Dominus was on a roll. He never let up with his relentless aggression and pushed the stepper into a corner where it was trapped and battered into submission. It had enough arms to block the pain train but it was simply too slow to react. Every time it tried to fling a limb at Dominus it was as though he had foresight and his spear was already counterattacking and stabbing it. Dominus' flurry was precise and left no holes to pass through so, even though he couldn't see the stepper, it couldn't possibly attack him behind the omni-directional spear as every launched fist would be met with a sharp end. The stepper tried escaping to the side but whenever Dominus felt his strike hitting a different body part, one further away from centre mass, he relocated his body and weapon and kept up the assault. In this manner he tracked down the stepper and became a leech that refused to stop drawing blood and severing limb after limb. The spear alone was still just the beginning, though, as he began swapping weapons on the fly and incorporating hundreds of different combat styles into his masterclass siege.
The Biome Eagle was fired once to stun the stepper before it was swapped out for an axe tha threatened to decapitate the monster if it didn't take appropriate measures to get out of its path. The stepper barely ducked in time to dodge it only to find the spear stabbing at one of its two heads at point blank range and it was barely able to slip to the side and push its body down to come out in one piece. Spending all its time in retreat like this allowed Dominus to take a bigger and bigger lead so the stepper slowly became a curled up beggar getting beaten by an angry youth as it cowered on the floor and splayed its limbs out in a bid to push away the maniac bullying it. Dominus' spear and axe got caught on these limbs and the feeling of multiple limbs clued him in as to what was happening so he deftly dodged backwards while putting the two weapons away and swapping them for something else to keep up the pressure. While firing an arrow from a bow he just unveiled, to keep the stepper busy, Dominus landed from his backwards hop and charged forward with a long dagger so as not to give the stepper even a single moment of peace.
By carefully analysing the ebb and flow of the fight, based on the sensation of touch and recoil from his strikes, Dominus was able to maintain a constant fixation on the invisible foe and display his mastery which, from there, was enough to overwhelm the stepper consistently. If it weren't for the fact that the mental attacks the shadow released where also invisible Dominus might have even exceeded his own goals and killed it but the shadow was too tricky a foe. Dominus couldn't stop the mental magic, and had to constantly retreat whenever he felt the black ring magic pulsing towards him through his trembling weapon, but he could at least reengage the fight immediately after with a ranged weapon to stop the stepper form fleeing through the shadows with movement magic. There was simply no running away from Dominus now that he'd picked up the stepper's scent and he was clawing his way through limb after limb and even occasionally inflicting what would, under normal circumstances, be grievous bodily wounds. Unfortunately the stepper was too tough to be felled by such injuries but every little damage added up and it was all helpful in the long run. The most damaging injury of them all came when he pulled out a large great hammer as the stepper couldn't possibly block it even despite Ares' body having such meager strength.
The hammer was a heavy weapon that caused any body part it struck to collapse and Dominus wielded it like it was light as a feather. He slammed the stepper with it right in the stomach, making the monster retreat in caution and pain as the weapon damn hurt, before chucking it into the air. This freed Dominus up to nimbly dodge a panic retaliation he accurately predicted and let a black skull go flying harmlessly past him. He couldn't see the skull but he felt confident he just sidestepped the shadow's magic and now was a good time to push forward. Dominus leapt at the stepper with his foot stretched out and it connected to a limb which he then kicked off and lifted himself high into the sky with a flip. Two thirds of the way through the flip he raised both hands and caught the falling hammer above him while using the momentum of his fall to crush the puny stepper beneath him by bringing the weapon down with frightening, meteoric force. A loud crack gave to understand that the stepper had just been brutally bashed and smashed into the floor, pummeled into the ground and left reeling from the force of the mighty blow with both its heads now partially splintered and broken. Its own limb was used as a stepping stool for Dominus to gain height and utilise gravity against it.
...
This was unfair! The stepper felt aggrieved! Why was it doing worse now that it had successfully casted One With The Universe?! Had 'Ares' simply been toying with him up until now and was finally unveiling his true skill? Was this his truest strength? It was far too ridiculous that someone this talented just sprung up out of nowhere! Even if Ares had the grandest of epiphanies, and had a thousand enlightenments in the span of the last minute, none of this should have been possible and the stepper wished it had answers. It felt like this was a trick too, much like the Training Field, but as it was getting literally kicked around on the floor, by Dominus who was using Echo to enhance his blows, it couldn't figure out what was happening. There was no obvious indication like chalk that gave away what the mechanism behind this strange change was. Did the stepper no longer stand a chance? Was it going to die here after getting its ass beat in such miserable fashion?! Every move it made was met with a dodge or a counterattack, the latter of which got it booted in the head on more than one occasion, and it truly believed it was in hell right now. It almost even felt a shred of sympathy for the people it had tortured over the years as this experience must have been at least somewhat similar. Still, the solace here was that 'Ares' seemed to be unable to kill it. He was overpowering the stepper monster but he couldn't transition into fully lethal attacks because that would interrupt his flow and cause him to slow down somewhat.
What Dominus was doing was basic suppression tactics to keep the foe occupied, he was just doing it a high level and leaving no room to breathe. This would never result in him killing the stepper, unless he had the entire night to keep this up and inflict death by a thousand cuts, it was simply being used to keep the stepper on the back ropes until Ares took over again and followed through on his own plan, whatever that may be. Dominus would gladly kill this thing if he could but unfortunately there were limits to even his talent. That great hammer blow earlier was as close as he was going to get to inflicting a mortal wound and even that had been a stroke of genius and him feeling cocky and confident in the moment enough to pull it off. He followed his instincts but never tried to force anything he didn't actually believe in and that golden opportunity earlier was a one of a kind, a one in a million lucky chance he just happened to have in the exact right situation against the exact right opponent. It remained true, despite this, that he was whaling on the stepper in overbearing fashion as he whipped it from afar, slunk in close with a dagger and skinned off chunks of body, and retreated to lash out again with the whip and yank off partially cut limbs.
Every single weapon type Ares was carrying around in his storage saw the light of day, from broad blades to baseball bats, and the stepper got a proper taste of each and every single one of them as it desperately tried to flee. It had given up on blocking and had turned around, exposing its back and stumbling away from the enemy like a child trying to flee an inevitable beating from a drunk and abusive father with a belt firmly gripped within his hands. Dominus would strike out with whatever he was holding, smacking against the stepper's legs, and bring it flailing down face first onto the floor each and every time it got up again. There was truly no hope in running away from this cruel perpetrator of violence via highly technical expertise. Dominus was a mean-streak masochistic supervillain toying with a helpless rat in a dank cage but he couldn't do this forever.
Have you come up with anything yet? For once, Dominus was speaking inward to Ares and the latter had to get his muffled voice out. Ares understood now roughly how difficult it was to communicate properly like this but he could still manage decently enough.
Nope. Honestly don't think I'm going to either. I'll keep trying though so you keep doing you. Roughly how long do you think you have left at this level of physical exertion?
Hmm. Dominus closed his eyes and pondered, neither of which actions stopped him from clubbing the invisible stepper with dual batons like he was a percussionist beating a drum kit. Maybe another minute or so? I'll do a good bit of damage but that's as far as I go. Unless things slow down, though, in which case I can maybe make two minutes work but, again, it will come at the cost of your body's condition. You already took that blow to the chest a while ago so it might be a bit rough for you.... Oh well, hang in there. Dominus went back to toying with the stepper while Ares was left with his thoughts, none of which were proving useful to him right now. After regaining control he could fire off destruction magic randomly and pray but he'd hit the stepper with enough magic by now to know that unless he concentrated his efforts, and consistently landed it, the magic wouldn't be enough to kill the stepper on its own. The stepper lived through a Perish Wheel, even if it suffered heavily during it, so Ares would maybe need an Armillary level art to put it out of commission but he couldn't even throw that art in the city unless he wanted to obliterate it. Magic on large scale was a no go, he wasn't as skilled as Dominus was so replicating what he was doing now wasn't possible, and predicting the stepper's thought process was something he could only do a few times before that well ran dry. Pressure wasn't a bad option but he wasn't even sure how well it would work now that the stepper had become One With The Universe so it was an unreliable plan at best that wouldn't even be able to bring him over the finish line. Ares needed lethality and a guarantee he could direct it in the right direction but that was easier said than done.
"Shit..."
Ares looked outside his body and realised Dominus had accidentally let the stepper escape. The shadow found an opportunity to launch a bombardment of magical attacks, it had been saving up to spew at Dominus, and let them all out at once. There were multiple rings and skulls but also, judging by the bizarre dodge method Dominus took, a new art had been thrown into the mix as well. The attacks were invisible but the way Dominus maneuvered quite frantically gave to understand there were a lot of them. Dominus threw out at least seven Blockers, to block the magic bombardment, while kicking off walls and retreating with impressive speed so whatever he just faced was no joke. Ares couldn't see what sort of magic the shadow launched but if it alone took three of seven thrown Blockers to stop, and Dominus was still forced to dip and dive like he was avoiding a stream of lasers, then it had to be pretty intense. This was a pretty bad development because now Ares would only have three Blockers to his name when he took control again and also Dominus had lost 'sight' of the stepper. Finding it again in the next minute was implausible so he was probably just going to stick to 'dancing' through the market passively until his time ran out, preventing anything else form transpiring while he was still behind the wheel. Dominus might get lucky and find the stepper again accidentally but it was looking unlikely as he didn't even want to.
As Dominus mentioned previously, if he reduced the level of exertion he could stay for two minutes instead of just one so he was buying Ares more time like this and that overall a better strategy. As such, he wasn't even bothering with mastery aura or complex, inescapable weapon patterns. He simply wielded a spear and sword in tandem, putting on a show of exemplary talent to dissuade the stepper from picking a fight. Dominus' run was basically over and he was just stalling now to give Ares time so the latter sunk back into his thoughts and tried, tried, tried again to come up with a means to end this fight in a way he could be proud of. Escaping with his tail tucked between his legs wasn't an impossibility, hard though it would be, but Ares really didn't want to turn tail and run here. He also didn't want to waste a Canis Stimulant if his life wasn't in actual danger. Ares had a feeling he would need at least one to deal with Tom Tom's true form later, to get his hands on whatever that dumb sphinx was guarding, and keeping the last Stimulant in his back pocket for a rainy day seemed right. He was close to bloodline awakening but not quite there yet, and so the Stimulants were still useful until then as early access to Garmr, but he didn't want to rush and waste them either given their value. Unfortunately this meant his options were limited. Astraeus was a no go, he still wasn't available to summon from his contract again, so Ares' firepower wasn't looking too impressive right now...
Fuck... Do I really have nothing? Accepting this harsh truth bothered Ares, as prior to now he had truly believed his list of tools and tricks was inexhaustible, but eventually he had to admit there was no way out of this with what he had available to him... He needed to come up with something entirely new here but as if it was that easy! He'd come up with desperate measures in the nick of time before but what he needed in those moments was never quite as drastic as this. A simple attack or magic wasn't going to overcome the massive gap the stepper's Universe art brought forth, Ares needed something far more impactful to even the playing field or tilt it in his favour. For what it was worth, understanding this put Ares on the starting line and from there he was familiar with the process. Step one, set a ridiculous goal! A goal so absurd and unreachable that achieving it would require a miracle. Step two, plot out the course to accomplish said miracle and begin treading it. Step three, perform the miracle. This was how it always worked for him in the past and how it was going to work for him now...
But what should his goal for step one be, exactly? 'Overcoming the stepper' was too simplistic and was something he could theoretically already do if his hands weren't so tied by various constraints. If Ares fought this fight in bloodline awakening he could kill a hundred shadows steppers with Garmr and not even need to blink while ripping them in half like tiny stuffed toys. If he could throw an Armillary straight down at the floor he would also instantly win the fight. Unfortunately things weren't that simple but the point was that his goal needed to be more impressive as his current suggestions weren't anything he couldn't already achieve. He needed to shoot for the stars so that even if he missed he would still land on the moon, as it were. Ares set his sights to a place far above merely 'beating the stepper' and it was apparent to him that what he needed to do was beat something unbeatable.
He needed to beat One With The Universe, something not even a person like Dominus could do. That was more in line with the daydream-level impossibility he was seeking. When he spoke his goal, others needed to be dumbfounded such a farcical idea could ever take root in a rational human or humanoid creature. This wasn't egoistic or anything, Ares knew it was his luck and fate as a fundamental champion that allowed him to dream big... But was beating this obnoxious art enough to satisfy him? Was it what he really wanted? Ares didn't have an ego for this sort of thing, he treated it all as completely natural that he would accomplish such feats, but he did have a bottomless greed and beating this art was just the beginning... Was beating One With The Universe really what he wanted or was that just a stepping stone for his real goal?
A fire was burning inside Ares right this very moment and the spark of something that had appeared briefly before, back when he was eating the stepper arm, resurfaced for a split second. No longer distracted by the stepper's mind games, Ares was free to explore this sensation and chase after it but it had already vanished long before he could identify it... He knew what to do, though, in order to find it once more and declassify the secrets it contained. He needed to dream big, bigger than all the other nonsense he'd ever spewed. Ares had his own methods, his own goals, and his own priorities. None of them were ever normal and this was going to be an extension of that so he closed his eyes and ran through his ideals one by one, elevating them until they were in line with what someone of his status should believe possible. Whatever that spark was, Ares would find and lay claim to it eventually if he kept rummaging around in his brain and making laughable declarations that only someone like him could truly believe in and accomplish.
I will become the strongest person in the world, bar none.
There was a tiny reaction to this but nothing major as Ares already believed that statement to be true before today anyway. He had the tools so it wasn't even really an overreach, just something he had no excuse not to do. This was not nearly good enough but that slight twang he felt in his heart indicated he was on the right track and that this was the correct way to make that spark resurface.
One With The Universe will become irrelevant before me and be little more than child's play to who I will become and what I will be capable of.
The spark returned and Ares smiled because the feeling it conveyed to him was a nostalgic one he hadn't felt in a long time. Now that he was ready for the spark to appear he got a good few seconds to dissect it and Ares instinctually knew precisely what it was. In fact, it was something he'd partially misunderstood the nature of previously. He assumed it had something to do with his bloodline acting up back when he couldn't control it as well as he could now... Ares hadn't been particularly domineering as of late, like that one time back in Baja when he confronted Enyo, but, as it turns out, there might have been more than met the eye with those incidents. In hindsight, there was little reason for Dominus' bloodline to make him act that way on its own. Sure it was definitely at least partially relevant, and that was why getting closer to bloodline awakening allowed Ares to control his mood swings better, almost entirely, and tone things down, but the root of that attitude was actually something else entirely that he'd glossed over and not comprehended. This spark was that root. Ares hadn't fully become aware of what it was yet, and what form it took, but he had a feeling he could make use of it here and now against the stepper if he played his cards correctly and chose the right words.
I will become a powerhouse so unmatched I could singlehandedly fight every other living creature in the universe and come out on top convincingly.
SHINE
The spark couldn't even really be called as such anymore as it was now a constant, bright white glow revealing all sorts of interesting secrets to Ares about the nature of something he was quite fascinated by. Himself. It was his own nature being displayed before him. This wasn't the full extent of what he was aiming to accomplish, and his goals were larger than even his previous statement, but he refrained from saying it just yet as he was still comprehending this interesting bright glow before him. The more he looked into it, the more it deeply intrigued him and he became obsessed with the teachings within. What was strange about it, however, was that it wasn't teaching him anything he didn't already know or believe because it was still just an overview of his own nature. Everything he was seeing meshed perfectly well with the way he saw life and cultivation to begin with so it was more like he was rediscovering his own ambition and attitude that lay dormant and hidden behind constant placation. Ultimately, the light was pushing him towards the knowledge he already possessed. Knowledge of his own world view. It seemed like it was just a matter of wholeheartedly accepting it all and stating his true current goal before his own legacy became something he could experience on a deeper level.
Ares wanted this.
He'd parroted his beliefs for a long time now to anyone he discussed the nature of cultivation with, especially Enyo back during the Baja forest sage, and he'd experienced the depths of this light on a personal level before. Only a handful of times, and the last time he was this deeply engrossed in this intoxicating feeling was back when he fought Slick during the entrance trial to Heaven's Path, but he couldn't help but admire the way it caused him to surge with strength and supremacy. Ares was about to open his mouth once more, and unleash the floodgates with one final statement, but it seemed he was too stuck on this matter to realise Dominus' time had run out. He was being called out to by the guy but Dominus gave up after the third attempt and simply forced Ares back out. Ares was sucked out of this dark space but the light stayed within him, ready to be opened fully and immerse him a world of his own making and understanding.
To Ares' surprise, after he regained control there was a strange gold, red, and black tinge around his flesh that was emanating like a wave and preventing him from feeling tired or exhausted after Dominus' stint in his body. It was a tiny thing but it had been there for a while now, even when Dominus was in charge, and appeared roughly at the same time the spark did. Dominus had been trying to contact Ares, and ask what this was exactly, but Ares was too focussed on his own inner exploration so he didn't notice anything odd at the time. Ares looked down at this strange occurrence and, after giving it some thought, understood roughly what was going on here. It would become apparent once he took the final step but for now he didn't have to worry about it too much. He likely wouldn't be able to fully control this power here today but this would be the start of something great, he could feel it in his bones that this was going to be a momentous occasion for him not dissimilar to achieving annihilation pressure. Ares leaned his head backwards so that he faced the night sky above and took in a deep breath before sighing and letting it all out with a gradually widening grin on his face.
I'm not sure if you can hear me now but I've been trying to ask you this for some time... Do you have a plan yet or no? Dominus was primarily concerned about this matter above all else because things might get ugly here if Ares didn't.
"Plan?" Ares half scoffed as he scornfully and yet also playfully intoned the word in Dominus' sentence that caught his attention. "Why on earth would I need a plan? Does a master tactician reinvent the art of strategy for a bandit? Does a general lead an elite army to wipe out a farmers' rebellion? What plan? I don't need a plan, I'm just going to kill it." Ares stated his course of action in such a blunt and matter of fact tone that Dominus almost couldn't believe his own ears. Ares' demeanour had changed slightly and, if anything, he was the one who should be called Dominus right about now as that title was way more befitting of him than anyone else. There was an uncaring indifference, laced with a hint smug superiority in every word that made it sound like he was about to squash a bug during a walk in a park and wipe it off on the stone pathway.
You... Have a way to kill the stepper?
"Stepper?" Ares raised an eyebrow as he looked ahead in no particular direction for no particular reason while tilting his neck a little. "Who cares about the stepper?" With a chuckle, Ares shook his head and rolled his eyes. "I'm not fighting the stepper anymore, it's not worth my time nor does fighting it benefit me in any way. I have a bigger goal, one that ought to entertain me more." Dominus shivered in Ares' bloodstream because something about him was very different right now and it felt like he could order the death of thousands with the snap of a hand just for the sake of entertainment. He'd become unpredictable and a highly fearsome entity in the span of seconds for some unknown reason and Dominus could do nothing but respect this rapid transformation. Ares let out a slow but hearty and foreboding laugh that then stopped as suddenly as it started.
"Something else has gotten in my way tonight and made itself a real thorn in my side.
I need to establish a hierarchy here and now otherwise this minor obstacle might think it can get away with this behaviour again and it needs to be taught otherwise." Dominus' heart sank but he didn't understand why. He could tell Ares was about to say something profoundly insane yet something insanely profound by a metric he couldn't probably fathom. "I willkill the stepper... But it will only be an accident and little else. My true target is the nuisance harbouring it ever since it used that art. You see..."
The now-discernable aura of war lingering around this fresh resurgence of battle-maniac Ares grew multiple times over and sunk the entire city in his colours until it resembled the aftermath of a battlefield of pure bloody carnage. Ares smirked upwards at the moon with a hint of crazed determination in his otherwise still eyes and the words that came out of his mouth had an eery calmness to them that sharply contradicted his declaration of demented intent...
"I'm picking a fight with the universe."