Elsewhere, outside the Blade barrier, a while back when the fundamental champions were all visiting the pagoda still...
"My brain feels itchy..." The pagoda Ares clone suddenly and randomly complained aloud to nobody in particular. The only person here to hear him out was the Dominus clone inside him but there wasn't really a response to this strange declaration. What was Dominus supposed to say in response exactly? 'Scratch it'? Better yet, Dominus had seen many things and been in many different situations before but it was safe to say his brain had never 'itched'. Pain? Sure. Burning and freezing sensations up there when struck by mental arts? Sure. An itch though? That was outside his wheelhouse of expertise and knowledge. "Hmmm, I don't like this..." Dominus was but a mere passenger inside Ares, and couldn't feel the awry atmosphere he was complaining about, so he had to just sit back and watch, hoping Ares hadn't secretly gone mad or paranoid as he'd have to put up with him like this for all eternity! "Hello? Anyone there?" Ares looked around at his surroundings and called out which, surprisingly, got him an answer... But not one he was expecting.
"No. Nobody is here, not even you."
Ares tilted his head and stared at the empty space ahead of him. "Now that really doesn't make much sense, does it?" Ares didn't know who had come to bother him or why but he was obviously being toyed with! "Are you suggesting I don't exist because I'm a clone? I have feelings too you know!? I'm a real boy!" Ares' nose did not extent without his permission so clearly he was telling the truth about this matter. Nonetheless, he was refuted and his claims about existing rebutted.
"You, currently, are not who, or what, you think you are. You are not real. Not because clones aren't real but because there is simply no one here."
"Tsk, Dominus, are you hearing this crazy person?" Ares double checked but, for some strange reason, Dominus wasn't responding. Ares checked for his presence but it was gone! He'd been here before, he was just silent and had nothing to say, but now he'd disappeared for real! "Ok, fair enough, he's gone... But I am definitely still here! I think therefore I am!"
"No. You aren't here. You are thinking, and you do exist, but you are not here. Therefore you do not exist, here or anywhere." This time there was a presence to accompany the voice spouting incomprehensible babble as a secretary looking woman appeared before Ares, straightening out her glasses. Ares' other clones across the pagoda were interacting with various other fundamental champions so he was roughly aware of who this was. He knew of the different fundamental pillars so the only one currently unaccounted for, and the one he must have been dealing with here, was the pillar of the mind's champion. Realising that allowed Ares to put two and two together to understand what was happening to him and what exactly it was that this woman was referring to.
"Oh wait, I see. There really isn't anybody here, huh? It's not empty, though, I won't accept such a spurious insult!" The trick here, that Ares now grasped properly, was that he was in his own mind currently. His current form was a figment of his imagination and / or memorise combined into an entity that resembled his real self. Dominus wasn't in here because Dominus existed in Ares' body, not his mind, and this mind pillar champion was here because his real body, outside his mind, had likely met her a few seconds before this mess started. The point at which Dominus disappeared earlier, when Ares was complaining about his itchy brain, must have also been the point at which Ares' conscience was forcibly stuck inside his own brain. Put simply, the mind pillar champion entered the pagoda, greeted Ares, and then trapped him inside his mind before he could understand what was happening to him. She probably also removed the memory of meeting her just to see how quickly Ares could work out the specifics of the situation as she seemed like the type to test people extensively. much like Ject, the anti-magic God, she wanted to know who she should be wary of and how much of a safety net her magic gave her against the other fundamental champions. Ares, being the champion of an element of reality like destruction, was a big question mark as per usual and needed to be checked, in Sanity's opinion.
"I never said your mind was empty, that was your own assertion... It's actually full with very interesting information..."
Ares eyes narrowed and his entire carefree demeanour shifted. HIs tone changed too and he was taking this unwelcome person very seriously now, no longer playing around as he demanded answers. "And how much of that information are you privy too?"
Sanity shook her head and shrugged. "Annoyingly, not as much as I'd like. I can tell you safeguard this information and that it's extremely important. Most people don't put their secrets under too much lock and key so it's easy to sneak by their 'mental security'... You on the other hand, really don't seem to want people nosing about? You've only existed for under twenty years and you've already thought to put a runic barrier on your own memories? That's oddly cautious. Plus that information is buried deep in your subconscious too so it would have been a hassle to track down even if you hadn't put a barrier up." Sanity was the first person to find out Ares had set up some runes inside himself as he'd never mentioned it to anyone else. Not that there was a reason to, he wasn't hiding it or anything, it was just a backup measure in case he was captured by someone one day who wanted to pry around through his memories for whatever reason. Having it come in handy here was unexpected but very much welcome and just proved why such a thing was necessary. Actually, in he future, Ares would ask to put this runic magic inside the others who knew this information too for their own safety. It was hardly a big deal but being cautious couldn't hurt.
"Take the hint and stop probing, you don't understand the nature of the information you're messing with here." Ares warned with a frosty tone.
"Ok."
"... Excuse me?" Ares thought he misheard, or that he was being lied to, because there was surely no way this person was going to be this co-operative... "Are you pulling my leg?"
"No. I'm not interested in your secrets, more so how well you keep them hidden. I'm am evaluating your mental defences and capabilities, I care not about what lies beyond that." Self-preservation. She wanted to know who she could deal with and who she couldn't amongst the fundamental champions for her own sake. Ares could tell she was being completely honest here, as this was his assessment of her prior to her openly revealing her goals anyway, so he didn't press the issue and took her words at face value. He didn't feel anyone digging deeper into his brain anymore anyway and that itchy feeling was thankfully gone.
"Aright well... Get out? I don't think you have any more reason to be in here unless you're perving on my memories with my wife."
"You really are hiding something massive, aren't you?" Sanity ignored Ares' teasing and veered back onto the topic he was trying to scurry away from. "I'd be lying by omission if I didn't tell you the more you try push me out, the more interested I get compared to before... Correction, not me... but her..."
"Her?" Ares searched high and low with his divine sense and Omniscience but there truly wasn't anyone else in his brain as far as he could tell. "I don't mean to be inhospitable but if you aren't going to leave then I have no issue forcing you to leave. This is my head, after all, and I don't recall giving you permission to invade it like this."
The woman opposite Ares broke out into a crazy smile for a split second but it vanished so fast Ares thought he was seeing things. This woman gave him no reason to believe she was secretly insane so maybe it was just a trick of the brain she was playing on him to get him to lower his guard? "For your own sake..." The crazy smile flashed again. "... You really shouldn't be trying to get rid of me... She'll only get more and more invested..."
"Again with this 'she'... Who is 'she' and, better yet, who are 'you' anyway? You can see my memories to some extent, so I'm assuming you know my name, but I don't recall hearing yours..."
"I'm Sanity..." She took a deep breath as she said this but something seemed off about her by the time she was done. "And I'm Insanity!"
"Excuse me?" Ares didn't understand what was going on with this two person freakshow but he didn't have time to ask questions because this strange woman appeared directly behind him and leaned her head intimately on his left shoulder. Her immaculate suit had come undone somewhat, her tie was shredded, her shirt untucked, her glasses removed and dangling off her shirt pocket, and her appearance rough and messy compared to before.
"You heard me big guy..." Insanity giggled as her hands glided over Ares' chest.
"Gotta admit, I've never been hit on like this before..." Ares lifted her hands and turned around to face her. This action was pointless, however, as Insanity seemed to be glued to his shadow and it was impossible to get her off him.
"Aww, don't be like that. You like fun, don't you? I'm just having some fun... And getting a bit of payback..."
"Payback? I don't think I've wronged you? Either of you two, that is." Sanity and Insanity were clearly a two in one package deal but it didn't change the fact Ares had never met them before today so a grudge was implausible.
"Not you, sil〜ly. That dumbnya〜nd〜er〜thalHavanah." Insanity spoke as if she were a bit tipsy, slurring parts of her sentences erratically which resulted in an oddly harmonic sing-song cadence. "She al〜〜ways bothers me over and over and over and over... But isn't she having a lot of fun with you right now?" Insanity was referring to Ares' other clone hat was getting along with Havanah like a house on fire in another room right now. Insanity could see this clone's memories which were shared with that other clone and knew what was going on over there without even having to ask. "She seems to have the hots for you... Ooh〜la〜la! So... What if I took you from her? Wouldn't that be... Exciting?"
...
"No, not really?" Eternal dud Ares shook his head and showed genuine disinterest in messing around in that way with this woman. There was no need to be frivolous with women when Ares already had more than enough lined up for him in his future and he wasn't exactly weak willed.
"You wound me..." Insanity hopped off Ares back with a pouty face and disappeared. Her last words echoed around, bounding off the walls of the simulated Reds Sun city and repeating themselves in Ares' ears over and over again. She reappeared in front of him but she was upside down and hanging from the sky in a seated position. She clicked her fingers and half of Ares' body, his right half, exploded painlessly into confetti. "... So I've wounded you back!"
Paying his grievous injury no mind, as it wasn't even real, just trickery of the imagination, Ares went back to his old tried and true rhetoric of, "Get out of my head." There was no longer any reason for Sanity, or Insanity, to be here and he was losing his patience with this bipolar woman... Actually, that wasn't fair, Sanity herself seemed to be reasonable enough. She had done no wrong to Ares personally but Insanity? She could get lost.
"No. I like it here. It's warm and there are plenty of secrets. I like secrets. They're like fireworks. The moment a which heir true splendour is unveiled is unlike anything else!... Even if they disappear forever after." Insanity giggled as a firework whistled through the sky over the horizon and ended with a glorious bang. "Oh, what's this, what's this? You're scared of spiders are you? Not quite the secret I expected to find but not something you should let an evil little person like〜me〜know!"
Ares grimaced as a humongous, thick-legged spider crashed down into the Red Sun simulation and began wreaking havoc. It was stomping towards him like it was on a mission and showed no signs of backing down. Ares wasn't entirely sure what to do about this because he wasn't sure how Insanity's magic worked. If he ignored this spider would it go away? Would it damage him? Would that damage apply to his real clone body outside of his head? Better yet, what was happening to his real body anyway? Was he unconscious? If so, that was highly dangerous and Sanity was a real problem. If his body was still up and at 'em, however, then could he control it in any way? Was it like using divine sense to detach his vision and then controlling the body separately and remotely? Ares wouldn't be able to see how his body was moving in the real world but, so long as he remembered his rough starting position, he could theoretically do it and fight.
Ares didn't know if there was nay point fighting imaginary battles inside his head, especially not against he mind pillar herself, but if his real body could track down Sanity's real body and land severe enough blows he could probably free himself from this mental perspective he was seemingly trapped in. The real tough ask was doing that at the same time he fought battles in here,, within his mind, as he would be controlling two separate versions of himself at once, one of which he couldn't even see! Either way, Ares didn't much like this spider so he casually launched a Perish Wheel at it and blew it to teeny tiny pieces. It was rapidly engulfed in the explosion and bits of its legs rained down from above, landing in sewage pipes and chimneys all across the simulation turning it onto a giant monster's graveyard.
Ares turned to face Insanity but, behind her, were another fifty of those giant spiders all tapping their front-most leg against the floor towards Ares. He was pretty stricken by disgust and was starting to understand how much of a problem this nutjob was. It wasn't her ability to grasp weaknesses and fears, Ares could overcome the spiders, it wasn't her ability to lock Ares in his head, he'd find a way out eventually, it was her ability to pester endlessly with infinite enemies at the drop of a hat. Fighting her in here, inside a mind, was the equivalent of fighting a Goddess in their own personally crafted world. The fact she was able to impose her Godly domain on other people, and make herself a mobile empress of other people's minds, was an example of how bonkers the fundamental champions were relative to ordinary cultivators. No psychic pillar cultivator was ever doing anything eve remotely close to this... There wasn't much for it, Ares simply had to keep dealing with these monsters no matter how much they bothered him.... Even if he really wanted to go hide in a corner somewhere and not deal with it... Ares had a repulsion to spiders but if he absolutely had to fight them, and had categorically no choice in the matter, he would damn well do it!
Smack
Ah, what the hell? Ares rubbed his temple as he felt a small bruise forming... This wasn't like when half his body was turned to confetti earlier, this was a real attack he'd just suffered from. The confetti thing was a visual illusion, and he was still perfectly fine, but this bump on his head was very much real... But he hadn't been hit by anything? Either there was some serious shenanigans at play here with Insanity's mind pillar magic or, more likely.. Real clone Ares had been attacked by something in the real world. Maybe Ares, in his mind, guided the real body into a lamp post or something... Or maybe he was just attacked by real Sanity? Point being, damage sustained to his real body affected his mind version too. Honestly, the inverse might also be true so Ares was fighting a war on two fronts, losing either of which would kill him... This woman was annoying! Then and there Ares decided not to make an enemy out of Sanity if he could avoid it but not because he couldn't beat her. He could, he was convinced now that he'd met all the fundamental champions he was the top dog combat wise... But this woman was too obnoxious! Real clone Ares was likely wildly swinging his weapon around like a maniac or a drunkard in broad daylight, looking like a massive fool! Of course real clone Ares was stronger than real Sanity so she would struggle to attack him... But it was humiliating how idiotic he must have looked!
Bang
More fireworks... Ares understood the implication so now he was waiting to see what Insanity had uncovered about him this time. She seemed to be rifling through his memories with glee and eventually found something that interested her so she summoned it for Ares to see... Or at least, Ares was expecting something to be summoned when she clicked her fingers but nothing came of it? For a brief moment Ares was very confused but he figured it out when he looked down at himself and saw muddy clothes and chains wrapped around his ankles and wrists, binding his movements somewhat. This was his fate if he never escaped the Chen clan way back when. If he were just an average person he would have lived his life as a slave so it seemed that version of himself is who Insanity had forced him to become for her own amusement.
Ares' mana felt dull and lifeless, as crusty and dirty as he was now, so he couldn't rely on it to blast apart the spiders anymore and would have to get down to business with his hands. Of course he could still use a weapon but who's to say that ability wouldn't also disappear down the line once this crazy woman dug deep enough and learnt about Dominus? The more she learnt, and the more access she had to Ares' memories, the more of a problem she became in this mindscape... But Ares wasn't convinced! Even if there wasn't an easily discernable or inherent weakness to her magic... Ares magic didn't have any weaknesses either! This wasn't a fundamental champion vs some random beggar off the street like the one Ares was being portrayed as!
Ares, instead of caring much about the spider stampede that looked to run him over, closed his eyes and ran disintegration mana through his own brain. He repeated this process for about a minute and yet nothing seemed to be happening to him even though he'd voluntarily left himself wide open. He was removing any and all magic slithering through his cranium so Insanity really couldn't do much ot him. Or, well, she could probably fight him in other ways but decided not to and let him be. Ares wasn't an enemy, he was just someone hiding lots of secrets and she was aware she wasn't going to get them this time around. There was a lot more tricks up her sleeve, and she was only scratching the surface of her powers, but this was enough for now. Besides, Ares was doing something that was rather troublesome anyway so she didn't have much of a say in their fun playtime being cut short and ended prematurely.
Real clone Ares was channeling his mana into a sort of bomb that erupted from himself. He was the origin of the explosion and the golden dome that gradually spread out from his position, constantly growing and chasing everything nearby, was capable of obliterating everything it touched. He'd given up on locating real Sanity, whom he couldn't see, and was simply blowing up the entire area around him to catch her with collateral damage. The spread of the art was enough to cover most of the simulation and there was no way for Sanity to avoid it so the jig was up. Ares didn't need to kill her to undo this entrapment in his mind, it was nothing more than a game of tag. Once the person trapped in their own mind managed to touch real Sanity with their real body, they were freed on the spot. It might have seemed like a massive weakness but Sanity had plenty of other methods up her sleeves for fighting people that she wasn't interested in showcasing right now. She preferred keeping aces hidden for a rainy day and she acknowledged she'd have to go all out to contend with Ares. She knew how much weaker she was than him thanks to his own memories of his encounters with the other fundamental champions that were currently underway. She also understood, roughly, his personality, habits, talents, and history so she was content to leave it at this and not push any further... Plus Insanity was starting to get rowdy and would go off the deep end soon if left unchecked so Sanity forcefully regained control of this stray, detached part of her own mind and calmed the situation down.
Ares felt his mind get sucked through a vortex and his whole world view was warped inside a funnel. He blinked a single time and was thrust back into his real body amidst a crater of destruction that he'd wrought in his semi-conscious state in an ultimately successful bid to escape. Sanity was hanging back, standing on top of a roof a small distance away... Or she was up until the strange thought, that didn't initially belong to Ares, ran through his head that she was actually standing right in front of him. It wasn't true... Up until he thought it, anyway, at which point she teleported before him with her arms still crossed. It seemed she could force ideas and false memories into other people that then became more than mere perception or recollection as it could alter reality accordingly. Ares had to be excruciatingly careful of not just what he thought around this person but also what kind of thoughts she'd want him to think for her own benefit. If he thought, 'I'm dead', and didn't defend himself mentally, she might be able to make him just die on the spot. Real Ares, in the current day, was on track to getting the Moongate Mountain celestial cluster treasure from Isasz, and that would do tremendous things against Sanity... But pagoda Ares in his current state? He had to be on his toes and pay careful attention to what was running through his head at all times in case something was in there that didn't originate there.
"I shall be leaving now, then." Sanity said her piece and started walking away. Ares didn't know what manner of means she had to kill herself, and get out of the pagoda on her own terms, but there seemed to be a hint of pride that kept her from committing suicide, or dying in general, in front of Ares...
"You don't have to worry about leaving my sight before you kill yourself."
"That's none of your concern." She dismissively waved aside Ares and kept walking but...
"I'm not giving you a choice, though." Ares snapped his own finger this time and Sanity paused as she felt something rattling around in her head. It felt like there was a tiny ball in there now but she couldn't understand what it was or how it got there. She was about to dig deeper with her divine sense but Ares whistled at her and clapped his hands to get her attention... Which was pretty insulting given the fact that she was a K9, a dog kin, and that these gestures were usually used on animals to train them... "Insanity got a little up close and personal but that was a big no-no, you know? I placed a patch of nothingness on her so that she would act as a gateway to your brain whenever she finally returned to it. You were in my head without my permission and now I'm in yours under the same conditions. Well, not me personally I guess. I could reach around in there and crush your brain if I wanted but that's not what I've done. Right now there's a Shock Bead, a miniature explosive, in there.
Long story short, we'll be saying our goodbyes on my terms, not yours. Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" Ares gave a polite smile as Sanity's face soured but her head splattered across the floor before she had a chance to say anything. She was brutally kicked out of the pagoda and forced to kiss her teeth in defeat. She was somewhat bothered by this outcome, as she thought she would leave the pagoda having toyed with Ares and been the only champion to have 'beaten' him to some degree... But that had all backfired miserably and she was outsmarted. Insanity's carelessness screwed things up and, from there, the world was Ares' oyster... Sanity sighed to herself but her eyes widened in shock as she heard a rattling sound in her head once more. She checked and almost flew into a panic when she saw another bead appear inside her. She promptly removed it and tracked down the source only to find a weird patch of inverse and broken space. This must have been the 'nothingness' patch Ares mentioned and, what was truly frightening, was that it persisted even outside the pagoda's simulation!... This wasn't a small loss, this was a catastrophic defeat and Ares rubbed it in after she left to prove how one-sided a real fight would have been if she kept taking him lightly.
Rattle
Again?! Sanity almost flew into a sate of measured anger, she wasn't particularly great at losing her cool and going buck wild like Insanity was, at the thought of being played by Ares to this extent... But it was a false alarm. There were no more Beads in her brain, this was something else entirely. Her stupid pocket God, Hoo, startled her by replicating the rattling noise and taunting her... This stupid God really had a knack for messing with Sanity and she didn't much appreciate it! She'd get that damn owl back one way or another at some point in the future... For now, though, she simply sighed and wated for Havanah to come out of the pagoda and regale her with tales about Ares. Sanity already knew everything her cat companion wanted to say but she wouldn't spoil Havanah's moment and take away the fun of actually saying it. She approved of Ares' cunning and so she was accepting of a relation between him and her 'friend' Havanah. He was decent enough for her and not someone who would drag the cat down. Based on the memories she witnessed they got along spectacularly too and were practically made for each Oher. As for her own interest in him... Well he was smarter than she initially assumed him to be but she didn't feel much of anything... But Insanity seemed to like him at least somewhat. Insanity could loosely understand what the secrets in Ares' head entailed even if she didn't know the specifics. Whatever the 'scent' of those memories was had brought out something fierce in Insanity and so she got a little clingy on this particular outing. Sanity didn't view this as her problem, though, so she'd just let Insanity deal with Ares in her own time when he actually arrived in the outer world. Insanity was a rogue element Sanity really couldn't do much about so she was free to do as she pleased.