Sam meanwhile only had his hammer and armor, not needing any additional weapons. Manarox had offered to loan him any of the weapons that he wanted, but Sam had refused. In the end however, he ended up taking a small locket from the man’s store that was supposed to contain a last minute healing spell that would go off if he ever went under ten health points. He was not anticipating having to use it, but it would be valuable nonetheless. The locket was quite rare too, having come from a dungeon on a dead world that Manarox had ransacked, the final prize for defeating the final boss. There was another one of them too, which Manarox wore. The resources that the Grakoth empire had just on hand were nothing short of astonishing, the results of a campaign that had led to the plundering of dozens of worlds. Add to that the wealth that they had possessed even before the advent of the System, and you had the recipe for a very powerful faction.

However, the average level was consequently low, with only a tiny fraction of the populace able to level up enough to join the elite fighters. Still, when you were drawing from billions of people, that was a lot of fighters.

As the two men finished suiting up, Manarox left Sam for a moment and vanished into a side room. He could hear the faint noise of what almost sounded like praying, so he moved out and gave the man some privacy. Manaox emerged a moment later, his face calmer than before. His two swords were slung over his back, and his armor gleamed. His pebbly, scaled skin glistened in the light of the overhead strip lighting, and his body bulged with physicality. He looked like a man ready for war. Sam looked positively scruffy beside him, but there were no illusions about who was the strongest among the two. With his special abilities, Sam was able to even the gap, despite his lower level.

Without another word, they walked towards the bottom layer of the ship, and Manarox ushered Sam through the hole, jumping in after him. They plummeted towards the ground at high speeds, and Sam took in the battlefield. Most of the enemy forces had been driven back to the citadel in the distance, and the Grakoth fighters were clustered around them. They were slowly but surely piling in, but every now and again, a powerful blast of energy would take out thousands of them in a single hit, creating gaps for the enemies to enter.

“That is the work of their king!” Manarox called out over the rushing air. “He is a mage of great power.”

“I thought that it was some sort of artillery fire. You’re saying that’s from a single person?” Sam replied, shocked.

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“He is quite high level. Not as strong as me in direct combat, but he is powerful enough to take out hordes of lower leveled combatants. However, he is a bit of a coward. He has not shown his face in the battle yet, preferring to send spells over his city walls where he is defended. It is too late for that though.”

With that proclamation, they hit the ground, leaving craters in their wake. Sam stood up fully and hefted his hammer, before charging across the frozen ground. The blood and mud had cooled into a reddish patina of ice, and was quite slippery. However, each stride of Sam and Manarox slammed through the icy coating, and found purchase on the ground beneath. Every stride took them a few dozen feet, and they flashed across the ground like wraiths, heading towards their target.

The city was about twenty miles away, and it took them a few minutes to reach it at their top speed. Sam folded in a few teleports here and there to speed things up, but at the speed that they were moving, they made little difference. The three or so miles surrounding the citadel were filled with writhing bodies, millions of them at least. A storm of artillery fire hissed out of the citadel, and a hail of shots carried up from the Grakoth ranks in return. It was a bloody battle, without there even being much direct contact.

Every now and again a hulking figure would drop from the walls and land amid the Grakoth, wreaking havoc among them before they were eventually put down by sheer weight of numbers. The gates to the city were being steadily battered by a series of energy cannons that blasted blue bolts of pure mana at it dozens of times per second. The gates were holding for now, but they were already dented.

Hovering above the city was a stately fish man surrounded by a wall of golden light. Halcyon flames licked around his form, and spears of golden power shot out of his fingers every few seconds. Once per minute, he would unleash a wave of fire that immolated thousands in the blink of an eye. That was undoubtedly the king of the enemy.

Sam and Manarox bullied their way through the ranks, trying to get to the front ranks. The Grakoth parted before them once they realized who it was, and they passed uninterrupted towards the gates. As they neared, the volume of artillery fire doubled, and Sam started to bat it away with his hammer, Manarox doing the same with his main weapons.

They reached the gates a few hard won minutes later. Sam started to gather up mana within his hammer, and Manarox drew Chrysaor, the blade glittering in the light. With a roar, he raised the supremely sharp weapon above his head and swung it down, sending out an impossibly thin crescent of power towards the gates. He did it once more, creating an X shaped attack.

It plowed into the gates, cutting through like it was made out of air. Sam moved in a moment later, slamming his weapon into the center of the X. With a rumbling boom, the gates were blasted apart, revealing the city within.