“You…” Sakarth began, his voice weak, “are far more powerful than I had accounted for. However, you cannot, will not win here. It is time for you to die!” Sakarth took a deep breath, and the radiant wings blossomed back into reality in an instant, holding him aloft.

“Fury of the Stars: Celestial Vengeance!” The man screamed, and a thousand spears of light appeared around him, taking power from his wings.

Sam looked up at his encroaching doom grimly, and started to channel his own power into another use of his new skill. This was going to hurt no matter what happened.

Sam roared, dumping almost all of his power into his attack. A ten foot long lance of conceptual earth and pure rage broke through reality and landed in his hand, filling him with a supreme sense of self confidence. Sam drew his left hand back, and threw, just as Sakarth released his own attack. The sky above Sam was reduced to a series of white beams as the attack went off. His own lance streaked up into the firmament, looking pitiful in the face of the myriad of celestial spears. However, it was far more powerful than any of them individually.

Sam grunted as he felt something rip itself out of him in the wake of the attack, its conceptual gravity strong enough to tear out the last bit of his remaining Dao energy as it went. The lance blazed with an ominous red light, and grew in speed and power as it went.

Sam stood there, watching as the light show commenced. His attack crashed into the first of the legion of spears, and tore through it, sending a ring of light as it did so. It tore power away from the attack, and kept on going, ripping straight through Sakarth’s volley of attacks. The man narrowed his eyes, and then clenched his fist.

“Second Form: Angel Breaker!” Sakarth roared, almost drowned out by the noise of the clashing attacks. His insistence on using his skill names was beginning to annoy Sam.

The beams condensed into one, and it impacted the tip of Sam’s lance a moment later. The world trembled around the clashing strikes, and both men felt their souls quiver at the amount of power that was being brought into being here. Sma had grown during this fight, grown by quite a bit, even if he had not gained a single level yet. Like the man who he had read about, the G Ranker with the power of a god, Sam would draw upon his Dao to its utmost potential to bridge the gap between himself and others.

Sam poured his willpower into his attack, using it as a launching pad for his strike. The lance slowly began to accelerate, pushing back against the far larger beam of white light that was threatening to consume it. Sakarth was starting to realize that he was losing, and in a final act of desperation, he snapped his fingers, causing his attack to split. One half rocketed down towards Sam, while the other one stayed in place, breaking under the force of Sam’s new skill.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

However, Sam was too close to the beam of light to dodge it fully, and it impacted his left arm, shattering it completely. Blood erupted out of his arm as the bones broke through his flesh. It had been one of the worst breaks that he had suffered yet. Had he been even a little bit weaker, he would have lost the arm. However, he was still in the game, and he gritted his teeth, using his pain as a focus for his Dao. Despite having run out of Dao energy, he was still able to influence the amount contained within his attack, and he kept pushing at his lance.

Without the second half of Sakath’s skill still there to support the beam of white light, it was no match for Sam’s skill, and with a thundering boom, it shattered, Sam’s lance of rock and Dao energy breaking through it. Sakarth only had a moment to behold the immensely powerful attack coming his way, before it tore through his head, blasting apart his upper body.

Blood rained down onto Sam, and his arm knitted back together as he healed over. That had been a close fight, but he had progressed in leaps and bounds during it. He had just gained two levels for his trouble, and he was getting to the point where he really needed to check on his stat sheet some time soon. He had quite a few stat points waiting to be allocated at this point, but he had been too busy lately to check on them. Sighing, he turned towards the bulk of the warring armies, and charged.

On his vantage point some distance away, Sam’s would be trainer watched his progress eagerly. He was slowly getting an idea of the fighting style and skill of his new pupil and he had to say that he was impressed. Gordanus Vex, E Rank member of a freelancers guild, was a young man, by the standards of his rank. He was said to be rash and somewhat impulsive by his older fellows, and he appreciated those qualities in others. It seemed as if this Sam Atlas had them in spades.

Taking a swig from a storage device that he used solely to hold copious amounts of hard alcohol, he laughed at the strength of his latest pupil. He would step in soon enough, but he wanted to see the last few bits of Sam’s fighting prowess before he inevitably ran out of steam. It had been impressive that he had survived this long, and he was shaping up to be quite the prodigy indeed.

The man was only around level sixty, but he was fighting with the strength of someone many levels his senior, which was quite impressive to say the least. Gordanus sat back and watched as Sam hit the enemy ranks, tearing into them with great, sweeping blows of his hammer.

Sam was enjoying his new gains to their fullest, and he could feel a slight increase in his connection to his Dao from having created his new Mythical skill. However, he was still taxed from that last battle, and he knew that he could not afford to dally here. He was simply trying to break through the aliens in front of him so that he could get out of the fight, but they were proving to be stubbornly resistant to his attacks.

They had all seen him take out one of the leaders, and they were afraid that he would do the same on the rest of the battlefield, interfering with the flow of the fight. As a result, they were all trying to kill him, even going as far as to stop fighting one another when he came near.