It opened its mouth and blasted him with a cone of solid force, the air turning hard as it was compressed. Sam held his ground as the dirt around him was blasted away, but he quickly was forced to withdraw as the earth underneath his feet crumbled away. He leaped backwards, buffeted by the high speed winds, and landed unsteadily on the lip of the quickly growing crater.
The dragon closed its mouth, and sliced down through the air, opening its jaws as wide as they could go. Sam raised Mjolnir above his head, and as he saw the dragon reach him, he slammed it down on its lower jaw. There was a splintering noise, and the bottom half of the monster’s head flopped down limply, brushing past Sam like a wet noodle. The creature let out a muffled screech of pain, and Sam only barely dodged as it whipped its tail end towards him. The tail scattered earth for dozens of feet in every direction, before whirling around and swiping through the area that Sam had been standing in. A monster with no appendages at all must have had some way of grasping things, and Sam had found it.
The dragon seemed to have complete control over its flexible tail, and it twisted and turned in ways that seemed downright unnatural to Sam. Sam waited until he had a clear shot at the dragon's body, a difficult task considering its speed, and then started to windmill his hammer wielding hand around and around to build up speed. This was yet another of the many mace techniques that could be found within his weapon imprint. It was designed to take out large beasts or fortifications, and while Sam lacked the Water elemental energy that was contained within the original skill, he could make up for it with his other sources of power.
The hammer began to glow yellow as Sam swung it, and he felt his elemental energy stores rapidly bottoming out. He had far less of the stuff than he had of Dao energy or mana, and he suspected that it was tied to his elemental mastery percentage. Still, this was to be expected. He was using a powerful skill after all.
As the dragon prepared to loop around once more, Sam gripped the end of his hammer in both hands, and swung it with all of his might into the dragon. There was a tearing noise, and the hammer ripped through its flesh, carving out a massive chunk of skin. Blue blood dripped out onto the ground, and the monster wailed in agony.
Sam thrust his hand forwards, and grabbed at the bony protrusions that he could see within the wound. With one mighty heave, he ripped it in two, severing the creature’s spine. It flopped down to the ground, writhing about, and Sam jumped up onto its back, racing up its body towards its head. This had certainly not been a clean fight, but it had been a victory, which was all that mattered.
The dragon tried desperately to toss Sam off, but with half of its body out of its control, it was hard pressed to do so. Sam reached its head a few seconds later, with his hammer at the ready. He leapt the last ten feet, channeling the energy of his finisher into the attack. He landed with a dull thud on the monster’s head, followed by a loud bang as his skill went off. A bubble of energy hammered the monster’s skull into the ground, and the hammer itself shattered its bones.
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A moment later, a large rush of essence poured into Sam, and he saw that he had enough to level up. He pushed the essence into his left shoulder, the site of his next node, and almost bit his tongue as the node tore his muscle fibers in that area. Leveling up repaired most of the damage, but a tiny bit remained. The penalty of leveling up had transformed from pain into actual injury. Sam quickly forgot the pain as the euphoria of all the stat gains hit him. Ignoring the level up notification, he closed his stat sheet, wanting to save the points for later. He was going to need as much of a boost from his stat multiplier as he could get in the future.
The Sage and Johannes were still duking it out, and the ground around them had turned into a ruined pit of broken earth. Small craters littered the ground from where the staff had hit, and long scars in the earth told tales of Johannes’ abilities with his sword. The fortitude of the two fighters was incredible, and they had only flagged slightly since the start of the fight. It seemed a bit more evenly matched then it had before, and Johannes was limping slightly, the result of a large wound running down his leg. The Sage would probably have been equally damaged, if not more so, except for the fact that he was splitting up all the damage with the clone. The clone was almost dead, and it could barely lift its staff anymore, but it was still trying anyway, drawing away Johannes’ attention at critical times. Sam smiled slightly. It was time for him to enter the fray.
The monsters had all either fled by now, or their corpses were littering the ground around the small space in which the Sage and Johannes fought. Those that got in the way were slowly turned into puddles of gore, which was quickly vaporized by the sheer friction of feet hitting the ground at hundreds of miles per hour. Looking at the devastation caused by the fight, Sam could only wonder what the effects of a higher tier fight would look like. When people were strong enough to destroy plants with the blink of an eye, what sort of fallout would result from their clash? Fortunately for Sam, that was but a far off problem.
Sam vaulted over the corpse of a titanic elephant, and almost slipped as he landed in the middle of a steaming pile of entrails. Before his feet could make contact, Sam sent a pulse of mana down through them, melting away the filth before it could touch him. Not that Sam was especially squeamish, as who could be after seeing their bones leave their body, but even he had standards.
Sam was rapidly approaching the epicenter of the battleground, and he immediately began to power up. There could be no half measures while dealing with opponents over thirty levels higher than oneself. First was Fiery Rage, which Sam catalyzed by all of the pain that had been caused to himself and his allies by the Legion. Next came Girdings of the Arbiter, followed up by his new skill, the earth shield. The shield formed over his left arm, creating a buckler of yellow light that spun slowly around the limb. Sam did not have too much faith in its ability to defend against his monstrously powerful opponents, but it would at least stop a single hit. In a fight like this, that was more than enough. It was a miracle beyond belief that Sam could even realistically contemplate fighting up this many levels, and against other sapients to boot. He was truly something special. Before he could let his ego get to his head, Sam charged. It was time to finish this.