BANG BANG
If one bullet wasn't going to cut it then obviously the correct solution was to fire another! Ares' Racket let off two successive shots, both of which tore through the fifth stage zombie's head. It wasn't easy, controlling the explosive horse-kick recoil of his weapon, but Ares managed it well enough and blew the zombie's head clean off. The body stumbled forward and collapsed on the floor, giving way to the resurrection process Ares couldn't interfere with. Rather than uselessly antagonise the reviving zombie, Ares activated his annihilation enhancement and clicked his knuckles in preparation for the next round. The Racket could still probably kill the zombie in its sixth stage, if Ares could somehow imbue the bullets with holy mana the weapon might even be able to go beyond that and kill the seventh stage too, but it wasn't a simple matter. Ares couldn't just retreat backwards and fore forwards, he was going to have to create his own openings to fire freely. He could have just used a different weapon but he didn't feel like he'd given the Racket the time of day since its upgrade. He'd tested it but not really played around with it and this zombie was a good target due to its constant mid-combat evolutions. Ares was able to get a feel for how useful the Racket was against all sorts of opponent calibres. His consensus was that this thing was extraordinarily lethal but his chances became fewer and further between the stronger the opponent became. From the eighth form onwards Ares reckoned the weapon would never get a chance to deal a lethal blow and was better suited to being a mid range nuisance. He could pair it with magic like Genuflection Mandate and Flashbang to bother opponents and open up their stoic guard. In terms of pure damage output, the Racket was probably Ares' strongest weapon - war aura flags and Primordial Blade not included. He could wield the scythe such that it was more effective but if his arsenal was used objectively in a vacuum the Racket was the winner and so Ares was dead set on using it more mid combat. Just pulling it out and firing pot shots was useful in its own way as it was quicker than most arts. Weapons for fast, no breaks combat. Arts for long range and mid combat opportunities. The gun had its own niche squarely between the two as a third option that could shine if used appropriately.
GAHHHH
With a complaining groan the zombie rose to its feet once more, this time seemingly more intelligent than it had been a mere few seconds ago. The groan was one that was oddly human, like that of a lazy person having to get off the couch they'd sunken into. Perhaps it was still underestimating Ares and saw him as a bother rather than an actual threat. He'd only been using the gun so far to put the zombie down so maybe it was incorrectly assuming that was all Ares was good for. Knowing the gun would stop being able to kill it sooner or later meant the zombie found the current interactions between himself and Ares tiresome and repetitive. To even think things through to this extent showed clearly the zombie wasn't anywhere near as mindless as before but Ares wasn't interested in entertaining it so he utilised his pressure enhancement to dash before the zombie at lightspeed and kick out, breaking its knees. The zombie, unaware what even happened to it, raised a confused voice as it found Ares' gun pointed at its head again. To reach its sixth form and still be unable to compete against its foe properly was a new experience, Jaffa had folded by now and given up all hope of killing it... And yet it just got blasted onto the floor in nanoseconds and was being executed again. The new, golden waves rolling off and around Ares' form were enough to put the zombie in the right headspace and force it to acknowledge the strength of its enemy. As Ares fired his weapon, the zombie head dodged by rolling of its neck and falling into the bulky zombies hands below. Ares was wide eyed at this highly unusual dodge but he quickly recovered from his surprise and lashed out with his foot to kick the back of the zombie's hands. The head cradled in the hands was blasted up into the air and Ares chased it by leaping at the zombie's chest and kicking upwards to launch himself into the sky as well. The last thing the sixth form zombie saw was Ares bicycle kick its head straight down, turning it into a golden meteorite that burst through its own body and split it down the middle before crashing against the floor and exploding.
Ares landed on one leg, slightly leaning back before rocking forward and standing upright again with some swagger in his sway, and was feeling good. His annihilation enhancement was as strong as ever and, at max output, allowed him to keep up with strong foes in his human form. It had limits but it was as good as Ares was going to get in terms of strengthening himself in close combat. He'd be better off improving his hand to hand technique than seeking more power at this point. Even so, he figured he could still beat the zombie one more time without needing to rely on a weapon or Garmr so he didn't being out anything he wasn't already using. He made an exception for the Protection Racket, though, because gun-fu was a thing Ares had read about and didn't mind incorporating if he could learn it. At the very least, taking pot shots here and there while he used his fists was acceptable in his eyes. Better yet, there were other uses for the Racket specifically. "Adaptive Shot." As the zombie resurrected into its seventh form, making it now come in at around fifteen foot tall, Ares fired a nothingness imbued Adaptive Shot. Garuda came forth like a spiralling feather drill and rocketed by the zombie's side, intentionally avoiding it but positioning itself so that Ares could utilise it as a sort of spatial anchor. Ares wasn't going to use his magic against the zombie directly but something like this was acceptable as it was just a bit of trickery and mid-combat Shifting to launch a swift series of blows from multiple angles. Previously, when Ares used a nothingness Adaptive Shot, he would swap once and that was the extent of what could be done. Now though? Both Garuda and the artifact it was stored in had improved drastically so the former functioned like a movable placeholder for mobile Shifts on demand without having to chant the art. Garuda, as an entity, was directly linked to Ares so Ares could swap with him instantaneously. The downside was that Garuda could be destroyed, and needed to get into position for Ares first, but no swap limit and the ability to peck / use its own mental magic made it more offensively tailored. Ares told it not to use magic, though, as that was counter productive to what he was after in this fight.
Speaking of Ares, he'd rushed straight forward at the zombie and took a low posture, ready to leap up and kick it in the chin. He leapt of the ground with a rising kick but was intercepted by the zombie's swinging fist from the side. The zombie wasn't playing around with Ares anymore, taking him lightly with the expectation that he was a target that could be beaten with ease during its later forms, and so the swing was brutal and merciless. Ares swapped with Garuda, however, and disappeared behind the zombie who was unable to strike anything. Garuda had still been in the firing line of the incoming fist but it had aerial mobility greater than Ares and could veer out the way by flapping its wings and and smoothly gliding over the swipe. The zombie didn't get a chance to turn around as it was blasted on the back of the head by Ares' kick as he'd maintained the upward momentum before swapping with Garuda. Instead of hitting the chin, he'd Shifted around to the backside of the zombie and rattled its skull by smacking the region near the top of the neck with a Stamp Out. The zombie staggered and its world spun but it managed to stay standing, just about. Ares had pushed himself away from the zombie jsut in case there was a retaliation in store but, after realising there wasn't, he swapped right back into range by Shifting to Garuda who was hovering directly in front of the zombie's stunned face. It had barely recovered from the last blow when it saw Ares appear out of nowhere, swinging his leg horizontally to decapitate the zombie with a fearsome blow. Ares was donning a golden aura and his boot was practically gleaming, teeming with annihilation energy. Forget the zombie's head, this strike could level a building. The zombie wasn't helpless, though, as this seventh form was still in a class of its own. It managed to raise its arms in time to block but it was sent skidding across the entire training ground with one arm having been kicked right off. The other was broken and not doing much better but at least it still existed even if there was literal steam coming off it.
The zombie raised its head to look around but Ares was already in front of it again and launching a fist at its rib cage. The blow was quick and struck true, causing the zombie to falter and lean right. Ares swapped places with Garuda who had been conveniently hovering the direction the zombie just fell and gave the zombie's lowered head an axe kick, burying its top half into the ground before swapping with Garuda who took to the skies. Ares' target was stuck in the ground and he was falling from directly above so this match was already over as he pulled out the Racket once more. He loaded it with disintegration and fired a pure black bullet that lodged itself into the zombie's back and looked like a nail. Ares was the proverbial hammer as he crashed down on top of it with a fully charged Stamp Out. The annihilation energy flowing through Ares was transmitted into the disintegration bullet as it was stomped inside the zombie's body and it was forced to run riot, ricocheting all around the oversized zombie's insides. It became a silver, black, and golden blur shredding the internals all around it and snapping every nerve like they were twigs. The bullet left a soft white trail wherever it passed and, from the outside, the zombie looked like it was cut up by a thousand blades and a thousands razors. In reality, it was just a single bullet that ravaged the monster, racing across its form and tearing through everything in its path. The body underneath Ares' feet suddenly scattered into chunks that were flung out in every which direction so he dropped to the floor and raised his hand, catching the rampaging bullet like it was nothing. He blew out the crazed annihilation energy, snuffed out the silent but deadly disintegration, and rolled the bullet between his fingers with a satisfied expression. Though the Racket was hard to use against stronger foes that didn't mean it was impossible to kill them if Ares tried to. That one bullet, even though it had been boosted by magic multiple times over, was a destructive weapon no doubt. Ares couldn't do it again. As it was resurrecting, Ares kicked the new zombie flesh and reckoned the gun wouldn't be able to consistently penetrate it. If he tried that last move against it again it would hurt the zombie, maybe even put it out of commission temporarily, but not kill it. Though, to be fair, that was probably more so because the zombie was reaching dangerous levels and not because of anything to do with the gun itself. Mimi's work with this weapon was truly incredible and Ares would have to thank her again the next time he saw her, maybe even ask her to upgrade it once more if possible. Her cultivation and materials were limited back in the Lowe domain so she could definitely do way better the next time Ares saw her.
Ares shook his head, he was getting distracted and that wasn't really an option anymore against the zombie. The zombie was at a point now where, if Ares traded blows fairly with it, he might lose one out of twenty fights. The main issue was that the zombie had become faster, offsetting Ares' greatest tool against. It wasn't faster than Ares was, and really the speed was mostly just a vehicle through which Ares accessed his impressive footwork, but it could at least keep up with his movements to some extent now and that allowed it to actually hit him if Ares was careless. Ares could brawl with this thing, he could win even, but it would take a while to break through the zombie's new defences and it wasn't a toy he could play with anymore. Ares desummoned Garuda and put the Racket away. He was content with how things went but it was time to take things a bit more seriously and so out came the scythe. Now wasn't the time to mess around with other weapons so Ares lay the scythe across his shoulders and readily held it like he was about to lift a weight. This position was a decent one to launch a variety of swings from so it was hard to tell where the scythe would strike from if somebody recklessly charged him thinking it was a causal posture. The main trick here was pushing the snath along his shoulders, allowing Ares to grip the scythe from his right side and swing form there at a moment's notice. If he didn't, he was set up for a swing on the left. Left or right? That was the basic conundrum but it was worse than that as a scythe's swings were curved and could sneak in from a diagonal angle too if the wielder was good enough at it. To its credit, the zombie noticed this and was hesitant to barrel into Ares without giving the approach some thought. Every option felt wrong. Every path the zombie took in its head resulted in a swift beheading as there were no exploitable openings. Still, it wasn't going to sit around like this and cower. It was in its eighth stage now and it was already beyond the realm of most normal Sheryashka cultivators. There were a handful of elders in the sect that could beat it currently and even then they would struggle so naturally the zombie wasn't going to jsut give up.
STOMP
The zombie gouged out the ground around it with its large foot. The crushing step raised multiple substantial pieces of earth into the air which were then swiped at Ares with a flick of a wrist. The air wave generated from the swing was enough to propel the stones at Ares with considerable speed and Ares couldn't ignore them unless he was willing to get pierced. Ares lowered his head to dodge the first few but the next set were too big to avoid and so he finally had to swing his scythe. What followed was a set of beautifully executed movements, by the end of which all the rocks headed towards Ares were turned into dust. If anything, Ares' scythe wielding was plain but it had been dragged along, following in Ares' footsteps and so cut through everything that happened to line up with his actions. Ares' footwork made it look like he didn't even really swing his scythe at all, like it had been completely static and the stones simply rolled into its sharp edge all by themselves. Rather, to be able to move in such a way was incredible. It was a visual illusion created by perfect movement such that it almost made onlookers feel like they had hallucinated. The best way to describe it was as though Ares were a snake charmer and his scythe the obedient python. The zombie, initially planning on charging after his stony assault, was left perplexed. At this form it should have had the intelligence to understand most things but had never witnessed anything quite like this so it was left shocked on the spot. It barely even reacted when Ares' scythe came flying into its face and buried itself in its brain. Ares had thrown it at the end of his series of movements but the zombie would have been hard pressed to realise that. Ares' dance had moved him forwards slowly, gradually enlarging the scythe from the zombie's perspective, and so the throw was extremely deceptive because of how snail paced it was. Rather than fling it fast, Ares made sure the scythe practically crawled through the air and so it appeared almost completely natural, like an extension of the dance from earlier. The zombie didn't even understand the scythe was right in front of it until the last moment when it was already halfway inside its skull. Judging the distance was impossible because the scythe twirled through the air as though it were still connected to Ares, copying his movements in the background. The zombie was more likely to believe Ares had rushed him down with scythe in hand than believe the weapon had been thrown, it just didn't look like it at all. Still, it was the only one who thought this. From the side it looked incredibly strange, like the zombie just let itself die to the incredibly obvious scythe throw. Nobody could understand the disillusionment it just went through because they weren't the target. At most, if they repeatedly blinked their left and right eyes alternatively, while slowly moving their palm towards their face, they might understand the concept behind the attack. It was extremely hard to keep track of and, while it didn't appear to move for the most part, it just sort of appeared directly in front of you at the point it was already to late to do anything about it.
Was it a cheap trick? No! It would only work once on an unsuspecting foe, Ares couldn't do it to the zombie again, but it had still killed the eighth form convincingly and without much resistance. Stronger beings could avoid it, probably, but stronger beings were already rare to begin with! That seemingly lousy scythe throw could kill at least ninety nine percent of this sect! Who cared if it was 'cheap'? The only person who would ever complain about it was the person hit by it but they'd be dead so who cares?! Fighting wasn't about winning fairly, it was about surviving and killing the other person! A trick that only worked once only needed to work once. Rather, that throw was kind of similar to the art Ares made in Xasca, Teleopsia. The principle behind it was the exact same and he could maybe even combine the two to really throw somebody's depth perception out of whack. Having some 'cheap' but lethal attacks up his sleeve wasn't something Ares was too proud or honest for and it's not like he was being lazy either, that trick was hard to pull off! Having to bewilder the opponent with his footwork first, and even during the throw itself, meant this wasn't something anybody could pull off just because they wanted to!
"Tsk... Annoying..." The zombie's voice was deep, and there was a low growl attached to it sort of like when Garmr spoke, so Ares was surprised to hear it suddenly out of nowhere. The zombie meant business now, Ares could tell it was starting to reach the kind of level Enyo was at. In terms of physical strength, the only people in this sect who could survive a head on blow were Enyo, Rud, Slick, and Sandy. Yulo didn't count because he was leaving and Ares wasn't including Sadie in that either. Point being, this thing was no joke anymore and the increase in strength from its eighth form to its ninth was enough to give even Ares pause. The zombie was now probably about as a strong as the two Anubis from back in the Riddlemyd when they were in their second strongest stage. It was roughly the same size too so this was already one of the stronger foes Ares had already come up against. Now, granted, Ares had gotten a lot stronger since his Anubis encounter, and he could still dogwalk the zombie like it was nothing, but it was impressive the zombie was reaching this level to begin with. Ares was wondering what its tenth form would be like but there was only way to find out and that meant getting through this form first. Even with annihilation enhancement on and his scythe, killing this zombie would take more than one or two clever interactions. Ares was just going to have ben consistently better than it but well, if his confident smirk was any indicator, he wasn't exactly worried about that...