Chapter 358: Guardian From the Grave

"Looks normal... As normal as that thing can be anyway." Ares was standing above the Federation with his Voidwalk and using a combination of Omniscience and divine sense to scout out the krakyrn on the horizon. It was under water, yes, but Ares had trained his ability to wield pressure underwater and so he was able to clear the way for his divine sense with ease now. Practice makes perfect! On that note, regarding practice, Ares had also spent a good chunk of time training his Shift to be a quicker movement option that Voidwalk. Voidwalk was a better version of flight but Shift had no use currently because Voidwalk was also a better version of it at the same time too. The benefit of Shift was always its speed so making it even faster, and giving it an actual use in combat compared to Voidwalk, was wise. Ares could reasonably dodge attacks with it now but there was still an element of risk given the way it worked. If he only dodged by a hair's width he might still get hit just because of the nothingness zones not disappearing immediately, linking the two positions. It was a good tool but one he still had to be careful with. At least it might see some more use now. Not that it hadn't before, it's just that there were so few situations were it was relevant or really mattered so its improved form now would have a lot more use-cases he could play around with.

Anyway, regarding the krakyrn, it looked the exact same as it did last time. Ares was wondering if the water pillar enabler might have changed anything, like given it a fancy flowing cape of water or whatever... But nope! The krakyrn was still as hideous as ever and there was nothing aiding it in the aesthetic department. Ares was still curious to know what the Deep Blue could do in a fight but it seemed he would have to wait until this one actually kicked off to find out, unfortunately. He could have maybe tried asking the Firestarters but, chances are, they might not have known either. It was impossible to tell who the enabler originally belonged to, and getting an answer out of them would take forever, so trial and error was going to be the way to go. What was the worst that could happen? Treasures almost never functioned differently from person to person unless there were highly specific circumstances surrounding the treasure so it ought to be manageable as Ares didn't think a single treasure art would be enough to beat him no matter how good it was! The krakyrn was about, in total, half the size of the Scylla overall, so definitely less of a threat by itself, but was still a powerful monster that could dwarf entire segments of the Federation. It would also be more actively involved in the fighting so that complicated the risk assessment somewhat for the Federation. Speaking of the Federation, it seemed like Geordie had cast Freefire Federation again, as the entire country was shifting around underneath Ares right this very moment, but not Run Aground this time which was wise. The krakyrn could fly so landlocking the Federation on a single pedestal would have negative consequences if he'd been rash about using it. It's not like the Federation was hyper mobile and could dodge attacks if Run Aground wasn't active but it did mean the earthen pillar wouldn't crumble beneath it after a sustained bombardment and cause havoc. In this scenario it was better to start in the ocean rather than plummet into it as Run Aground had no value here anyway and would only potentially be a detriment.

All in all, Ares was feeling confident. Sure the krakyrn would be stronger than last time it showed up, as its body would not be constrained by the auction house and it came packing an enabler, but after the Scylla this ought to be a cakewalk comparatively so he descended to the front of the Freefire Federation and waited patiently for the monster to come barrelling out of the water. It decided to be rude with its greetings, however, and the first things to breach the water's surface were its tentacles instead. Most, give or take two hundred, darted straight for the cannons to stifle them and keep them occupied but a decent chunk made a beeline for Ares as the monster recognised him from last time. The krakyrn was going to spare no effort when it came to the spooky golden kid who gave it a migraine and a half last time when he unleashed a golden onslaught directly down on its head. If the krakyrn concentrated hard enough, it could still feel the thumping but, for the most part, it was dwarfed by the constant pain it felt in every one of its limbs due to the unatural nature of its biology. Eternal pain was a pretty terrible trait to be born with, and it was hardly the krakyrn's own fault, but Ares was going to do everything in his power to put this thing out of its misery.

Ares couldn't really strike at the krakyrn right now, as it was still too deep to comfortably launch any kind of attack at, so he focused on the tentacles, which were more immediately problematic, and effortless batted them away with well timed pressure deflects. He coated his hand in pressure, only one, and just waved aside the incoming tentacles with a limp wrist and a smidge of effort. Ares had gotten very used to tentacles as of late, due to the sheer amount of them various monsters that had been cropping up possessed, so he understood their attack patterns pretty intricately. The drill tentacles belonging to the krakyrn were the toughest to stop in their tracks, objectively due to the slight spin on them as they travelled, but that meant little because Ares clearly hadn't been too fussed. Omniscience was doing Ares a lot of favours here and functioned like a mini cheat sheet which, when combined with his pressure expertise, made him look an expert tentacle thwarter. Rox was watching the fight from inside the Blade and he was taking notes because he'd struggled, clearly unnecessarily, against these things. He'd been forcibly run around the entire room as they chased him because he didn't have any better options at the time. He was good with deflects but this new means of attack had been sprung on him out the blue and so adapting in the time frame he had wasn't going to happen. Now though? Now he could watch freely and get a better idea of how to combat these types of appendages in the future. And who better to learn from than an Ares in perfect form? He was well rested and at the top of his game, having already swatted aside nearly thirty tentacles, some of them more than once, and showed no signs of slowing down any time soon . With small movements Ares twisted his body out the way of danger and ducked under countless ambushes while redirecting a swarm of tentacles in masterful fashion. He even started to show off by redirecting the tip of the tentacles into other tentacles to destroy them via friendly fire.

When the numbers became too much to feasibly keep at bay with just a single hand, Ares covered his hand in golden mana and swiped it at the ocean below while chanting "Grand Annihilation" and blowing the appendages to kingdom come. They would regenerate and return shortly but, for now at least, all the ones assailing him were gone. They'd turned into dust and been scattered through the ocean. No doubt the krakyrn must have felt a bit of pain losing that many tentacles all at once but that didn't hamper it as the monster shot up past the surface of the water, directly underneath Ares, and made a lunge for him with its giant, creepy maw. Whether it had intentionally used the previous Grand Annihilation as a smokescreen or not Ares didn't know but it was a decently clever attempt at catching him of guard by breaking through his own art to surprise him.

"Shift."

And, just like that, Ares' training had paid off because he didn't need to move a single muscle to escape the 'predicament' he was placed in due to his opponent's quick thinking. He didn't need to fight for his life, use some kind of defensive art, use a treasure etc... Just a quick Shift to reposition elsewhere and he was spared the fate of being gobbled up by that pit of teeth that had been gunning for him hard. The krakyrn went spiralling up and into the sky, biting nothing but air while revealing its full form as it spread its wings and took to hovering above the ocean, and casted a massive shadow over the Federation as the beast and the country stared each other down. Ares didn't much appreciate being ignored, he was a much bigger threat than the multiple thousands of cannons as he packed just as much firepower by his lonesome, so he devised an incredibly deadly attack and begun launching it while the krakyrn was distracted. Ares begun creating the physical pressure attack he launched before boarding the Federation, the bowstring one that was a straight piercing attack with lethal and surgical precision, but he switched things up a bit when it was nearly completed. He held the arrow in place and dug grooves into the tip with his nails while imbuing the arrow shaft with plenty more physical pressure so that it could hide a painful surprise within it. In short, he was creating a scatter arrow. It shared all the same penetrating properties as before but, now, it would split during its flight into multiple different physical pressure rays and cover a wider area. This was a fantastic tool for pumping countless holes into large monster and Ares was aiming to clip the wings of the krakyrn and send it crashing back down into the ocean where it would be more manageable and easy to hit. Turning the attack in multiple smaller ones would naturally weaken the arrow somewhat but Ares had accounted for that and followed his physical pressure up with an art he'd gotten a lot of mileage out of lately. 

"Big Game Hunter!" There were plenty of small and mighty monsters but, out at sea, it seemed like a lot of the more problematic foes happened to be quite large in stature so Ares was throwing this art out there left, right, and centre as of late. He really owed Dominus for showing him this art as it was proving its worth a thousand times over. As for how it synergised with his physical pressure, it imbued every single one of the arrows that would split off with the art all in one as they were bundled together to begin with. By casting the art once now, it would effectively work on every single arrow that came out of the original, giving each of them a significant power boost when connecting with the krakyrn. His goal of shooting down the krakyrn would definitely be fulfilled depending on how many arrows flew straight and true, clipping the monster's wings. The monster sensed that something dangerous was coming from Ares but it was slow to turn and only managed to watch him launch the attack before it could do anything to stop him. The piercing pressure arrow was let loose and it stormed over the ocean, kicking up small waves as it flew, and eventually split off into about thirty smaller arrows. Some of them veered wildly off course, with a couple even accidentally damaging the Federation, but at least three quarters of them were still on track to hit the krakyrn so that was a success in Ares' eyes as he watched time slow as soon as the first arrow hit.

The krakyrn was scanned in its entirety yet again, a fate it recognised and was not looking forward to, before that blue light spread back to the multiple arrows and time resumed, much to the dismay of the krakyrn who was punctured immediately after in too many locations to count. The tentacle wings were perforated in important, sensitive spots and so the monster screeched as it fell sideways back into the ocean. The wings were hard to manage to begin with but after taking arrow shrapnel directly with no way to block any of it, and losing control over a good chunk of its nerves as they'd been cleanly severed, a free fall awaited it and there was nothing it could do to stop that. A deafening SPLASH marked Ares' success in bringing down the beast but he wasn't done with it just yet. It would regenerate its wings eventually but, hopefully, the fight would be over by then. Ares wanted to ground this thing and kill it quick to get his hands on the enabler, and have it locked down in his possession for safe keeping, so he wasn't toying around with the krakyrn and experimenting with arts or practicing with his scythe. The krakyrn had just barely begun sinking below the waves and yet Ares was already prepping a Perish Wheel to further debilitate and injure the monster before outright killing it. Just endlessly chucking powerful arts and pressure would be enough to hopefully down the creature and make short work of it before anything could go awry and the fight was stalled. Ares was stopped in his tracks, though, when the krakyrn raised one of its tentacles up high and he noticed the Deep Blue wrapped tightly around it. The necklace was pretty standard but the blue gem, roughly the size of half a tennis ball, was glowing bright and looked highly unnatural. Ares could feel a lot of power coming from that thing and it looked like he was about to find out what exactly that treasure could do... He wanted to avoid complications but it was looking like there was going to be a pretty massive one that came in the form of whatever it was this necklace did.

Shatter

The gem broke apart and released a bluish white ethereal cloud into the air and Ares recognised what it was in a heart beat because he'd been dealing with this mystery substance in spades recently. Put simply, it was a soul. Specifically a soul with no body to be housed in as the body was long gone, leaving the soul to become misshapen and wander aimlessly until it was caught in heaven / hell's net or wound up in the void. He'd absorbed countless souls from the monsters during the Scylla incident so he knew what they looked like down to a tee and this was definitely a soul no matter how he sliced it. It was a strong soul too as the cloud was thicker than most and less transparent which was indicative of the quality of the body it once belonged to. Perhaps mana congealed the soul, making it more opaque? That would make sense as better cultivators had higher mana reserves generally and, thus, the supposition was a reasonable one. Some souls, like that of a regular fish's, were practically invisible and only really something Ares could spot with Omniscience. This thick smog, in comparison, signified the soul belonged to someone, or something, that had been extraordinarily powerful when it was still alive.

Actually, this made a whole lot of sense too. The forming of a water pillar enabler having something to do with the deceased soul of a strong cultivating creature with a water affiliation would be a rational explanation for how it came to be. Still, the creature / person would have to have been one hell of an entity for its soul to form an enabler in death. No ordinary human, with some shoddy bloodline, would be able to have the honour of becoming an enabler in death as that was far too grand a fate. Chances are they'd just become a poxy low grade stardust instead, let alone any kind of valuable treasure. Maybe if a fundamental champion died, then sure, but a random Tom, Dick, or Harry? Not a chance. Ares was curious to see what form this mighty soul took because he imagined it was going to show up, shape itself, launch an attack, and then disappear again. It was a one time summon, sort of like Astraeus, that would show up, swing its girth around, and then take a while to be usable again. One big art here and there meant it was going to be a huge one whenever it was available, as there wouldn't be such drawbacks otherwise, and so Ares wanted to get a feel for the scale of it. Nowadays he had a lot of large scale attacks at his disposal but that didn't meant this enabler art was useless. If it was strong then he could use this in tandem with his own attacks or just cover for it while it was launched. Most of Ares' bigger arts took a while to bring out but this could be done in the background while he held off the opposition so it definitely would find a use in his arsenal. Plus it was for an affiliation he wasn't well versed in and that was just generally helpful. 

The shape of the soul cloud wasn't completely finished yet but Ares put two and two together to figure out what this slowly forming creature was because it was starting to get a little obvious. The soul of a powerful creature that was presumably relevant to the krakyrn, hence it breaking into the auction to steal it pronto, meant that there was only really one correct answer... That soul was that of the krakyrn's mother... It had died underwater after getting eaten by the kraken and, most likely, the defecated remnants of its heart had crystalised due to the pressure of the ocean depths and became the gem resting on the Deep Blue necklace. The wyvern's soul was trapped inside its crystalised heart and it became an enabler. That would explain why the krakyrn went to such great lengths to recover it and why it rushed over to the Federation despite it not being anywhere near its usual home turf...

Aw, Ares felt a tad bad for this thing... He was still going to kill the krakyrn, the tragic fate could not be avoided because it was an abomination and deserved to die, but now Ares would feel a tinge guilty. He was going to kill this thing, takes its mother's dead soul and the heart of its body, and use it for all eternity like the wyvern was some kind of convenient necromancer's slave... Yeah, not a great look exactly... Back at the auction house, the only words Ares could really make out from the krakyrn's garbled screeching was 'it's mine', and he'd just assumed the creature was dumb and wanted the necklace for purely selfish reasons, but it must have really treasured its deceased mother's soul and wanted to keep it safe and by its side... But now this begged the question, how aware was the soul of its surroundings? Was its brain turned to mush or was it sentient enough to realise it was in its son's possession? If it was the former, then nothing special ought to happen here. If it was the latter and recognition of familial bonds was in the cards... Then this thing might stubbornly stick around and do a lot more than just cast an art or two like it was supposed to... If that were the case then this fight might actually be troublesome.

A wyvern that was strong, and had an affiliation substantial enough for its heart to become an enabler, fighting alongside the krakyrn with both unleashing devastating arts constantly would be a very real problem. Ares wasn't superman, he couldn't multitask to that extent and deal with both simultaneously. He would have his hands full killing just one and so it seemed like he was going to have to actively rely on the Federation folk to deal with one while he tackled the other. Given that the water wyvern was probably the stronger of the two, it seemed as though Ares was going to be on soul crushing duty but that was a hassle in and of itself. This monster's form was not corporeal, and it was just a free roaming soul, so actually hitting it was going to be a pain in the neck and Ares would have to figure something out before the fight could even really begin properly. It would be like trying to hit a ghost otherwise and it had free reign to just keep chucking powerful arts at him while he could do nothing in return. Plus he couldn't destroy the soul either otherwise there was a non-zero chance he might even lose the enabler for good... This was a troublesome opponent because it was simultaneously delicate and impossible to kill. He couldn't hit it normally but the second he could he might accidentally hit it too hard...

It was going to be a tricky balancing act subduing this wyvern soul but Ares was confident he would manage eventually so long as the krakyrn was taken off his hands and the responsibility for handling it was given to someone else. The Federation had Geordie, Hunter, and the Aejaz lot to fend it off so surely they could hang on for as long as Ares needed them too? It's not like he was disappearing either and could still lend a hand if push came to shove so they ought to be fine and carry their weight. Now, though, this left Ares with a tricky question... How to damage a soul? He had the Converter to destroy one permanently, and that was fantastic, but he wasn't looking to destroy this one... Plus it could only be done if he himself killed the living body and so a soul running amok like this wasn't something the Converter could actively deal with... Methods of soul attacking were rare, and Ares was at least partially aware of this, so inventing a means to combat this thing on the spot was going to be arguably the biggest problem he'd come across on this ride through the ocean as of yet. He didn't really know where to begin but figured disintegration was going to be the key to making this work and so his mind was already churning out option after option. This fight had become annoying and, perhaps, even more troublesome than the Scylla because of this one obnoxious development. Ares would have rather fought an actual wyvern at this point as it would be stronger but less puzzling to fight. Oh well, Ares had been on an inventing spree recently so coming up with one extra new method of attack wasn't some kind of impossible ask. He might not even need to create an art, either, as just toying around with disintegration magic might net him a result that would benefit him in the long run. Fixing up his disintegration such that it could permanently wound souls was massive change if he could accomplish it...