Kapitel 368: Chapter 368: Meeting the Other Four: Fundamental Champions Interlude Part 2
Who is 'Black'? Well, for starters, that's the wrong question to be asking. Rather, the proper question is 'what' is Black? Sure it had a physical form, one that resembled a human being, but it wasn't their own. See Black was known to be a sort of parasitic being that took on multiple hosts after killing them as it could fully become anyone it murdered, multiple people at once even as it paraded the puppets around in death. It could use the deceased's magic freely, as well as access their memories, speak like them, and copy their physical talents. They effectively became that person entirely and the only discernible trait they left that they'd done such a thing was a strangely shaped shadow that never differed or disappeared regardless of what body they took on or how much light was around. It was understood that Black's real body technically resided inside this odd shadow but nobody could access it for love or money and get a peek inside. It was impossible to look in there, at the necromantic assassin creature leeching off the dead human, or other such creature it was controlling, so nobody had ever seen its true form. Also, just because it could speak, that didn't mean it ever did. For whatever reason it seemed to have a preference for silence and categorically never spoke.
So what kind of person was Black? What did they look like? How did they behave? All of it was completely up in the air! Right now, Black was a meditating ninja with black bandages covering its face. This individual was an assassination target the fundamental organisation requested Black kill a few weeks ago and the deed had been done cleanly. Also, the dead body had its uses for infiltration due to its convenient identity so Black had gotten a lot of mileage out of it. As did Sanity, actually, as she could also pry the memories of the deceased but she had an easier time of it. It took a while for Black to integrate with the body, depending on its cultivation base, but Sanity could reach into the brain of a corpse with ease and steal crucial information. They made a particularly powerful duo as any dead person could immediately be repurposed into a perfect puppet for subterfuge without anyone being any wiser. Sanity and Black would hide inside the puppet's shadow and control it to walk and talk just like the living version did and the access they had to secret locations was essentially unlimited depending on who'd they'd murdered and where they sat in their respective hierarchy. As they were both fundamental champions this combination between them was naturally extremely potent and had never failed once. Even Gods could be fooled by their tomfoolery which just went to show how incredible the potential of an organisation like this one could be. They were gathering pieces of a whole that, when combined, would be unstoppable in just about every cultivation walk of life. There was actually probably literally nothing these six champions couldn't do when paired together and Sanity with Black was just one combination of many.
Though Black tended to prefer acting as a lone wolf, they did frequently pair up with their cohort White. Creation and destruction, reality and the mind, black and white. The duo's practically made themselves and they all happened to be born in close proximity to their diametric opposite so it was almost predestined. Ares was stuck with Mako. Sanity knew Havanah growing up. And White and Black met on a battlefield one time and the rest is history. Speaking of White, he would be appearing on this dead planet in a short while to travel alongside Black towards the pagoda. They'd both been out on missions in the same domain so they would both head to the pagoda at the same time. Normally they would just go on their own but there was whispering and rumours about an unsavoury lot who would give them trouble on sight so they figured it couldn't hurt to be a bit more strategic and safe by travelling in a pair. This was White's idea and Black just went along with it without saying a word. Whether this was because it agreed, or trusted White's decision making... It was impossible to tell thanks to Black's decision to keep itself on permanent mute mode.
Sometimes Black was co-operative, sometimes they would just disappear and do whatever they wanted. It usually worked out, though, so it was generally accepted that Black was allowed to go do its own thing. White didn't much appreciate this sort of behaviour, as he was the sort to love a good rundown of a battlefield and to be able to observe everything from a good vantage point with infallible information. He wasn't a tactician, necessarily, but he was an extraordinary commander. Of the six fundamentals, three could be considered raw power specialists. That would be Ares, Havanah, and White. The other three, Black, Sanity, and Mako were people with more niche specialties but had a lot of subtle tricks up their sleeves and what they lacked in raw power they made up for in other areas and were no less powerful overall. White was a bit unusual compared to the other two in his weight class, though, because he himself wasn't all too powerful. more than an ordinary cultivator, sure, but not compared to Ares and Havanah anyway. He was probably the most proficient of all the fundamental champions in hand to hand combat, without any weapons involved, but his magic didn't really enable him in any way.
Black was the assassination and necromancer champion whereas White, under normal circumstances, was the extended, direct war champion. He could summon an effectively infinite army of infantry as well as machines of war like Apache helicopters, tanks, and bomber planes; all of which were made of a brilliant white and pure phosphorous that burned like a thousand suns. He would just swarm opponents and, on some occasions, planets, with his magic while controlling it all from afar like he was playing as strategy game. He wasn't unfamiliar with getting his hands dirty, and he was good at it too, but it wasn't his preferred method because he could lose sight of the bigger picture when he was in the thick of things. But make no mistake, the white pillar was not so simple that swarm tactics was all it was good for. It specialised heavily in it but there were other tools that enabled it. The white pillar was actually also the greatest healing pillar of them all!
White's soldiers were basically immortal and would rise from their own ashes no matter what was done to them. It's not that his army's onslaught was deadly, swift, co-ordinated by a single mastermind with impeccable foresight, or abundant in terms of the sheer quantity of soldiers, no, the real threat was that it was never ending. You couldn't 'win' against White's army because that would be fair and 'fair' wasn't a word the fundamental champions really understood or cared for. To that end, White being able to wreak havoc like Ares and Havanah wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of when. He was capable of matching their output just over a longer course of time and with a more reliable method that didn't require him to put himself directly in harm's way. Throw in the fact that his healing magic could be used on anyone, not just his soldiers, and that it buffed pretty much everything across the board, and it was no surprise he was a powerful cultivator. He worked well with Black because he served as the unmissable distraction while Black could infiltrate under the cover of darkness. They'd worked in tandem with one another a few times now so had a good grasp of how best to exploit each other's strengths for their own goals on missions. Similarly, Havanah and Sadie worked well... But then there was Ares and Mako who'd only ever fought against one another and never on the same side... That was probably Mako's fault thanks to his obsession with being numero uno. It didn't really matter but, once again, these two moron's were falling behind the others. The four other fundamental champions had free reign in the world outside the barrier so their cultivations had skyrocketed compared to Ares and Mako. They were given resource handouts like candy and could kill monsters that, on average, gave, or were guarding, way better rewards. A lack of teamwork between Ares and Mako just put them even further behind but it also really wasn't their fault they were trapped in the barrier so it was unavoidable. They could just catch up after leaving it. They also weren't so far behind that it was a considerable problem, just a bit annoying to have to throw more resources at them to catch them up to everyone else. The good thing about all this was that fundamental champions were still highly effective even with a low cultivation base so, again, it wasn't anything the organisation was worried about or losing sleep over.
Right now Black was minding their own business and sitting cross legged right smack bang at the centre of a crater on this dull husk of a planet. Black had no idea what manner of devastation it had been through but there was quite literally nothing left other than dusty clouds that obscured vision and the cretins lurking within it that were looking to ambush Black. There was one pretty notorious group that had it out for the fundamental organisation, and everything they stood for, called the Cult of Destruction. These were the morons running around and using Ares' name as some kind of omen of finality, acting like he was their saviour who would destroy then entirety of existence one day. God knows why these freaks wanted such a thing but they were a determined lot and actively caused chaos and disaster wherever they went for no purpose other than speeding up what they believed to be inevitable. They had faith in Ares and were quite blinded by it despite having been told no multiple occasions now that Ares was not interested in being their messiah. He was not that kind of person and, yet, this cult simply treated it all as lies and wouldn't believe a word of it.
The cult had tried sending people to the pagoda to confirm Ares' intentions, as they 'knew' the words of naysayers to be false, but Ares was on a killing spree over there and the scouts hadn't gotten a word in edgewise before being obliterated. This only served to 'prove' their point 'irrefutably' however, as Ares was taking no prisoners and simply destroying everything in sight twenty four seven according to their interpretation. Truthfully Ares just didn't want to deal with weak riff raff but his actions were horribly misconstrued to the point it was impossible to clarify the truth to these morons hell bent on making him their God. Despite this, though, they weren't insane as you'd expect them to be. A lot of their members were just at some kind of 'point of no return' with this world, and wanted to watch it all burn, but they weren't psychotic in terms of how they acted. One of their members could easily pass as a normal, functional human being in society and they were all way smarter, on average, than people like, say, the Firestarters. They were way more numerous too so they were a real problem that cropped up frequently and in just about every domain. If Ares thought the Torchbearer antics were annoying he should wait until he sees what these muppet's were doing. Trying to destroy one measly country? These guys were destroying planets at bare minimum whenever they took action and so that put them at the number one spot on everyone's shit list.
These cultists detested the fundamental organisation as they were trying to lay claim to their God and have him be some kind of tool, a lackey to serve and follow through on their orders. This was blasphemous and would not stand so the fundamental organisation had a lot of run ins with this lot and the champions, in particular, were targeted often due to the fact that they were constantly out and about on missions. In the safety of the organisation they were free from this nonsense but, out in the wild, well, they were probably never more than a few hundred miles from a destruction cultist and that wasn't really a lot given how quickly cultivators around their cultivation realm could travel. Black had only made a temporary stop and White's foresight, regarding ambushes from this group, was already proven to be correct as they'd tracked Black down and were now stalking it amidst the thick dust storm. Unfortunately for them, however, Black was already long since aware of them and their antics. Black had dug shadowy tendrils into the core of the planet as soon as it landed here and they were creeping up across and through the entire earthen crust, looing like miniature black blades of grass, as they kept a watchful eye on all lifeforms. Black could have easily teleported directly to any of the tendril's positions, giving it the freedom to hop around the entire planet without breaking a sweat and avoid the cultists, but it decided to reverse ambush the goons following it and just rid itself of the annoying bunch so as not to be followed and hassled by them at a later date after they called in back-up.
There were about twenty of them which was a perfectly manageable number. Still, Black knew it wouldn't have to deal with every single one of them by itself as White had shown up on the planet and was headed this way. Not that Black was going to wait for him, If he caught up in time to get involved then so be it. Black remained motionless as one of the cultists took the lead and threw himself at the gargoyle-like ninja from behind. Though Black still refused to move its limbs, its body sunk into a murky black portal that appeared spontaneously underneath it and was safe from harm as the dagger aimed at its neck missed completely. Two other cultists had been ready to follow up, and so chased after the first, but they were now just aimlessly fumbling and stumbling around atop the black portal with no way to escape. Every time all three of the cultists tried lifting their feet they found out the hard they were effectively glued to the floor. They'd been forcefully integrated with the shadow on the ground and could not separate from it. Usually a shadow obediently followed the person it was attached to but that dynamic had been flipped on its head. Black controlled the shadow and could move it around, forcing the humans attached to it to act like puppets on a string and follow its orders. There was no need for that, though, as these cultists were useless and not worth controlling. Instead, Black, who could been anywhere on this planet right now, maybe even hidden inside it, forcefully drowned the cultists in the portal and ended their lives to repurpose them.
In place of corpses, three shadowy hounds rose up out of the portal and lepta into action, hunting down the scattered cultists in the dust storm as they were guided by the small tendrils sticking out the ground. Black was taking it easy, honestly, as it could have just covered this entire planet in darkness and snuffed out all light and life with a single breath, but theses lot weren't worth the mana and those three wolves would do the trick. The wolves were individually incredibly powerful but also capable of working together to corner and trap their prey. It was to the point that each wolf was worth an entire expert elder assassin, the kind that was a hidden ace of a clan or sect, so they couldn't be taken lightly at all. Black itself didn't even need to personally shed blood so this was really just an inconvenience and these cultists needed to get it through their thick skulls that they were nothing more than fresh pawns to deploy on the front lines and keep track of targets. Only the higher ups of the cult could really throw a wrench in a fundamental champion's plans but they were stuck in the higher domains and couldn't freely come down here without alerting the fundamental organisation and its higher ups. These new recruits were sent to scout but got too big for their britches, winding up dead because they didn't think a single brat, usually with a lower cultivation realm than them, was all they were so frequently cracked up to be. Underestimating a fundamental champion was naturally a bad decision, however, and no doubt the last one so many of these recruits ever made. It was like fly swatting so, when White arrived and joined in, it was pure overkill. Be it legendary ogres or dangerous cultists, the fundamental champions had a bad habit of infantilising the capabilities of their opponents and making a mockery out of the calibre of anyone who puffed up their chest in their presence. Ares had just done this with a krakyrn and a wyvern soul so it clearly was an inbuilt talent they all possessed and they were damn good at it.
White took calm and steady steps as he brushed through the dust storm with his gloved hand, making his form somewhat viewable through the unceasing weather. He was about the same age as Ares but looked somewhat younger even if it was hard to see his face as it was constantly tilted slightly down with his service cap covering it. It was certainly odd that two of the six fundamental champions wore military clothes, specifically a hat, but to be fair reshaping rare treasures was hard and they weren't too picky about the form their powerful tools came in. That being said, Havanah didn't really care much about the aesthetic, and was just doing it for convenience, whereas White's entire personality revolved around it. He was a strict and militant type with a perpetual frown and steady voice. He didn't need to bark orders because a calm but piercing voice was all he needed to make sure orders were followed. He wore a military outfit that was mostly standard apart from the fact that it was pure white, like his magic, and the only other colours present were a result of the many medals decorating his chest region. He was a good looking guy with an air of absolute authority which was a pretty impressive thing to command given his relatively young age. He inspired confidence in himself without it even really being his main goal as his sharp eyes, with a small tinge of white in the otherwise light blue iris, could practically stare into a person's soul and divulge every secret they were hiding. He didn't speak often but his speech was measured and calculated. Unlike a lot of other strong cultivators, there was very little wrong with him in the head so he wasn't a weirdo in any way. Just a straight shooter when it came to doling out his opinion or his talents on his foes. All business, all the time. No fun, never.
There were only about five cultists left by the time he appeared but they'd all been corralled by the wolves in front of him so it looked like he was going to have to get involved after all and finish up Black's leftovers... Sort of. It wasn't him that wool be doing any of the work here. The five cultists banded together to try and assail him before their inevitable deaths but they took a grand total of five steps between them before grinding their shoes to a halt as upwards of twenty phosphorous soldiers emerged from the sandstorm on both of White's flanks. They were ethereal and frightening as it almost looked like the fire clinging to their form was a hazmat suit that contained a pure white skeleton inside it. Not to mention their form, timing, and expertise was impeccable as half the units of this elite squad rushed to the front and knelt down while the shooters in the back took up immaculate stances behind them in perfect synchronicity. They all lined up their white rifles with unmatched precision at the drop of hat with no words needed to guide them before White raised his hand and sharply lowered it in the direction of the cultists. No further commands were needed as the well oiled machine that was White's 'White Death Regiment' gunned the targets down in a blaze of fire.
Soldiers such as this might have seemed underwhelming but they were actually a special task force under the right circumstances and far more lethal than even some of White's more explosive measures in his arsenal. Specifically, when White dropped a white phosphorous nuclear warhead on a planet, and drowned it in burning glory, this squad would become invincible in the healing fire that raged all around and prowl around their victims, taking them out one by one with unmatched efficiency. A single shot form their rifles was capable of melting a steel building and an entire magazine a skyscraper. To have a squad of twenty immortal ghosts with ludicrous firepower hunting you through a phosphorous mist clogging your lungs as you burned alive was not easy to deal with. To add insult to injury, most of the time White would just be watching either from the sky, or, in some cases, from outer space and there was no way of reaching him. Of all the fundamental champions, White was definitely the most consistently annoying to fight against in terms of overcoming his magic because it just never ended and never left you alone. Even if you could evade the Regiment somehow White would just execute the planet you were on via a galactic firing squad from outer space and riddle the planet, and you, with holes until there was nothing left other than scattered fragments of rock. None of this even touched on his explosive ordinance so it was pretty clear White was a cultivator that meant serious business. Also, as an aside, he could load his punches with power equal to his magical war machines so a single fist could pack enough power to rival a tank shot. Or, rather, it was basically a tank shot disguised as a simple punch. Being nimble on his feet and a competent brawler meant he hit hard and fast while you were lit up by his soldiers and the fight was just an insufferable one regardless of how you tried to tackle him. he also, funnily enough, shared an aspect with Black called 'grayscale' but it functioned slightly different between the two of them. It wasn't worth getting into now but it was interesting to see a shared aspect between fundamental pillars.
Long story short, the cultists were deader than dead and their corpses were nothing more than a few white ashes lost to the dust storm. White was actually capable of reviving the recently deceased, his healing was seriously no joke, but he had no use for the cultists as the information they had would be pitiful at best. As such, he wordlessly met up with Black and the two took off, leaving behind this dead planet as they headed towards the nearest teleporter so that they could pay this Ares fellow a visit. It was finally time for all the fundamental champions to meet each other face to face! Well, the four that weren't in the barrier already had met each other, and worked together on multiple occasions, but Ares had never met them! Neither had Mako but he wasn't able to make an appearance here and would have to get to know them later. Until then, Ares could just lie through his teeth about him! Well, the temptation would definitely be there but, unfortunately, it was for the best if he was honest. At least with Oliver, any way, as he was here to conduct business and explain a few things. Wasting his time, of which he did not have much to spare, would feel very wrong to Ares once he realised what kind of person Oliver was. A guy who exhausted himself for the greater good, even if it could never benefit himself and only the people around him, was not someone Ares would make fun or mock. Lying to him just felt wrong damnit! Anyway, these four, and Oliver, would make their way to Ares shortly, and the meetings and greetings would take place then, but for now there was someone else who'd beaten them to the punch and arrived at the pagoda before them.
Over by the pagoda, Unreliable was narrating his tale to Kaleido who could honestly not believe this idiot's luck and stupidity. The former because he arrived directly next to Ares of all people with his teleporting chicanery, the latter because he didn't make use of the situation at all! This bastard could have given Ares a rare treasure, immeasurable stardust for the domain he was in, once in a lifetime resources from his own stash, or even just passed along a damn message at the very least. And yet all this buffoon Unreliable had done was gawk like a blithering idiot! Kaleido would have slapped this guy if there wasn't a risk of winding up in some ridiculous situation in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for getting close to him. What a damn waste of an opportunity! Unreliable did grumpily question why Kaleido hadn't done as such when meeting Ares but that just made Kaleido want to slap him even more because he brought Ares the entire damn pagoda, as well as the draconic seed he bought at auction, for crying out loud! What on earth more could he have dragged through the barrier when he was stretched thin as is!? This geezer was trying to deflect but he picked the worst damn possible person to try it on! Kaleido was about to go Esperanto on this idiot's ass until he saved himself by finishing his story which contained some juicy information. There were two big take-aways here. One, Ares had the converter. Two, he was responsible for the kerfuffle in heaven a short while back. Both were massive incidents and the eavesdropping pests, that referred to themselves as journalists, would no doubt spread word about this story far and wide.
The first story about the converter was significant because one of the greatest treasures of all time had gone missing after a heist despite all the perpetrators being caught. It created a sort of rat race as powerful cultivators searched high and low for the damn thing, willing to kill billions if it meant getting their hands on it. News that a revenant had it, and made it their personal treasure, ought to calm things down considerably as it was no longer possible to acquire it with any known methods. Plus there was the whole, 'it belongs to a fundamental champion with considerable backing now' thing which was particularly complicated. Anyone on-side would be overjoyed to learn Ares, of all people, got this treasure due to the incredible synergy he had with it. A fundamental champion owning this treasure was best case scenario for a lot of people and, though the power Ares wielded was just going to get more ridiculous, it was good to have it in the hands of someone who was, to some extent, already vetted and on a leash. The fundamental pillars could remove the champion's power if they got out of hand so Ares had a limit on what he could do with the converter and going around mass murdering people wasn't in the cards for him. That was a weight off many people's backs and minds and so the matter could be left well enough alone. Of course destruction magic getting even more potent was a wild thought but more people were actually interested in seeing what kind of scale it could reach than hampering it so the searching frenzy morphed into curious conversation about the topic and interest in Ares was at an all time high once more. Ares, in the pagoda, did not have the converter so it was apparent he only recently got his hands on it but that was a shame. People wanted to see what he could maybe do with it in the pagoda but that just wasn't possible. Regardless, Ares empowering fundamental champion magic with that extraordinarily mythical treasure was one hell of a headline and so the journalists were happy.
The journalists were over the moon, then, when they got a second free scoop regarding the heaven incident. The massive explosion that took place in the netting quarter, that roped in souls, was extremely concerning. Some people thought a terrorist had laced their soul with explosives in a bid to permanently kill a specific soul that should have been netted around the same time this event took place. A high profile figure died and then an explosion took place in the soul collecting area? People had suspicions but those could all be put to rest now that the true culprit had been unveiled! What this all meant was that Ares, A, could handle souls if he was scrapping over heaven for one and won. B; his magic was absolutely ridiculous as, at sensory enhancement, he could disrupt the inner workings of heaven and create miniature Armageddon nukes on command (the incident had been recorded from afar so basically everyone could understand the scale of Ares magic and it was seriously no joke). And finally C; he was almost definitely the most powerful of the fundamental champions. They had their own feats of strength but none of them could match this incident at the level of sensory enhancement. Sure some of them had done impressive things back in that realm when they were younger but it did not match up to this one explosion at all. Plus they were born in higher domains with better magic amplifying resources so the destruction pillar was looking like a wise investment right about now.
Specifically this situation gave Davey the most hassle because this was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid as a display like this put all the negotiating power firmly in Ares' hands ad he couldn't deny the kid's power any longer. Still, it was reassuring as it was pretty obvious to anyone with functioning eyes that Ares was extremely reliable and being a member of the fundamental organisation, despite the cultist's claims otherwise, meant he was going to be doing a lot of people many favours in the future. Anyone who needed help being able to call up the organisation and rent that level of power was no small boon to the world at large. Ares would no doubt be receiving many requests when he finally became an official member of the organisation and escaped the barrier.
Amongst the pagoda crowd there was one person who was happy for an entirely different reason, however, and that was Candy! She'd finally made it here and could see Ares again! Plus, she'd brought along little cotton so she could be introduced to her dad properly even if it was just a clone of the real one. Sure they were both being watched by a private investigator, who would maybe also go and pay Ares a visit on behalf of Candy's family, but it was worth it if she could go and see him again and show off their cute daughter! All in all, pagoda Ares was going to be busy with visits again for a while as Candy and cotton, the four other fundamental champions, and Oliver Laplace were all en-route to his doorstep.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
TWC_Guy
TWC_Guy There will be more parts to this interlude but the continuation will be in a few chapters. For the most part, I'm trying to avoid writing too many interludes in a row and taking away from the main story. For now just introducing White and Black, who hadn't been seen before, is enough of a prelude to the pagoda meeting to set the scene. It will only be a handful of chapters until I return to this I'm just making it clear that there'll be a small gap so as not spam interlude chapters. There are still more interlude chapters to cover after these as well and my goal was to spread them out over the course of multiple arcs so having more than two in a row feels unnecessary and I can take it slow on that front.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein