As the ramp slid down, the others exited, stepping out onto the rocky slopes. The air was suffused with power, but it felt completely controlled, as if they had stepped into a world of logic and rules, where every action was balanced and nothing was unexpected. It was very strange, to say the least.
Sam subconsciously found himself making sure that every step took the same amount of time and covered the same distance. It was a relatively harmless effect, but there nonetheless. The others were a bit more affected, and Sam watched as they kept drifting off, walking like automatons until they realized what was happening.
“This is one of the strangest things I have ever felt,” Eduardo complained. “It’s like I’m being puppeted by an outside force.”
The only person who seemed unaffected was Lao, because his Dao already followed the ideals of balance, meaning that he was in his natural habitat.
The others soon got over the compulsions, and moved silently across the mountain peaks. None of them dared to use any sort of movement technique, remembering what the Titan had done to the ship. It was best not to risk falling out of the sky. Sam might have been able to resist the Titan’s aura, but his teleportation ability was quite easy to sabotage if one had enough Dao energy.
As they crossed the mountains, they quickly found that they were strangely devoid of life. Nothing lived within the crystalline peaks, likely scared away by the power of the Lawful Titan. After all, the greatest state of Order possible was nothingness. In the natural world, Death was a state with far less entropy inherent than life. A graveyard filled with inert corpses would last for centuries without change, whereas a living being would make a myriad of choices, sending ripples out into the firmament.
The sound of stomping footsteps could be heard coming from the center of the mountain range, the only possible source of which was the Titan. Each tread came at exactly the same rhythm, and they sounded like the beat of a cosmic drum, keeping everything in an endless rhythm. The compulsion to walk at a regular beat doubled as the sound of the footsteps grew louder, and eventually Sam stopped resisting. It was harmless anyway.
Then he noticed something far more disconcerting. As he walked, his mind was being subtly ground away, leaving him simply staring at the path ahead of himself, without any thoughts apparent. With a surge of Dao energy, he snapped back to reality, gritting his teeth. His Dao exploded out of himself, engulfing the others in an instant. They stumbled, unfocused eyes suddenly settling back onto the right track.
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“This is a lot more dangerous than I thought,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “Whatever this Titan is, it’s extremely insidious. Watch your body and minds closely.”
“What the hell just happened?” Jeffrey asked as he looked around. They were almost five miles from the beginning of the mental annulment field.
“The Titan’s aura is starting to take root in our minds, not just our bodies. I’m glad we decided to go for this one first. If we had waited any longer, it might have grown too strong to defeat.”
“We must combine our Daos,” Lao suggested. “That is the only way to ensure safety. It cannot overpower Sam’s Dao, and adding our own will make sure of that.”
The Daos of the others quickly rose up to meld with Sam’s, creating a dome of light around them. The compulsions faded away to nothing, leaving them completely in control. Now a lot more vigilant, they continued on their way.
A few hours later, they were nearing the center of the crystalline array. The will of the Lawful Titan pressed in on the ground like the weight of a world, but Sam remained strong, his Dao unyielding. At this point, the footsteps were like thunder, and when the Titan finally came into view, they froze. The monster was a lot larger than the other Titans, fused with a mountain’s worth of crystal. Its power was not that much higher individually, but the array below it exuded a monumental amount of Order elemental energy. The sky for dozens of miles shone a bright blue, completely free of clouds.
“Ah. The ants finally enter my domain. You have felled many of my brethren, but this is where it all ends. Order will not be denied.”
The Titan spoke like a robot, every word and syllable completely measured. This was what happened when one completely gave themselves over to an element. The Titan raised its mountainous right arm, and a pillar of blue light descended from above, forming a mile long greathammer of blue crystal. Bolts of lightning crackled around it, and a sudden wave of pressure buffeted the party. The Titan slammed the butt of the weapon into a mountaintop, and the mountain cracked down the middle with a noise like a nuclear blast.
“KNEEL!”
A blastwave of power erupted out from the weapon, cracking stone. Sam and the others hunkered down as a titanic windstorm began to surge, scouring the mountaintops clean of snow.
“We need to attack, before it gets too strong,” Sam said, gathering crackling power within his hammer. His weapon hummed as the energy surged along its melted length, but he could tell that it was still as strong as ever. “Cover me!” He shouted as he teleported towards the Titan.
A variety of buffs descended on him, mixing with his own empowerment abilities. His strength surged in the blink of an eye, and his hammer blazed with monumental force.
The Titan laughed as Sam approached, swinging its city sized weapon with frightening ease. The air hummed as the weapon flew through the air, trailing lightning as it went. Sam teleported past it, and towards the Titan’s head. He was like a bacteria next to its massive form, but he was a bacteria that could punch way above his weight class. With a thunderous detonation, his hammer came down with enough power to level a city block, cracking the crystal of the Titan’s head.