The holograms were back but this time they were multiple times more dangerous than they ever had been previously. The size of the Anubis had more than tripled so the same was true of each flickering neon clone they threw out at Ares. Plus, to make matters worse, the holograms weren't as rigid as they once were and could slightly alter their attacks and direction even after they were created now. They were still relatively easy to dodge in a vacuum but throw in two at once and it was a problem. The Anubis recognised Ares too so they spared no effort in launching a few other ranged attacks in addition to the holograms to try and keep him pinned down. A couple rockets here and there from their shoulder mounted compartment, and the leftmost Anubis even fired a laser from his mouth, but they were in for a rude awakening. Ares stepped once to the right and crouched down low, sidestepping the laser and ducking underneath a hologram's cane swing before taking another step forward. His body was in constant motion as he turned his back towards the Anubis to flick an Echo at a rocket sneaking up from behind while slashing in an arc with the disintegration coated flag. A quick spin allowed Ares to clear out two more holograms and some nano scarabs as the flag danced in his hand like a tasselled spear. The fabric of the flag was used to sweep away multiple holograms whenever they approached at the same time but the opposite end allowed Ares to take the fight to them early by poking and lunging from a distance, destroying them before they could even get close.
Long gone where the days when Ares was forced to receive each hologram on their own terms, he was blasting through them before they could even reach him as he practically glided along the floor with intricate and rapid steps. His feet were twisting in strange ways but his body followed along wherever they pointed as the flag in his hand left behind a convoluted trail of disintegration that curved through the air in tricky patterns that were hard to avoid. Hologram after hologram was slain mercilessly much like last time and nothing had seemingly changed despite the Anubis being undeniably stronger than last time. Ares was treating the flag like a light spear and its lethality was frightening, enough to make the very air tremble with every slash. Ares could accurately poke rockets out of the air, use the fabric of the flag to absorb lasers into the void where they couldn't harm a fly, and swipe away the holograms leaving no stone unturned. It was looking like a repeat of the previous fight as Ares perfectly wielded a perfect weapon fight. The Anubis were floored because this shouldn't have been happening. Their holograms had also gotten tougher and should have been able to withstand a blow or two without dying but Ares was slaughtering them like pigs with a single strike all the same.
Ares kicked the shin of a clone, ran his sharp tipped flag through its throat, flicked the weapon left and sliced through another hologram's torso before ducking, lifting the flag over his head, and spinning on one knee as he slid forward to slice through another two. One moment he stood tall and sidestepped twin strikes, the next he was crouched down low to avoid all harm and ripping the holograms apart at the waist. His position was erratic, his movements unpredictable, and his flag unstoppable. This was arguably worse than the scythe because his control over the flag was impeccable enough that he could focus solely on footwork to render himself untouchable. The flag bent to his every whim as he had more control over it than any other weapon in his arsenal, it just worked and did as he envisioned of it without fail each and every time. It felt weightless and co-operative like it was tailor made for Ares. The scythes Ares wielded in comparison were pretty awful as they were, to this day, still just pressurised farm implements. Ares needed a better scythe but the quality of his weapon was irrelevant right now as he couldn't be hit regardless and that had nothing to do with the weapon in his hand.
No matter how close the attacks were to his flesh they all appeared to miss by a mile as Ares showed no sign of panic at having made a mistake. The attacks weren't getting this close because of anything the Anubis were doing, Ares was simply allowing the strikes to pass by him while he put minimal effort into dodging. Wasting movements was unnecessary when Ares could lead them around by the nose with subtle and slight turns of his waist, relaxation of his muscles, or a light bend of the knee. Despite all of these being barely perceptible movements there were enough of them to form a chain of interlinked perfect manoeuvring that left Ares smoothly blitzing through the opposition thanks to thousands of tiny motions, each serving a purpose that could not be fulfilled by any other. 'Deliberate' was the only way to describe his approach but the Anubis weren't as threatened as they were last time this happened because they had more means and more power at their disposal. Ares could play with these holograms all he wanted, they weren't the only tool the Anubis could rely on anymore now that more of their strength was unleashed by Tom Tom.
For starters, the Anubis' own weapon mastery had improved and, combined with their speedier wielding of said weapons, and the fact that they were considerably larger, they were an opponent that should not be approached carelessly. The ideal way to fight these two was to wear them out with arts from afar so rushing in close like this was a fool's errand... And yet Ares was making a fool of them by showing no hesitation. He slipped between two clones as his rapidly rotating flag spun diagonally around Ares' neck to blast them apart. That was the final set of holograms for now as Ares was too close to fire anymore his way without getting beaten up for even trying. Though, really, it was looking like there was going to be a beatdown regardless as Ares' flag was swung excellently to and fro. It hadn't stopped rotating and cutting through various projectiles and holograms since Ares took off and the trail of ashen black magic in its wake painted a picture of the path Ares had savagely carved out with sheer force.
Rather than attack Ares head on, the two Anubis banged their canes against the floor and waited as the ceiling above them retracted, allowing copious amounts of sand to flow in through the gap. Ares was halted in place finally by the small hill of sand blocking him but he was also forced to retreat when it sprung to life and shot out at him unexpectedly. Ares had wondered what exactly theses Anubis were and he was starting to get a rough picture. If they could freely control sand to this degree then there was a non-zero chance they had some relation to the origin of fellahin. They could very well be the long lost ancestors of the fellahin clan and that wouldn't be too surprising at all really. Though Ares was a little curious he wasn't going to stop and ask so he made a mental note to be wary of sand around these two and took off running to the side to get around the sand hill without confronting it head on. Sandy jackals took form from the hills and chassed after Ares but he didn't even need to turn around to deal with them as he simply released his flag and let it cover his advance form behind. The jackals didn't stand a chance and were impaled in the blink of an eye, returning to clumps of sand on the floor as Ares recalled the flag and absorbed more violent jets of sand coming his way via the fabric. The fabric was a tricky tool that could suck in weak objects sort of like a Not Even Light so small scale projectiles were just a waste of time against him. The Anubis stopped firing sand sprays at Ares in response and coated their canes with the sand instead with each little grain changing shape to become more conical. The grains all had a sharp tip now that effectively turned the canes in multi-spiked weapons with frightening lethality that could murder Ares in a single well placed blow. Furthermore the Anubis could drift over the floor now by shifting through the sand so their speed had increased by enough levels they could catch up to, and maintain pace with, Ares even if he started using Voidwalk. These two were definitely more troublesome than they were last time but Ares didn't show any worry as he was still better overall and had no issues with proving it without a shadow of a doubt. Just because they could move quicker, that didn't mean they could suddenly start attacking quicker. A heavy weapon was a heavy weapon and swinging it would demand appropriate compensation irrespective of how quickly the wielder could run around with it.
The first Anubis reached Ares and two handed the cane over its shoulder so that it could poke at Ares with the tip. The cane was still big enough to crush Ares if he did nothing so, though this could be considered a lighter attack than a full on swing, it was still something he had to deal with properly as a mistake would be costly. Ares decided to go blow for blow here as he lunged with the spear and ramped up his annihilation enhancement as far as it could go. To make sure he came out victorious, or at the very least not defeated, he also threw in an "Annihilation Echo" to swing the odds of victory in his favour.
BANG
The two weapons' tips collided and sparks flew out every which way. Surprisingly Ares hadn't just wiped the floor with the Anubis but this was where his adept trait became a nagging problem that wouldn't leave him alone. Still, he hadn't lost either so this was an acceptable outcome as there was still more he could do from here. A large red hand appeared from within the fabric of the flag and shot out right at the Anubis' head. The Anubis understood the danger of this sneak attack so it retreated but was still caught during its hop backwards and the fist crashing into its shoulder blasted it across the room at impressive speeds. Ares hadn't unlocked the full power of the war aura but he could at least occasionally summon a part of the soldier if he wanted to. The war aura was getting him in the mood to fight long and hard but he had to restrain himself as suffering a backlash just to play around with immense power for a short while was not wise no matter how much he wanted to do it. Winning this fight would improve the aura a little bit anyway and the stronger it got the more he could use of it without unlocking the self-imposed seal he'd placed on it.
While one of the Anubis was regaining its bearings and standing to its feet, the the other took its place and dared Ares to try contending with its own strike. Unlike the other Anubis, this one was doing an overhead smash but Ares was not a foolhardy enough individual to dare take that head on. If he had Garmr he would oblige and have a strength showdown but this was a death trap no matter how Ares looked at it so he took a step back to put himself out of range of the cane while throwing the spear forward. The tip spiralled through the air towards the Anubis' chest but veered sharply when the Anubis brought the cane down anyway, despite Ares not being nearby, in order to try and crush the flag. Perhaps the Anubis thought Ares couldn't win without the flag so destroying it was a worthwhile endeavour, and perhaps it also assumed Ares couldn't control the flag so precisely when it wasn't in his grasp, but both guesses were wrong and now it was in trouble for thinking that way. For starters, the flag narrowly dodged the cane and rotated as it drilled into the Anubis' torso. From there, Ares turned away from the Anubis and Echoed himself in the chest to fling himself backwards into range of the Anubis and smack directly into his chest. Ares bounced off the now-stumbling Anubis, that had been nearly floored by this human missile manoeuvre, but gripped the impaled flag and kept himself close to the Anubis to follow up with even more attacks. Ares used the embedded flag as a pole to swing up and kick the stumbling Anubis in the face, breaking its jaw and knocking it to the ground fully this time while Ares flipped in mid air, recalled the flag, and chucked it at the grounded Anubis like it was a javelin. Hurriedly, the Anubis scanned the floor to find the cane it dropped, picked it up, and threw up a hasty block against the flag but it clearly hadn't learnt its lesson as the flag snuck under the raised weapon and buried itself inside the Anubis a second time. This might have seemed like a small injury once more, as lightly piercing its chest wasn't really slowing the Anubis down at all, but unlike last time Ares had left a small surprise inside the flag and it was currently glowing golden as a result.
"Grand Annihilation!"
Though Aejaz' copy of this art earlier was cute and all, there was no Grand Annihilation quite like the one that belonged to Ares. He had trouble storing the art inside a weapon, so that he could throw said weapon and use it in this fashion, but the flag was slightly different as it had a deep connection with his pillar affiliations and could handle this. The Primordial Blade could also likely do this but it wasn't exactly usable and so Ares just never even tried. Any normal weapon he attempted to do this with would shatter and explode, scattering steel or iron everywhere. The first time this happened Ares wound up looking like a metal hedgehog but he felt like it would work with this flag so he gave it a go. Not particularly surprised by the result, Ares let a small smile creep onto his face as the Anubis was swamped by a golden series of chain explosions that must have been agonising beyond measure. The Anubis had been quite literally blasted in the heart at point blank range with no defences to save it. Ares did spy it trying to summon a sand wall in the last few seconds before chaos erupted but such a desperate measure would never even stand a chance against the annihilation blitz. It was soon enough flung out of from within the golden clouds dominating an entire corner of the room and the Anubis was looking really miserable. Ares didn't have time to check the full extent of its injuries, though, as the other Anubis had come back for round two and didn't look pleased. A deep frown and a slight snarl indicated it was looking for vengeance but, credit where credit due, it wasn't allowing that anger and humiliation to cloud its judgement yet. It wasn't capable of beating Ares but it didn't let the situation get any worse by going berserk or swinging wildly like a lot of other monsters and animals had a tendency to do... Though whether that would last or not in the face of despair before an insurmountable foe was another matter... Time would tell.
The Anubis twirled the cane over its head, summoning a sandy whirlwind that pushed Ares back without hurting him. If he resisted it would have grated away at his skin so clearly the Anubis just wanted time and space to do whatever it was he was doing. Ares could have interrupted this but he was curious to see what the Anubis could do for later. They were still able to use all the tricks from the first fight so they logically should be able to in the third fight as well. Ending this fight quickly meant they would have more unknown aces up their sleeve next time Ares met them and they'd be a pretty hard fight so this situation was completely fine. As for what happened, the sand was combined into the shape of a large eagle that let out a loud cry as it spiralled towards the roof of the room. The eagle was about the size of a horse and it looked decently strong, capable of holding its own. No doubt it would pester Ares as the Anubis kept him occupied but Ares had a response to this.
"Adaptive Shot." Ares brought out the Biome Eagle and fired it straight up. A pitch black eagle soared from the barrel of the gun and disdainfully cawed at the eagle over ten times its own size. This eagle wasn't big in stature but its ego was truly something and large enough to cast a shadow over the entirety of Sheryashka. Thankfully it was well fed and in the mood to display its eagle excellence before this fake so it didn't give Ares any grief. Ares also dedicated the war aura flag to lending it assistance so there was no real way for it to lose. This did lower Ares' own combat output but he might as well use these Anubis like a whetstone to improve himself upon once more, there was value to be had in such a fight. Repurposing his flag, and leaving himself somewhat vulnerable as he wasn't bringing out the scythe, meant he could practice the fundamental and return to basics for a bit.
While the eagle and the flag got to work against the sand eagle, Ares did a few small warm up hops and then walked plainly towards the Anubis without any weapons or ulterior motives. He was here to practice and attempt to enter that nirvana state he entered last time. If he could do that at will he would be unstoppable!.. Even more than he already was... The war aura would no doubt help him enter a flow state quicker than last time too so he was feeling good despite the overwhelmingly disadvantageous position he'd put himself in. The Anubis was the first to make a move and try for another overhead swing. Ares sidestepped and sent an echo through the cane that slightly damaged the Anubis' hands holding it. It was minor annoyance at best, though, so the Anubis swung again, dragging the cane through the floor and tearing up the Riddlemyd with its swing. Ares roll-dived over the top of the low swing and kicked out at the Anubis' legs with yet another echo to punish it but, once more, he seemingly failed to make a dent. The Anubis kicked out with its leg and Ares took a step back to avoid it but put himself perfectly in the firing line as the Anubis swept its cane in front of him to finally land a hit on the annoying pest Ares. It looked like there was no way of dodging it but Ares bent over forwards and Echoed himself in the chest again, flinging his body up and over the cane that grazed his face. Before landing, Ares flicked two more Echoes, one from each hand, that struck the Anubis in the throat and the stomach. Again, no damage was dealt but the Anubis felt something strange happening to him. The location the Echoes hit were not the locations he felt like he was struck...
Ares was attempting to use the martial arts he utilised against the scavengers a long while ago back when he first met Sandy. The strikes that bounced around internally, to go from a harmless spot to something more dangerous, that were a specialty of Dominus' in hand to hand combat. Ares recalled thinking it was similar to how Echoes worked so now he was trying to combine his knowledge of the two. Theoretically he could conserve an Echo's energy in this fashion, allowing it bounce more, and more importantly direct it internally. Up until now Echoes would just sort of bounce around randomly but if Ares could aim it perfectly he would be able to strike the heart even with ranged Echoes that hit a person in the foot!... Well that was a little extreme, and probably not really possible, but something similar wasn't impossible. This would be especially brutal if he could do it with Annihilation Echo too as the chance of survival, if struck directly without guarding, was near zero. Even if a body could take an Annihilation Echo a heart was considerably more fragile, usually, and would explode on the spot. The Anubis wasn't entirely sure what Ares was going for but it came to the conclusion that getting hit by this ticklish art was going to become a problem soon if it didn't stop letting Ares do as he pleased. Unfortunately, no matter how hard the Anubis swung its cane, Ares seemed to be impossible to hit. The Anubis recalled seeing Ares in this flow state last time and it was happening again...
Ares felt a sort of existential awareness that was impossible to realistically capture with words. Every time a strike flew past him by a mere few centimetres he would stare at it as if analysing its countless failures and myriad flaws. Ares was so dominant in this fight, now that he was in the flow state, he had to actively seek improvement by analysing other people's failures. His own movements and counterattacks with the Echoes were so perfectly executed he needed to look at the Anubis to inform him of what he shouldn't be doing as that was the only way to visualize the kind of mistakes he wasn't even making. This was more efficient and the best way to improve was to get a close up of the Anubis's trikes. The only reason the Anubis was even coming remotely close to hitting Ares, again, was because he wanted first row seats to every miss. Ares could have very well given the Anubis a lesson here and now by pushing its arms around and angling its swings to get the most force and momentum possible. He understood the Anubis' power better than the Anubis did. It used one hand to slam the cane down while throwing out a punch with the other hand but the slam was horribly misaligned, as far as Ares was concerned, and the punch took a simple path to its goal and could be avoided just by walking away from it. Ares took unhurried steps forward, ignoring both attacks as they were not aimed correctly and would miss him if he ignored them, and palmed the Anubis in the stomach with another Echo. This one caused the dog's head to spasm and fling randomly to the right so it was pretty clear Ares was getting closer to aiming his attacks well. There was even a bit of blood leaking down the Anubis' lip so the attacks it could once ignore were very clearly becoming a problem it couldn't.
Mutt... Ares cursed the Anubis for going wild and launching countless attacks with no thought put into them. Expected but disappointing nonetheless. At least there was still a second one that hadn't reached this stage of desperation yet and Ares could maybe scratch his itch that way instead. A flurry of cane blows came rocketing at him, faster than ever before, but they lacked finesses and adaptability so once Ares pinpointed the intention behind each he didn't even have to react to them, he could simply predict them all. Whenever the Anubis raised its arms two inches high it was going to launch a diagonal cleave. When the Anubis took a deep breath, it would launch an overhead. There were various other tells that sprung up and so no matter how complicated or varied the pattern was Ares looked like a combat seer akin to Yulo, toying with the Anubis. He still primarily walked to avoid each attack, taking a strange and curving path in a circle without even really moving from the spot. He only ever needed to switch his position when a wide swing came his way but even then he could usually just dodge under or hop to avoid it. Ares had moved no more than two to three feet, at a snail's pace too, to avoid nearly twenty strikes in a row, even turning his back to the Anubis multiple times to stroll away from 'danger' that couldn't quite reach his back, like he didn't have a care in the world.
This embarrassment drove the Anubis even more mad but Ares simply Shifted towards it and struck out his palm without faltering. The snarling beast was letting off a pretty frightful aura right now, and the steam of its breath was putrid smelling, but Ares wasn't daunted by any of it and pressed onwards. Before his palm could connect, though, the Anubis vanished from its spot and was forcefully removed from the room. Though it wasn't too obvious, if Ares' strike connected it would have killed the Anubis. He'd been aiming for a knee but, given what his previous strikes had done, it wasn't too surprising to know it would have bounced right at the Anubis' heart and stopped it dead. Tom Tom understood this well and recovered his precious toy, preventing Ares from breaking it. It would be disastrous if Ares didn't have to fight the third and final stage of these two because it was an event that would really grab people's attention! As for Ares, he looked incredibly disappointed but it was impossible to tell whether it was because the Anubis borderline gave up or because his toy was snatched away from him. Either way he didn't linger on that disappointment for too long as there was still another Anubis to tackle and, though perhaps not physically, it was in a better shape. Mentally it hadn't checked out yet so it was a more interesting opponent than the last Anubis. Though Ares reckoned it was just a matter of time until it too was acting like the other one. Still, it was better than nothing as Ares wasn't satisfied just yet!