Opting to ignore Mako's pointless taunting, Ares removed the art and gave everyone their voices back... Not that any of them chose to use it. The situation had become awkward as all the groups were already out so there was no reason for the crowd to start cheering again. A few conversations did start up here and there but it seemed things wouldn't go back to normal until the overseer started doing his job again. As for who the overseer was, Ares had been able to get a good look at him earlier but the only impression he got was 'plain'. The man was roughly in his mid-thirties, powerful, and wore a white robe. The only thing about him that stood out were the letters 'C.O' stitched into his robe with a pair of wings behind them. His cultivation was high so he was probably a notable member of the C.O and not someone to be taken lightly but Ares couldn't help but not care about this man. Being in the transition realm meant this guy was strong, sure, but so was literally everyone else in the realm. If Ares had to hazard a guess, Maro, Hans, and Yulo were all stronger than this guy and by a decent margin at that.

Ahem

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!." The overseer regained everyone's attention with a quick yell before moving on and giving an introduction to the tournament and himself. "My name is Lex and I will be your referee of sorts for this tournament. I will explain the rules and arbitrate any and all disagreements and complaints made in an official capacity. I will also be acting as security for the competitors so if you have any unwise and untoward intentions you'll have to go through me first, remember that!"

How pious. Ares snorted. This guy was talking big but he definitely wouldn't back it up if anything happened to Ares specifically. Ares had seen the way this Lex guy looked at Enyo earlier. Ares decided to not to leave his safety in this guy's hands as he would sooner rely on himself than get stabbed in the back by this conniving bastard. This decision might have sounded like Ares was being paranoid but, of all the people in the coliseum today, Ares was genuinely more concerned about Lex than anyone else; and that was saying something as Maro was here too. 'You'll have to go through me.' Ares imagined that would hardly be a problem if Lex let them go past him 'accidentally'...

"As for the rules, the matches will operate in the exact same fashion as those played during the nationals. If you need a refresher on the rules there are plenty of flyers around the coliseum and our staff would be more than happy to remind you if you ask them. Still, I'll give you a quick rundown. Two teams will play 'tag' but the goal is to be 'it' for as long as possible. Whichever team's players spend the longest time being 'it' wins. If you kill all of your opponents team members, you win automatically. Those are the basics. All of our contestants are expected to know these rules in advance and you will not be able to complain about them after a match. Make sure you familiarise yourself with the rules so as not to make a fool of yourself!"

Ares was wondering if the tag portion of the ruleset would ever be relevant to him. He was extremely confident in Voidwalk and could lame out every other competitor by running away for five minutes if he wanted to, but killing everyone was just way more satisfying for him. None of his matches had ever come down to time because he was an aggressive fighter and the threat of boredom loomed ever over the horizon should he ever decide to take a more passive approach. To Ares, at least, it felt more like a group deathmatch with an alternate win condition in slower matches and nothing more. Apparently, though, some matches during the nationals had come down to time. Namely Accelyn's poison strategy but there were a few stallers in other countries too. Ares wasn't sure whether he wanted to deal with this type of competitor or not because it would obviously be an easy win for him but that would also make his matches boring as sin. What was a defensive cultivator supposed to do in front of Ares' destruction magic? It was a doomed endeavour from the start and he would just roll over them the way he did Accelyn's team.

"There are 36 groups from all around the world competing and, as such, during the tournament there will be eight groups that have to play an extra match at the start. This is unfortunate, and we do apologise, but please understand it is necessary to facilitate a smoother experience for everyone. There are two sides of the bracket, side A, and side B. There will be eighteen slots on either side of the bracket, and slots 1, 2, 11, and 12 on both sides will have to fight that extra match. If your group is placed into one of those slots then you will be competing immediately. This means there will be four preliminary matches happening today before the tournament proper starts tomorrow. If you compete today we will give you a rest day tomorrow, however, so don't fret about being run ragged early on. Now, I will call upon the captains sequentially in groups of two. When you come up one of you will be assigned to side A, and the other to side B. From here you will be given a random slot. If anyone has any questions, raise them now before we start!"

None of the competitors had any questions as the explanation was simple enough. There would be seventeen other groups in your side of the bracket which meant you would either be fighting four or five matches total before the championship match against the overall winner of the other side of the bracket. Long story short, you had to win five, or six if you had an extra match, times in a row before you were crowned the ultimate victor.

Mako went up with the captain from group 2. Lex showed both captains two balls, one blue and one red. He then put them behind his back and passed them between his hands repeatedly for five seconds before stopping and asking Mako which hand he wanted. Mako chose the left hand and got quite literally blue balled. He was relegated to side B which annoyed him because A was the first letter in the alphabet and he wanted it! Side B felt secondary and it irked him that he had no say in the matter. He hoped, borderline prayed, that Ares would also end up in side B... Being preoccupied over the most meaningless garbage seemed to really be a personal favourite pastime of Mako. He shook his head and put his 'loss' to the side for now as he drew a stick from Lex's hand to determine which slot he would be in... "FUCK!" Mako punched his palm in frustration and spat on the floor. Lex looked at the number and presumed the reason Mako was upset was because he had an extra match to fight... If only Lex knew the real reason was because Mako had been placed in slot two and not slot one... For Mako, this was disastrous! It was like the universe was plotting and conspiring against him! He was NOT number two! He refused!... Well he actually didn't refuse as he didn't have the right to, fundamental champion or not. but he was not happy about this!

Of the other notable groups that went up, Ares' family went to side B and were placed in slot 18. The Legion family also went to side B and were placed in slot 13. Right out the gate this was a hellish side to be on as three of the powerhouse groups had already been placed over there. Not to mention the fact that if Mako, the Umbras, and the Legions all kept winning, they would fight each other back to back at some point. the Umbras would fight the Legions and whoever won there would fight Mako. Whoever won that match would then fight the championship match right after. It was looking like a real slugfest towards the end of the competition on side B and the team allocations weren't even finished yet! There was one other group, one that Ares and Aejaz knew all too well, that had been placed already. The Fleeting Glimpse clan members, Aejaz' family, were in side A. If they'd gone to side B that side would have become a living nightmare for the average and below teams who would be nothing more than cannon fodder before the mightier families and Mako. Aejaz' family being on side A wasn't necessarily a good thing though. Yes it prevented one side from being too stacked but, currently, whether there was anyone on side A who could even stop them was questionable. Despite losing Trixie and Lacy they were still a powerhouse team when it came down to it. They had been placed in slot 18, right at the end of this side of the bracket.

Those were the major teams but there were a few smaller ones that Ares kept tabs on. Specifically there was the group with the iciclops that had been placed on side A, as well a group of decently strong looking Robos and another group full of aevysqualls that were also on side A.

By the time Enyo was called up there were only four slots left. Two on side A and two on side B. If the Red Sun team landed on side A they had a relatively clean and easy run to the finals, only really having to concern themselves with the Fleeting Glimpse lot... Kinda. Aejaz was on clean-up duty against them and they were his problem to deal with. Unless any of the other groups on side A were secretly strong then it would be smooth sailing. If their group ended up on side B, however, carnage... Carnage everywhere. Legions, revenants, and fundamental champions running rampant and beating up the poor other contenders before beating each other up.

Lex shuffled the balls behind his back and waited. Enyo was not supposed to be the captain currently choosing which hand she wanted but the other captain was head over heels for her and so smitten he gave up the opportunity... Enyo didn't even say thank you. Usually she wasn't one to be rude like this but to people who were only polite to her because of her looks she wouldn't hold back anymore. If they weren't willing to respect the fact that she was technically a 'married' woman, and definitely not single no matter how you looked at it, then why should she respect them? They could see the ring, and unless they were blind and deaf Ares had made things abundantly clear earlier, so the treatment was justified as far as Enyo was concerned.

Enyo chose the left hand and Lex raised it, showing off the red ball held within. Side A it was. Ares was partially relieved. Not because he was anxious about fighting the stronger groups but because he didn't want to be the one to knock his family out! Neither the Legions or the Umbras. It's not like there would be bad blood or anything but that didn't mean he wouldn't feel any guilt 'killing' these people in brutal ways mid combat. Ares wasn't even sure he would be able to bring himself to hit some of the tinier members like Fate, Phobos, and Palioxis. Having the guts to hit a child was not something that came easy to Ares, let alone when they were his siblings and in-laws...

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Enyo drew a stick and got slot number one. It seemed their group was going to have to play an extra match today but at least they were first in line to do so... Ares could see Mako raging off to the side. Not only did Ares get side A but he'd also gotten slot one... This was the kind of thing that would keep Mako up late at night tossing and turning. Ares thought it was hilarious so he returned the gesture Mako had given him earlier by raising a single finger at him. Ares could have sworn he saw steam rising off Mako's head even from this distance... His poor teammates had all taken a step back lest they get dragged into this mess and suffer at the hands of a Mako rant. They were long, petty, and mostly pointless. As far as they were concerned, Mako was top dog and the fact that he complained about such minor problems was confusing to them. He was born with everything and had the nerve to complain the ball he picked was blue instead of red?! Was this man a psychopath?! That line of thought just meant they didn't properly understand Mako's obsession though. If given the choice, Mako would probably abandon his pillar if it meant guaranteeing his spot at number one, that was how much the title and position meant to him. Of course there was no way that would ever happen because being number one almost essentially required a fundamental pillar in the first place. Everyone else was already out of the running and Mako would defend his pillar to the death if need be. What was the point in living if he lost his pillar and couldn't be number one anymore? Luckily for him the idea of permanently losing a pillar was almost completely unheard of. Even someone like Dominus had only ever seen one example of it with the pressure master guy who lost everything to his brother. Whether that could even happen with a fundamental pillar was another matter entirely and the answer was very likely a resounding no. Unlike the normal pillars, the fundamental ones were almost definitely keeping an eye out for shenanigans like this and would actively prevent it should this sort of situation arise. Technically the normal pillars could remove affinities and reassign them but they were mostly simple in nature and didn't much care about small issues like this. The normal pillars just wanted to keep creating worlds and that was basically the extent of their 'thought process', if it could even be likened to such a thing, and anything else was meaningless to them. On the contrary, the fundamental pillars only had a single champion to keep an eye on and making sure they kept their affinity was at the top of their list of priorities.

When the last of the groups had been settled into their respective slots, Lex spoke up again and garnered the crowd's attention. "And with that, the brackets have been finalised! Our first match of the day will take place in five minutes so groups 1-A and 2-A, if you could please remain on the field until then that would be preferrable. Everyone else may leave for now but if you have a match today I would highly recommend not straying too far from the venue. If you aren't able to make it on time your team will not be allowed to have a substitute." This was fairly obvious. Unless you submitted a request in advance you would just have to fight without a replacement. There had been a couple situations were this had happened in the past and it wasn't exactly uncommon. There were also some teams in which a fifth member didn't bother showing up to a fight because they were convinced their teammates could handle it without them. Sometimes this was true, sometimes it really wasn't. There were some success stories that immortalised certain older teams as being strong enough to win without a fifth member but for every success story there was a horror story right around the corner, rearing its ugly head at the overconfident. A few years back a team with real potential, some real champion candidates, had lost a match by an incredibly slim margin and the guy that didn't show up was blamed extensively. In fact, that same guy was murdered by an enraged fan not long after and thus he became a kind of cautionary tale, somewhat reducing the frequency with which this happened. Still, you were within your rights to not show up if you had other things to attend to, there was no rule stating otherwise.

The other groups all left the coliseum and most were going to head off and do their own thing or maybe get some extra training / cultivation in. A few, however, where interested in seeing how true the rumours about Ares were. Some already knew the answer thanks to the detonation of the Chen clan yesterday but not everyone had attended the party, thus missing out on the spectacle. In particular, Mako was absolutely going to stay and watch his rival fundamental champion compete! How aggressive was Ares in combat? What kind of arts did he use? How strong were each of the three aspects he wielded? Was Ares good at close combat? All this and more Mako wanted the answers to so he went to the top floor to join his mother and spectate the next match. If he knew Ares had zero intention of sticking around after this fight to watch his match this early in the tournament then he might have blown a gasket and demanded a fight with Ares here and now. Mako was going out of his way to study his opponent while the man in question was disrespecting him by not even looking in his direction!

As for the Red Sun team, they were mostly being blasé about their upcoming opponents. Ares had inwardly complained about stall teams because they were boring and yet, here they were, fighting against a stall team... Well whatever, this was an extra match and just a way to kick off the tournament, it didn't have to be particularly interesting. It's not like Ares ever got tired of blowing people up anyway, he could very well do that all day long and not get burnt out. He'd heard it was for the best to have a job you were passionate about and making things go boom was basically his nine to five at this point so putting in a bit of overtime was no sweat off his brow.

The team that was opposing the Central / Red Sun team was from a small country to the north east called Asnoll and was relatively uninteresting. Their performance year after year left much to be desired and no one had any faith in them whatsoever. The fact that some of the members of the team had been here before was indicative of the level of competition as it meant those people hadn't improved their cultivations enough to even compete in the inner court or core tournaments instead. The nation-wide selection of talent was pitiful because the pool to choose from was usually repetitive, small, and lacking in skill overall. They weren't the weakest team in the tournament but they were definitely close to it. This was the kind of team even the Bhorashka lot could have beaten soundly if they were competing here instead of Ares. As for the racial make up of the country, that could be summarised in but a single word, 'humans'. Humans here, humans there, humans everywhere. Rarely did any other race have any reason to go and visit or live in this country so it had become a cesspit of humans. It did lead to a sort of supremacist outlook in the people native to the country but they weren't obnoxious about it so most people ignored them. Considering there were other countries trying to normalise slavery and actively launching propaganda campaigns across the world, a couple of weirdos who thought they were above people they'd never even met weren't worth fussing over. They were also decently polite and rarely brought up their supremacist ideologies so, contrary to what you'd expect, it was mostly other people picking fights with them because of the assumption they were all bad people deep down. Most ordinary people actually felt a little sorry for the Asnolls as a certain type of stigma came attached with humans from the country regardless of whether it was even true or not. Not everyone from Asnoll believed in their own supremacy and getting beat up because of something that had nothing to do with you wasn't exactly fair. Even the competitors here had been in a few brawls before the start of the tournament through no fault of their own; they'd simply been overheard discussing their favourite eatery back in their homeland and that was enough to set off some of the more righteous types around them.

Ares made no effort to remember the details of any of these people to the point he'd started referring to them as human A, human B, and so on so forth. This lack of concern for those opposite him was not shared by his foes, however, as they were all scowling in his direction with narrowed eyes. Was it because he was a dangerous man with dangerous magic? Nope. It was because of Enyo, to the surprise of absolutely nobody. Just because Ares had silenced and suppressed everyone earlier that didn't make their feelings magically disappear, just their ability to express it. The Asnoll group grinded their teeth watching the lucky bastard get hugged from behind by Enyo and swore in their hearts to kill him if nothing else. They could lose miserably for all they cared, but not before killing this undeserving man! Enyo was the swan. Ares was the toad... The joke was on the Asnoll group, though, as the strongest being Ares had met to date, funnily enough, had actually been a toad.... He wondered where that rotund fellow had hopped off to. Maybe he was spinning around in space somewhere, lost with a dumb look on its face and jutting its tongue out at passing-by asteroids... Wherever it was, there was no way in hell it was dead at least. That thing could take on a matriarch if need be, Ares was sure of it.

"Take your positions!" Lex's order signalled the end of the five minute break and so the two teams lined up and squared off against one another. Ares was familiar with the 'everyone on the other team is glaring daggers at me and probably wants me dead' type of atmosphere and he really didn't know what to do with these people other than make an example out of them as per usual... Or at least that was his plan up until the horns blew and the match started. Ares hadn't even taken a single step before Enyo snuck up behind him and hugged him again. He could see the anger in the other team's eyes but that was nothing in comparison to the anger he could feel radiating off of Enyo. If Ares was annoyed about all the people lusting over Enyo, she was doubly annoyed about it all. Not to mention the single-mindedness with which these detestable rodents wanted to kill her husband. Ares was fed up but Enyo was mad and, when a surge of pressure washed over the coliseum, Ares understood he was not going to be the one making an example of these people here, Enyo was.

Neither Ares nor Enyo really needed protection and yet they were quick to offer it to each other but, considering the kind of beauty Enyo was packing, it tended to happen more one way than the other. A chance like this was rare. Ares enjoyed the feeling of being able to sink into his wife's warm embrace and just leave everything to her, his safety included. Just as Ares had declared that Enyo was his earlier, Enyo made a similar declaration at the start of the match as she clung to her husband.

"Ares is mine. All of him is mine. If you want my man dead don't think I'll sit back and watch. Long before you crossed the line in the sand he drew, you'd already crossed mine. I may share my toy but I'll never let anyone break it."

Anyone who thought Ares was the only one who'd get defensive for the sake of his partner was dead wrong. Enyo was territorial over Ares' body and mind to a frightening degree and she was about to show these fools exactly what would happen when somebody tried to intrude without her permission, regardless of the reason. This demonstration was especially true for the vixens in the crowd that would eye Ares up after he demonstrated his destruction pillar magic later, they needed to know who it was that was going to gatekeep them going forward. Other than Bellona, there was not a single woman here that was going to be allowed anywhere near Enyo's favourite toy.