章 360: Chapter 360: Double Bubble Trouble
Dire though the current situation was, Ares couldn't resist the temptation to blow blood bubbles underwater! To be fair, it looked a lot worse than it actually was as he could still move around to some extent and cast magic if need be. That alone was enough to guarantee his safety as he could either run or use a Canis Stimulant to live through this if push came to shove. Though his hearing was muffled he could still hear his trusty pressure dragon rummaging around and biting sea monster clones into tiny pieces. In hindsight, Ares should have really picked a different creature that was more accustomed to diving into the sea like a kelpie or something. Picking the dragon specifically to try and fear the wyvern soul was a gamble he didn't have to take! It didn't matter too much but it would have killed everything off a lot quicker and given him more time to rise above the waves and get a feel for what was happening up there. Hopefully the wyvern wasn't terrorising the Federation otherwise that would be really rough.
About ten seconds of holding his breath later, the pressure dragon had finally finished off the last of the troublemakers so Ares commanded it to rise to the surface and go take a real big bite out of the Federation. Damaging the thing he was supposed to defend was a bit of a questionable decision under most circumstances but, right now, Ares needed something to raise up with telekinesis and use as a platform. A bit of wood or metal from the Federation ships wouldn't make much of a difference, other than leaving an ugly bite mark, so Ares wasn't feeling too guilty about it. Besides, it was either that or drown and Ares wasn't ever going to be too keen regarding that second option. Property damage it was! It's not like this was the first time he'd ravaged the Federation...
The dragon returned shortly, looking somewhat like a dog that had just fetched a very large stick. It seemed quite proud of itself too as it spat the large wooden plank out at Ares with a small smile. Who's a good boy? Ares congratulated the dragon in his head and maybe it heard him, or maybe it was just in a good mood, so it started swimming circles around him with a slightly wagging tail. Happy dragon aside, staying down here any longer was a no go so Ares raised himself up and out of the water right on time to see the wyvern fire another jet of water right at him. This thing was lying in wait to ambush him the moment he returned! It knew he'd be a bit weaker than usual and so it thought that there wouldn't be a greater chance to kill its troublesome opponent. Forgoing attacks on the Federation to push an advantage wasn't a bad strategy but Ares was looking directly at the monster this time and he could see the attack coming from a mile away. There were a lot of options to deal with the massive water jet but Ares took the simplest approach and simply Shifted away. He was sitting cross-legged on the wooden plank platform in the air, a comfortable distance away from the gigantic water geyser the jet created when it crashed into the ocean, and contemplating his next move. Was it really for the best to just sit here and fight defensively until the end of days? Could he really not try and interfere with the krakyrn fight from over here? He got his ass beat earlier when he wasn't even distracted by the krakyrn but that was a momentary lapse in judgment and not indicative of what would happen were he to attempt such a thing with a more cautious approach. Just outright killing the krakyrn was the easiest solution and Ares could work on his soul injuring trait in peace afterwards in case a matter like this came cropping up again... But was the wyvern so dull brained in death that it would let such a thing slide? Obviously not...
"Perish Wheel." Ares gave it a whirl and, sure enough, before he could even start to form the art by gathering enough mana the wyvern fired another water jet at him. It saw the look in his eyes, specifically the one directed to its child, and was not having any of it. Ares was forced to take evasive manoeuvres on his flying wooden carpet but the monster was quite some distance away and it was an easy dodge to make. Lesson learned!... Or not. Ares was stubborn! "Grand Annihilation. Grand Annihilation. Grand Annihilation!" Three times in a row Ares cast the same art down towards the water, creating chaos as gold and clear mana and liquid splashed all over the place. He'd created one hell of a annihilation / spray smokescreen here and, though it wouldn't damage the wyvern if it entered it, it would have to do so to see or hear what Ares was up to inside. The swelling mana of the Perish Wheel he just tried casting again would be masked by the lingering Grand Annihilations so there was really no way to tell what he was doing until it was too late to already stop it.
This series of actions prompted the wyvern to walk right into Ares' trap! It waded through the golden curtains towards the epicentre of the golden storm and found a near-finished Perish Wheel, just about ready to let go and blow. If the soul didn't act fast, this thing would go hurtling towards its child and then things would get disastrous real quick. It figured a quick jet stream of water, its go to attack, would destroy the half baked art as well as flush out Ares who was hiding somewhere in the midst of the golden mist. The wyvern assumed his form was hidden by the explosions but, after its water jet cleared away the immediate area and the charging Wheel, it couldn't spot Ares anywhere at all... The wyvern had been duped! It had fallen for the bait, that it arguably had to take anyway, and Ares' ruse had allowed him to wander off unsupervised by the big ol' soul. He was currently outside the smokescreen, doing whatever took his fancy, while the wyvern was wasting time shooting water at ghosts and abandoned arts! Worse still, the masked mana trick was still in effect as it didn't matter whether Ares was in or outside the explosions; what was truly relevant was whether the wyvern was in the opposite location to him. The wall of golden mana was still doing its primary job right now so, if Ares was casting something right this moment, not only did the wyvern not know what, it didn't know where either. This really mattered because there was a 360 degree choice to make, not even including height or the straight up and straight down options, so if it went barging out on the opposite side of wherever Ares fled too... The amount of free time he had was worrying as the damage such a powerful 'human' could do to the krakyrn was not something that could be ignored. When it came down to it, however, the wyvern soul really had no other option but to pick a direction and pray to the Gods it was even remotely correct, allowing it to hamper Ares' art casting and prevent disaster.
Out the explosions tthe wyvern rushed with fervour in its wing beat, and rage in its eyes, and found... Nothing but the calm blue ocean. It had guessed completely wrong as Ares had retreated out of the front of his smokescreen, not the back, bypassing the wyvern as it entered. He went with a bold strategy that ended up paying off as it was considerably safer to go in literally any other direction. There was a high chance of Ares bumping into the wyvern as he snuck past but luck was in his favour and now he was freely casting a Perish Wheel at the krakyrn who was very much not paying attention. It must have had utmost faith in its parent to protect it and simply assumed that either A, the wyvern would stop the cast in time or, B, the art wasn't being aimed at it to begin with. A sharp roar from the wyvern alerted the krakyrn that a pain train was incoming but all it could do was turn and watch in shock as stopping Ares was no longer in the cards with how far along he was in his cast. Defensive measures could be taken but against an art like that... It was going to be rough sailing over this particular ocean...
Ares let the Perish Wheel fly free the second it finished charging up fully and it cut through the very fabric of the air with the greatest of ease as it drew progressively nearer and nearer to the krakyrn with every confused blink it took. To the krakyrn's credit, it shook off the fear and managed to act in time to potentially save its own life as it would have been blown to kingdom come had it just continued to rest in the ocean and figure out why this was happening. Last time the krakyrn checked, the wyvern soul was winning and had blasted Ares into the water at near point blank! Where did this twerp come from!? Ares, once more, could not decipher the language of this monstrous being but, one hideously ear grating ROAR later, and a giant cascading waterfall appeared directly in front of it. Ares was no art expert but he was pretty certain this was the surge aspect art 'Cascade'... The clue was in the name and in the form it took so even if he'd never seen it first hand he could make an educated guess. It was a bit of an odd choice for the krakyrn to resort to, though, as it was typically a more offensive based art that dropped a torrent of water on your foe's head or your foes' heads. It was a crushing weight that would break bones, if not even their skull too, and hit a wide area to boot. It could be considered a vertical Tidal Greetings that packed a bigger punch in a smaller area and came from above instead of the front. As an aside, some monks and / or body cultivators actually trained by sitting directly underneath this art. Scar had done so a great many times back on the Umbra home planet which was a part of why he'd become a walking tank. Of course you needed a cultivation buddy to use this art on you in the first place and the stronger they were the better. Much like pleasure pillar affiliation escorts, Cascade experts were hired decently frequently in the upper domains for what they could offer. Bonus points, AKA stardust, if they could combine aspects and create scalding Cascades, freezing Cascades, poison Cascades, or just any other relevant variant as then the person tempering their body would gain increased resilience by the end of it.
Actually, Ares was interested in this art because he wanted to create his own version of it with disintegration, an Ebon Cascade, but that was for a later date. Getting back on topic, this art shone when used offensively but, technically, you could create a sort of water wall with it to block out weaker attacks. This was highly inefficient compared to a lot of other water pillar arts but, apparently, the krakyrn didn't know any. To be fair, it hadn't been the proud owner of the enabler for too long as of yet, and it probably spent most of its time with its mother's soul instead of training, so maybe it only knew a select few arts and this was the one it figured would protect it the best? Either way, it was clumsy to resort to this instead of maybe just sticking to what it was already good at. It could have tackled the Perish Wheel head on with its fire breath, and spared some tentacles as cannon fodder to slow down the art, but it had done none of those things. The surrounding ocean would boost the sturdiness of the cascade but that was about as good as it got here so pain was inevitable.
The Perish Wheel shot forward and began piercing through the watery veil with all its might. It slowed down noticeably but the actual power of the Wheel barely diminished as it blazed a path and cut the droplets pouring down on it in half. The Cascade started to warp around the annihilation core of the Wheel and burst like mini water bombs but that was a boon for Ares and not the krakyrn. Each water burst spread outwards, and not towards the Wheel, so it was essentially just blocking off the crushing water from falling straight down by blasting it off course. the Perish Wheel was easily winning this clash of arts despite the overwhelming cultivation difference between the krakyrn and Ares. Ares was still in sensory enhancement and this thing was at the tippity top of the transition realm. This wasn't the first time Ares had fought such a being but it was worth noting that this was a legendary amalgamation of a creature so its power was considerable. It was not a chump like Fin, for instance. It's cultivation base was roughly similar to Geordie and Hunter's and yet both of them combined did not match this thing. As such, Ares' art barrelling through one of its own was an impressive feat but there were the various factors that made it an obvious outcome. Destruction wins most fights head on. The art choice from the krakyrn was poor. It's affiliation with the water pillar was, ironically, maybe not great, even though the enabler definitely helped mitigate this, Etc... All in all, Ares watched the Wheel burst through to the other side of the cascade with bated breath and sincerely hoped this would end things on its own. Sure the wheel did end up losing some power, it was unavoidable, but there must have been enough in the tank left to kill this monster off or come close to it, right?
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Everyone was holding their breaths now but they didn't need to for long because the answer they were looking for was made at least partially clear. The krakyrn was still enveloped by the explosion and couldn't be seen by the naked eye but the same was not true of the wyvern that was rapidly flying over. If it was still running around and doing whatever it wanted then that meant the krakyrn couldn't possible be dead otherwise the soul would have returned to the necklace... Speaking of, Ares was seriously hoping he didn't scuff the thing in that explosion just now! He was pretty certain it could tank a Perish Wheel, they weren't extremely rare treasures for nothing, but if it got nicked and that somehow affected it in the long run, Ares would have been pissed off! More so with himself than anything, he was the main culprit here after all, but he wasn't in a position to be picky given the situation. A win was a win against this impossible to predict foe who was proving to be a real nuisance.
Ares shuffled closer to the edge of his plank while swallowing a second healing pill and eagerly awaited the result. Sure the krakyrn lived... But in what state was it currently in? 'Living' was a very ambiguous word as it could also just as easily be 'dying' too! Maybe it lost half its body and was death's door, just waiting patiently for someone to deliver the deathblow. Maybe it wasn't that close to death, and not on the cusp, but still considerably injured and unable to fight properly? As the explosion finally settled down about fifteen seconds later, Ares kissed his teeth as the correct answer after all was... No damage whatsoever! This poor result was entirely unexpected yet also somehow totally within Ares' expectations! Nothing ever went right so, although there was no logical reason this should have happened, he wasn't too disheartened about it because there had been a small pessimistic spark within him assuring him this would come to pass in spite of his best efforts. So now the question on everyone's mind was how? Well there was one clue, at least, a circular barrier of water protecting the krakyrn and locking it inside where it couldn't be harmed even by Armageddon itself. It was a dark blue bubble, the size of which grew to accommodate the protectee, with a pretty sheen to it but right now Ares wanted nothing more than to pop the damn thing! Was this how Appa felt about bubble wrap? Was it not joy but anger at the sight of such an immaculate form, taunting everyone who laid eyes on it?! Ok, maybe that was just Ares... But he had a valid reason, this thing ruined his fun! It looked about as resilient as a full powered, no restraints, Enyo barrier so it would take Ares some effort to get through it. Even his Wheel had only really managed to dig into it somewhat and create a small gap. Some of the explosion did manage to get inside but it just made the krakyrn looked like it was beaten up in a back alley with bruises everywhere rather than anything Ares would consider 'battle damage'. At least in terms of what was applicable to a high level fight between two cultivating entities anyway.
Anyway as for the art... It was one of two things. Either the wyvern had pulled out all the stops to accomplish this last ditch defence, which would probably weaken it considerably and that wasn't necessarily a bad outcome. Or the second option, and this was the annoying one, the Deep Blue was a treasure who's inbuilt art was this bubble specifically. Maybe this was what it was capable of, aside from pillar enabling, and it had come in clutch right at the very last moment. There was a good chance such a powerful art had a long cooldown period between uses, so that was something, but it really threw Ares off his game here! Make no mistake, Ares was happy to know the bestowal aspect art on this thing was phenomenal at what it did, but he kinda wished it hadn't done it right now specifically! Ares' cleverness had gotten him this far but there was no way in hell it was going to happen a second time, that was the real issue here. The wyvern would wizen up to his antics and so everything he'd done up until now was effectively pointless because it hadn't worked and couldn't be repeated! Well he had gotten rid of the bubble barrier, which was convenient because it couldn't show up again, surely, but he would have rather just killed the krakyrn and not interacted with it all... It seemed he was going to have to keep working on that soul injuring ability after all... No rest for the ol' brain. More fatty tuna was in order after this...
Ares sighed to himself and was about to... Well, do nothing. Again. It's not exactly like he could go on the offensive or start a fight because the wyvern would just attack him without care for its own safety and Ares would lose hands down. He was actually waiting to see what the wyvern was up to but a small shimmer clued Ares in that something was about to go very wrong in the immediate area. He could feel disaster coming in his bones so he tried to Shift away but something truly unfathomable happened... For the first time ever, his Shift had failed. This caused Ares great alarm because whatever came next was something he wouldn't be able to dodge! The shimmer was all around him so he couldn't use telekinesis to move away in time on his plank... But there was something strange about this unknowable attack because it was also encompassing the wyvern soul and seemed to be affecting it? At the very least, the wyvern was paying this strange shimmer a lot of attention so Ares assumed it would be effective against it too... But that only led to more questions being raised... What was this art, who cast it, and how could it possibly affect the wyvern soul? Ares didn't have to ponder on these matters for too long, though, as he got an answer he wasn't expecting in the slightest.
Put simply, it was the damn bubble again! This whacky enabler could fire twice?! Ares was getting a real feel for how this treasure worked and it just made him want it even more! It was a bit more complicated than just summoning a bubble around the user temporarily. It did that, yes, but it was worth noting this bubble had some kind of soul power to it. It could lock up souls as well as deflect soul damaging attacks but that wasn't really too important for the most part, just a neat little addition. The real issue was that this trait, combined with everything else, made it way too good at just about anything and everything. It abandoned all forms of offense in favour of extreme utility and defence because this thing could be used once on the self, and once on an enemy target. The self use was self explanatory and would defend the user form near enough any and all attacks. It was like a portable Enyo on steroids. Now that Ares was getting an up close look at the bubble he could tell Enyo would struggle to match this thing which was quite the feat. Throw in the ability to manage souls and it was a extremely rare treasure no doubt. This trait probably had something to do with the wyvern soul residing in it, Ares guessed, which was funny because now the soul was being locked up by its own soul power.
Anyway, the real kicker was the second use. Using it on an opponent. This likely had a second, individual cooldown period from the first part of the bubble art and was something different entirely. This was a lockdown art that got the foe stuck in the bubble with no way out! Whoever was inside this damn bubble was free from all worries regarding attacks from the outside, sure, but they were also completely stuck! If you wanted to flee from someone stronger than you, you could defend yourself with one bubble, be let out, and then trap the opponent in one and flee! If you wanted your target to just stop moving for five damn minutes then this art seemed perfectly tailored for that. Ares was categorically not going anywhere right now because the bubble was too thick for his current magical output to break it wide open enough to get out. It was also, technically, its own dimension in here so Shifting and Voidwalking was a complicated matter. The void was overlapped with all dimensions, usually, but created dimensions could be a bit of an exception sometimes. Ares could maybe decipher the dimension's code and location, which would allow himself to Shift out and back into reality, but he'd need a lot more time to do so.
Long story short, he'd been bubbled! Worse still, he'd been bubbled alongside the wyvern soul! This was the secret third use of these bubbles. Regardless of whether you used the defensive bubble on yourself, or the utility bubble on your opponent, you could create a rage cage! Both the bubbles could trap multiple people if aimed as such... The wyvern soul was not trapped in here with Ares, Ares was trapped in here with the insufferable, invincible wyvern! What was he supposed to do at this point blank range when he couldn't hit the damn creature?! And how long was he going to be stuck in here for?! The downside, which was also an upside of the bubble depending on how you viewed it, seemed to be that it couldn't be cancelled freely. Once it was up, unless it was somehow miraculously destroyed, it wasn't going away until the time limit was up. No longer, no shorter. The time period it existed for was the time period it existed for and the krakyrn's was still going even now... Was it a five minute cage? That was what it was looking like based on Ares' estimations thanks to his Omniscience. Omniscience allowed him to divine this stupid bubble's inner workings and, though he liked what he saw, again, he wished he didn't have to see it now!... Well, whatever. There was at least one benefit to this. Attacks couldn't get into the bubble from outside but the reverse was also true! Ares could go buck wild in here and the Federation would face zero consequences of his actions. Neither him nor the wyvern could launch attacks outside of this bubble so it was back to being a one vs one. Ares couldn't pester the krakyrn anymore but he didn't have to worry about defending the Federation which took a lot of pressure off his plate. He would be able to just mindlessly dodge the wyvern's attacks, giving him more room to think over how to deal with this dumb soul. It was probably a net positive for Ares, currently, so he took what he could get. It's not like his previous approach would work anymore anyway. Basically Ares was back to square one and had to keep trying to figure out how to damage this thing... What a stubborn opponent...
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