"And who are you supposed to be?" Ares wasn't exactly diligent in studying up on fellow sect members so asking the person directly who they were seemed like a faster method of gathering information.
The talisman-laden scholar seemed to sense some sort of opportunity here and scoffed. "What kind of up and coming sect master doesn't know the names of his own disciples?" This was somewhat reasonable. Cultivators had better memories than mortals, it was part of they recalled their thousands and even millions of years of experience. Memorising every disciple in a sect of this size wasn't impossible so he raised a valid point but...
"The kind of sect master who doesn't remember everyone's name is the kind with sufficient ambition to grow the sect to a point there are far too many disciples to remember individually. If you're content with this small population then I suppose that's as far as your ambition goes?" Ares wasn't really addressing the point, not that he didn't have valid arguments against it, but this was a better method of retaliation. If he just wanted to besmirch this guy as a cultivator he could have done the whole 'I don't remember the name of ants' shtick. This scholarly man wouldn't know the name of some random outer court disciple, so Ares could put him on the spot and use that same logic against him, but this approach showed more consideration for his current position and bolstered trust in him and his plans for the future. He had foresight, more so than the scholarly man it would seem based on this interaction, so he definitely came out on top in their initial exchange. This was the benefit of due consideration. Ares knew he was lacking in terms of familiarity with the core court and so he used his twisted tongue revenant prowess to think up rational excuses and even valid justification for why that was a 'good' thing. He refused to be caught unaware and make a fool of himself because, again, today was important even if he himself didn't care all that much.
"Even if that's the case, shouldn't you at least remember the strongest disciple's name at least?!"
"I do, it's Eagerton. Or maybe his brother Edgerton, it's hard to measure and compare the two as I haven't seen enough live combat to judge accurately I don't think." Ares' response netted a few snickers from the crowd because he was right. It was definitely one of those two brothers who would take the crown in a free for all amongst the core disciples but the point was that they didn't count! They had their own clans to return to and there was no guarantee they would stay here as dedicated members! Actually, Ares was curious about that but he had no control over their actions and just had to go with the flow. Eagerton might stay, Ares was still his 'muse' for whatever reason. Edgerton... Didn't have the greatest relation with his own home planet so maybe he'd stay as well? There was no certainty with these two.
"Jaffa! My name is Jaffa so remember it damn it!" Jaffa wagged a fist at Ares on the stage above him but he was met with scorn and disdain.
"I will not remember it because I do not care." It's not like Ares had a reason to give a hoot about Jaffa unless he became a notable figure within the sect for whatever reason. "That aside, we appear to be at an impasse. Because you're the weaker party, I'll let you decide how we handle this." Ares was overconfident he couldn't be bested no matter the trial thrust upon him but, really, he was right to be because there was no realistic way to beat him at anything that would make any sense. Unless Jaffa was about to suggest playing roulette to decide the next sect master, or anything else involving pure luck, Ares would come out on top eventually.
"Oh how generous of you." Jaffa clicked his tongue and spat on the floor with disgust at Ares demeaning attitude towards him. "Well for starters, shouldn't you have to prove your strength?"
"I'm already the strongest person Sheryashka..." Aside from maybe Torchbearer, according to Vargaraad anyway, Ares was definitely at the tippity top.
"And I'm asking for proof!"
"Ok, so we're back to square one. What do you want exactly?"
"A fight, the same thing as everyone else here wants!" Jaffa gestured at the gathered crowd of core disciples and Ares simply sighed.
"Fine, I just have to beat all of you and that's it?"
"And any elder who wishes to take part, they have every right to find this situation disagreeable as well. Being skipped over for the position of sect master, only to have it given to an inner court disciple who hasn't even bothered to show up for a single lecture syce becoming one, must have angered at least a few of them too!"
Ares shook his head. "I highly doubt it." Any elder that had any sort of dissatisfaction with Ares did so because of his character or eligibility to become a functional sect master, not his strength. This was the area they wouldn't want to challenge him on whatsoever because the elders were very aware of Ares' rough power level. None of them could touch a hair on Yulo's head and Yulo didn't dare raise a fuss against Ares at this stage so it was like trying to fight your superior's superior. A foolish choice and not one any elder was willing to make as they'd just embarrass themselves. The only one who could reasonably put up a fight was Sadie but that was all kinds of technical foul! She was a Vraizon cultivator and nobody could compete with her if she used her true cultivation strength! Now, if she lowered it to Ares' level, that would be fine but it seemed she had no intention of getting mixed up in this. She could have joined in for fun, Ares wouldn't hold it against her, but it seemed like she didn't want to get beaten in public by a junior and that was understandable. Not that anyone would blame her for losing to Ares, especially not if he turned into Garmr, but she lost enough to him in their private training anyway and didn't need to jump into this fray to prove it. At least in private training she could raise her cultivation until she was a match for him... Plus, she hadn't fought Ares since he came back from his trip and if he could win before with even cultivation then now... She didn't want to see how wide the gap was between them, it would make her depressed if anything. Even Dominus, her 'teacher' of sorts, would recommend staying the hell away from Ares. Know your limit, fight within it.
"Even if a single elder wants to they'll get a turn, you've already agreed to this."
"I'm not saying no, I'm just saying they know better than to pick a meaningless battle. Also, I think there's been a misunderstanding. What do you mean 'they'll get a turn'? Aren't you all fighting me at once?" Ares had been under the assumption it was a one vs however many. He wasn't expecting to do one on one fights for the entire damn day! This would take forever and he might just forfeit out of boredom! Worse still, if he turned into Garmr he wouldn't even take damage from a single opponent at this level anyway so he would basically be playing whack a mole!
"Don't be ridiculous! I don't want to hear any complaints about unfair challenges when this is over and done with."
"Why would it be unfair?! You think I can't handle you all at once?! I'm not Yulo you know? He might have struggled a bit with this sort of thing but I definitely won't." This wasn't some dig at Yulo, Ares was both stronger and had a better time against large groups thanks to his destruction magic anyway. "Do you seriously think I'm going to stand here and fight you all one by one?! It's all or nothing, if you don't accept that I'm not doing it and I'll just ignore your wishes. I'm already making an exception for you so stop trying to waste my time." This left Jaffa baffled because Ares was actively making his life harder and getting annoyed at someone trying to make it easier! Jaffa may have been an idiot but he wasn't underhanded, he didn't feel good about winning like this and he was feeling pretty assured this would end in a win for him if Ares went through with it.
"I'm only asking you this one more time... Are you sure about this? If you lose, nobody is going to accept you having issues with how this challenge was set up..." For some reason, Jaffa seemed more bothered by this than Ares was!
"I don't care, go discuss battle tactics with your buddies or whatever. You have until the area is cleared out for use and all the spectators have found seats. If you want any more handicaps, because God knows you'll need them, then speak now or forever hold your tongue when the matrimony between my boot and your ass takes place."
"Tsk." Jaffa stormed away without saying another word which was probably for the best. Arguing with a revenant was pointless after all. Ares got to work ordering Rud to evacuate everyone using his clones and move them to the nearby buildings. Anyone who wanted to watch either had to do so from a cramped building or climb on top of walls to get a good seat. Normally this wouldn't be permitted but today was an exception because there wasn't enough space to host a fight and a crowd at the same time without bending a few rules here and there. If Teng was ignoring it then nobody else was going to mind, that was for sure.... Well Rud minded but not that specifically. He minded being bossed around by Ares! Ares hadn't become sect master yet, technically it was deferred for another ten or so minutes until he swept away the annoying pests interrupting the ceremony, but the fact he was going to irked Rud to no end! He was already grinding his teeth after being asked to do the same thing every other elder was doing and moving disciples. It wasn't a hard ask, it was also necessary for everyone to get back to their normal lives, but being made to do literally anything by that brat Ares was enough to wind his gears! He was almost, almost, tempted to join in the fight and see if he could smack Ares around a bit but had the wisdom to stop himself short of inevitable humiliation. Trying to use his clones to Echo the original creator of the art, failing, and then getting humbled would be beyond pathetic. Rud was a force to be reckoned with but Ares was just unbeatable right now and he knew that. Oh well, at least he could watch Jaffa get smacked around a bit. That kid annoyed him, he would always try and stand up for the other elders whenever he felt like Rud was bullying them! Jaffa wasn't a goodie two shoes, not really, but he always tried to curry favour with the most amount of people possible to further his own influence. It was debatable whether having Rud's favour was more or less important than a whole host of elders but getting on Rud's good side, and staying there, was hard anyway and not worth the hassle. Rud was respected for his strength and his dedication to the sect but wasn't treated seriously beyond that by a lot of people. Only those he worked for understood much of his true value and that included Ares who was definitely grateful to have him around in spite of all his grumbling.
About five minutes later and the training field was cleared and ready for use. There were about a hundred core disciples in total, not including those who weren't in the sect right now or the artsy brothers, but the training field was plenty big enough to have them all fit into it with room to spare. They only took up about a fifth of the space so Ares had wriggle room if he wanted to stay in his humanoid form and go about things that way. Not that he was thinking about it, really. He had no plan whatsoever and was just going to throw himself into the bout headfirst. Pretty much any magic, weapon, or transformation in his arsenal could win the day here and it was more so of a public execution than anything resembling a fair fight. He was making an example of them so that A; there wouldn't be any pointless rebelling in the future like it, and B; the lower end disciples felt more confident in following in Ares' footsteps on this intergalactic journey he was taking them on. It was better for Ares to take this fight even if he didn't want to just for publicity and public perception.
Speaking of the devil, he was ready and dressed in his Brotherhood robes. He wasn't going to use any of the runes on it, that was overkill, but he had been looking into them to see what they were capable of. He'd maybe play around with them in Akarala but, for now, it was time to wipe the floor with these arrogant disciples and firmly establish the hierarchy around here! As soon as Julio activated the Training Field, ensuring nobody would die no matter how crazy Ares went, provided he didn't throw an Armillary as that might actually override the safety mechanism, Ares was raising his hand and chanting. "Perish Wheel." The speed of his incantation was an abrupt awakening that he could channel this art insanely fast compared to before. It wasn't a weapon he could use mid-combat, not really, but if he was given enough space it might be possible to find gaps after large clashes. Or, in this case, at the start of combat he could whip one up and toss it out with no repercussion. His wrist spun and his pointer finger drew a jagged black circle that enlarged rapidly. The crimson weaving web that held together the droopy golden liquid sprung to life and connected every drop of mana and the wheel was already summoned and in motion a few beats after Ares' chant graced the battle arena. He was the first to make a move and in doing so put the core disciples on the backfoot as at least a quarter of them threw out defensive arts to try and halt the incoming Wheel in its tracks. Colourful walls of all shapes and sizes sprung forth, guardian deities rose from their slumber and raised their weapons, and vortexes with repelling forces spiralled into existence from behind the fabric of reality. It was like someone was running a parade on the other side of the Field but Ares raised an eyebrow and nothing more. He was surprised they though this would be enough...
RRRRRRRRRRRRRIP
The deadly wheel tore everything in its path to shreds and charged forth unabated by the swarms of magic attempting to impede it. None of them so much as slowed the Wheel down or hampered its form and so the remaining cultivators all had to give up on making an offensive manoeuvre and focus on this approaching doom instead. The jagged disintegration wheel had cut everything effortlessly to the point that the art sustained no damage whatsoever and needed immediate reevaluation. Those who thought an art of this scale could be handled by a handful of decently skilled cultivators were sorely misunderstanding who they were up against. Jaffa himself could sense the immense energy leaking from the art and so muttered a curse under his breath as the core disciples lost the initiative to a single art. It was a bit too late to realise how much of a monster Ares was, and that the rumours weren't exaggerated in the slightest, but he was already in the thick of it and couldn't back out now. The only solace was that Ares hadn't made everyone fight him individually as not one of them would have been able to overcome this singular art alone never mind whatever came after... Jaffa threw out a talisman at the point at which the Wheel was about to crash land. He roughly calculated the direction of travel and used an Air Blast Talisman to push everyone in the area away harmlessly, like an invisible forcefield that relocated people forcefully. It was an incredible tool for mobility but it could also save teammates or push back enemies who got too close. This talisman took some getting used to, it hit people indiscriminately so aiming it posed a tough challenge at times when foes and friendlies were scattered in a messy heap, but it was highly effective in terms of utility and most talisman-oriented combatants caried at least one with them at all times. If nothing else, slapping one on your own stomach and then detonating it could safely chuck you away from incoming danger or ambushes so this was considered a core art worth learning to inscribe / create. Talisman users valued having space to breathe and set up their offensive slowly so a tool like this was unassuming at first glance but invaluable at keeping people at bay. In this case, by blasting people away from the Wheel, Jaffa earned himself a few more bodies to throw at Ares and stall him for a while. Jaffa had a particularly menacing Summoning Talisman but it took a while to activate. The real goal here was to get that thing up and running and then maybe the fight would get a little more interesting...
For now, Jaffa evacuated his allies and then threw another two Barrier Talismans around the point of impact to dampen the explosion. The Wheel crashed right at the target location, and was definitely stifled, but the blast was impossible to fully contain and about ten disciples were murdered in cold, gold blood. Jaffa's eyes nearly doubled in width as he hadn't expected his Barriers to be so ineffective. He could only dread the strength of a Wheel if it weren't reduced in any way and refused to let Ares throw another one of those things no matter the cost. Thankfully his fellow core disciples also realised the issue and set off on mad dashes to approach Ares and restrain him. He couldn't possibly cast that art if people were in his face attacking him so summons were brought forth and flew at Ares, treasures that could attack quickly from afar were aimed and trained at his dome, and magic that could teleport the user, increase their speed, or blast them around at high speeds were unveiled all in a bid to reach and distract the unmoving menace opposite them. Ares was besieged on all sides by slippery snakes crawling along the hard ground, hawks greedily eyeing his neck flesh from the skies, speedsters dashing into his comfort zone, arcane missiles crashing down on him from curved angles, and all manner of other deadly threats.
Triage. That was what was needed here. Ares activated Omniscience and took stock as the world seemed to slow around him. Analyse the threats, their severity, their distance, their speed, and every other relevant factor. That was the first step. Next came dismantling the offensive. Click. Ares started with a finger snap, rupturing space and turning a handful of cultivators in bloody fountains that were sprawled across the floor and half dead. The teleporters were shut down immediately by nothingness, vice gripped by the pressure of destroyed reality. They had posed the most immediate threat but now they were dealt with in a succinct fashion Ares could move on to the next problem. "Not Even Light." The missiles, magical projectiles, and even some of the summons created solely through magic were all funnelled into a black hole Ares spawned above his head with a splayed hand. Nothing could escape the drag of the art to begin with but the fact that everything had already been ona crash course with it anyway, in a bid to collide with the man standing underneath it, ruined all hope of anything surviving. All that remained were the flying summons, actual pets of flesh and blood, and the incoming cultivators who hadn't teleported. The pets were the first to make a move behind the veil of Ares' own art. The Not Even Light above him obscured his view so the birds of prey were able to slip by it with great effort and attack Ares from above. Unfortunately, the black hole also obscured their own view so, as they passed it, they ran headfirst in a horizontal wall of disintegration that acted like a barrier above Ares' head. Not even an art, just a thin layer of disintegration was all that awaited them. Even still, every time a bird smacked into it they vanished, leaving behind nothing but a few drifting feathers that floated down around Ares who still had yet to take a single step against the combined efforts of the core disciples. There were only one group left who could stop him but the cultivators running at Ares with their high speeds were in for a nasty surprise. Ares imbued the falling feathers with annihilation mana and the flung them forward with telekinesis, turning them into a sharp hail of exploding daggers that homed in on their victims. The cultivators' speed only worked against the, turning them into exploding pin cushions as they dashed headfirst into the swarm of golden feathers. Even those who dodged were chased down eventually and, soon enough, the entire first offensive of the core disciples was gone before their very eyes. Everyone, and everything, that assaulted Ares had disappeared in a matter of seconds.
An ominous quiet took hold as Ares remained undaunted and still unmoved. It was though those who attacked him, anyone bold enough to raise a hand in his direction, was smited from existence on the spot. The core disciples were beginning to realise they'd gotten in way over their heads but some were still feeling confident. The fight wasn't over and maybe there was a chance. Of course the people thinking this didn't know anything about Ares and were still underestimating him. Ares hadn't even really put any effort into this fight yet and he was still dominating. That being said, he was starting to get agitated at the fact that he could still see hope in the eyes of these determined disciples and so it was high time he instilled some fear into his little minions. That was all he viewed them as, in terms of strength Ares alone made up ninety nine percent of everything this sect was capable of. Or maybe it was more akin to 99.99%? Only his own family could really match up to him to any degree so remove them from the equation and Ares was only giving them 0.01% because they existed and no other reason. Regardless, the war aura was coming out. This was big guns territory, and massively overkill, but Ares felt like doing it. Not just because the disciples needed to understand his power, that too, but because he felt like the aura had changed somewhat recently and he wanted to check it. What changes awaited him? Well, whatever they were, now was a good time to find out. There was plenty of experiment fodder here after all!