The rocky, dry shore of the lake gave Samba a good footing as he unshouldered his two handed mace from the strap on his back. Swimming with the thing was annoying, but manageable.
One by one, his half plate dropped out of his [Expanded Pocket]. While it wasn't the largest space, it was slightly increased by size which meant that Samba had the largest so far. Maybe one of the other otters would upgrade it eventually, but with all the fighting they'd been doing, upgrading it now seemed foolish.
After taking a glance at the Rhinos that had come to challenge them, Samba started to strap his armor to his shins. With the new scales that he had, Samba wasn't even sure that the armor was worth it any longer, but it felt comforting. He wasn't as confident as Kumo was.
He glanced back at the annoying otter and even now she looked ready to tear through their opponents with her bare claws. Gi's expression seemed dull like a knife that had seen too much use without proper care. He'd changed since he'd been captured.
Goren had told him about the Child Possession Flowers as well...
Samba sighed, switching to his other shin. Things had seemed simpler in the Child Stage, but it wasn't all bad. Samba's eyes went back to the lake where Tala was still waiting down below. He wished she was here.
"I'm booored," the Rhino Progenitor, Georgia, said. She leaned over talking to her Subgenitor into what she had to know wasn't truly a whisper. "How long do you think this will take?"
"He only has like three more pieces," the Subgenitor said, also whispering as loud as his kids could scream. "Also, he doesn't seem to be an Adolescent, but I don't think he has as many levels as you do."
Georgia snorted. "Yeah, I know. Figured the lacking levels makes it good enough. Who knows how long we'd have to wait for them to bring someone else here."
Her Subgenitor nodded. "That's true. They are really slow."
Samba took a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling hard, letting his anxiety wash out of him. He might not be as confident as the others, but this is what he needed to do to protect the clan so he would. It was as simple as that.
Tiria stepped up, picking up his left bracer with a smile. "Want some help?" After his nod, she started to tighten the straps around his left forearm. "Win or lose; it doesn't matter. We'll do what we have to to survive."
Samba smiled. He'd already let his anxieties go, but her looking out for him was exactly like her. The Boss might be the tip of the spear of the clan, but Tiria was truly its heart. "If I die for some reason, tell Tala... to punch Kumo one good time for me."
Tiria snorted. "I'm not doing that."
"Then I guess I'll have to win so I don't die with regrets."
She finished up his right bracer as well before picking up the chestpiece and handing it to him. "Winning was always the better option anyways." She leaned in to whisper conspiratorially to him. "Besides, getting to fight the clan's enemies will make Kumo more jealous. She might actually like Tala punching her."
Samba guffawed as the two of them finished tightening his chestpiece. "You're all right, Tiria."
She patted him once on the elbow since that was about as high as she could reach. "Good luck." With that she stepped back to the rest of the Elites who all seemed on edge. Samba picked up his two handed mace again and turned to Georgia.
The Rhino had thick skin covering her entire body as well as oversized forearms with a giant scale across them. If the Boss was to be believed, their Strength and Vitality would be similar with Georgia having an overwhelming advantage in Agility, but that didn't mean he was without his own advantages.
"We doing this or what?" Samba asked and Georgia grinned wide. Her teeth were all flat like a herbivores. She spun her warhammer around and the end without the head had a wicked point to it.
"Finally."
The moment her warhammer slapped into her other hand, Georgia kicked off the ground. Her massive form blurred as she sprinted towards him and Samba was barely able to track her trajectory. Despite the fact that his eyes could keep up, his body couldn't. Her warhammer smashed into his bicep, sending him skipping along the rocky shore.
Samba groaned as he started to roll to his feet. His arm didn't have armor or scales, but thankfully, his Domain [Radiant Guard] dulled the damage somewhat at the cost of some of his Aether.
"You can do it, Samba!" Poe yelled. "But... do it gently!"
Georgia had stopped, waiting for him to get back to his feet before she charged again. It wasn't even a Skill or Trait. She was just that fast. He'd never felt the tyranny of attributes this much higher than his before, but the timing was easy enough.
The exact moment she blurred Samba swung all out with his two handed mace, pushing all of his Strength into the blow. Unfortunately, Agility wasn't limited to just speed.
Amazingly, she stopped her massive bulk near instantly and brought the head of her warhammer into the path of his attack. A clang rang into the air as iron met steel. The ball of Samba's mace practically melted over the face of her hammer, but he didn't let the impact stop him. A ball of metal was a ball of metal.
With a roar, Samba followed through, and despite her own Strength being the same, his [Towering Physique] couldn't be denied. To her credit, she only stumbled backwards, having prepared herself for the blow.
"Heh," Georgia said as she started to right herself. "That's a decen-"
Samba's second blow completely shattered the head of his two handed mace, but he hadn't aimed for Georgia's large bulk. Instead, he aimed for the underside of the head of her warhammer. Both their hands vibrated as her enchanted warhammer flew across the lakeshore and the remaining handle of Sambas quickly followed.
"QUIT POSING DURING BATTLE!" Her Subgenitor yelled, but he needn't have bothered. Now disarmed, her expression had grown serious and it didn't seem likely that he'd get another free attack. When her eyes glanced towards where her hammer had flown, he knew that she was about to use her incredible Agility to re-arm herself.
With Samba's weapon destroyed, he couldn't allow that.
Like the rest of the clan, he'd spent time leveling during the monsoon season and that had provided him with some upgrades. The instant her legs started to move, Samba activated [Darting Fortress], an upgraded version of [Charge].
Her natural speed gave her an obvious edge, but it wasn't fueled by Aether. Samba along with two walls of light that flanked him on either side rushed towards her back. Something must have alerted her to his attack because her head snapped around to see him gaining on her.
Realizing that he'd catch her, she used the advantage of her superior Agility to drop low. Even if he wanted to stop at this point, he couldn't. He slammed into her, their bulks colliding like two boulders together. Her horn scraped along his chest piece, thankfully diverted by the angle of his steel before her head slid directly under his arm.
His momentum would have carried him over her, but the walls of light that flanked Samba weren't the only upgrades to the Skill. His momentum was completely killed and transferred into whatever he hit. A gush of wind escaped her lungs as his Skill hit her and she started to slide backwards.
With her Agility, he couldn't let her escape. Samba latched his elbow downward, locking her head into his side. With his momentum transferred to her, the two of them slid across the shore as Samba held onto her by the head.
As they stopped, she latched both of her oversized fists onto him and shoved, trying to free herself from his grip. He grinned. While the many of the others had worked with Doyle for a more freeflowing [Fighting Style], Samba had worked instead worked with the remnants of the Coastal Goblins.
His normal role in a clan fight was on the front lines with his mace, but his preferred fighting was up close using his [Fighting Style (Coastal Clinch)] just as he'd seen Jalx do in the Dungeon to dominate an adventurer.
Samba let her head slip back just a bit, but only enough so he could rear his knee back and slam it up into her snout. A gurgling bellow followed by a splash of wetness across his knee told him he'd struck hard. His grin fell as she recentered her meaty hands at the crook of his knees.
"You stupid ferret!" Georgia yelled through a bloody lip as she lifted the giant Samba into the air. No longer grounded, all he could do was smash a paw into her thick back, but it did little damage. With a grunt, she heaved backwards sending him face first into the rocky earth.
Samba's head spun from the initial impact and his fur could only protect him so much from the rocks that scraped across his face. His fur had grown matted with blood and some of it even dripped down into his mouth, the sharp coppery tang helping him concentrate on the splitting pain of his head.
Georgia untangled herself from him as he was recovering from her attack, but he reached a paw backward and dug his claws into her thick hide not willing to let her go. She hissed at the pain of his claws sliding into her flesh and Samba hated the feeling of his claws penetrating her thick hide, but he couldn't hold back in something like this.
He'd do anything for the clan.
She started to reach down and pry his claw off, but Samba rotated and flexed his core to bring both of his oversized feet rocketing towards her face. With her speed, it was trivial to bring her oversized forearm into the way and blocked them on her scale.
Samba let his feet slide away as he stretched backwards, turning his body from a C shape to a full circle. His tail slapped against Georgia's face, but there wasn't any real power behind it. It must have hit her already busted lip as she hissed in pain. Taking the small window, Samba shoved off from the ground with his freehand and brought himself all the way back onto his feet in a hunched position.
Not wanting to release his hold on her, he had to practically crawl up her body as he stood to his full height and he took several punches to his side as he did.
He cried out from the pain that flared from his side and into his chest. Nausea curled up in his throat and he instinctively opened his mouth as he yelled. Wanting to return that pain, he bit down on one of her hard leathery ears, feeling his sharp teeth provide a few new holes.
"Stop fucking biting me, you cheating little-"
She reared back for another punch into his side, but Samba had finally gotten into position for the Coastal Clinch. It was a style of wrestling that focused on standup fighting and controlling your opponents movements through force.
Using her neck as a lever, he twisted, forcing her to stumble and killing all the power from her punch. Realizing how much control he had, she latched onto him, trying to force his arm away from her head, but Samba just yanked again, this time backwards.
That opened up a large amount of space between them and Samba skipped forward and flung his knee into her chest. He heard suck in as her breath caught from the blow and her meaty hands beat desperately on his side as she struggled for air. Patiently, he pivoted again, yanking her along to keep her off balance.
Strength mattered in the clinch, but at their relatively equal power, skill mattered more.
Georgia roared as her breath came back to her. Samba looked up just in time to see the dark line across her eyes get absorbed directly into her iris. Like boiling ink, it built up there as she glared directly into his own eyes.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Wax and Wane's voice echoed over the shouts and cries of the Rhinos that continued to cheer their champ and fling insults at him. Samba didn't need Wax and Wane's [Omniscience] to know that boiling shadows were bad news.
He let go of her, but didn't want to completely lose his position so he stepped his left leg behind her and then torqued his entire body to smash his elbow across her face. Blood exploded out of her cheek as the blow cut her thick hide like an ax and a half second later, shadows burst from her eyes like a laser that scored the ground at their feet.
Her shadowy eye beam attack wasn't done though. The shadows caught on the ground and continued to bubble and froth like a can of compressed air being cooked over an open flame. Seeing the danger, Samba slid fully behind Georgia after his elbow and waited for the blast.
Shadows exploded outward, strangely silent as they hit Georgia and then she hit him. The two of them flew backwards until Samba landed flat on his back with Georgia right on top of him. Despite the distance they'd been thrown, there was very little damage done by the explosion and he assumed that it was more of a zoning tool.
Unless the shadow laser burrowed into your body before exploding...
Images of Samba's head popping like a watermelon smacked by a baseball bat flitted across his mind. He was damn sure that he wasn't giving her another opportunity for that.
Georgia started to scramble to get back off of him, but Samba's Coastal Clinch was far too dangerous if she had that kind of weapon in her eyes and her Agility meant that he couldn't afford to fight her on open ground either.
With his longer arms, he looped one around her neck and pulled her back towards him. One of her meaty fists smashed into his head and stars swam in front of his vision, but he just tucked chin to absorb the next blow. Feeling an opening, he wove his arm under his other so it locked with his elbow and then used it like a fulcrum to tighten his hold on her throat.
Another fist struck at him, but Samba's head was securely tucked in between his upright arm and her own head, keeping him safe. "You fuckin-," she choked out, spittle flying onto his arm. Dimly, he was aware that the Underbridge Clan Elites had moved to intercept the Rhino Elites who'd rushed forward to defend their Progenitor.
It hadn't come to blows yet, but Samba had much bigger concerns. Georgia had started bucking her hips, trying to force him off or to spin around and pull him off herself, but he couldn't allow that. As she fell back down to try again, Samba locked both legs around her hips and pulled her back into him and forcing her to stop spinning.
She continued to buck and fight for another five whole minutes, but she wasn't the only one with a high Vitality. The attacks with her fists never stopped, but the scales on his arms kept him safe and he just squeezed even harder until they slowly had no energy to them at all.
Finally, her body went lax and Samba, at first, wondered if it was a trick of some kind. Poe's voice cut through the noise of the two clans though.
"LET GO OR YOU'RE GOING TO KILL HER!"
Immediately, Samba released her and shoved her body off to the side. He'd easily fought against jobbies in the Brain Goblins' cave for an hour without issue, but fighting against someone of a similar size and stats? He was exhausted.
Tiria's smiling face appeared above him, shortly after followed by Gi's. His Boss's face seemed almost alien now with the rich lines of golden fur running throughout and the strangely reserved expression his face.
Still when he told him, "good job," it felt like he was the strongest monster in the whole world. Ignoring the sudden cacophony, he let his eyes close, just for a second.