Sam smiled. His stat gains from his Dao had been almost doubled from that one upgrade. With his multiplicative stat bonuses, he had just gained 80 stat points in total. Suddenly, he felt a surge of even more power enter him, and a new notification surfaced.
You have gained a new title [Elite:Legendary]. You were able to gain 500 stat points before reaching F Rank, an incredible feat of skill. You are undoubtedly marked for great things. As a reward, you now have a higher chance of gaining better classes in the future.
The new title did not grant any stat multiplier bonus, but it did not need to. Sam knew that the boon that it offered was even greater. Classes were the surest path to power within the bounds of the System, and this would help him gain even more power. Sam parsed all of this midair, and as he brought his mace down, he filled it with his newly upgraded Dao. It blossomed into a small star, and a moment later, it landed, detonating like a bomb. Half of the aliens died then and there, and the rest were blown away from the impact zone, with broken bones and shattered bodies. George shielded his eyes, and then smiled at Sam. Sam gave the man a grin, and then rocketed off towards the city. He had not expected for his collected insights to finally blossom into a Dao upgrade, but it had been a welcome upgrade. His feet flew across the ground, with his new additions to his stats propelling him at speeds even greater than he had achieved before. As he ran, he opened his mouth and screamed, imbuing his words with his Dao.
“SALVAR!” He shouted, making sure that everyone heard it. The battle around him froze for a moment, and then mocking laughter exploded out of the city.
“IT'S TOO LATE. I’VE ALREADY STARTED KILLING YOUR PEOPLE!” Salvar shouted in return, his voice filled with sick glee.
Sam roared wordlessly, and felt his Dao energy build even further within him. He had far more capacity for Dao energy generation now that he had upgraded his Dao, and he could feel the power of Fiery Justice straining his skin and muscles as he ran. Sam flew across the ground, leaving a furrow as he passed.
Within a quarter of a minute, he had crossed the barrier between the city and the outside world, and he entered a scene of utter devastation. The farms were torn up, and fires raged across the fields of crops. Corpses lay on the fields, and Sam’s blood boiled at the sight. The houses around the city were cracked and crumbling and the streets were covered in blood. A few blocks away, Sam saw five of his captains desperately trying to stave Salvar off. The man was toying with them, and each strike of his fists seemed crafted to humiliate his opponents. All of the captains were bleeding, and Salvar was untouched.
“Where is your glorious leader now, scum?” Sam heard the man say. Sam gritted his teeth and kept running, pouring the seemingly limitless pool of his newly upgraded Dao energy into his mace. Sparks flew off of it, and the ground beneath it glowed red. Sam barreled around the corner, leaped into the air, and brought it down on the unsuspecting Salvar.
“I’m right here, you piece of shit!” He screamed as he attacked.
Salvar only managed to turn around by a tiny amount before the strike hit. He was blasted down into the ground, a red wave of power crushing him into the pavement. The energy bounced back up and down, gaining more and more power as Sam’s towering fury grew. Salvar let out a wordless howl of pain as his body was reduced to mush and broken bones. Sam eventually had to let go of the attack, and Salvar dropped to his knees, his body unable to support its weight. Salvar almost immediately started to heal himself, but Sam wouldn't let him.
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However, Salvar had a few tricks up his sleeve. Bringing his hands up to block Sam's next strike, the man absorbed the attack and sent it back towards Sam in the form of a devastating wave of energy that cracked Sam's bones. Sam hissed and was forced to take a step back, his body breaking under the strain. He mastered himself, and sent one final apocalyptic strike towards Salvar. If this strike failed, he would have no way to damage the man anymore. This attack resonated with his Dao, and it was easily the strongest attack he had brought to bear to far. With a hurricane of energy surrounding it, it slammed into Salvar's return strike, a punch wreathed in pure power. The two attacks struggled against one another for a moment, and then the energy recoiled, straight towards Salvar. The man was crushed down into a rapidly growing crater, stunned.
Bringing his mace down in an endless barrage of Dao imbued strikes, Sam pummeled the man until he was nothing more than a red smear on the ground. One final strike finished the job, and Sam stumbled backwards as his overtaxed body made its discomfort known. A titanic wave of essence entered him, and Sam felt some of its energy bounce off of a sudden barrier. He had reached the bottleneck of G Rank.
You have killed Salvar Tenebron!
You have leveled up!(x5)
Sam banked the points for now. He had a city to save. He looked over at the five captains, Lao, Ava, Jeffrey, Solitaire and the Bear. All of them were looking at him with unadulterated expressions of shock, Jeffrey most of all.
“How… How did you defeat that man? He was an F Ranker!” Jeffrey shouted, pointing at the smear of blood and gore that was all that remained of Salvar. Such was his astonishment that he forgot his wounds for a moment.
“Look, Jeffrey, you're really going to have to get used to this if you're going to stick around with me. I don’t want you to be having heart attacks every time that I pull something impressive off,” Sam said, laughing.
“Yes, but that was something else. Sure, a strong peak G Ranker can defeat a low F Ranker, but that man was not just some common grunt. He possessed actual skill. Nothing much compared to any faction scion of that level, but still enough to be above the norm. You just came in, with your mace blazing with the light of a sun, and crushed him into the ground.”
“Oh, yeah, about that. I ranked up my Dao again during the battle. It’s even stronger now.”
Jeffrey’s eyes began to bulge, and then he took a deep breath, calming himself.
“I’ll just take that as you clearly seem to value it as. Fine, you are now on the second stage of a Fragment. With that ridiculous stat multiplier of yours, you must have gotten quite a few stat points, am I right?”
Sam sighed, and shook his head.
“Jeffrey, now is not the time. The wall has been breached, and the army is pouring in. Without their leader, they should be easy pickings, but we have to be quick. If any of our people die unnecessarily, because we acted too slowly, then their blood is on our hands.”
Without another word, Sam raced off, leaving the others in the dust. They froze for a moment, and then started running after them, Lao jumping up onto the Bear’s back. The older man and the brutish Russian were actually starting to form a tight bond, with both shoring up each other’s weaknesses in battle.
As Sam streaked off into the distance, Jeffrey let out a wistful sigh. That man was going places, and if they were lucky, he would drag them right along with them. Kind of like that time Jeffrey had been dragged down the road by the husband of a pretty young woman that he had, ahem, become acquainted with on a small resort world near his home system. Jeffrey shook his head. That was not especially important. Still, the tentacles on that girl had been something else. If you were into that kind of thing, of course.