void by filling it with pure nothingness and overlapping it with the void to boot. The soul ought to be content resting there in the mini, impromptu graveyard so Ares just had to get it back from this finger and the problem ought to be fully solved.
As for how he was planning on beating the finger... Well, Ares was already making his move. In fact, he'd already let go of the soul! And, yet, the finger wasn't making any progress with pulling the soul closer despite Are snot contesting it with his hand anymore. In fact, now that Ares had let go, the finger was finding it impossible to budge the damn soul even a single inch! Ares was using his Converter to pull in the soul instead of his bare hand as this thing could not be contested by some random fool even if he was from a higher domain! It would take an expert in souls to beat this treasure so Ares was able to let go of the soul temporarily and start charging up a little present for the finger that ought to make the person on the other end retract it real fast!
Though everything was looking to be smooth sailing from here on out, another tear in reality appeared directly besides the first and Ares almost wanted to pull his hair out in annoyance until he realised it wasn't another heaven portal. Whatever this tear was, it was going to complicate things, sure, but not for the reason Ares was expecting. His first thought, after realising it wasn't heaven intruding on this domain again, was that maybe hell was throwing their hat into the ruing for this unclaimed soul too... But that wasn't correct either. There was no bony hell finger poking out through the tear, no, in fact the tear just got wider and wider until a weird old man popped out! Ares had no idea who on earth this geezer was, or what he was doing here, but he decided to ignore him and pray this old man would do the same in return because he was damn strong! So strong that Ares couldn't see his cultivation base at all and this guy could smother him to death in a second flat if he chose to... If this was some kind of envoy from heaven who'd come here to reprimand a soul thief... Then Ares was screwed! That being said, this man looked nothing like anything remotely related to heaven and he appeared to be somewhat scruffy. Unless this guy was a hobo angel or something Ares assumed he was in the clear on the heaven front.
Ares ignored the old man for now, who seemed to be gawking at Ares and doing little else for some reason, and carried on with what he was doing... Casting Armillary! Maybe this art was why the old man was gawking? Maybe it was the raging inferno creating a fiery heart outline in Ares' chest where the Extinction Converter was working overtime to fight for the soul. Maybe it was the fact that some random lower domain brat was fighting against heaven. Maybe the old man was just an idiot! Ares had no clue but, actually, the correct answer was probably a mix of all of them. Ares did not recognise this man but practically anyone outside the Primordial barrier would because this fellow was Unreliable Old Master! He'd been minding his business outside the pagoda and got transported directly in front of the new kid on the block who was technically his comrade in arms from now on. Transmit had a close relation with Ares and vice versa so this kid was important! Unreliable was gobsmacked that he'd been teleported right in front of the kid but that shock only continued to multiply as he digested the situation in its entirety. This kid had the Extinction Converter! Anyone who was anyone outside the barrier knew that this extremely rare treasure had vanished from the museum a while back, it was the hot story up until Ares took over the headlines, but how it ended up in Ares' possession was a mystery! Still, this answered a lot of questions and was a pretty incredible piece of news because a fundamental champion gotten their hands on this ridiculously powerful treasure. It was something that would cause a storm when reported back outside these lower domains.
"Ah! You!" This was the extent of what Unreliable was capable of verbally mustering given the one in a million nature of this random teleport.
"I'm a bit busy!" Ares yelled back as he kept charging up the Armillary.
"Ah! You!" Unreliable was clearly not an expert in communication.
"What the hell do you want?!" Ares really couldn't spare this guy much attention right now!
"Ah! You!"
"Dementia?!" This, as far as Ares was concerned, was the only reasonable excuse for this man's current behaviour! In the end, Ares wasn't sure whether to be thankful or concerned when the old man suddenly disappeared, roughly as instantaneously as he'd appeared earlier, but for now Ares didn't dwell on it as he was finally ready to cast Armillary. "Perish Armillary!" The finger Ares aimed at seemed to final detect the massive amount of mana barrelling towards it and the thing froze. The finger unravelled the tether binding it to the immovable soul and retracted the finger into the portal as quickly as it could but there was no escaping the Armillary at that distance as it was sucked into the portal a few milliseconds before it closed shut. If that individual was working in a place with other people, like some kind of office or something, there was about to be a very large disturbance that required everyone's immediate attention! Still, Ares couldn't possibly know what was happening over there right now, as the portal was long gone, so he just hoped nobody innocent got blown to pieces over this altercation and tucked the soul away in the Blade.
Sure enough, the soul calmed down when he placed it inside a spot of nothingness so this seemed to be a functional plan that would allow Ares to store souls from now on if need be. All was well! At least it was well up until another heaven portal appeared and a retaliatory beam of light shot through it, smacking Ares in the gut and pummelling him straight back down towards the core of Sheryashka. It was a powerful strike, likely from a different person to the worker Ares had beaten back earlier, so Ares was barely able to slow himself down during the duration of the fall by opening the Zephyr and spreading it as wide as humanly possible. This was a painful endeavour too as resisting the sheer momentum he had after the previous smack was nigh impossible and yet he fought against fate anyway. This all resulted in him crashing back down into Sheryashkan waters in front of the Federation like a humanoid cannonball travelling at the speed of sound. His crash was monstrous and the resulting wave even somewhat shook the Federation, rocking it to and fro.
Ares; lights were officially knocked out and someone, presumably Aejaz, rescued him from the water. He'd been unconscious since and only just woken up now, the day after, before recounting this whole charade to Aejaz who was nodding along and pretending he understood any of this. He got the gist of it, Hunter's soul was in Ares' possession, but everything else was just whacky nonsense he didn't care to try and understand. Heaven and hell? The functionality of souls? Metal pigeon stalkers? Weird old men appearing out of thin air? It sure sounded like Ares had a fun little adventure but Aejaz wanted nothing to do it with it because he had zero interest in getting roped into Ares' shenanigans! Anyway, Ares was awake now, and there were still a few small things to take care of, so he was going to have to get off his lazy ass and finish up his miscellaneous Federation tasks. Namely, he had to give assurance to Onno and Nibbler that Hunter wasn't permanently dead, he had to go get his Deep Blue from whoever was currently holding it, and he also wanted to finally figure out who the dumb and dumber duo were because he'd yet to get any answers about them even now! Ares also wanted to take on Hunter's work in Xasca, even if it meant working alongside fake monk Massai, and see if he could garner any information about the pigeon that had been watching his every move yesterday. A fair few tasks but they ought to get done rather quickly. If anything, he'd probably spend more time relaxing now that everything was all over and done with! The holiday part of the holiday was finally rearing its head, for real this time, and Ares was looking forward to just enjoying the rest of the trip before in peace his next adventure began in full and ruined said peace pronto.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
TWC_Guy
TWC_Guy Happy new year! Hopefully everyone enjoyed their holidays. The novel will resume uploads now and today will be the promised double upload with the second chapter being uploaded in the next ten minutes or so (I'm just finishing up the last editing touches). Just to mention this ahead of time, I'll be taking a week break at the end of every arc from now on as it gives me time to organise things for the next arc properly as well as just to prevent burn out in general. Still, the arcs re decently long anyways so it will be a while before the next break. That's all for now so I wish anyone with resolutions the best of luck in accomplishing them!
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