Sam sighed, as if resigning to his fate, and started walking forward. The monster ahead of him had no recognizable facial features, but its body position told Sam that if it could, it would have been smiling broadly at that moment.

As he reached a distance of about twenty feet from the creature, one of the lower level monsters twitched. It was a slight moment, but as Sam saw the muscles on the leader contract slightly, he knew that he had been made. With a snarl, he whipped his hand up with all the speed he could muster, and released a spear of red light at the faceless monster. It tried to squeeze off a shot in time, but it was too late. Sam’s attack punched straight through its arm, and the gun fell to the ground before firing. A ball of blue plasma streaked off into the trees, and vanished.

The nearby Legion soldiers all charged Sam in unison, and he exploded into a blur of motion. Sam’s hand was bleeding profusely from his use of his mana as a projectile, but he ignored the pain and discomfort for now. As the monsters came at him, Sam sank into a low stance, and then turned into a whirlwind of crushing force, breaking the legs of the monsters as he spun. In some cases, he smashed them clean off the bodies of the Legion members, leaving twitching husks lying on the ground.

In another few seconds, the last survivor breathed its last, and Sam turned to where the leader had been. Instead of seeing the faceless creature that had spoken to him, Sam saw a terrifying creature. A quadrupedal monster, made out of writhing tentacles, and with vast leathery wings stood next to the cage, charging up a ball of energy in front of its face. The only thing that connected it with the Legion commander was the fact that its face was completely smooth.

Sam dodged to the side as the attack came in, and damn did it come in fast. This was perhaps the strongest opponent Sam had fought within these woods so far. Its power was almost on the level of the Hammerwraith. Almost, but not quite.

The energy beam vaporized a twenty foot swathe of trees behind him, and Sam had to duck as a smaller one came after the first. It seemed as if the monster could induce variable speeds to its charging rate, making it unpredictable. Well, Sam could be unpredictable as well.

As the next bolt of energy came screaming across the ground, he charged it head on, and smashed it back to its origin with his hammer. Mjolnir sang with vibrations as he did so, and the bolt of blue energy was redirected, suddenly crackling with lightning. Sam had found a new use of the hammer’s special ability to absorb energy.

The monster was unable to dodge, the weakness of its larger body, and the attack streaked along its left wing, carving a deep furrow into it. With a roar, it started flapping its wings, and rose off the ground. Two flaps took it on a collision course with Sam, and he dropped to the ground as it passed overhead. He could feel the wind on his face from the passing, and the deep rents left in the ground told him that he would have been in a bad spot if he had not dodged. Sam jumped to his feet as the tail of the monster passed over him, and he grabbed on. Rooting himself, Sam pulled as hard as he could, trying to tug the monster backwards. All that happened was that he ripped the tail out by the root.

“Right. Physics. I can connect with ineffable concepts of reality, but I still can’t get basic things like this to work,” Sam thought irritably. In any case, it was not that much of a setback.

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The Legion commander roared in pain as Sam completed his attack, and it wheeled back around, its smooth face scrunched up in rage. A jagged tear formed on the bottom half of its face, with where the mouth would be, and it slowly widened. A gurgling noise started deep within the monster’s bowls and a moment later a tide of wriggling creatures shot out of its mouth.

Sam leaped into the air, and tugged his body out of the way with his skill, managing to get clear of the area of effect. Tiny wriggling maggots writhed on the ground, and where they touched, the earth dissolved. As the earth dissolved, they started to grow larger. The only apparent weakness of this was that the main monster was growing smaller. None of that mattered if Sam had to deal with thousands of rat sized monsters in the span of a few seconds.

As Sam came down, he began to imbue his mace with power. He had barely used any Dao energy during his fight, so he had quite a surplus ready to wreak havoc on his enemy. Because he was pumping an unequal ratio of mana to Dao energy, the hammer glowed a deeper shade of red than usual. None of Sam’s elemental energy was involved, as it was basically useless at this point, a problem that he needed to rectify. For now, this was enough though.

Sam fell through the air like a comet, and his hammer led the way. A moment later, he landed. The hammer instantly vaporized half of the monsters with a wave of energy, and the wave of torn earth swept the others away. There were a few survivors, but the vast majority had been wiped away.

“What is this power?” Said the monster, a raspy voice emanating from the tear in its mouth. “You were not reported to be this powerful. How have you gained so much power since we last surveyed your growth?”

“Because, I fight on the side of Justice. No matter what might happen, I will remain resolute. When the world comes crashing down around me, I will be the last rock of stability. Now, what does that say about you?” Sam asked, suddenly fielding his aura at full force.

A haze of red light crashed down around him, and the monster hissed, before fielding its own aura. A sickly gray light began to shine around the creature, but it was pushed back by Sam’s will. This monster was only artificially intelligent, the product of a hive mind. It could imitate, but never hope to match, the ingenuity and will of a human soul.

Sam started to stride forwards, and the monster shrunk before him. As Sam’s aura grew more and more powerful the closer he got to the creature, something had to break first. It was the will of the monster. With a horrific screech, it took off, and fled up into the sky. Sam smiled. It seemed that he was even scarier than a host of dragons.

A moment later, he heard a tearing noise from above, and a leg fell from the sky, landing next to him. A small amount of essence entered him, his portion from the damage that he had dealt to the monster. Sam quickly made his way over to the cage, and searched for the lock. There was none readily apparent, so he smashed a hole in the side with his hammer. The other climbed out a few seconds later, and Sam stood there awkwardly, not sure of what to say. It had been his fault that they were in that situation. What he did not expect was for Ava to hug him.

“You saved us! The way you dealt with those monsters was something else. They overpowered us in moments, but you killed them all.”

“I would hardly say that I killed the last one, but yeah. You’re not mad that I left you behind?” Sam asked her.

Ava shook her head.

“Of course not. You were right about us not being strong enough to deal with the monsters further in the forest. We need to level up more if we are to go with you.”

‘Well, let’s do that then. I want to get you all up to max level before we go any further, and I will be remaining here until you do so,’ Sam replied.

“What about the staff though? How are you going to get that?” Claude asked, bemused.

“With your help, of course,” Sam said. “Now, it’s time for some powerleveling. Perhaps we can even awaken a few Daos too.”