With a grunt, he summoned his full might, and leaped towards the roof of the monster’s mouth, and broke through with a quick strike from his hammer. He preserved most of the energy contained within it however. Grabbing onto the flesh, he started to burrow into the monster’s form, thankful that it was so light. There was almost no resistance, and it simply healed over behind him. The heat was an order of magnitude worse, but Sam pushed past the pain. He worked like a madman, sensing that the monster’s energy core was near. He could feel the monster shake as a barrage from the city hit it once more, but that was only a secondary concern.
As the fist descended, Sam finally reached the core. While the light of the Titan itself was uncomfortably bright, the core was actually blinding. Sam instantly went blind, unable to see anything other than light and shadow. He powered through however, and made his way towards the greatest concentration of light. With a roar, he swung his hammer. It struck the core with a noise like a hammer striking a gong, and the core trembled. The Titan froze, and started to shake, trying to dislodge him.
However, its hubris had spelled its end. Sam detonated the charge within the hammer, letting it sweep him away. The core cracked fully, and the energies contained within erupted outwards, blasting apart the Titan’s head. If not for its elemental aspect, such a thing would have been impossible. However, just like the core of a star, the Solar Titan’s core was so densely compressed, that any significant force would cause it to explode. As the world faded into blackness, Sam felt a wave of essence sweep him up to new heights of power.
When he came to, he was surrounded by his allies, lying on the ground where the Titan had stood. Of the monster, there was nothing left, save for fragments of its core. Jeffrey was bent low over Sam, holding a healing crystal. With a grunt, Sam started to get to his feet, and his captains withdrew. A notification awaited him.
You have killed the Solar Titan!
You have leveled up!(x10)
He could sense that his Wisdom was on the cusp of the next threshold. However, he was apprehensive to go through the ceremony fully. He had just gone through another two thresholds barely ten minutes earlier, at least in his conscious mind, and was not eager to repeat the experience. However, he knew that he would have to do so soon enough.
“You’re getting more and more adept at killing those Titans,” Lao said. “We hardly did any work this time.”
“That one seemed to have a weakness to my abilities,” Sam explained. “It was made almost entirely out of energy, and as such it was easy to get through. Unlike the Corpse Titan, I was able to reach its core with ease. It probably didn’t expect anyone to be able to withstand its heat for long enough.”
“Well, congratulations on the new levels. We all got some as well. I am over level 100 at this point, and the rest of the captains are approaching it,” Talnor interjected.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Sam looked around him, taking in the progress that they had made. As he grew in strength, he interacted with them less and less, leaving them to make their own decisions. In fact, it was mainly just Edgar, Lao, Jeffrey and Talnor that he spoke to with regularity.
All of them crackled with power, each one a powerhouse upon the face of the planet. No other faction had such powerful fighters at their beck and call. The only way that any of the other factions would even be able to compete was if all of the captains died, and the city was turned to ash by one of the Titans. Besides, it was likely that the Overlord and Rodney Kane had already been displaced by the monsters.
Sam smiled at his captains and congratulated them on their achievements, before heading off towards a secluded area to press through his next threshold. He was coming closer and closer to reaching the second threshold in all of his stats, which would propel him to new heights of power.
The captains kept talking as he left, discussing what to do with the core fragments that were left on the ground. Sam ignored them, heading for the wall. He quickly hopped over it and the moat, using his massive Strength, and landed on the ground behind it. For this threshold ceremony, he wanted to use one of the barns.
There were a lot of barns, a lot more than seemed necessary, given that most of the grain was transported directly to the Interweb. Sam got a few glances from the nearby farmers, who had come back to work remarkably quick after seeing the Titan fall. He gave them a friendly wave, and kept moving.
By the time he entered the barn, he was already apprehensive about the pain that was to come. In many ways, the Wisdom Threshold was the worst of them, as the pain lingered even after the ceremony was over. Rather than cause physical pain, it instead reminded the person going through it of every mistake that they had made, and how easy it would have been to correct it.
Sam sat down in the barn, and closed his eyes, before mentally giving himself permission to go through the ceremony. His reserved stat points finally took effect, and his mind began to wander. As soon as the threshold began in earnest, he gritted his teeth, already reminded of the disaster that was the fight against the Corpse Titan.
None of the casualties had been necessary, and had he simply possessed the correct mindset, everything would have been alright. A stream of regrets started to enter his mind, and he gritted his teeth, hardly able to bear them. They came in fast and heavy, from little things to huge ones. As the mental anguish grew worse and worse, Sam eventually had enough. He set his mighty will against the threshold, and forced himself to disregard what it was saying. It was one of the hardest things that he had ever done, but he managed it. Bolstered by his Mantra and his experience in matters such as these, he forced himself to disregard everything that his mind was telling him. There was nothing that he could do to change it. This blunted the pain a bit, and it eventually ended, leaving him gasping for breath.
You have passed the second threshold of Wisdom!
Wisdom is something that you possess in abundance, for you have survived this long in a dark and dangerous world. In passing your threshold, you have reaffirmed this statement, and proven your might to the world. When you are the last being alive, only Wisdom will see you through the end.