Kapitel 362: Chapter 362: Punching a Wyvern
BANG
"Did it hurt? Did it? Did it?" Ares was happily Voidwalking around the wyvern after he'd just blasted it into the wall of the bubble with a Grand Annihilation. Turns out, this thing wasn't so tough when he could actually hit it! It was certainly weaker than when it was alive, it's just that being a soul took up a lot of its power budget and the tables had turned quite drastically now that Ares was actually knocking it about. It was honestly less resilient than the krakyrn and so Ares' verbal prodding at it was mostly rhetorical and smug rather than anything born of actual curiosity. He already knew the answer to his 'question' because of course it hurt! One does not simply get hit by an Ares explosion and shrug it off! He poured his soul into every single one he fired off! Well, not literally, that would be risky! You shouldn't play around with souls! And you definitely shouldn't expose them like this wyvern had done in case some soul smacking crazy person like Ares was on the loose! Not that it had a choice in the matter, it was lucky to even be in this state after death, but it was really screwed now.
"Hey hey! Do that thing again. You know, the one where you fire a water jet at me! I'm feeling good so I won't dodge, promise!" Ares wasn't lying but that only served to confuse the wyvern who couldn't possibly comprehend what this maniacal idiot was up to. In the end, after Ares stubbornly hovered in the air in one spot for nearly ten seconds straight without doing anything, the wyvern went along with the strange offer it had received and fired a standard water jet at him. Ares, the madman, rubbed his hands together like a greedy tycoon who'd just stumbled across an unguarded El Dorado and thrust out one palm with a wide grin. He had no idea if he would be successful with this extremely difficult strategy, and pulling it off would do nothing other than bring him great satisfaction, but his revenant tendencies were flaring up again so he committed to this foolishness. It had been a long while since he'd last been 'losing' a fight so turning it around on its head in such a dominating fashion was driving him to have fun with his now relatively meek opponent.
What was his goal here? Well, as soon as the water jet hit his outstretched palm, it became immediately apparent because he managed to successfully deflect the water jet with pressure right back at the wyvern and blast it into the wall again. He'd stood still just so he could deflect the wyvern attack and then humiliate the soul by returning it to sender. From not being able to hit the soul to using its own attacks against it... There was no clearer indication that the wyvern was doomed than this and it was a painful realisation, literally, because there was now a massive cave in of its body where the water jet had struck. Maybe if Ares had just kept blowing it up the disparity between them might not have been so readily apparent and taken a while to shine through... But after that last display? Going above and beyond with an incredibly difficult deflect, timing wise, just to rub it in made it easy to see what direction this fight was going to go in from now on and there was no longer any doubt regarding this. The worst part for the wyvern was that it had felt so confident going into this fight the moment it and Ares were bubbled together. As it turned out, though, it was trapped in here with Ares and not the other way around after all! He'd figured out how this whole soul chicanery worked and he was exploiting that in full.
It wasn't an easy process, damaging a soul, but he could do it and get some practice in now, in the safety of the bubble, so this was the perfect training ground his opponent had mistakenly given him! As for how what he was doing worked, he launched an attack, that part was simple, but as it connected with his foe he needed to connect that attack to a spot in the void that was mirrored to where it was in reality. This, on its own, was actually surprisingly not that difficult. No, the real problem here was that Ares had to jump through an entirely different hoop first before he could get to that stage. The Primordial Blade acted as a gateway but it also increased the time it took for this process to actually happen. Once he went through it, though, he could just disintegrate the wall between void and reality and then the attack would go through properly, hit both spots simultaneously, and voila! Injury inflicted! Honestly, Ares was kind of glad this was his first time experience with handling a soul in such a fashion because it was like the pagoda all over again wherein he was learning things the hard way first. It would be a whole lot easier when he was freed from this damn bubble and his speed and accuracy would more than double with direct access to the void. He could finally fight without slowing himself down all the time and that would be swell. It also meant he would be familiar with fighting souls in unfamiliar and created dimensions in case this oddly specific scenario cropped up again and he needed to act in response to it on the fly. He would always have the Blade on his person so he could anchor himself to the void through it regardless of what his opponent tried to do to prevent it. All in all, this was going very well now!
"Grand Annihilation!" And so the bullying resumed with Ares not letting up on the aggression now that he wasn't stuck on the backfoot permanently. The wyvern barely had time to breathe before it was inhaling golden mana and feeling a phantom pain from the burning in the nose it didn't have anymore. Everything was gold and everything was miserable. It didn't help that, halfway through the beatdown, Ares stopped using large explosions and took to hitting the soul personally with his bare hands and feet. Sure he was using Echo and Stamp out, both in conjuncture with Double Jump for increased momentum and power, but he was still throwing hands with a wyvern! This was a pretty bizarre sight for everyone aboard the Federation, watching a ginormous beast get punched around in a small blue ball, and they honestly kinda wanted souvenirs of this rare event. Shops could sell a sort of Christmas globe-like product with a small replica of this scene and it would sell like hotcakes for sure.
That being said, if there was a shopkeeper willing to use Ares' likeness without his permission for monetary gain then, honestly, he'd like to meet the guy and have a word with him! Actually, there was one, but Ares wasn't going to pester the guy... Because it was Onno! He didn't really need permission and most of that money would go to the sect's coffers anyway so if he was aiding the finances of his home turf Ares wasn't going to complain. Onno was in the perfect position to do it as well because he would be the only person with direct confirmation he was allowed to without having his shops blown up by Ares afterwards. Ares had a lot of money now but that didn't mean he was going to be accepting of people making money off him without giving him a cut! Well, normally he might but, again, none of this money was for him. Heaven's Path wasn't exactly the richest sect around. Not the poorest anymore either, now that Ares had done plenty of good work for them, but certainly not in the top 10% even. That was rapidly changing but such things took time. Thankfully, even with Ares gone, they were able to make a lot with the legacy he left behind. Namely Echo tomes, both the standard and the pressurised version, as that was sold in droves. People were even taking cross country trips to purchase it in bulk for their own sects half way across the planet so if the sect was in the top 10% richest sects by the time Ares returned it actually wouldn't be too surprising.
At least now all the elders could finally be paid properly for their work!... Which had approximately tripled as of late but, hey, they were already worked to the limit so what was a few more tasks here and there? You'd think with Ares gone there'd be less work but somebody had to make up for his lacking presence in just about everything he was doing beforehand. HIs artifact generating sprees? Dabble had to go many sleepless nights to make up for it for the sake of the runemancy department. Speaking of, they were also swamped with requests, most of which had been handled by Ares' overpowered Omniscience in seconds flat prior to him departing. Then there was the 'rocks' store for Shock Rocks and Block Rocks... And, now, during this busy time, drop rocks too... Ares had set up a shift location in advance and was periodically dropping some off for sales to continue while he was gone, as they were important to improving and maintain the sect's new standing, but the new addition, the drop rocks, had plenty of utility and everyone wanted them so the store was always crowded looking for the next batch. Plus the value of the Shock Rocks and Block Rocks had gone up tenfold recently for some strange reason. They basically doubled in power overnight and nobody in the sect, not even the people selling them, had any clue as to why... It wasn't a steady increase, implying a raised cultivation base, it was more of a random spurt of power that just sort of appeared out of thin air. That would be because of the Converter amping Ares magic, literally in the span of an hour or so, but how could anybody an entire ocean away possibly know that? All they knew was that the big bangs got bigger.
Speaking of big bangs, Ares had his fun with explosions earlier, now he was having fun with punching, but, next, he wanted to have fun with both at the same time! "Annihilation Echo!" This one was gonna sting. It was one of the more powerful arts in Ares' collection and the wyvern was already seeing stars with chunks of its soul body missing entirely after being punched into blue soul dust. Ares needed to be careful and not destroy the soul otherwise that might affect the treasure negatively! Still, given how much damage the wyvern was taking currently, Ares estimated that it would live through this next attack even though he was hitting the thing point blank in the torso. It wasn't the soul of a powerful wyvern, in life, for nothing! Toughen up big guy and clench that gut!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
The entire bubble was rocked and the inner walls splashed around a bit as the force of Ares' art was dispersed throughout it. The bubble didn't have it nearly as bad as the wyvern soul, though, as the monster had taken the brunt of the Echo and even retained most of it too. The bubble impact was merely leftover force, and yet it was still that disastrous, so it wasn't hard to guess what kind of state the wyvern was in right about now. Hell the damn thing had bounced around inside the bubble, smacking against the walls on repeat, like a snooker ball so it being on death's door was to be expected. You don't get punched off multiple walls from a single strike and come out a winner no matter who or what you are. Point in case, the wyvern wasn't even really moving anymore as it had collapsed in the bottom dip of the round bubble and was struggling to raise itself off of the wet floor beneath it. Ares was tempted to bring out the Scaled Insulator, pour water down there, boil the wyvern, and cook the damn thing! If it were real, he bloody well would have, and even eaten it for good measure afterwards, for the trouble it had cause him up until this point! Its soul status saved it from a soupy fate worse than death, however, so Ares would have to remain curious about the taste of wyvern meat for now.
Ares had seriously busted this soul up but it was stubbornly clinging to this mortal realm and refusing to return to the Deep Blue. Ares was going to have to knock this thing out which, honestly, might take some time. It was weaker than him, sure, but that didn't mean it wasn't still a strong enemy all things considered. Whacking it while it was down, and kicking a defeated opponent over and over, wasn't really Ares' preferred style but right now he had no other option available to him. The soul could have been spared this fate had it just accepted its loss but apparently it really wanted to protect the krakyrn from obliteration. Speaking of, it seemed like the krakyrn was extremely angry right now and trying to break free from the bubble shield to come to the wyvern's aid. It probably didn't know it couldn't as Ares was pretty certain it had activated these bubbles on accident in a moment of desperation when the Perish Wheel was sailing towards it. The wyvern soul had probably just taught it to use it in emergencies without it really understanding the function properly. This bubble was something it had never seen before and couldn't possibly grasp on first sight without Omniscience so it was just banging its head against the wall and breathing fire at it too in a pointless bid to free itself and come help its mother. It didn't have control over whether the soul was out and about, instead of inside the Deep Blue, otherwise it would have desummoned the soul and tried to run away. Its parent's stubbornness, for the krakyrn's sake, was going to get the soul severely injured at this rate after all.
If the krakyrn were a smarter creature it would realise Ares wasn't just kicking around its mother for fun and understood what he was after in the grand scheme of things. Ares just wanted the treasure so there was no risk of the soul being destroyed in this fight. The krakyrn's best bet was actually to just shut its eyes and ignore what was happening for now, wait for the bubble around it to disappear, then run away and have its mother de-spawn itself once it successfully made the getaway. The wyvern would bite Ares' ankles to keep him here if need be while the krakyrn fled but, regrettably, its intelligence was shockingly awful. It had gained a lot of things from both parents, making it a hideous but strong abomination, but smarts was not one of them. Instead of doing the right thing, it was trying to break free and come to the wyvern soul's rescue but that was incredibly foolish. At this point they couldn't even win a two vs one because neither of them could stand up to Ares' blows anymore. Sure their attacks were mighty, and elicited a response, but if Ares was quicker on the trigger he would beat them both back and neither of them could distract him for long, so the other could strike, without getting pushed around. Long story short, no matter what the krakyrn and wyvern duo tried to do here, their loss was set in stone and only escape was a valid option...
But the wyvern had no say over this matter! It tried roaring but Ares was far smarter than its child and made sure to target the throat area so as to prevent it from informing the krakyrn on how best to proceed. At most, it would get the word 'run' out but, without a sufficient explanation, the krakyrn just kept assuming this was some kind of sacrifice play and it refused to listen or budge on its current goal. There was no time for a more wordy explanation which just saddened the ignored wyvern soul because it felt pity for its stupid child. It really wasn't its fault it was born this way and seeing it stress itself to death, almost literally as that was the direction this was headed in, made the wyvern upset as it lay sideways on the floor and got beaten by a merciless Ares. Ares felt guilty but he was doing this, in a roundabout way, for the sake of his own family too so there would be no compromising. He needed to get stronger to ensure their safety and that water pillar enabler had his name written all over it. This only ever ended one way! The wyvern's soul back in the Deep Blue, where it belonged, and the krakyrn's soul inside his Converter, also where it belonged!
The Converter would turn the krakyrn into a sizable power increase for Ares so he wasn't going to let these two be free in the afterlife like a happy parent and child. He was tempted to, out of pity, but there were limits to what he was willing to do for others at his own expense. Besides, he didn't even know if freeing the soul of the wyvern from the treasure was possible without ruining it. Maybe if it co-operated but none of that mattered because Ares was not taking prisoners in this fight, ruthless though it made him, because his goals extended beyond compassion for monsters at this point. Had this been before his Converter acquisition it might have been a different story... But now? This child and parent duo were getting the bad ending! It seemed the wyvern recognised this, and could feel an unrelenting stoicism in Ares' aura, so it eventually, finally, gave up and returned to the Deep Blue. Though the bubble was supposed to prevent souls from entering or leaving apparently the wyvern's soul was an exception because the treasure's power came directly from it. The soul couldn't leave at will unless it was specifically recalling itself into the Depp Blue, however, so its resignation meant Ares' victory was all but confirmed. The wyvern probably didn't want to see its child agitated in its final moments on her behalf so it did the only thing left for it to do and gave up to make her child at least a bit happier... Damnit! Now Ares felt bad again... But no, tough decisions had to be made and this was one of them. He channelled every ounce of disgust he felt for the krakyrn and refused to budge on his principles. He couldn't be so soft hearted when it came to third parties like this. He would wait patiently until the bubble ran out and then he would destroy the krakyrn and its soul. It should never have been born and Ares was simply going to rectify that mistake, that was all.
Anyway, this battle should be effectively over now. There was only roughly a twenty second delay between when the krakyrn's bubble went up and when the one caging Ares did so things should be ok. The Federation only had to hold out for a measly twenty seconds without Ares and that was more than doable considering they held out for longer than that before this bubble mess started anyway! Powerful cultivators, powerful gadgets, and a powerful cheerleader in Nibbler! They were surely unstoppable! Everyone was prepping for the final moments of this final showdown, even the krakyrn who seemed to be devising some kind of plan, so the brief respite was actually rather tense. Even for the winning side, the Federation, they didn't want to count their eggs before they hatched so the three way staredown continued in silence for a few more minutes. The time was ticking and, with every second that passed, the krakyrn was building up more and more energy inside it... What on earth was it planning? Ares couldn't really tell from here so it was awkward to try and come up with a counter measure. He would have to do things sight on scene and rush out of the bubble to save the Federation once more, it looked like. Annoyingly, this was going ot be a close call because of the krakyrn's last ditch attempt at payback for what happened to its mother. It could have gotten a massive head start on Ares, and tried to swim away underwater, but it was being stubborn and trying to kill as many people as it could for what it had just been forced to watch. Maybe Ares could have been a bit gentler on the soul, and held back somewhat, to not incur the krakyrn's wrath so early before he himself escaped the bubble? Hindsight wasn't going to change the current situation, though, and he couldn't have possibly expected the creature to do whatever it was currently doing in response. It wasn't a logical response by any stretch of the imagination, as it was forfeiting its life to Ares without pushback by staying, and blaming Ares for winning his own fight was silly. This whole situation was a mess! The Federation was weak, the krakyrn was stupid, and Ares was stuck! What a disastrous combination... How this was going to end was anyone's guess at this point.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
TWC_Guy
TWC_Guy A few words under 4000 but I'm aiming to have the next chapter be a bit longer and wrap up this arc just in time for Christmas. I'll be taking a one week break, as mentioned earlier, so I'll be uploading the next chapter, after the one tomorrow, and the start of the next arc at some point in the new year. Probably on the first of January but that's a busy day for some, potentially even myself included, so it might be the second of January instead. I'll make another note tomorrow but this should be sufficient for now and I just wanted to explain why this chapter was sub-4000 words.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein