Rodney and the Overlord were silent, as nothing particularly surprising had happened during that fight. Despite the twist with the monster, it had been clear that Sam was going to win. Now it was their turn to fight, their time to determine who would be fighting Sam for the title of the strongest man on Earth.
The arena began to shift again, and the cityscape crumbled away. Out of the rubble, something new formed, a floating disk of rock that rotated slowly. All around it, smaller disks of rock spun in the air, with strange towers on them. They all glowed with different colors, and they outputted a strong aura of elemental energy. High up in the air above the disk, a much larger tower was positioned, this time facing down.
“In the battle to determine the finalists, both fighters will have to battle while these elemental sentry towers fire projectiles at them. Up above, a far larger sentry is on a timer, and when that timer goes off it will bathe the arena in lava. That timer will be randomly determined at the beginning of the battle, but it will be below twenty minutes and longer than five. I hardly have to announce the fighters, but I might as well. For this round, we have Rodney Kane and the Overlord!”
The two men rose to their feet with an eerie unison, both glaring at the other as if they were the reason that they had gotten up like that. Neither of them walked forward, instead waiting for the System to teleport them down. A moment later they were standing on the platform and before the System could say anything, the two men attacked each other.
“Begin-” The System started. “Nevermind.”
As usual, the Overlord allowed the other man to attack first, thus building up his store of Dao energy. Rodney Kane already knew this of course, and he began to pour his power into the strongest attack that he could muster at such short notice. His armor started to form as his greatsword popped into being, and he started to glow with the light of his Dao. The power of Anger started to course through his being, and Sam noticed that his eyes had gone blank. The rest of his face was screwed up with molten rage, likely directed at the Overlord because of his higher position on the leaderboards than Rodney.
The Dao of Anger was one of ideation over all else, and this power directly scaled with the rage that one could muster towards their opponent. As a man used to getting his own way and filled with bitter rage at a world that seemed to want to prevent this, Rodney was a great host for such a Dao.
His greatsword shifted from its normal black tinge to a dull red color and small cracks formed on it.Each of the cracks were filled in with a glowing red substance that was far brighter than the rest of the sword. It almost appeared to be lava, and it was clearly a new skill that Rodney had formed with his Dao.
The man pulled his sword back and whipped it around in a semicircular arc in front of him, expelling all of the red energy in a wave of power. It streaked toward the Overlord, who raised one fist and imbued it with energy. The attack pressed into his hand, but could not get past the man’s implacable defense. The Overlord clenched his fist, shattering the attack.
A massive influx of Dao energy rushed into him from the audience, and he roared triumphantly. Rodney cringed and then snarled, running forward towards his opponent. The man started to fill his sword with Dao energy again and he flashed forward at the last moment, leaving a red afterimage behind him. Rodney shifted his greatsword into a much smaller form, mimicking Reaper’s technique in the previous match, and stabbed it into the Overlord. The man grunted and flexed his abs, stopping the sword from penetrating more than a few millimeters. A tiny hole was revealed as Rodney withdrew, without a single drop of blood coming out of it.
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“Why are you so strong? How is this possible?” Rodney said through gritted teeth.
“Because I am Supreme!” The Overlord roared the last word out, and a huge surge of Dao energy entered his voice, creating a beam of red light that shot towards Rodney from his mouth. Rodney stood his ground, but as the attack neared, he shied away. The beam dissipated and the red energy doubled in size before rushing back into the Overlord’s body. Sam raised his eyebrow. That was quite an ingenious use of a skill as a self propagation technique. Rodney stopped abruptly, and scowled. He had been completely tricked by the beam and now he was in an even worse spot.
“As befits one who dares to challenge me. You are not only weak in the body, but weak in the mind.”
Rodney growled at this taunt, but he was clearly shaken by the Overlord, and he had not even been struck once by him. It seemed that the Overlord was attempting to set up another one hit win again. The man had only grown stronger since the last time that the two had fought, and it was an even more unfair comparison than last time, especially considering that the Overlord was actively creating more energy than normal.
By this point he was almost completely surrounded in red energy, and his muscles started to bulge as the power soaked into them. He sent a small amount of power into his right leg and pushed off of the ground towards Rodney. The man was able to see the beginning of his attack, but he was far too slow to stop the Overlord once he was in motion.
The Overlord appeared in front of Rodney and held out his hand. Every iota of power that he had condensed into his finger and he flicked forwards. A tiny mote of energy flew forward, and Rodney was too close to dodge. Then a fireball flew in from one of the turrets and triggered the ball of energy.
The eyes of both men widened in unison and then they were blown backwards by the force of the explosion that soon ensued. The Overlord came to a stop as he sank his fist into the ground, punching through stone in order to get a grip. Rodney flew all the way to the end of the platform and almost fell off, only grabbing onto the edge as he fell over it. He pulled himself up with ease, to be expected from a man who had passed a threshold, but his body was completely broken. His armor had been blasted off of him in multiple places and he was bleeding profusely. One of his arms was hanging off by a thread, but had not been lost. Sam had so far not found out how exactly the healing fluid would deal with regrowing a limb from scratch, and he didn't know if that was even possible.
The Overlord on the other hand was a lot less damaged, but his injuries were much more grotesque. The skin on his chest and arms had been peeled off by the explosion, and he was panting heavily. Somehow his mask had stayed on the entire time, but a large crack ran down it.
The Overlord crossed his arms and pretended that he was completely unharmed, which sent him another surge of Dao energy. The man’s Dao was almost unfairly powerful for his level, and so far only Sam had been able to circumvent it. He had still lost through.
Rodney pushed himself to his feet with his weapon, and then stumbled forward, falling on his face. The Overlord started towards him, moving slowly and carefully. A few of the elemental attacks, which had grown in volume over time, shot towards him but he batted them aside with his fists. Even a bolt of lightning was deflected by the energy that surrounded them.
As he was about halfway there, a blaring siren started to play and the large turret overhead began to glow. The Overlord started running and he punched Rodney off of the platform just as the turret spilled a torrent of lava onto the ground. He was teleported away just in time and he appeared in the waiting area. The scent of burning flesh wafted off him slightly, but he didn't seem to be in that much pain. Sam flashed him a thumbs up and the man scoffed before turning away. The voice of the System blared out again and what it had to say was quite interesting.
“In the interests of time and convenience, the next round will begin now. Both fighters will receive free helping up to their maximum health and will be mentally refreshed as well. The arena for this battle will be one of a series of randomly determined arenas, which will be rolled for now.”