Sam came to a few moments later, falling towards the ground. He was bruised all over and his mana channels felt as if they had been stretched to their limits. There was a strange haze in the air around him, as if something had been turned to ash. When he looked around for the enemy king, he only saw a few pieces of clothing falling to the ground. Essence entered him in a tide, propelling him up a level. As he fell, he let out a grunt of pain as the energy cracked open a node. A skill notification appeared in front of him, which he quickly read.
You have gained a new Dao Skill!
Sky Splitting Vengeance: Ancient
Combining pure mana and Dao energy, while sandwiching the two between a caustic mixture of elemental energy would generally be a recipe for disaster. Disaster for you, rather than your enemy. However, you have found a synergy between this and your teleportation skill, allowing you to strike before the energy kills you. This skill comes with great danger however, as if it is not discharged within a few moments, all of the energy will rush into you. You tread a dangerous path, touching upon concepts beyond your ken. This is your final warning. You will not be cautioned again.
The ominous bent of the description did nothing to stem his happiness at having created another Ancient skill. It was an incredible achievement. In addition, it was of a more offensive nature than his other one, which would serve him well. There was some sort of natural synergy between the two skills, and he knew for a fact that he possessed raw firepower beyond most his level. Perhaps if he ventured out into the wider Multiverse, he could find people of his level that were a match for him, but within this universe, he was likely the strongest person. That gap would likely shrink as others used their training tokens, others like the Overlord, but he doubted that any of them would create an Ancient skill before the tournament. Only his incredible level of Dao comprehension and connection had allowed him to create the first one, and the second was only made possible by the first one. There was no good in having a powerful skill that would kill you every time that you used it. Such a thing was worse than useless.
He landed a moment later, grunting as he felt the ground shake beneath him. With the death of the enemy king, the surviving fighters were being routed towards a massive portal in the center of the city, fleeing to another world most likely. Manarox and his ilk would not make such a retreat an easy one however. The alien warlord was in the thick of it, and Sam could see him slicing his way through the enemies, roaring in joy. Sam felt a sudden pang of loneliness at the thought of just how powerful he had become compared to everyone else, and how powerful he was going to be. He had not increased too much in levels, all things considered, but his overall power had increased many times over. He could probably take out a small village in a single atack now if he really wanted to, which was an incredible amount of power for any one man to have. Usually in his fights that power was not fully realized, as most of it was spent on the durable bodies of those he fought, but perhaps it was time to do some testing. It would be helpful to find out his limits.
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He was slowly but surely becoming more and more dependent on his energy abilities, which functioned as a power boost beyond his normal stats. While his normal level of strength was impressive, it was nothing like the amount of force that he could bring to bear while pulling out all the stops. Of course, there was no point in feeling down about that. Every part of his power was still his power, and embarking upon some macho desire to prove himself in the arena of pure stat based dominance was a surefire way to get himself killed. His class made it so that his stat points were pretty evenly divided, which made him more of a generalist than anything else. The only reason that he did not need to invest more heavily in one stat over another was because of his huge stat boosts. Gordanus had told him that most titles were gained in the very infancy of one’s power, save for the highest of titles, reserved for godlike beings. At that level of power, it was hard to find a challenge that was worth rewarding someone for.
Sam shook his head and started running towards the enemy lines, eager to test himself. The battle was already in its twilight hours, but there was still some good fighting left there. The corpses were strewn thickly on the ground, creating a carpet of vaguely piscean forms that mingled with the Grakoth corpses into a melange of carnage. Sam ignored it, inured to the horrors of war by now, and simply treated it like solid ground. There was no sanctity in the bodies of the dead, at least not in a world where the System existed. They were simply meat, devoid of all value once their essence was gone.
Sam barged his way through the fighters, leaping over their heads when he had the chance. The Grakoth recognized him at any rate, allowing him to pass by them. When he finally hit the retreating lines of the enemy, they were nearly all to the portal, taking heavy losses as they went. Sam summoned his Sky Splitting Wrath skill to his left hand, and threw the spear of energy towards the enemy, creating a nova of light that erased a hundred of them in one blast. His strength was rising and rising, and soon he would be almost unstoppable. Before he could let the megalomaniacal thoughts get to his head, he lost himself in battle, using his hammer to great effect. He had little need to rely on his weapon mastery against such weak opponents, and it only took a single swing to put most of them down.