"Well at least the mountain's doing ok." Ares placed his flat palm horizontally across the length of his forehead as he gazed up at the reformed mutated mountain. All the pieces had seemingly reconvened and attached to one another like a highly advanced mecha with appendable joints and connective parts. It didn't seem to matter that the mountain Ares was on earlier had been obliterated, turned to dust with a cosmic blow of epic proportions, as the mountains were highly versatile when it came to interconnectivity and could slot in neatly and freely wherever was available. There wasn't any designated order to it and the mutated mountain as a whole could be rearranged freely, leaving Ares to wonder if there was a control panel somewhere that enabled someone to move it around as they pleased. Probably but Dominus hadn't mentioned it because there was likely no need for it. As long as the pipe structures internally were all safe and sound his little game, whatever it was he was playing at, was still intact and the mutated mountain could serve its intended purpose. Ares didn't need to concern himself with the mountain, basically, and he could worry about himself.
An icy cavern was what Ares settled on eventually as there weren't many other options available around this area. He wanted somewhere secure to undergo the unchaining process and this was about as good as it was going to get as curious onlookers were swarming about around the base of the mountain to figure out what happened to it. Ares blocked off the entrance, by using his Deep Blue to summon and freeze some water, brought the Roving Elliot out of the Primordial Blade to make sure no icicles fell on him from above while he was internally distracted, and also called upon Garuda, his war aura flag, and the little golden pressure frog ninja to patrol the cavern. It went quite deep but Ares gave up checking it out when even his divine sense ran out of travelable distance without finding the end because it just seemed like overkill at that point. The tiny frog could go scout, the war aura flag would hover along behind it and provide assistance either in combat or for escaping, and Garuda would down the fort back by Ares. There was minimal risk to begin with but Ares effectively put himself in an impenetrable bubble of safety to make sure the unchaining wasn't complicated.
There ought not to be a single monster in all of Isaz that could break through every measure Ares had set up in advance so he sat down in the lotus position inside the Elliot, got himself comfortable, and checked one last thing before he trapped himself in his mind utilising the method his mother taught him back when she was still here during the international. As for what it was he checked first, he used his nail to cut a small ring of flesh off around his wrist and then waited to see how long it would take for his regeneration to heal it back to normal. Usually such minor damage would be undone in about a minute, maybe less, but Ares was glad to see the thin blood circle around his wrist disappear basically instantly. His regeneration wouldn't improve again for a while now that he reached the all-important bloodline awakening, most likely, but this was a substantial upgrade that brought him ever closer to being an invincible pest who could shrug off wounds and injuries that would be grievous, if not lethal, for anyone else. Half his head could probably be blasted into smithereens now and he might actually survive such a scenario if he was lucky enough. Beating Ares was already hard but now it had just gotten exponentially harder as one good hit might not even be enough to put him out of commission anymore. Defensive arts in his arsenal might still be lacking but his regeneration made up for that in its own way!
Ares shut his eyes and allowed himself to sink into the strange revenant prison that all of his race were intimately familiar with. This was Ares' first time here, real Ares anyway as his clone had already done it before, so he took a moment to look around and get a lay of this strange new land. He wasn't as bothered by the ominous, still air as clone Ares was, though, because he already knew what lay at the deepest and darkest level. Garmr was a well enough known face at this point so none of what Ares would go on to see here, all the empty and bloodied cells, would bother him in any way. If anything, he felt bad for Garmr who got so bored he went around mindlessly killing the other prisoners and yet still didn't find any modicum of entertainment worth writing home about. He probably even handicapped himself, only using one hand to flick sharp wind at the other revenants, but it just didn't matter and his victory was swift and brutal nonetheless.
Ares made his way down the spiralling prison, even hopping over the rickety metal railing to freefall down the middle until he caught sight of Dominus' chambers and spread his Zephyr like wings to hover over. Ares actually didn't know this was where he was being detained so it was good to finally find it. Reaching bloodline awakening gave Dominus a good bit of leeway regarding his presence, and he could basically move around and speak as he pleased in blood clot form so long as he remained connected to Ares or within a very limited range, but freeing him too here, now, would be the start of his change to a more regular supporting member of Ares' clown car troupe. From this point on he would find ways to shine and get involved without taking direct control of Ares. He could still do that too but flinging a Wind Blade from inside Ares every now and then, just to subtly sway the ebb and flow of a fight in Ares' favour occasionally, wasn't impossible either. Of course he would learn to do a lot more than that with some practice here and there, and as Ares raised his own cultivation his blood and connection to Dominus would become thicker, but he had to start somewhere amd while he was getting his sea legs as a tethered soul there was nothing wrong with Dominus taking baby steps. Old friends of his might have laughed 'till the sun went down if they saw him casting Wind Blades, especially seeing as how he probably knew at least a hundred stronger variants, some of which he'd even personally created, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Ares opened the door to Dominus' chamber, freed him from his chains, and finally met the egoistic wolf face to face. The clone met a much more subdued version of Dominus when he went through this but that was entirely because Garmr was an unknown that had struck fear into the heart of Dominus whose revenant form didn't match up. Some time had settled since real Dominus saw Garmr for the first time so he was a lot more casual about this whole unchaining and chatted actively with Ares as they descended further and further down the prison. Their topic of conversation was mostly about Ignizz, though... Dominus still hadn't gotten over the fact that he wasn't alone inside Ares anymore and he was pretty perturbed by it. He kept asking Ares to kick Ignizz out but he was useful in his own way and so Ares would be keeping the pet salamander tucked away for rainy days. he was a God at the end of the day. Still, maybe Ares could have Ignizz live up in the Moongate Mountain after Ares acquired it and shoved it inside his mental realm, thus separating the two uninvited house guests and drawing a boundary between them to prevent endless bickering. Dominus seemed amenable to this solution. One took the mind, one took the body... And Ares was stuck in the middle of it all... Oh well, at least the complaining would stop for the most part. They could still willingly interact with each other if they chose to, and they were like an old married couple so they would inevitably seek each other out to rekindle old arguments when they were bored, but Ares could keep muting them and so he didn't much care how they went about dealing with each other.
After making it all the way tot he bottom of the prison, Dominus chose to hang around this time instead of running away like his pagoda version did. He still didn't have the courage to face Garmr, that monster was unpredictable and while he might be left alone he didn't want to risk getting pointlessly mauled, but he would wait up by the tp of the well and peer down if he could. Garmr was in too weak of a state now to escape the seemingly bottomless well so he wouldn't come up here and bother Dominus... Hopefully... Even on his deathbed Garmr might actually have it in him to scale these smooth walls with sheer force of will if he tried. It was actually more so a question of if he could even be bothered. Doing it just to terrorise Dominus probably wasn't worth it in his eyes, though, and he'd rather just mope around and die in the pit, bored as ever. There was no draconic seed hovering over the pit, that had already been devoured back when Ares used the first Canis Stimulant, so that process was also skipped. Ares' unchaining was much simpler than the clone's and it was more of a passing of the torch which made it symbolic for different reasons. He jumped down into the pit and used every trick at his disposal to facilitate a smooth landing. Pressure enhancement, telekinesis, aura, divine sense, the zephyr, Voidwalk, Double Jump, etc... All of the above were capable of preventing a rough tumble and so he arrived at the deepest depths of the prison without so much as a ruffled hair on his pristine head, a stark difference to how roughed up his clone was after the brutal fall. Perhaps his improved cultivation helped him get down safely, maybe Garmr's reduced presence made it easier to concentrate, or perhaps reaching bloodline awakening was the key to a simple unchaining. Either way, it didn't take Arse long to find Garmr.
Garmr was... Not exactly depressed, he wasn't sad or anything, but he was definitely in a state of having given up entirely. He lay on his stomach, hands at his side, with his chin lazily slanted on the floor. His eyes were half shut as he blew hot air through his lips with disdain for the world around him. The fact he was unable to move his body without incurring immense pain seemingly had nothing to do with the reason he wasn't moving, it wouldn't stop him he'd just stopped himself for other reasons. Namely, what was the point in moving about anyway? Why get up and tough out the pain when there was nothing to get up for in the first place? His final appearance during the Brotherhood trial proved his existence was a meaningless circus, meant only to entertain others and never himself. Boredom was why he wasn't moving. If he was going to be bored regardless of whether he tried to be or not then getting his hopes up over and over again was just counter productive and only made himself feel worse when the same old inevitable result was achieved. Victory after victory after victory after victory after victory after victory. The same old story with no twists, no turns, no changes to the tired old plot he was sick of orating repeatedly. It's not like he wanted to taste defeat or anything, at this point he would accept even just a difficult fight that didn't end in overwhelming superiority. Was that too much to ask!? Apparently so. And thus, like a hunter's tanned wolf corpse, he lay on the floor in a position that resembled a rug or doormat. Arse could quite literally walk all over him and he probably wouldn't even notice or care. He would simply lie here until death took him... If it would actually hurry up and do it already! Garmr had been waiting for a while now but maybe it was too scared to approach him and try to lug him away to the afterlife. The pain was still mounting, and getting worse to the point that a normal person's brain couldn't handle it and would be comatose, but to Garmr it was like being tickled by a pointy feather. He was seriously wishing his heart would just stop at this point and get it over and done with... Although... Then again, his heart stopping might not even kill him either! He couldn't die! If one could read his innermost thoughts right now it would probably, funnily enough, be similar to Ares' back when he was cultivating.
Boredboredboredboredboredbored
Seeing Garmr flattened like roadkill and huffing and puffing was admittedly quite funny for Ares but he also felt bad because Garmr was so blatantly miserable. He looked like he was about to start howling and whining like a sad puppy but there wasn't really much to be done about this. Ares had tried to get him some action in his final moments, and he even aided him chanting Say Your Prayers, the art he'd been chasing after, but in the end it wasn't enough to pick his teeth with. Ares didn't know what to do with this big lug but it seemed as though there was perhaps a measure he could take to prevent this from marking the end of Garmr as the world knew him. Whether or not this scrappy God of physicality would appreciate what Ares was planning remained ot be seen but surely anything was better than just fading away with discontent rife in his heart? Ares might not have any immediate solutions to the problems he was facing but Ares could at least kick the can down the road and delay having to solve it for now. Garmr, after all this time wandering around as a free and separate entity to Ares, had developed not just a personality, not just a consciousness, and not just an identity and existence all to himself, but also, miraculously, a soul.
If there was one thing Ares knew, thanks to the Hunter incident, it was that he had it in him to store souls and keep them in his back pocket for now. What he would do with Garmr's soul he didn't yet know but watching it fade away in this pitiful state didn't exactly feel right either. There was no chance Garmr would appreciate being turned into a inanimate ball of light but Ares wasn't giving him a choice. Plus if he framed it as 'keeping Garmr alive until an appropriate challenge could be found for him' then the dragon wolf would maybe buckle and go back to endlessly waiting patiently instead of actively seeking death. The wider world outside the Blade came with many opportunities and, if nothing else, Ares could probably simulate a battle between Garmr and himself under the right circumstances. Even if nobody else could be his match giving him a chance to scrap with a mirror image of himself might interest him and provide a challenge that tickled his fancy. Now, the level of technology, or Training Field proficiency, needed to enable two Garmrs at once was not something Ares would come across soon... Plus he'd need this technology, art, to be able to function on souls to even bring Garmr back a physical body in the first place... But if it could be accomplished then maybe Garmr could find something to celebrate living for.
Ares capitalised on the fact that Garmr, the being that lay before him, was mostly just a soul in the image of his previous physical state. Through sheer might Garmr's soul was still stuck in this world and hadn't yet been dragged off to heaven or hell. His raw muscles anchored his soul inside his already dead body, preventing true death. He was in a bizarre state of half death and would stay like this for a considerable while longer if Ares did nothing about it. It's not even like Garmr was doing this intentionally, the flexing of his muscles was like a fleshy prison cell that tied the soul down and stopped it from squeezing through. It was almost laughable how ridiculous Garmr was even in this abysmal state but Ares wasn't going to sit around and watch this comedy show forever! He wanted his revenant form back, it was his from the start, and he wanted to make sure he was the one in possession of Garmr's soul to try and fulfil his last wishes down the line so he knew what needed to be done. Also, letting the soul of such a magnificent creature go felt like a complete waste. It could even bring about catastrophe if it ended up in the wrong hands so Ares wasn't letting Garmr out of his sight no matter what. "Alright big guy, you know what time it is. I know you understand me too so let's not beat around the bush here." Ares had spoken to Garmr before, even if only to give some orders here and there when transforming via a Canis Stimulant, but actually looking him in the eye as they talked was new. "I'll be taking back my revenant form I've allowed you to borrow all this while and, in exchange, I'll hold onto your soul to try and actually facilitate you last wish properly this time. Neither of us are content with the half hearted attempt at the Brotherhood tryouts right? So be a good boy and cough up your soul."
Ares didn't expect Garmr to be co-operative but, surprisingly, he quite literally spat out his soul the second Ares asked for it. Ares was only joking about coughing it up! He merely wanted Garmr to stop clenching so he could navigate his mana though the bundle of muscles and pick up the soul from inside him and yet the big guy ptooied it out like a Gacha machine! It was honestly a really impressive parlour trick... Though it did result in Garmr's body slumping on the floor and his eyes finally shutting for good so that was perhaps not a good price to pay for showing off like that. Ares sighed to himself as he could feel the restrictions on his body fading. His revenant form had been unchained and he was a mere thought away from turning into Garmr, the revenant not the now-dead individual who bore the same name, but he wasn't going to do it here inside this well because it was far too stifling and small a place to unveil his majesty.
As for 'Garmr's' soul... Ares would have to come up with a name for it as referring to it as 'Garmr' all the time would get confusing now that it and Ares' revenant form were separate entities. Back when they were one and the same it was convenient to refer to them as one but now it would just result in the need for constant extra clarification. Ares didn't have a name for the soul just yet but he would think of something by the time it was next relevant for sure. He really hadn't expected to even be in this situation because he'd been unaware there was a soul inside Garmr to begin with. It was really unusual one had even been generated inside his hollow revenant form but now that he was aware of it he would treat it accordingly. Regardless, Ares went to store the ball of light into his Blade, alongside Hunter's soul, but he noticed that the ball was spasming! This thing still had enough energy left in it to bounce about! "Hey! Stop moving! You're supposed to be dead, remember?!" Ares poked the ball of light but it poked him back! Ares couldn't believe there was a soul capable of being as feisty as this even in death! It was as though it still somehow possessed a degree of intelligence and will which shouldn't have been possible... Though nothing Garmr ever did could really be considered normal or, in most cases, possible. Anyway, it was an interesting phenomenon and Ares would have to wait and see how things played out with it in the future. The ball of light resembled an egg trying to hatch more than a standard soul so maybe this wasn't the last of 'Garmr' and he'd make an appearance in some new form when Ares wasn't expecting it. None of his original plans changed but he would keep an eye on how this matter developed and maybe even try to move things along if he found the appropriate resource or treasure. It might end up as a Dominus type incident in which 'Garmr', or whatever his new name would be, was tied to Ares in some way and hung around... Clown car population: 4? Maybe? Ares honestly didn't even care at this point. Screw it! The more the merrier! As long as he could tuck them away and mute them whenever he wanted so be it! Bring on the clowns!... But why were they all men!? This was definitely not how it went in the novels he was used to...
Ares retreated from his mind and looked around. There were a few monster corpses but nothing that would have been threatening to him if he hadn't woken up any time soon. Garuda was pruning its feathers as though these few monsters were little more than ants, the ninja frog was practicing some kind of blade dance, and the war aura flag was following a pre-determined route above the Elliot like a determined sentry. Unless the entire Nu King or Frozen Throne clan stormed this cave arbitrarily there was zero chance anything was breaking through this encampment Ares had set up. Not that any of that mattered now. Ares put away all his companions and toys and strolled out of the cavern after punching a human sized hole in the iced entrance. He strolled over to the foot of the mutated mountain and glanced upwards at the peak... "Hm... Five minutes, maybe? Could be quicker if I were more comfortable with controlling Garmr..." Ares' estimation of his total time to ascend the mutated mountain caught some nearby cultivators off guard and they all laughed like hyenas at his declaration. There were records of the fastest climbs and they were all within the one day range so boldly announcing a five minute ascent was foolish. His goal was impossible... Well, it should have been, anyway. These guys were about to learn the hard way that some things existed beyond the scope of normalcy and common knowledge. At long last, after all sorts of ups and downs...
It was unrestricted Garmr time!