Sam used Eyes of Justice on the man, almost overtaxed by having to keep two powerful skills running at the same time. Luckily, Eyes of Justice only took a few seconds to work, and by the time that Sam felt the first part of an encroaching headache, it had already triggered.
A fresh surge of energy entered him, and he drove his mace into the Overlord’s solar plexus. The man spluttered and coughed up blood, but then smiled and grabbed Sam’s mace. Using it as a lever, he slammed Sam into the ground on both sides of himself. Sam didn't dare let go, and he groaned as his bones were ground together. At the apex of the fourth rotation, he affixed himself in the air with his skill, preventing the Overlord from building up enough power to keep him in the cycle of pain.
The other man grunted as he suddenly found resistance in his motions, and Sam wrenched his mace out of the Overlord’s hands, straining his muscles in doing so. The man had an iron grip, and it felt like trying to pull a metal bar from a piece of concrete. It came out eventually however, and Sam stumbled backwards with his mace back in hand.
The Overlord didn't let this distract him, and he came in with a flying kick towards Sam’s left leg. Sam swept his mace down with his left hand, and deflected the attack, using the other man’s fist to push himself away from the attack. The Overlord snapped his hand out to grab at Sam, but he ducked underneath it and launched his fist into the man’s chin, knocking him backwards. Sam winced as his body protested against his treatment of it, but he would have to endure.
The Overlord stumbled back and spat out a tooth fragment.
“Very good. You’re actually keeping up with me. Did you forget something though?” The Overlord let his actions answer his question, and the cloud of power around him swirled into his body. He laughed out loud, and his skin turned a deep crimson. There was no discernible aura around him, but Sam could feel something deeper, a primal terror of the unknown. He had faced this form once before, and he had been instantly defeated by it.
The man held out his hands and twin bolts of red light lashed down from the heavens, forming gauntlets of energy around his hands. That was something new, and Sam looked at the weapons uneasily. He had refined his technique since the last time that they had met, and now there was no wasted energy in his transformation as there had been before.
“I have been waiting for this moment, Arbiter. I can finally go all out,” the Overlord said.
Sam gritted his teeth and got ready to have his ass handed to him. The Overlord flashed forwards on pinions of red light, ghostly wings carrying him through the air. He crossed the ten foot gap between them in less than a second, and Sam only had time to get his arms up to block. He pushed an entire half of his mana into a Mana Bulwark, and forced his earth elemental energy into it.
A yellow hued barrier formed, and cracked as soon as the Overlord made contact. It leeched away about half of the force, but all that meant was that a few of Sam’s bones were broken rather than all of them. He coughed up arterial blood as he skipped across the ground like a stone on water. Sam came to a stop against a large outcropping of rock and he yelped as it burnt his skin. It was right next to a lava flow, and the molten rock had heated it to a dull red glow.
Sam was in far too much pain to worry about such a minor thing however, and he got to his feet, ignoring the dinner plate sized burn on his back. The Overlord stood where he had punched Sam, still in the position in which he had punched. It was only a display of showmanship, but it still netted the man some more Dao energy which soaked into his body like water into a sponge.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Sam spat to the side, the spittle sizzling on a rock, and took control of his body again with his skill. His bones ground against each other, but Sam ignored that. He lacked any sort of finisher attack. It was time to end that. The audience gasped as the cameras zoomed in on Sam. He had closed his eyes and looked as if he was meditating. What he was actually doing was applying his superior analytical skills to provide a comprehensive analysis of his skillset. He scanned through his various weapon techniques from his weapon style imprint and then calculated the effects that his abilities would have on them. Despite only nominally having about seven or eight times the intelligence of an average human, perhaps more or less depending on how stats scaled, the actual effect was far more profound. The human brain was a lot more powerful than most gave it credit and only a small amount of its total processing power was actually used. It was not a mere ten percent, as many believed, but neither was it a majority. In any case, there was quite a bit of free real estate available there. Sam had since surpassed that, and was now operating on superhuman levels. It wasn't like he was now a human calculator or anything, but he was a lot better and everyday tasks that involved processing things.
The first part of his skill, the base of it, clicked home. It was meant to be a flashy and devastating attack, and there was a perfect technique that corresponded to that. It was called Aerial Devastator, and it revolved around a series of rapid attacks upon an enemy who had been launched into the air, where they would be unable to react as quickly. While effective, the attack lacked power as it was a fast technique and not a strong one. That could be rectified with a generous helping of Earth elemental energy.
Sam could see the Overlord starting to move towards him, but he refused to let that distract him from his task. What he currently had on hand would require a lot of strength to pull off, but that was something that he possessed in spades. Next was the incorporation of his Dao. That needed to be something that meshed well with its concept, and not just a simple matter of pumping power into the skill. As the Overlord neared, Sam grasped what he needed to do. Each strike would contain a small nugget of Dao energy that would burrow into the enemy and lie dormant there until the series had commenced. This signified the gradual accumulation of anger until it came to a boiling point. The methodical application of it was what came from the other half of his Dao. He was edging close to the concept of Revenge, which was not something that he had any desire to flirt with now, but it seemed to work in theory. Now was the time to see if it worked in practice. As the Overlord punched forwards, beginning to intone something, Sam started to use his attack.
“Coup de Grace!” The Overlord screamed, broadcasting the name of his attack to the world. Sam roared wordlessly as he began to use his finisher. He was not one to broadcast the names of his attacks. It just felt juvenile, after all this was not some anime show. It was real life. Besides, he had no idea what to call it in the first place.
He took a titanic hit to the left side of his face, and he could feel his skin tear off of his bones. As he was spun around by the attack, he used the momentum to initiate his own. The Overlord was twisting into the next part of his final attack, but it was too late. Sam slammed his right palm down on the end of his mace, catapulting the head up and into the Overlord’s jaw. The man was lifted into the air and he flailed there for a moment, trying to get to Sam.
Sam bent down low and surged upwards, imbuing a spark of Dao into his now supersaturated mace. He drove the head into the Overlord’s abdomen and the man was propelled even higher, the Dao energy being injected into him. Sam whirled his mace around and struck the Overlord like a batter strikes a ball.
The man was shot up dozens of feet into the air, and Sam jumped up after him. When they were at an equal distance from the ground, about ten feet up, Sam lifted his mace over his head and pushed the last reserves of power that he had into it. He brought it down, and struck the Overlord’s abdomen. There was a blinding flare of light, and each pre-planted parcel of Dao energy rushed towards the impact zone where it detonated, blowing a hole in the other man’s torso. He shot down, and was drilled into the ground by the force of the blow. A sonic boom echoed over the arena, and Sam fell to the ground. The Overlord lay in a crater the size of a hot tub, and his mask had completely broken. Sam reached down and brushed the two halves away from each other and turned the man’s head towards him. What he saw caused his heart to skip a beat.
“Dad?”