There had occasionally been a few wars in Sheryashka's long history, pretty much all of which had been documented well in various books precisely detailing just about everything from small skirmishes to large scale battles. One thing that cropped up with regularity were parachuting troopers who were launched into contested zones, usually by either magic or cannons, and had to slowly drift down to earth amidst a hailstorm of magic peppering their immediate location. They had to pray for their opponents to be incapable of launching accurate attacks and piercing their parachutes lest they fall to a grim death below. Of course such a problem was all but non-existent when a cultivator reached transition and learnt to fly but wars fought in the early stages of cultivation, or those in anti-magic zones, would inevitably result in this tactic being used. There were some tales and first hand accounts of the horrors of dropping into a live warzone, while those around you were shot down or had issues with pulling their faulty chutes, and Ares had read a number of them due to his habit of reading just about everything he could find back when he was younger and had little all else to do.

Actually, these tales were where he got the idea to Grand Annihilation the floor, send himself sky-high, and then hover with the Zephyr. He'd used this against Bellona and the other Legions during the regionals, if memory served correct, and it offered him a good vantage point from which to throw the Perish Wheel. It wasn't quite the same as dropping into a war zone but the general idea of 'parachuting from above' was still present in a way. Ares had wondered what it was like for those who had experienced the real deal but he needed wonder no longer as he was actively experiencing it right now! Chunks of destroyed metal from the exploding rockets were whizzing past his ears, leading to a sort of doppler effect wherein potential death came and went regularly. He had to be acutely aware of his entire surroundings. Up, down, left, right, and every other direction between them was a field of scattered debris that could take his head off if he so much as relaxed for even an instant. The golden leaves and the branches were doing their part to destroy the numerous incoming rockets but Ares still had to do his, keep his head on a swivel, and twist out the way of anything that snuck by or came barrelling at him after being destroyed and knocked off course elsewhere.

It was pure mayhem during his descent right now and the closer he got to the earth the more hectic it all became. Ares knew he was in a far better situation than those soldiers because, A, he had more means to stop the myriad attacks coming his way. B; he was way more powerful than they were and could actively manoeuvre in the air to his heart's content. C; he could fly with Voidwalk whenever he wanted and, finally, D; none of this could ever end his life permanently. He was a revenant inside a Training Field, the layers of protection on his life right now were impenetrable and he wasn't ever going to bite the dust for real. Those who were weak, in this position, and faced very real threats to their life in a constant barrage that they could do nothing about were true heroes with brave souls and Ares had a great deal of respect for them, cannon fodder though they mostly were. These tactics were still in use today, as no better options for speedy transportation of infantry to remote locations had been developed, but fortunately there weren't any major wars happening right now in Sheryashka and so nobody had to experience the nightmare that came with such a deployment method. In higher domains people would either just fly or, if it was located in an anti-magic zone, they would all be mass Teleported to the location in advance. Such an oafish method of launching people like cannonballs would be disgraceful in the higher realms but that was just a result of differing levels of magic proficiency. It's not that nobody in the lower realms knew how to use Teleport, some did, but to send an entire division of troops anywhere would be completely impossible as the cultivator in question just wouldn't have the required mana pool to do it.

Ares was now nearly at the base of the tree and Mako's desperation was showing. He launched a wide ranging attack that consisted of multiple rockets fired off in a cluster. They were extremely tightly packed together, making them nigh impossible to dodge with fine adjustments to his fall so Ares was going to have to take more direct matters. The leaves were too few and far between low to the ground because they spawned up top and had to descend first so using those to clear the rockets wasn't going to happen. The branches could swat aside on or two rockets at any given time but there were about ten joined together at the hip to form an amalgamation that was impossible to knock off course or do substantial damage to with just a few whacks. Ares had known he was going to have to Detonate the Yggdrasil at some point and that point was now as he stared down the incoming rocket cluster with a brave face. He trusted the Yggdrasil explosion to clear the path to Mako once and for all so he turned around to face the tree behind him during his free fall and gave it a quick salute with a cheeky grin. The tree had done a fantastic job of getting him here, even if it hadn't been around for too long compared to the last time he used it, but now it was time to go. "Crystalised Void: Detonate!"

CCRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM

As Ares was once again prioritising a disintegration Detonation with the Yggdrasil, the cracking of the tree was far louder than the explosion that followed. It was less a flashy spectacle and more a elegant shattering, allowing Níðhöggr to break free from its Crystalised Void shackle. The disintegration welling within the tree clumped up amongst the crystal shards disappearing into thin air, and golden leaves withering to dust, so that it could take on a multiheaded draconic form. Ares was now completely defenceless as he fell with no way to move freely, as all the branches were completely gone, so he had to rely on the disintegration dragon to come to his aid and clear all the obstacles in his path. He whistled over to the clump which seemingly awakened it, causing it to roar and bellow before swiftly diving straight down to catch up to its master. Every single drop of rain that fell on it was never to be seen again and so it formed a sort of umbrella directly over Ares that cast an ominous shadow on him. From below, Ares was crashing like a meteor with a pitch black, abyssal dragon right behind him and it was a sight that was hard to stand tall in the face of. Even though Mako's rockets were slightly obscuring Ares' form, it was still majestic enough to cause Mako to wince and become demotivated. There was just a feeling within his gut that he was going to lose seeing Ares be so carefree and yet so domineering even in the face of his rocket swarm.

Back up above, the dragon caught up to, and coiled around, its master while lashing out its heads at any nearby rockets. Some of the rockets were devoured with every inch they flew deeper into the dragon's wide open mouths and some had ripples of disintegration sent straight through them that burned them all to black ash. The rocket cluster was wiped out near instantly which freed up the dragon to slither ahead of Ares and aim for Mako who was running out of options. Mako sighed and kissed his teeth. Knowing full well he was going to have to use up a valuable art here wasn't great but there was no other choice. Any form of magic that he tried to block or attack the dragon with would lose due to the disgusting amount of disintegration swirling around in it so his options were truly limited. He only really had one or two methods of dealing with this dragon and, had Ares summoned it later in the match, might have honestly beaten Mako on the spot. Unfortunately for Ares, he'd overestimated how many defensive options Mako had. On the flip side, Mako had never seen the dragon before so he wasn't prepared to deal with it so both combatants had misplayed this fight in one way or another, it was just that neither of them could have possibly known about this stuff in advance. As for how Mako planned on dealing with this mighty dragon if magic wasn't an option, he had an art that required magic to use but was an entirely physical attack in nature. It was one of the most devastating attacks in Mako's arsenal, and he'd been hoping to deal Ares the final blow with this, but his hand was forced and so the cat was coming out of the bag! Mako pointed at the incoming dragon with his pointer finger, while his thumb was at a perfect right angle, and half-heartedly chanted the art he really wanted to save until later...

"Whatever You Are, Make Yourself Useful."

This was a particularly strange sounding art but notably it was a long one. Fundamental arts were typically quite short because the impact of them was high regardless of chant length... So for Mako to possess an art with that long a name it clearly was something ridiculously powerful that must have also come with drawbacks otherwise he would have used it already. Ares guessed it was a long ass wait between uses, so long that Mako wouldn't be able to use it again this fight at the very least and Ares' deduction was 100% correct. Much like how he could only bring forth Dominus once in a blue moon, or his God summon as well or that matter, this art had a cooldown period. Funnily enough, it was also 'technically' a summon like the aforementioned individuals... Well sort of. The art itself was actually more like a temporary teleport, kinda? It summoned a portal through which the 'summoned' entity could launch one singular attack and then that was literally it. Still, the creature in question was absurdly powerful so this one attack was no joke. Even Ares' God summon might struggle to resist the hit if he'd tried to counter it with that.

The dragon saw the portal, nearly 100ft tall, open ahead of it and was briefly mesmerised by the pretty colours. It was a trippy, neon, shape palooza with flashing lights that made the viewer think they were having an acid trip. From within the portal a large, bony, shadowy hand crept out and spasmed repeatedly at the touch of fresh air. The fingers twitched and bent in unnatural ways, almost as if they were glitching into random positions at indecipherable intervals. Though their spasm pattern was random, when the dragon drew near enough, within enough range to aggro the hand, all the fingers simultaneously cracked into place and were pointed directly at the dragon's heads. Clearly this thing just attacked whatever was in range and, right now, that just so happened to be poor, unfortunate Níðhöggr. The fingers retracted slightly, bending steadily as if they were a spring, and were about to lunge forth at the drop of a hat as soon as the dragon was within reach.

Ares felt extremely off put by this hand as he was curious as to where exactly Mako found this horrible thing. Based on the name of the art, even that halfwit Mako didn't know what this thing was exactly and that was more than just a bit concerning because he had a literal God floating beside him to answer any and all questions. If Mako didn't know then, by extension, Terros didn't know either. If a God who'd lived for countless millions of years had never seen such a thing before despite his vast array of knowledge then what did Mako stumble upon, and where, exactly? Better yet, this twit had the audacity to name the art in such a ridiculous fashion! It almost sounded like he was lording over this bizarre creature when the reality of the situation was very clearly different. If he summoned that thing near enough to himself he would absolutely accidentally commit suicide and get indiscriminately murdered by it! Ares was well and truly lost with this one but he could tell whatever that hand was, it was a real powerhouse and a considerable threat. Thankfully it would probably disperse after dealing with the dragon, otherwise Ares would have to full on retreat from it until it buggered off, but that didn't stop Ares from wanting to know more about this thing as, if his eyes weren't mistaken... That was disintegration surrounding its hand! Why the hell was there disintegration just casually floating around in this world somewhere?! Now Ares was hella curious! He would one hundred percent be having a conversation with that annoying elf later to figure out what was going on here. Better yet, did Mako not realise that thing was covered in destruction magic? He wouldn't have known about it the first time he came across it, as he hadn't met Ares by that point presumably, but after meeting Ares surely this should have come up in conversation at some point!? Was this bastard so determined to win the fight that he kept something this strange a secret just to try and take Ares by surprise with it? This guy... He deserved a whooping!

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Níðhöggr opened its maw to tackle the hand in fearless fashion. Whether this magic hadn't developed a conscience or if it had and was just completely uncaring didn't much matter as it was doing its job loyally and sacrificing itself for the cause. If that hand had attacked Ares he would have needed to bring out the Primordial Blade just to stop it and that was a secret best kept hidden for as long as possible. Ares watched as the dragon moved to bite the hand and got crushed on the spot. Ares almost missed it because he just so happened to blink... The lanky hand swung forward at ridiculous speed and curled its fingers around the dragon, crushing it in a matter of milliseconds. It was naturally completely unbothered by the disintegration dragon because, whatever this thing was, it was covered in the magic from head to toe. If anything, it seemed used to it, used to wielding it to improve its own strength by a considerable margin. Not that its true strength could be determined just from this appearance, it was likely far stronger in person and the more Ares thought about it the more he wanted to talk to Mako. Still, that could wait until after the match had concluded so he watched the hand slink back into the portal, watched the portal slowly shrink in size until it was gone entirely, and then dived into the black cloud that was the remaining disintegrating mana from Níðhöggr.

The dragon was destroyed but it had left some traces of magic behind and Ares was going to comfortably sink through the black swamp of mana as there was no way anything other than Ares could survive in this dark miasma. Mako was right on the other side of it too so he had no way of stopping Ares from barrelling at him because any attack he fired off would be swallowed up on the spot. As for what manner of attack Ares would launch at the elf after he arrived before him... Well, Ares was still on a perpetual high and he knew precisely what needed to be done. He'd never done this before but the adrenaline was pumping and ideas were formulating in his skull fast, ideas that were all extremely interesting. One such idea kept popping up over and over again and Ares knew he needed to try it out here. There was a perfect opportunity to and he could tell precisely how Mako would react to it. Again, Ares was calculating the outcome of every move and every decision and Mako was just going to walk headfirst into each of them. As for the idea Ares had come up with, he thought it was pretty ingenious and also something that would be relevant forever. It was such a simple concept and combination of arts but, when it mattered, it would be fight-winning at times. To prepare himself, all he needed was a sword. Not the Bane, that was gone, just any old sword would do. He pulled one out of the Primordial Blade, scoured the miasma below him with his divine sense to locate Mako, and, when he located the imperious creator himself, dived at him with no hesitation.

Mako had been inching backwards from the black fog because he couldn't see through it at all. He tried creating some x-ray goggles and a gun with thermal optics but none of that improvised on-the-spot technology could pierce the disintegration veil. He had to chuck it all away and back up slowly to react to Ares when and where he came out the hard way.

Stare

A pair of golden Eyes emerged from the darkness followed by a dangerous aura. Mako nearly had a heart attack as the eyes were practically staring into his soul. Ares' divine sense was mean-mugging Mako hard and almost made him reel backwards in shock because the pressure it carried was immense and heavy. That deathly stare had clearly been mastered over many years and Mako could tell. He was right too as this was the same look Ares gave people when they tried creeping up on him when he was asleep. It was the same look Aejaz got that one time on the night of the Cultural Appreciation Day when he wanted to check in on Appa and all he got in return was Ares' golden eyes peering at him in the darkness. It was a stare that caused palpitations and nervous sweat to drip down your forehead as it chilled your spine and froze your pulse for a split second. Mako felt like a deer in the headlights as his movements became sluggish but he was thankfully freed from it when Ares retracted his sense. Mako was glad but this also meant Ares would come flying down right after now that he'd discovered and tracked his prey successfully.

Sure enough, Mako barely had time to take a breath before Ares had come charging out from the billowing black fog swinging his sword. On the one hand, Ares wasn't close enough to swing it and hit Mako so that wasn't what he was going for, on the other hand whatever he was doing might actually end up being worse for Mako and he would have preferred the heavy strike after a long fall. Regardless of what was in store for him, Mako felt comfortable in his ability to stop it. He still had his rare treasure up his sleeve if the incoming attack was too strong for any of his other tricks to deal with so he was focussing hard on Ares' movements to figure out what he was plotting. Mako was under a similar phenomenon to Ares right now as it felt like his world was slowing down to a crawl. Each and every flex of a muscle, each and every minute movement of a nerve, Mako could see it all perfectly and he was ready to shut down this offensive. He felt confident and that confidence only soared when his body moved before his mind even could in reaction to the word that slipped out fo Ares' mouth.

"Grand..."

Grand Annihilation. That's what's coming. Put up a wall and block it. While these thoughts were running through Mako's head, he'd actually already done it. His conscience was playing catch up to his hyper dialled-in body. He hadn't cast an art but he did summon a row of red and gold paifang, each of which were nearly fifty feet tall and, based on the momentous THUD they made as they crashed into the arena floor, were heavy as multiple stacks of gold bars piled on top of each other. They looked sturdy and unbreakable which, combined with the fact there were five of them, meant nothing was getting through them anytime soon. Unless Níðhöggr came back from the dead, this was going to be a dead end for Ares' Grand Annihilation as there was no way it could possibly bust through these doors in one fell swoop. It might be able to take out three or four but the explosions' potency would die out by then. Mako wouldn't be in a great position after but it was way better than it could have been if he was hit by that damnable art. Mako was counting himself lucky Ares hadn't charged up a Perish Wheel as he fell because he felt like that would have been way worse for him. Mako heard the rumours about that art and was wary of it to an almost paranoid degree as it sounded like a nightmare to deal with.

"GAMBLE!"

...

What? Mako didn't have time to comprehend the name of the art he just heard for the first time ever but he could tell something was coming and it wasn't going to be pretty... Mako's walls only blocked Ares' direct line of sight to him so if this 'Gamble' enabled Ares to attack from somewhere else then Mako was in deep, DEEP, trouble. Much to Mako's horror, Ares, as if on cue, appeared from the side of his gates in mid-air while swinging his golden mana-imbued sword. Mako had never heard of Gamble and that was about to be his downfall. The knowledge of it, via its tome, was out there and discoverable in the sect but not many people touched it because of how hard t was to use flawlessly mid combat so the whispers about it had thoroughly eluded Mako. What Ares had done...

"Annihilation!"

... Was invented a combination art between Grand Annihilation and Gamble on the fly. Simply put, it allowed him to redirect his Grand Annihilation by delaying it for a second, repositioning and re-angling himself with Gamble, before firing it off in the new direction. If, for example, Ares was going up against someone who used Blink often and could dodge his Grand Annihilation with spatial magic, all Ares had to do was bait the Blink with a Grand... And then hit him with the Gamble to redirect the art at the target's new location before unleashing the Annihilation. What was happening right now was similar to that in that Ares had expected Mako to raise some walls in his direction so he chanted Grand, used Gamble to flick himself sideways around the raised walls, and then finished his Annihilation chant off to the side where he was no longer blocked by the paifang.

Mako knew he was outclassed in close quarters but he'd really been tremendously dunked on here and was left speechless by the amount of skill Ares possessed right now. Predicting the simplistic defence Mako threw up, and planning an alternate route ahead of time, was one thing but executing it in the moment, and landing after a massive fall in the way Ares did was no joke. Mako didn't see Ares' landing but he could use context clues to figure it out and Ares had somehow managed to kill his momentum with the sword by digging it into the ground without breaking it... He must have used mana to reinforce the sword, as Dominus had show him way back when he took control, as well as used pressure and telekinesis to soften the landing somewhat. Form there, he perfectly transitioned into the Gamble and converted his downward momentum into a rightward fling to bypass the walls all without touching the floor and in the span of a second... What a monster. Although Mako didn't say it out loud, this was the first bit of genuine praise he'd really ever given Ares and the first time he came to respect his opponent as more than just a fundamental champion. This was a prodigy in his own right and Ares was most definitely not just coasting off the back of his pillar. He had a host of advantages but damn did he really not need them to be an effective and smart cultivator. Mako could do nothing but watch as the Grand Gambit Annihilation came racing his way. He was going to get hit by this and there was only one way out of it but he was reluctant to use it. His secret treasure was a fantastic defensive option but using it to block one of Ares' weaker attacks was something Mako didn't want to do. He'd already wasted the hand and he outright refused to throw away all his secrets at the start of the fight so he manned up and braced for impact! Even though it was quite unlike him, Mako let out a yell to bolster his mental state as he readied himself to power through the incoming pain train.

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