Roars of excitement drifted up from the Grakoth, and they led the charge into the city. Bolts of searing flame rushed down towards them as the king caught wind of their presence, and a dozen of the Dao Abominations came hurtling down the road, bounding through their own troops.

Sam and Manarox set their stance, preparing for the battle. As the golden flame melted the rock around them, and the sounds of battle drifted up, Sam smiled. This was where he was meant to be. In the thick of the action, proving himself.

He threw himself forwards over the heads of his allies, gathering his power to his hammer. Blue mana funneled through his hands and into his hammer, and his body was suffused with the energy of his Dao a moment later, after he was able to close off his mana channels to avoid contamination. His hammer came down like a comet on the nearest Dao Abomination, slamming it into the ground. Whereas an attack from him before would probably have injured the monster, this one completely obliterated it, the charge of pure mana atomizing the creature’s head in the blink of an eye.

Greyish gore splattered over everything, and essence rushed into him. He moved on in the blink of an eye, and he saw Manarox beheading one of the aliens with his sword, which rang unsettlingly as it impacted the flesh. Chastened by the warning, he sheathed the blade. It was better for ranged attacks than physical ones.

The headless corpse slumped to the ground, and Manarox used his normal sword to batter the next monster into submission. Then he was separated from Sam by the rushing tide of the alien grunts, and Sam found himself fighting for his life. The weaker fighters were not too much trouble, but they took advantage of the presence of their larger brethren to land a few annoying hits on Sam, sending their weapons in through gaps in his armor’s plating. He roared in pain and exploded with power, his mana and Dao energy blasting out of his body along with his aura, forcing the weaker enemies back. With some space cleared, he teleported towards the nearest Dao Abomination, which had remained unmoved, and killed it with ease.

His mana reserves were heavily taxed by this constant use of his condensed mana however, as he was compressing a large chunk of his mana into its pure form to make this work. It was also very taxing on his mind too. However, it was clearly worth it, as enough essence entered him to take him up another level. There was less than half of his allotted time left here, and when that expired, he was done. There would be no more training opportunities. He would simply be left with his own intuition and the aid of his robot. Gordanus would never be there for him again, and it would be a long time before he could meet up with Manarox again at the universal tournament. Before then, he would need to get as much power as he could.

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There were still quite a few months left until the tournament came around, and Sam had a dream of reaching E Rank before that happened. He had stared out behind on the level curve, but ahead on the Dao curve. Now he was ahead on both.

As he butchered his path of red ruin through the enemies standing in his way, with Manarox carving through their flesh, he made his way slowly but surely through the massed ranks of the alien fighters, allowing the Grakoth elites to pile in after him. They were pushing the aliens back towards the city hall, but more were coming out of the woodwork on every side. This place was built like a city, and it was large enough to hold hundreds of thousands if not millions of fighters. In addition, there seemed to be little to no civilian population, which meant that every inch of space could be purposed for fighting.

Sam found space to take a quick breather as a few burly Grakoth, led by one of the female Grakoth mages, who seemed to be far less common than the males, attacked. If he remembered simple reptilian biology, a single broodmother could sire dozens of children, but most of them did not survive. In this society however, with advanced technology, it was likely that they all did. Perhaps the genome of the Grakoth had evolved to make females far rarer, so that the civilization was not overwhelmed by an exponential growth factor in terms of babies. Killed by prosperity. Now that was a thought.

Back on Earth, before the coming of the System, there would likely have been a host of idiotic online commentators who would have taken it upon themselves to point out the inherent inequalities in the Grakoth society, forgetting about the fact that their words were completely without value in this new world. Then Sam found himself starting to think about the people who had existed before the System, and he found himself drifting down into a cycle of anger. He banished the thoughts with a quick jerk of his head. They would not serve him here. The people who had been like that were likely long dead. He did not see them having survived long when they could not hide behind a computer screen.

“Keyboard warrior. Now that would be an interesting class,” Sam thought with a wry grin.

He kept fighting all the while however, using his hammer to great effect as a few of the aliens broke past the guard of his allies, trying to kill him. Up above, the king kept on tossing out his golden fireballs, seemingly without regard for the lives of his soldiers. More and more of the Dao Abominations lumbered down the street, coming from a strange building in the distance that looked like a cross between a church and a hospital. The bolts of golden flame were more pressing however, and Sam eventually decided to take out the king.