The elemental’s upper torso slid off to one side and its lower body slid to the other. Luke inspected the glowing edges of the armor. Hestia’s sickle made short work of the armor. It could cut tower steel, and none of the low-quality metal the elementals wore could even slow it. Several more elementals approached along with some of the delusional soldiers that worshiped them.
Fluffy hissed from where she was sitting on Luke's shoulder. Most people would question the logic of bringing a pet to a fight. Simply put, calling something a soldier did not make it dangerous. Ants had soldiers, bees had soldiers, and the Lord of the Underworld had soldiers. The tier zero to two enemies approached so slowly.
“You tell them Fluffy,” Luke said. Then he hefted the broken war machine’s axle and pitched it like a spear.
The wrist sized rod of wood did not get through the human’s armor, but it did lay him out. No one even slowed down their eyes were filled with... Luke blinked, their eyes were filled with greed. It was deeply unsettling to be looked at as an object of desire. So Luke fell back on his default reaction.
He dashed in. Fluffy’s claws dug into his skin, but a baby golize had little chance of drawing blood. To the soldiers he looked like a blur, going from stationary to nearly one hundred fifty miles per hour in just a few steps. It was such a dramatic change in momentum that he had to use his force to keep traction with the ground.
Two people and an elemental started falling apart before they realized they had been injured. One elemental tried to hit him with its club, but it was a child swinging at an adult. He tore the weapon away and beat its armor flat with it. The final man looked around frantically. Help was on the way but, it was also too far away. Not that the squad of forty men and elementals could do anything.
“Don’t hurt me,” The fool pleaded.
Enough trash could kill him, yes. But it would be due to grinding through his massive essence reserves. Having a force made everyone’s essence more efficient when used in accordance with the force. Except for Tristan, Luke did not know why Tristan always ended up with the weird powers. He got metal, he got alloy, and he made garbage gauntlets that were admittedly aesthetically pleasing. Raising one's tier also made their essence pool more efficient in addition to growing the raw amount. Lukes force was the transference of energy through a medium, meaning he could not, not use it. A lot of trash would be needed, a lot more than forty pieces.
Luke grabbed the terrified man by the face, “You joined a cult that worships a zombie. Did you think that living was an option?”
Defiance clouded the man's face before Luke shoved the tip of Hestia’s sickle into his brain. Fluffy chuffed in triumph like she had done all of the work. Luke patted her as he advanced on the squad. The army had started advancing not long ago, though there appeared to be limited safe points to cross the trench.
The first cannon volley had reaped a number of Lake Calderans, but they had inflicted a similar number on the enemy in a few short minutes. Some of the few tier threes left in the Forest Caldera or similarly tiered elementals had gotten a foothold that they were struggling to hold. As he watched, one of those footholds was surrounded by five warriors in grey and silver Stone Caldera livery and destroyed.
The advancing army had avoided the ring of dead bodies around him. Most soldiers choosing to avoid him. That left him behind the army, with the people waiting to cross the trench breaking off to attack him. At first, it had been a handful at a time, but killing a handful made them wary. Now that forty were approaching he wondered if this would break their morale.
They had shields up and polearms pointed forward. It took Luke a moment to realize that they were using anti-beast tactics on him. That was actually quite gratifying. Not too far from the truth. Exhaling, Luke released a good portion of his essence. The invisible gas did not drift quickly in the still air, but the people weren’t going to arrive for a bit.
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Any tier three with an air kern would have sensed what he was doing, but this was a load of trash. Not a single person had trained their essence senses to detect changes like the one Luke was creating. He backed up slowly, stepping out of his cloud, his favorite nitrogen based explosive was very volatile.
The Forest Caldera took this as fear, speeding up. Luke kept retreating until the formation had entered the cloud. It was not nearly large enough to cover the whole group, but it would shatter their formation. Greed lit up the soldier’s expression, and then with a flaming swing of Hestia’s sickle, Luke lit up their expressions. They were right to treat him like a mythical beast, he breathed fire like the greatest dragons.
Only two died outright and a handful were too injured to fight. It was a decent light show, but in an open area, it was little more. Still, it created an opening and shocked them into stillness. Then he was in the formation punching with lightning covered fists and cleaving apart bodies with his sickle.
This was why tiers mattered, one or two were not insurmountable, but the differences remained proportional. A tier four was half again stronger than a tier three. A tier five was two and a quarter times a tier three, yet only half again greater than tier four.
Finally Luke heard the voice he was waiting for, “Are you ready to pick on someone your own size?”
“Yes,” Luke turned, only to find it was the wrong elemental lord. This one was made of a water mind, earth anima, and an earth kern, “No, go get your boss.”
“You’re not worthy of my lord’s attention,” The elemental lord rumbled.
“And you’re not worthy of mine,” Luke retorted.
The elemental lord paused, not expecting that response, “It does not matter, I, well, I am going to end your threat to the champion.”
“Not much of a trash talker?” Luke attempted to console the sentient dirt clod, “It’s a learned skill, from repeatedly being a menace to society. I think you’re well on your way.”
Luke was buying time for Fluffy to gain some distance. He was confident in killing off the elemental lord, but not in keeping the baby golize alive as well. It was not even that he was worried about the elemental lord doing the killing, Luke liked lightning, and golize did not.
“I can see why the temple made you an honorary devil,” Armor coalesced around the elemental lord. It had an odd design, being covered in hand length spikes. “Die and join the Lord's court.”
Luke wondered what the spikes were for, “I bet you suck at giving hugs.”
The elemental lord roared and charged like an angry bull. It tried to tackle Luke, proving that the spikes were indeed for hugs. Unfortunately for the elemental, it had a terrifying amount of momentum but most of it was tied up in the mass half of that equation. Luke darted to the side, the attack would not kill him, but it would hurt to get hit.
“Yeah, so again where is your boss, I could outrun you in my sleep,” Luke yawned and mimed a snore.
“When he arrives you will be crushed under the weight of a hundred elemental lords!” Dirt Clod took the brain power to speak while turning.
“Where, not when,” Luke said.
“This is only half our army,” Dirt Clod grinned, “Do you think you could defeat twice as many elementals?”
Luke yelled, now beyond exasperated, “YES! Now where is he!”
Dirt Clod attacked again. Luke struck back. Lightning was grounded on the armor. Hestia’s sickle was able to cut through, but despite Dirt Clod’s lumbering nature, it was good at avoiding its blade. Fists did almost nothing, the spikes were too sharp to punch carelessly. Ten minutes later Luke had bloodied knuckles and the elemental lord had a couple of glowing lines cut into his stone armor.
“Am I still beneath your notice?” Dirt Clod mocked.
“See that is how you do it,” Luke said, dropping his hand to his belt, “Now this is how you end it.”
He slid his hand into the gauntlet. The erosion reservoir immediately started eating into his skin. At the later stages of tier five, it was bearable, but could not be used consistently. Tristan had claimed that it was good against rigid, nonorganic surfaces. This time he was the one that charged at Dirt Clod.
The elemental lord smirked and held up a spiked forearm to stop Luke. Both of their eyes widened when the gauntlet punched right through the granite plate, through the bone and muscle, and out the other side. Fine granite powder along with the wrist and hand fell to the ground.
Dirt Clod was shocked, “what was,” A flicker of motion refocused him.
Luke punched again then followed up with Hestia’s sickle. The elemental lord could not dodge both. He chose to take Hestia’s sickle and lost the injured arm at the shoulder. Dirt Clod was built to be on the attack, evasion was something he was only passible at. Luke’s greater speed allowed him to land light blows that were made devastating with the help of his equipment.
Finally Luke struck and Dirt Clod was too slow. His hand plunged fingers first into the Dirt Clod’s chest. He raked them down through a stone heart and organ sack. The elemental lord did not even get a chance to speak before its constituent elementals separated.
Luke stomped the resulting water slime to death before it could orient itself, “Now where can I find your boss?”