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The sound barrier was shattered as Tom Tom was blown away at the speed of light. His body hit the ground long before he even felt Garmr's strike connect and the force took a moment to catch up too. Tom Tom's body laying in the middle of the desert suddenly splintered into thousands of pieces and his heads cracked directly down the middle. Shortly after Tom Tom's life vanished from this realm, the desert imploded as it too had finally caught up with the mass devastation inflicted upon it. There was no way an object as heavy as Tom Tom could be smacked into the ground from that considerable height, at that blinding speed, and not cause a calamity for the ages of some sort. This entire region of the desert was being sucked inwards, regressing in on itself, before it spewed back out like an erupting volcano. For upwards of a hundred miles a perfect circle in the desert had become a danger zone of pillars of rising sand that defied gravity. These pillars towards the sky and seemingly refused to come back down, staying like this and becoming a permanent fixture of razor sharp, localised sandstorms.
Ares wasn't sure this area would ever go back to normal but, for what it was worth, Xasca city was left unharmed by this anomalous incident and could relax somewhat. Sure the entire desert a few miles outside their doorstep had just become some bizarre reverse gravity sand domain, and God only knows what dangers this would bring forth to any who stepped in it carelessly, but it wasn't inherently problematic to those not around it at least. It's not like the Xascans had any reason to come out into the desert over here anymore anyway. The Riddlemyd was gone, deader than dead and broken beyond repair, and all the western monsters had just been slain in the span of a few measly seconds. Unless someone had a reason to head to the fellahin base they wouldn't ever need to pass through this specific region regardless and, even then, they could take the long way around... Though this was the second time Ares had altered the terrain of this country without permission as his Armillarys had all caused some complications here and there too.
Also, technically, this wasn't Ares's fault to begin with! Blame Garmr for doing crazy crap whenever he got bored! Ares could order to Garmr around to some extent but 'avoiding damage to the environment'... That was futile. Garmr could not give two shits, he just really wanted to punch the cat as hard as he could and establish dominance in the hierarchy of all things. Whether it was an innate hatred for cats or cat adjacent creatures, what with being a wolf and all, or just simply because of Tom Tom's prior smugness to his arrival, Garmr had not gone easy on the sphinx at all and Xasca was paying the price for that. Who knows? Maybe in a few years the desert would go back to 'normal'. Normal minus the multiple mile deep crater, anyway. Until then, pillars of sand reaching the boundaries of this planet and domain were going to just become a part of the landscape. From afar it was actually somewhat of a pretty view at least; you could definitely increase the price of houses with a terrace facing this direction!.. Though there might be some small issues involving sandstorms. These pillars were filled with rotating sand that clung to them but if the winds were harsh enough, and picked up enough speed, tornadoes might crop up and make this region impossible to trespass upon for a short duration. Oh well! The problems of this country had been solved by Ares personally so if he accidentally created one problem of his own then that was just the cost of doing business! If you want help from the future God of destruction, don't complain when he destroys your problems! The clue is in the name! Besides, who else was going to solve these problems exactly!? The God of riddles?! Ares didn't think so! Ares' original reason for coming here was the Riddlemyd, after all. It was the main focus of the mission he received at the mission hall back at his sect and he'd followed through on expectations brilliantly if he did say so himself! It's not as though anyone else was ever going to complete the Riddlemyd so they should be thanking him!... For destroying their Riddlemyd-oriented economy and part of their country... Whoops. They'd live though! They still had their fine grind quarries!
Garmr returned to earth but did so by taking one of the highly lethal sand pillars in reverse. He sawm through an obstacle that would kill any normal person, treating it as a minor inconvenience at best. Once back on the ground, he seemed reluctant to let Ares take control again, because he still had some time left on the clock, but there was nothing more for him to do here and so he begrudgingly gave up his allotted playtime anyway. He did request his final outing to be something worth his time but Ares couldn't promise such a thing as it was beyond the scope of his control. Ares viewed the Canis Stimulant as a life saver primarily and so he really didn't get to decide which situations it was going to be useful in. Still, he kept the request in mind anyway as he felt like he owed Garmr that much before he disappeared forever. Technically speaking he'd still be around inside Ares but any sort of consciousness would disappear for good and Ares felt a little bad about that. If Garmr had one last request then it felt wrong to not even acknowledge it. Finding something that could interest a being like Garmr wasn't exactly a walk in the park, and Ares wasn't certain anything in Sheryashka could fit the bill, but he wouldn't give up without trying, at least!
Garmr slowly shrunk and turned back into a humanoid figure in the span of about three to four seconds. This was a slow transformation but Ares was still a beginner revenant and it was only natural his personal record pace was slow as a snail in comparison to his brethren in the Umbra clan. Ares stretched and walked a single step forward before collapsing face first into the desert... Oh yeah... Forgot about this... The backlash for using a Canis Stimulant was harsh, immediate, and unforgiving. Luckily Ares was surrounded by allies otherwise this would have been a real risky place to collapse like his. Still, if he wasn't safe with Sandy, the Kazaz prince, Aejaz, the force of the round, and the C.O lackeys nearby then where on this planet was he safe? Ares had rid Xasca of danger personally too so there was nothing really even left to give him grief... Other than a small scorpion baby that came along and pinched his immobile cheeks... Sandy came over and shooed it away but the damage had already been done and Ares still felt thoroughly disrespected and insulted! Of all his foes the only one he would never have beaten before leaving this country was some stupid baby scorpion! Curse you random animal and curse you too mother nature! Ares decided not to dwell on his unexpected loss and instead asked Sandy to carry him around for a bit because there was still some sifting and searching to be done around here. Ares wanted to find the secret Tom Tom was hiding and maybe even some other good stuff along the way. This scrap heap all around Ares, buried halfway into the desert, was the Riddlemyd for crying out loud! The entire thing! If there was ever a chance to scrounge for good loot then this was definitively it! Ares was pretty certain he discovered most of this place's secrets but if he missed anything then picking it up here and taking it back to the sect was in order!
Sandy put Ares on her back and he leant over her shoulder to scout with his Omniscience. Aejaz also joined in but the force of the round and the Kazaz prince did not. Ares was not worth making an enemy out of and Sandy was still fully operational alongside Aejaz. Plus there was no guarantee that Kazaz or the force of the round wouldn't also side with Ares so they were wary of each other too. Kazaz sat on the sidelines but the force of the round seemed to have no interest in hanging around any longer now that the job here he was sent to do was done without a shadow of a doubt... Even if he wasn't the one who completed it. To be fair, if it weren't for the western monsters showing up he would have been able to beat Tom Tom and that was worth a commendation in Ares' mind. Still, like a phantom in the night, he left without leaving a trace or speaking another word. He and his cronies, who'd done basically nothing this entire time, simply flew off into the sunset... Ares still didn't even know the force of the round's name! Ah whatever, Ares figured he could ask some other time... Although maybe the guy would still refuse to say it for whatever reason...
Ares paid the force of the round's departure no mind and kept digging the wreckage of all the trial rooms and labs with his telekinesis. His body was incapable of moving but it didn't have to for him to take part in unearthing the goods! There was seriously a lot to go through but divine sense combined with Omniscience made the process a lot easier than it otherwise would have been and Ares was quick to find something worthwhile. He'd come across various resources and treasures he could donate to the sect's treasure but finally, after about five minutes of relentless digging, he spotted something drastically different compared to everything prior. He wasn't sure what this yellowish crystal ball was, and it didn't appear to be the resource he assumed Tom Tom was hiding, but it looked interesting enough to be worth holding onto. Ares probed Dominus for an explanation and got a response he wasn't expecting. Dominus told Ares the following...
I'm not sure if you consider this to be a good thing or not, but that is Tom Tom's clone core. It managed to survive that last fatal blow and so it belongs to you now. You can probably plant it inside the sect and grow your very own Tom Tom... Though that depends on whether you'd actually want one or not. He had his uses but he's also kinda mouthy and annoying... Though you probably think the same about me, eh? Hehehe. Anyway, he won't have his Riddlemyd body, so don't expect him to be an ace fighter and defender of the sect like Old Light or the Anubis brothers... But you can have Tom Tom set up a games room or something, I guess? He'll maybe take the same form he did in the Riddlemyd, a talking head that can appear anywhere in the sect. Maybe that'll be useful for something or maybe not, the choice as to whether you want to instal a sphinx head into the sect is yours to make. Tom Tom's not a bad guy or anything, and you said yourself you wouldn't hold this fight against him, so maybe you can let him live again? You can consider that a personal request but, again, feel free to ignore it if you don't want to for whatever reason. I just think it'd be nice to have an old companion around... Even if he is insufferable sometimes... He's not any worse than Larsh or Dago at least...
Ares wasn't entirely sure what to make of this but he wasn't against the idea. If it was just a Tom Tom head then letting him hang about was probably ok... Unless he started nosing about in the sect's secrets, and began spreading them to random disciples for the sole purpose of becoming an agent of chaos, he couldn't really cause any harm. Maybe Ares could restrict his movements somehow or whatever but that was something to consider in the future, there was no point in Ares worrying about it now as there was still more loot to dig up! Ares was starting to have a real good feeling about the fine grind Tom Tom was hiding. Ares could practically taste it and he hadn't even seen it yet! He wasn't in any doubt it was a fine grind at this point and so he was fully expecting his hard work in Xasca to pay off big time with one final, spectacular reward of epic proportions. Sand could sense his excitement too and so redoubled her pace as she swept through the riddlemyd with her own divine sense too. Funnily enough, it was neither of them that found it first, though, as Aejaz located the hidden safe first. Perhaps it was his finely honed intuition as a thief but he gravitated towards a spot that seemed relatively innocuous and discovered a safe that was practically oozing mystery and profundity. He wasn't able to undo the mechanism guarding the loot, though, so he brought it over to Ares in a sealed state and let him have at it.
Ares summoned his war aura flag, coated it in disintegration with his teeth, as his arms were still limp and impossible to lift, and then made the flag bury its tip into the small gaps of the safe's front side. The flag didn't appear to be making much progress but Ares soon remembered this was silly and he had a way better, infinitely more reliable option! This wasn't the first time he was made aware of an impenetrable place holding goods he wanted, the same thing happened with the One With The Universe scroll! The solution to this safe was the same as the solution to that scroll issue but the only difference was the size so a giant light elemental wasn't going to cut it. In that case, Ares didn't bring out Old Light but, instead, welcomed Visitation back to the world outside the Primordial Blade. The cute meeper plopped onto Ares head, its favourite resting spot, and took a look around, taking in the sights of the world outside the Riddlemyd. His eye sockets darted between the sand pillars and the messily strewn about ruined Riddlemyd with interest. He'd just woken up from a nap but he seemed energetic and raring to go with whatever it was Ares wanted of him so Ares was grateful for his eagerness. "Hey little fella, hope you had a good sleep."
Meepy!
Ares chuckled and took that as a yes. "Good good. Can I ask you for a favour? Would you mind going inside this safe and either bringing out whatever's inside it or unlocking the front panel?"
Meep meep
Ares watched Visitation phase through the safe and he quickly realised there was a slight problem! Visitation hadn't grown up yet so he didn't have his orbiting claws like Old Light did! He couldn't pick anything up much like how Appa couldn't. Well Appa had its rope, actually, but Visitation was a tiny, armless, handless ghost! Thankfully this didn't appear to be an issue as the safe was cracked a few seconds later, so Visitation probably used his head to poke some kind of lever or something, but Ares still felt like a forgetful fool. Ares shook his head and put that minor mistake to the back of his mind, it didn't really matter right now and his attention was stolen away by something far more important. The second the safe opened even a fraction a pungent smell assaulted the noses of everyone crowding around the safe.
There was a brief moment of confusion in which everyone thought they'd been transported to a sunny beach and could smell the fresh air, cocktails, and waves rolling against the shore. Whatever this resource was it was extraordinary enough to conjure illusions of squawking seagulls and nirvanic paradise. Ares peeked his head into the safe and was unable to see anything because Visitation hopped out at that very moment and clung to his face... Ares picked up the meeper, gave it pets for doing a good job, and then let the little guy rest on his head some more while he bent over and reached inside the safe. His hand grasped a small vial and pulled it out slowly, revealing to the world a resource so astonishing the inanimate sand had begun rattling underneath Ares' feet, trying to leap up and snatch it from him.
The world itself wanted this resource so Ares instinctively quickly stashed it away in his Blade because he knew what it was and couldn't even believe his own eyes. He knew his Blade was the safest place for any rare goods, and nothing in there could ever be stolen from him, so he hid it with his hands moving before his brain did as greed overtook him. It was his anyway but he hadn't even let Sandy or Aejaz get a proper look at it in his rush to hide the resource. It wasn't intentional... Or maybe it was but subconscious. Aejaz was a bit of sneaky wretch sometimes! He would never steal the resource and use or sell it, and he'd return it eventually after he got bored of teasing Ares, but Ares categorically refused to let this thing leave his possession for even a split second. This was a one of a kind resource that defied all logic and common sense, so much so he could still feel its residual presence even though he was storing it inside another dimension. It was so potent his nose still felt itchy and his skin tingly. He was going to have to consume this thing as soon as humanly possible to make sure it was in him now and forever. Ares was a revenant so once it entered him it was never leaving ever again, even in death, and even if it was extracted from him as it would regenerate, so he wanted that absolute reassurance before he celebrated his lungs out. His hands were shaking and his eyes blinking rapidly in disbelief even now that he'd stored it away and confirmed it was a real thing and not just a hallucination. No wonder Tom Tom refused to hand this thing over! This resource might, if ranked objectively, be the best resource to ever exist throughout all the eras and even Dominus had yet to speak because what he'd just seen was too farfetched to even comment on.
"That fine grind... How old was it?" Sandy barely caught sight of richly coloured fine grind blue before Ares hid it away like a dragon hoarding treasure but she knew what she'd witnessed in that moment was a historical anomaly. Once it was revealed to the world at large that such a thing could possibly exist there would be pandemonium and people constantly pestering Ares for it even more than his Primordial Blade. Logically it was impossible to steal the fine grind from him but, given what it was, there was categorically no way people wouldn't try to even if it killed them. The rarest fine grind blues recorded to date were all around the five year mark. Fine grind blue had a chance to explode at the start of every day and that chance was astonishingly high, 75% to be precise. At five years old that would render the chance of such a fine grind existing essentially incalculable and rightly so. An eighteen month fine grind had turned Sandy into a walking tank who's physical strength was enough to resist a Perish Wheel head on. As for the fine grind Ares pocketed just now, the one that blew even five year fine grinds out the water...
"... I think... It was a ten year fine grind..." Ares couldn't even believe the words that came out of his own mouth but, upon checking inside his Blade once more, he was certain it was a correct guess. He'd just gotten his grubby hands on something that really shouldn't have existed and was arguably more bizarre than even Garmr was. It defied logic and rational statistical possibility. Sure it was 'possible' but, at that point, so was being struck by lighting one hundred million times in a row with no breaks, surviving, and then winning the lottery a couple million times in a row too. Sevorus mentioned in his notes that Tom Tom was born under a lucky star but Ares was starting to think that damn sphinx wasthe lucky star. He was luck incarnate, maybe even the God of luck! Such a thing occurring naturally was so unlikely it would be more accurate to just call it impossible and move on with life.
Better yet, why did this idiot sphinx even let the fine grind keep growing after five years?! Anyone in their right mind would store a five year fine grind in a spacetime container, that prevents its contents from aging, and then proceed to treat the fine grind like a family heirloom. There was not a living creature in existence that wouldn't consider murdering its own family, even, for a five year fine grind and this dumb sphinx seriously let this thing grow for ten years straight!? Was he a maniac?! Did he have some of those Riddlemyd screws loose?!... No, the more likely explanation was that he left it on the side and simply forgot about it,,., But still! Ares had some choice, perhaps even 'uncouth', words for that idiot sphinx whenever he saw him next! Though, admittedly, the first words would that left his mouth would have to be 'thank you' because what else was there to say after having received this ludicrous resource?! Ares was still checking it even now to make sure he wasn't dreaming!
Unless the fine grind was stolen while he was consuming it there was no longer any way for him to realistically lose it, so his heart was somewhat at ease, but his worry would never be completely pacified until he could swallow and merge with it, making the process irreversible. It was going to be the first thing he did as soon as he recovered form the Canis Stimulant backlash, it was his number one priority and everything else could get lost! This was maybe even the rarest opportunity Ares would ever come across for the rest of his life! Not to mention the fact that he still had that fine grind amplifier which meant... Which meant... "Hahahahahahaha!" Ares couldn't even bring himself to dare say it in his head or out loud either. The mere thought of a fifteen year quality fine grind,once it was amplified by the amplifier, was the kind of thing a kid would use in an argument against another kid. 'My dad works for the C.O', 'My dad runs the C.O', 'Oh yeah? Well my dad has a fifteen year fine grind!'. It just didn't sound real to any sane person person and Ares wasn't entirely convinced he hadn't been drugged into living in some kind of mental wonderland.
None of this even broached the topic of his adept trait... Garmr was already so ridiculously powerful and now this?! Strength enhancements weren't one for one with Garmr so the effect of this fine grind would be further multiplied... Garmr was seriously going to be able to eat planets in a single bite at this rate...
But there was another benefit to this fine grind on top of all that! Ares was aware that strong enough resources could somewhat bypass the adept trait and improve his own physical strength by reconstructing his body. It was impossible this fine grind didn't fall under that category of resource, as nothing else would if this didn't, so his body was going to be destroyed and rebuilt, essentially, and his physique would improve a substantial amount. It wouldn't fix his relative weakness all by itself but if this wasn't a phenomenal starting place then nothing was and he might as well not even bother! Ares would have one hell of a surprise for Bellona and, more specifically, Enyo when he returned home later. No doubt the latter would drool over his new and improved body... literallyat that... But the main thing here was that Ares' physical strength improving would have a noticeable knock on effect and make his weapon mastery that much more problematic for his foes. Ares already knew he was going to be unrecognisable as a cultivator by the time he returned home from this holiday of sorts but this Xasca trip had exceeded his wildest expectations and imaginations. Everything had just gone so perfectly he couldn't have written a better, more flawless script for himself if he tried! War aura, Old Light, the Anubis, Tom Tom's core, Visitation, One With The Universe, whatever the reward Drai was going to give him was, countless resources and treasures for the sect, survival violet for the old sect master, the brood mother for a stepper farm, and a new partner who he cared for deeply in Sandy. He wasn't even sure if that list off the top of his head even included everything as he might have been forgetting other stuff like the Roving Elliot and what not. The list was borderline endless and he'd really struck it rich out here! Ares couldn't help but wonder if Mako had come across any opportunities as of late up in Vraizon because, quite frankly, if he hadn't, then Ares had just left that stubborn elf so far in the dust now that it wouldn't even be a competition between them anymore. Ares was going to be a very terrifying existence by the time they next met...