Sam could understand why. For a morally gray fighter, as it seemed most people here were, it would be advantageous to remove a potential threat in a setting in which there was no option to surrender.
Sam moved forward rather than retreat, not waiting to draw them towards his allies. Vaulting over yet another attack, Sam brought his mace down towards one of the women. It missed them by a mile, but he did not really want to hurt them. Apparently, his companions had other ideas.
Reaper charged out of the bushes, ectoplasm at the ready, heading straight towards the Bear. The man roared like an angry bull at the sight of the slight man, and charged him with his ax at the ready. At least that was one threat that Sam did not have to deal with.
Eduardo emerged far more elegantly, his rapier outstretched in a manner that reminded Sam of the depictions of medieval duels of honor that he had sometimes seen in books. Rather than take a bow however, the man thrust out his sword and sent a beam of white light straight towards the ladies. They scattered to the side and Sam picked his target. He was undoubtedly the strongest between him and Eduardo so he picked the more skilled of the two and chased her down.
She was a lot faster than him, but he had more stamina and he caught up soon enough. She snarled at him and raised her short sword menacingly. Well, it would have been menacing if she was not barely over five feet tall and perhaps a hundred pounds soaking wet, but it was the thought that counted. She gritted her teeth and started to speak, her voice a serenade of rage and frustration.
“Damn you, Arbiter. How dare you take what's mine by right?”
Sam was confused and this showed on his face, prompting an explanation.
“The first place on the Dao leaderboard was mine by right, and you stole it! Now I have no chance to get it.” The woman was completely delusional, but Sam tried to reason with her.
“Who the hell even are you? I’ve never seen you before in my life.” It was true. She was utterly unremarkable in every way and he was sure that he would have remembered such a person, if only for that reason. He would have remembered her height as well, and was sure that he had never seen her. “Why would the first place on the leaderboard be yours? It's a matter of skill, not desire," Sam continued.
Instead of answering with a normal response, she hissed at him and launched into a series of attacks that were completely without the style and grace that she had shown earlier. To Sam's surprise, they were imbued with something that almost felt like a Dao. It was clearly not a Dao, the feeling was far too weak, but she was definitely on the way to one. To his surprise, he could detect a small part of what the Dao was of, which he had never really had a chance to do before with any other Dao wielder. He focused in on her aura and was able to extrapolate it from that. Sam could not get an exact reading, but it was something along the lines of Covetousness or Greed. From his own experience with the Dao, it was very good at manipulating emotions. That explained why she felt so entitled to the position. With a smile on his face, Sam asked her a very important question.
“What’s your name?”
She stopped her attacks for a moment, confused.
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“What? Why does that matter? You’re going to die soon anyway. But I suppose I can tell you. It’s Karen.”
Sam bent over laughing, opportunely missing the slash of the woman’s sword that passed over his now lowered body.
“You piece of crap! How dare you laugh at me? I will make your death long and slow for that! Nobody defies me and lives.”
Sam rose up from his awkward position and deflected one of the sword swipes. Without bothering to explain to her what was so funny, he began to fight in earnest. Deciding not to risk using any of his Dao skills so soon after imbuing his weapon with it made the fight a lot harder, but it was manageable. After briefly checking the leaderboards during a lull in the fight, he found out that she was the number 21 ranker in the world. That explained how she and her friend had been able to fight the Bear to a stalemate, but were not actually able to finish the fight.
He checked on his allies every now and again, noting that they were doing well. Reaper had revealed a few more tricks in his arsenal that he, like the Bear, had not revealed during his fight. His entire body was wreathed in spectral energy and he was easily the same size as his opponent in his suit of rocks and earth.
In contrast to their evenly matched battle, Eduardo easily outfought his opponent and was almost casually weaving around her blows. Sam had no idea what the people in the Vatican had gotten up to behind closed doors before the System had arrived, but it was quite impressive.
Sam returned to his fight and he disarmed the woman with an artful twist of his mace, his enhanced stats allowing him to get enough of an edge over the woman to intuit her next move. It was almost like he had a miniature Sherlock Holmes inside his head, creating a series of deductions from his surroundings. It was pretty cool, hell it was extremely cool, but it was also quite strange. It had only been over a week now, and Sam was already so far past human that it was hardly believable. He raised his mace, but then thought better of it, instead reaching out with his free hand and punching the woman with it. She fell over, stunned and he walked away from her. She was a complete asshole, but not actually evil. Elminster had deserved death, but she only deserved a stern talking-to and a few lessons in empathy. As Sam had neither the time nor the inclination to give those to her, this would have to suffice.
Sam monitored the fights closely to determine which of his companions required more assistance than the other. Eduardo was basically toying with his opponent at this point so it was down to Sam to assist Reaper. He made his way over to the clashing titans of elemental energy and interposed himself, slamming his mace into the Bear’s rocky skin. The mace chinked off with an intense vibration and Sam almost lost his grip on the mace.
“Damn, that skin is hard.” Sam thought as he reeled in his weapons. The target of his attack stared down at him with a menacing growl emanating from his lips, raising one stony paw to crush him into the ground. Reaper saw his opening and thrust his hand towards the underbelly of the rock construct, but it had been a ruse all along. The Bear had revealed a keen intelligence with that maneuver, both getting a good look at his new assailant and gaining an advantageous position.
He reached down with his paw and closed it over the hand of the spirit construct, squeezing down on it with a crude smile forming on the lips of his armor. Reaper screamed in pain, the ectoplasm apparently attached to his nervous system as well as his body. The man tore into the rock with his free hand, but it was useless. The Bear was too far buried under the shifting mass of earth. He was a big man, but his suit of armor dwarfed him in its gargantuan scale.
Sam had to use his Dao, there was no other choice in the matter. As he began to channel his power into his mace, bracing for the consequences, a breathtaking roar flattened his ears back to his head. It expanded over the woods like a shockwave, sending out a concentrated pulse of raw aura power. That was clearly where the boss was, and by the sound of it, it was something far out of his league. Sam gulped, and by the expressions of the others in the clearing, they were having similar reactions.