"So what's your deal?" Ares nodded at the heart and threw a question at it as if it was going to answer him. "You gonna keel over if I shove a bunch of cigarettes into you?" Taunting was so deeply rooted into Ares' blood he was even doing it to mindless objects, perhaps he needed an intervention... Regardless, the heart did technically give him a response this time, it came in the form of an attack however. The heart was clearly not interested in whatever 'one weird trick' Ares was trying to sell it as it had correctly assessed Ares as a medicinal quack. As for the form its attack took, it began pumping out tiny blood bullets that spewed around the entire hallway, riddling the area with holes. As Ares ducked for cover he couldn't help but be reminded of a book he once read about a somewhat popular cultivator sport called 'bullet hell'.
Simply put, it was a team sport in which a cultivator from one team sat in the middle of an arena and spewed out arts and magic like crazy to try and hit the other team. Once every member of the opposing team was hit and out of the match the roles would reverse and the team that survived the longest was crowned the victor. Each team had four members: the boss, whose job it was to fire arts at the other team when they themselves weren't dodging alongside their teammates. The defender, who was permitted to use magic once every ten seconds but could use only defensive type magic like Segregation. The mover, who could also only use magic once every ten seconds but, this time, it was mobility oriented magic like Blink. And finally the captain, who could bring each knocked out teammate back once after they were struck if the captain touched the other team's boss.
Essentially, one boss vs the entire other team over and over again until a certain number of rounds had been won by surviving longer than the other team did against your boss. There were also other variations of this, and sometimes people created their own unique roles and rulesets, but this was the most common method of playing the sport and was used consistently worldwide for most serious tournaments. This sport was actually pretty popular outside the Primordial Blade barrier, and competitions were fierce and watched by many, but within the Blade barrier it only cropped up every few years but had a decent enough fanbase to warrant continuation. Training Field meant this sport was harmless and so everyone had good fun with it and even devised arts tailor made for the sport. The boss was typically the most fun role to pay attention to because arts that hit wide areas fast were rare in most cases. They were considered ineffective and mostly pointlessly weak in a majority of combat scenarios, as trading lethality for for a wider range was usually not worth it for most cultivators, so this was a rare chance to show off arts that would otherwise never see the light of day.
Of course arts that were literally impossible to dodge, and took up the entire arena, was a no go as the competition would get dull but there were some pretty creative magics that came out of these events including one that turned the user into a sinkhole. That art made the other team's footing unstable and constantly dragged them to centre, making them an easy target for a boss that was generally considered at the time to have been a weak link for their team. The scale of his attacks were mediocre but that didn't matter if he was able to hit them constantly anyway thanks to this out the box method that he devised o counteract his weaknesses! Creating an art that didn't knock anybody out but made doing so easier was a relatively unexplored strategy at the time, as the game was still in its infancy, so that one boss' actions opened up a whole can of worms and a host of new strategies that then had to be dealt with by the mover and the defender. No longer could they just learn basic barrier and mobility magics and be done with it. They now had to create arts that nulled terrain types like ice or lava, in the case of the defender, or cured ailments and curses that affected movement, like limp leg rune traps or poisonous gas that dulled the senses in the case of the mover. It became a rat race and a never ending back and forth in which teams developed air-tight strategies in the off season only to get winded by completely out of left field approaches they couldn't have possibly predicted.
Individual performance still mattered a lot though so there was an interesting divide between strategy and talent that spawned complex, competitive, and thrilling matches with wild twists. One particularly famous match, outside the Blade barrier, was won by a team that strangely chose to replace their boss at the last minute with a celebrity detective they'd kept on their reserve squad since the start of the season. This sounded odd to just about anyone and everyone, and the team was expected to lose because nobody knew this detective for anything other than his tv show so this was expected to be a publicity stunt of some kind, but as it turned out this was a genius play that nobody could have predicted. The captain of the opposing team was secretly a criminal. This mattered because this specific detective's signature art, that he was known far and wide for, allowed him to lock onto his sleuthed target, provided he had sufficient evidence detailing their crimes, and summon hand cuffs that would chase them eternally so long as they were within range.
The other team's captain was a star player, and the entire team revolved around his impressive physical traits, but the detective had stalked him prior to the match and came prepared with a list of his wrong doing in recent years. That day the captain was exposed for being a heinous individual but also single handedly lost his team the match because of the detective's highly specific and situational magic tha took him out of the equation in a matter of seconds. It was a landslide victory and an underdog story that made waves and really cemented the sport as a mainstay due to the potential for whacky outcomes no one in their right mind could possibly predict. Sometimes even the cleverest of strategy was overcome by someone who performed to the height of their natural abilities so it was really a toss up as to what would happen in any given match. A real spectator's sport it was as the watchers knew neither of the boss' strategies nor how well any one individual would perform in any given match. This was not a sport mortals could play unfortunately but everyone could enjoy watching it at least and so bigger events sold out like hot cakes all the time! As for down in Sheryashka, the most notable event of this sport, the global championship, was actually held in the Scorched Grounds coliseum. The sport was just about popular enough to warrant its inclusion in that prestigious arena.
As an aside, it was also a relatively common sport played within sects during down time for amusement. Heaven's Path probably had an area tucked away wherein people could play the sport freely if they wated. In fact, Ares was aware of a sports ground area in the core court that was accessible to all on weekdays but he hadn't visited it himself. Sports were great and fun and all but unless there was a reward for it most cultivators would shy away as cultivating was almost always more important. I, the world outside the Blade, where celebrities and athletes lived incredibly luxurious lives under their sponsors, and could win amazing rewards at even middling levels of competition, however, things were quite different. It was a very viable pursuit for those not looking to bloody their hands in the harsher cultivation world and so even pacifists or those who didn't much appreciate violence, like monks, could find a sport that suited them and make a living out of it. Entertainment in general, games, tv, films, sport, etc... Were all extremely popular as a result of the end of a pretty massive war in one of the earlier eras. It had drained a lot of resources and a lot of morale so people came up with ways of lightening everyone's spirits in a post war depression and it all sort of just stuck. It was an escape from the cultivation world that was never anything but brutal and had become a kind of sacred safe zone for people looking to get away from it all. These events and forms of media became big business and, to this day, are thoroughly protected by multiple different powerful organisations to ensure stability. It's not uncommon for individuals with shady pasts to seek refuge in the sports industry because the protection offered to players, from the outside world, is considerable no matter who you are. As long as you don't cause trouble becoming an entertainer or celebrity is generally seen as a path to redemption or immunity to persecution. These industries are fierce in their protection of fans and stars alike and so trying to pick a fight with them from the outside is usually a terrible idea. Even some Gods work alongside them to make sure nothing goes awry with tournaments here and there. Long story short, don't mess with the entertainment industry unless you have a monumental death wish.
So back to the current predicament Ares was in, this heart reminded him of an opposing team's 'boss'. He only had two other teammates, and getting hit here meant actual death so things were clearly a bit different, but it was a strangely fun time Ares was having here. He felt good letting the blood bullets whisk by his hair and blow a cool breeze into his ears. He felt pretty alive right now and that was the same justification bullet hell professionals touted when asked why they got into the sport too. Maybe Ares would give it a try one day but, for now, he was fighting for his life! And whatever goodies the heart was holding on to! He could worry about sports later as they were a much bigger deal outside the Blade barrier than in it.
Ares was currently running circles around the heart and narrowly avoiding hundreds of tiny bullets while searching for an opportunity to deal a lethal blow. Given that Ares had the highest body mass, between him, the ninja, and the flag, he as understandably having the hardest time of approaching the heart. He wasn't able to get any closer even after a minute of struggling so it was mostly up to the ninja and the flag for now and they were doing great jobs thankfully. The frog was untouchable, essentially, as it was like trying to hit a skittish moth with a dart so it had carved out small chunks of the heart multiple times over already. If it weren't for the relatively unpredictable spawns of the blood bullets, as they appeared from random spots on the heart, the frog would have been able to hug the heart and stay directly on top o fit, slashing it into tiny pieces. If the frog tried to do this, however, a blood bullet would appear a centimetre or two away from its face and tear through its head so it wisely took whatever damage it could inflict safely, retreated a reasonable distance, and then closed the gap once more to rinse and repat. As for the flag, it was slower than the frog but, when it got a chance to hit the heart, it was doing impressive damage and really making a mess of the worm's organ. The disintegration coating on the flag meant it was able to pierce cleanly through whatever it struck so before long the heart was looking a little beat up with numerous small scratches and a few tube like holes that passed all the way through it clear to the other side.
Ares very nearly managed to make it over to the heart once or twice, and might have been able to kill it in a single attack if he could, but the second he made any decent headway a tooth shot up out of the floor and nearly ran him through from the groin to the brain. Ares was able to twist his body out the way but that manoeuvre put him in the path of a wave of bullets he was forced to dive away from. This action was required but hasty and just put him in another tough predicament so Ares was forced to act continually as he swept aside some bullets using his Zephyr, ducked under another cluster of them, hopped away from a second tooth looking to cause him trouble by poking his rib cage from the side, and relocated to safer position slightly further back. Even though Ares was the least likely combatant here to make it directly to the heart he was still being targeted almost exclusively because of the inevitable destruction he would unleash once he reached it. Most of the bullets were seemingly being directed in his general direction and the two teeth that had crept up on him showed no interest in the frog or the flag.
Rude!
Ares appreciated being treated like a VIP he just wished it had a more positive set of bonuses rather than essentially acting like a massive target on his back. It seemed this heart was being treated as a sacrificial pawn and merely holding Ares in place until more substantial help arrived later to overwhelm him with. If another three or four hearts appeared things would get tremendously ugly faster than Ares could say 'cardiac arrest'. The heart was willing to forgo its life so long as the process of it dying delayed Ares and made life hard for him from beyond the grave. It was interesting that the worm didn't seem to care much about the hearts, so maybe it could regrow them over time or something, but thankfully there was a pretty huge misunderstanding here that was doing Ares a massive favour! Ares was leaving the second this heart was dead, and he was able to pry the loot off it, so it throwing its life away like this for the 'cause' was actually music to Ares' ears! The sacrificial pawn was Ares' goal from the start so it being offered up on a siler platter like this... Ares was laughing all the way to the bank on this one!
Ares took off his Zephyr and buried it in the ground in front of him to form a solid barricade he could hide behind. He also waved his hand aside to part the sea of blood bullets flung at him via telekinesis and fired back with his own pressure bullets. Ares' job had changed significantly now that he was sure of the worms' intentions so he was hunkering down for a drawn out battle while the frog and flag were free to finish this matter themselves. Being willing to take a back seat in a situation and be a distraction was a sign of Ares' maturity as he was basically acting like a punching bag. Having sufficient power to just blow away this heart if he really wanted to, but not dong it for the sake of his carefully laid plans, was impressive delayed gratification and restraint for someone like him. He was incredibly bored right now, hiding behind his Zephyr and summoning pressure weapons to knock away stray bullets, but made no moves to change the status quo because it was acceptable and in his favour. At most he would occasionally summon a Not Even Light but it wasn't even really for his own benefit. Ares could defend against the bullets comfortably so he was doing this to further enable his summons. He even used more telekinesis but this time to raise small rock platforms for the frog to give it more options when jumping around. The flag was also thin enough such that it could position itself behind these floating rocks and use them as a sort of safe zone to avoid incoming fire.
Granted this was all pretty selfish on Ares' part as he could have probably ended this by now if he REALLY wanted to. The truth was that he was reluctant to further his injuries! He was already a walking pile of holey flesh, thanks to the war aura backlash, and getting riddled with bullets would only make the issue worse! Allie's pills, and his innate regeneration, had done great work in making sure he was uninjured internally but closing up all his external wounds and not making him look like a punctured zombie was still in the works! Delaying the process with more wounds was not something Ares wanted to go through so he just sat back for now and let fate take its course. He would act if need be but for now he was protecting his visual appearance like a vain narcissist! He'd had holes and mean looking injuries ever since his fight with he shadow stepper and he'd very much appreciate going back to normal now!
The frog clung to the telekinesis-lifted rocks and assessed carefully every possible approach to its target, capitalising on gaps and blind spots to dash in and get slashin' and strike while the iron was hot. It danced along the heart's veins, grinding its weapon across the heart's exterior, and was bumped into the air, off the heart, with every pulse but it refused to stay still for even a single moment and darted around with unmatched adroitness. The flag curved and swivelled around the mass projectile bullet swarm, occasionally choosing to plough right though them when it spotted a cluster incapable of stopping it, and rammed directly into the aching heart before summoning the void hand to punch hard and shock the heart into briefly pausing. After a sharp pulse it would resume firing on all cylinders, and push the flag and hand away, but things were starting to look bad for the heart. The flag had even begun absorbing a few blood bullets here and there with the fabric so even if the bullet hell strategy wasn't terrible it was gradually getting worse and worse against this set of froggy and flaggy foes.
The heart couldn't keep firing these bullets at a constant rate forever, especially not while it was being gradually beaten into submission, so it was going to have to pull out more of the cards up its sleeve and take a new approach. The beating of the heart slowed significantly but each beat was now accompanied by a small pulse that spread out in a large area and pushed its assaulters back. The frog had to hop atop the flag and ride it back to Ares' defensive settlement behind the Zephyr so they could all collectively hide from the incoming blood red waves and wait it out. The heart couldn't do this forever so, it looked to be straining itself to keep this attack up, so patience was a virtue that pulled its weight right now. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows behind the planted Zephyr, though, as the teeth were starting to reappear in large numbers and act like pests. The trio fought back at least another five teeth while keeping a low profile to avoid the heart's barrage of red waves but it seemed like something else was arriving at this space to cause even more trouble.
Ares just about spotted a second heart shift down the hallway and park right behind the first one so now the situation was turning on its head and his passivity was biting him in the ass a little. His goal remained unchanged, however, and the first heart he was after was wearing itself out completely. The pulsing waves were highly effective but seemingly knackered out the heart and its mana supply at a rate that was not sustainable for very much longer. It had likely committed to this plan to buy time for this other heart to show up but now it was on the ropes and fully exhausting its remaining mana supply before it would inevitably try to leave and run away. It looked like bona-fide wave tactics to Ares but, again, he didn't care about the finer details of the worm's strategy. This situation was unironically perfect for him because there was something this worm didn't know about Ares' arsenal of arts that was going to be a real rough surprise for it! Running out of mana like this was perhaps not the valid strategy the worm thought it was as an art Ares hadn't used in forever was about to make a grand reappearance and win him this fight with the snap of a finger. All he needed was for the heart to fire off another wave or two... Which it had just done in the background, and BANG.
"Grim Cessation!"
Running out of mana before escaping was efficient, and arguably correct, but against someone who could instantly evaporate and destroy manaless entities with an unstoppable art? Perhaps not as wise as the worm might have initially thought! A red void hand curled around the heart but was immune to any and all attacks launched at it. The danger of his crooked hand was palpable so teeth, bullets, and pulses all flew straight at it only to pass harmless through its ethereal form. The hand slithered upwards and gripped onto some ventricles tightly before wrenching them downwards and ripping the heart off the ceiling. Blood spurted everywhere as the heart's connection to the worm was severed but that was just the beginning as a bloody portal opened up on the ground and many more void and reached up out of it to cling to the shaking heart and drag it straight to hell. The heart, against its wishes, sunk deeper and deeper into the portal until it vanished from sight for good. With a SNAP and a CRACK the portal shut violently and a spew of heart chunks erupted from the floor followed shortly by a pool of blood that washed the chunks away.
A strand of reinvigorating mana, the remnants of whatever the heart had left, funnelled into Ares like a fresh breeze and a stillness overcame the area for a brief moment as the worm reeled in shock. For seemingly no reason, the heart had just died a sudden and gruesome death. Nothing preventative worked and Ares had successfully instantly killed it with a single art. This was terrifying, actually! Revealing an instant-kill art was always a big moment in any fight and even a creature as unintelligent as this worm knew better than to proceed recklessly from here on out. Perhaps thankfully for it, though, Ares had used his nothingness magic and already looted whatever the object buried inside the heart was, while it was dragged into the portal, and he was now running away towards the exit... Honestly, the worm was tempted to let him go without hounding him because he was an opponent it would need to take more drastic measures against. It needed to prepare more options for their next encounter so it retreated its other heart back into its depths and only committed spare teeth to the pursuit of Ares. Though Ares was done with the worm and fully content, and only had intentions of fleeing from it from now on, Wormy was not done with Ares!