On Mount Olympus

The Overlord held out his hand, and a spear of pure light dropped out of the sky into it. The corpse of this weapon’s guardian dissipated into motes of light, the regal, bearded figure of Zeus vanishing as if he had never been there. He now possessed two of the Seven Seals, putting him on par with Sam and his faction. The only difference was that the Overlord was claiming all of this power for himself.

Pulling out the Sickle of Cronos from his belt, he held the two weapons together, feeling them resonate with one another. This was something that Sam had not discovered, the fact that the Seven Seals were designed to be wielded in unison, rather than separately.

As the Overlord held them, the two weapons began to merge, turning into a wicked looking halberd of black stone, crackling with lightning. Laughing out loud, he summoned his ship, heading off towards his next objective. He had missed the titanic explosion off the coast of America, and was thus unaware of what had happened. He would find out soon enough anyway.

Back at the Faction Headquarters

The unexpected windstorm had evened the odds a little bit, with many of the Legion members falling into the lava moat as a result. However, there were quite a few injuries among the city defenders, but thankfully no deaths. The enemy assault had been successfully disrupted, and Sam gathered up his power to make sure that they would be unable to scale the walls again.

The shield, even if they got it up and running again, would be useless, as the enemies were inside its range. In addition, it would be starting from almost nothing, making it incredibly fragile. He started to fire his projectile skills down into the fray, knocking back monsters left and right. About a quarter of the monsters had died by now, but there were still more than enough to cause some serious harm if they got past the defenders.

The weakest members of the faction were holed up at the center of the city, which was the safest palace for them to be now. A more disturbing series of events were forming however, and a few of the more physically weak defenders were falling ill spontaneously, from the ash that was drifting over towards the city from the bomb explosion sites. Now that Sam had seen this, he knew what had happened.

Those bombs had been nuclear in origin, and whatever magical effect that Legion had used to empower them had increased the effects of the radiation as well. The onset of the affliction was heightened as well, and many of those who had contracted radiation sickness were already dying from the inside out, their flesh rotting away. Normally, they would have been unaffected, on account of their superhuman attributes, but the magical aspect of the bombs cut straight through their resistances. Only Sam and the stronger of the physical fighters were completely unaffected.

Many of the mages had abilities that they used to protect themselves, but if they dropped them for even a second, which happened often in a pitched battle against numerically and qualitatively stronger opponents, they were infected. However, as terrible as it was, Sam didn't know what he could do against it. For the first time in a while, he was completely, utterly useless. His Dao would do nothing against an effect that had no hostile intent or was not conceptually aligned beyond a certain part. It seemed as if the radiation had been calibrated specifically to deter him.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

In addition, he watched as the healers tried desperately to cleanse their charges. As soon as they lost concentration however, their patients succumbed again, and all that this achieved was wasted mana. All the while, the Legion forces were coming, barely stemmed by the remaining fighters, Sam, and the captains who had all piled up at this particular part of the wall.

Automatons came in an endless stream, but they were too weak to do much more than take out a few of the enemies. Sam was beginning to lose hope. His arms began to grow weak as he swung his gore coated weapon endlessly through the tide of monsters, watching as his allies fought and died beside him. Eventually, he found nothing in front of his hammer, and he blinked, seeing that there were no monsters left. They were all dead. Clapping rang out over the otherwise silent battlefield, and Sam looked up to see Hugo Mar floating down from the sky, as endless hordes of the Legion soldiers marched in lockstep behind him.

“Bravo! You lasted longer than I suspected you would. However, this charade has gone on for too long. I could end you all right now, weakened as you are, but I will allow my soldiers to have the pleasure of destroying you utterly. As for you, Sam Atlas, come and face me. I wish to personally show you the errors of your ways.”

Sam had no words for the man, and he simply shook his head. Hugo sighed, and snapped his fingers, causing one of the fighters next to Sam to explode in a blast of flesh and blood as a thin beam of energy flashed across the space between them.

“I will continue to kill your weakest allies unless you face me. Are you truly a force of justice, or are you just a rank coward?”

Sam took a deep breath, and jumped off the side of the wall, ignoring the sounds of dismay from his allies. He knew that they would all die for him, which was precisely why he was doing this.

Landing on the ground, facing off against an army of millions, he laughed bitterly, his Dao starting to rage around him in the form of a dark red cloak of energy. He looked Hugo Mar directly in the eye, and for the briefest of moments, he channeled the full weight of his Dao within himself, causing the general to flinch. Then that moment was gone, and all that was left was a mortal facing off against a being that might as well have been a god.

Hugo Mar floated down from the sky towards Sam, his clothes billowing up around him as he did so. Clouds of dark energy began to coalesce around his form, and when he landed, he was wreathed in midnight armor, made solely out of elemental energy. He took a deep breath, and then charged, moving so fast that Sam could barely track his movements. However, he was a different man now than before, and his martial mastery allowed him to predict Hugo’s movements, no matter how fast they were. He dodged to the side, as if in a trance, and stuck out with his hammer.

To his, and everyone else’s surprise, it connected, knocking Hugo Mar off course. There was no injury dealt, but it had achieved enough. The other man was shaken slightly now. Sam knew that he had not been using his real power however, but neither had he.

Sam gradually began to ramp up his level of released power, limning himself with the light of his Girdings of the Arbiter skill. Rooting himself in place, he enhanced his next swipe with his Dao energy. Hugo Mar laughed and parried the blow effortlessly with his bare hand, before planting his fist into Sam’s gut.

He was sent flying hundreds of feet backwards, landing in a muddy crater from the previous battle. Hugo Mar strode towards him, a picture of unconcerned power, not caring whether Sam had the opportunity to rise again. In any case, it hardly mattered, did it? Sam knew that the other man was here to toy with him, to try to force him to join his faction. That had been his purpose in Paris after all. As Sam got to his feet, Hugo stopped.

“Now, I can guess that you know why I am doing this. You are right in any case. I am here to convince you to join me. This is your last chance however. If you do not join me here and now, you, and your accursed faction, will die.”

“No,” Sam replied, his voice strong. “I will never join you. And I will defeat you now. Don’t be so sure of yourself just because your lackeys have been pumping you up with levels.”