While his hair turned white-silverish, black horns protruded out of his forehead and Artemis' wings sprouted out of his back. They unfolded at once, revealing a magnificent wingspan of more than 15 meters.
Only a moment later, Artemis' stigma manifested above Jason's, as his entire demeanor changed once again.
The increasing pressure and Jason's laser focus coupled with his bright smile had been a sign, telling Tom that something was going on, but the poor youth couldn't understand it.
Meanwhile, Xenia was only overwhelmed by the sheer pressure Jason's aura released after she broke out of the ice cage.
The Celestia aura that had merged with the stigma's bright glow was transformed by Artemis' influence, allowing Jason to feel a sudden surge of adrenaline that swept through his body.
His entire being had turned more ferocious, but the merging process seemed to be cleaner than it had been before.
It didn't take Jason and Artemis long to merge together, and the main reason was that both weren't rejecting each other.
.
Jason's physical strength didn't increase directly, but the mana intertwined blood that Artemis seemed to combine with him, reinforced every single move he did with mana.
This strengthened him and allowed Jason to overwhelm Tom who had barely overcome the petrification that had forced him to halt in his tracks for a quarter of a second.
Only the race specific weakening curse lingered on him, weakening and preventing him from beating Jason in a physical fight.
At that moment Tom's eyes turned red as he activated one of his soulbonds' inherited abilities, enlarging his body.
Yet, before anything could happen, Jason's surroundings turned ice cold as he pushed away Tom's free arm to grasp his neck.
Coldness spread through Tom and everything seemed to slow down.
Kicking out, Jason hit Tom's hand that was holding the war axe, which allowed Jason to use his now free arm to slash at him with Byakur.
With that, he defeated Tom before he could even make use of his trump card as Jason had already ducked and leaned back.
Several dozen thunderbolts shot past him, only to hit Tom, who was flung away.
At that moment, Jason used Artemis' wings to push himself up from the ground his back had almost touched a moment ago.
Xenia was still able to fight, but once she made eye contact with Jason who had smoothly evaded her surprise attack and jumped back on his feet in the blink of an eye, her will to fight was crushed.
Jason's eyes looked extremely scary right now, and the aura emanating from him was not the seemingly kind and simple Celestia aura but something wild, telling Xenia that he wouldn't hold back anymore.
Even Merl and the other powerhouses couldn't help but grow alarmed and were ready to intervene any moment.
However, contrary to everyone's expectations, no such thing happened.
Jason, who had realized that Xenia had given up, simply retracted his aura, while Artemis remained merged with him.
This was unexpected but both he and Artemis were currently feeling and acting as one being, meaning that both had no intention to continue fighting!
When the fight ended with his victory, Jason couldn't help but inspect his body more intently.
There were no feathers growing out of him, and only his hair had turned white silverish.
Other than that, the aura he had unleashed and Artemis' stigma seemed to be the only things that were different from a normal fortified soul conjunction.
At least, that was what one could perceive from the outside.
Jason felt everything to be different and better on the inside and it was as if he could exert even more strength.
At that moment, he released Solaris' black flame affinity because he felt as if his connection with the flame wanted to tell him something.
Weirdly enough, it was exactly as he had expected!
As he looked at the black flame that had golden strands within, faint blue cobweb-like strands spread through the flame. The heat it gave off was not searing hot that would increase the training hall's temperature, on the contrary, it was ice cold!
"That's interesting!" Jason just mumbled looking at the ice-cold flame that had been transmuted because he had merged with Artemis!
The others were just looking at Jason as if he was insane to accept the sudden change so easily while testing out all kinds of things without bothering to wait before the fight had truly ended.
He had just retracted his aura the moment Xenia had revealed that her will to fight had dispersed.
Jason had sensed this immediately, which was something the others didn't know, and it was only when she stored her spear inside her spatial ring that everyone noticed that the fight had ended.
After having been able to merge with Artemis two times, many things were clearer than before.
As such, the last two days before the liberation tournament passed in the blink of an eye.
Everyone had given their best to reach the highest possible combat prowess during the last two days and set aside New Year's eve to recuperate.
The tournament would start in the afternoon, and there was more than enough time to let the shallow injuries the God's Children and Jason had sustained heal.
They were excited about the liberation tournament and they had somehow forgotten the real reason for them to come to the Olympus federation.
Jason noticed this too, and he couldn't help but feel that this was not a bad way to enter the liberation tournament.
If they gave their best without thinking about the responsibility they had been entrusted with, it would be much better than always worrying about embarrassing themselves and the entire human race.
Earlier, Jason hadn't expected that the God's Children would be able to increase their combat experience and proficiency with their martial art techniques in such a short time, but they were extremely talented and had proved him wrong.
This caused him to wonder, what the human race's fate would be if they could leave Argos and enter other planets with more mana.
Were they only an ordinary race, or was the human race comparable to higher-ranked races?
Even if someone's potential was bad in both soul-awakening and control over mana, they could bind strong monsters to their soul world as long as their vessel was strong enough and they had accumulated enough soul energy units despite taking longer than usual.
Because of that Jason found that the human race's overall potential was at least at par with higher races and that their biggest restriction was none other than Argos.
With that thought in mind, Jason was sure that the human race had an interesting future in front of them, as long as they weren't destroyed by others who feared their talent.
Now that New Year's eve was upon them, the human race's embassy couldn't spend it alone. They had to follow their responsibilities too.
In order to establish ties with the Olympus federation, they had to meet the senior authorities and get to know each other.
In the end, members of the human race embassy had different opinions on how exactly these ties should look like.
Some only wanted to be on friendly terms with the Olympus federations, while others wanted to merge with them.
Meanwhile, the majority just wanted to have a peace treaty with trading agreements which was something Jason supported.
As such with a goal in front of them, they had to attend the Olympus federations' annual new year's banquet.
How could Jason have known that he would be degraded to become nothing but a mere translator, the moment they would arrive in front of a large mansion?!