Kane blitzed forwards, his sword glinting in the light. Strangely, it was the one thing on his body not suffused with darkness. The Overlord let out a howl, and a pillar of energy descended from the sky. Sam could sense the conceptual resonance with the mighty battle that had just been fought. The man was leveraging his role in it to empower himself. His form expanded until he stood a full two feet taller, and horns sprouted from his forehead.

“I call this skill Ego Forge,” he declared. “It allows me to hammer out my own apotheosis upon the anvil of my achievements. Beware, for you fight with a demigod.”

From anyone else, these words would have invited ridicule, but such was the nature of the Overlord’s Dao. Any attention was better than none. As the three men burned with their might, Sam’s eyes flared with the power of his Dao and his rage.

“So, you wish to treat my generosity and willingness to put aside our differences like refuse? Very well then. I shall treat you the same.”

Sam spotted a flare of lightning as Talnor began to charge up his weapon, but he shook his head. This was a battle for him, and him alone. Resolve of the Avenger triggered, followed by Girdings of the Arbiter. He tensed as pain ripped through his body, but it was negligible compared to the power he gained.

With a stride that turned the rock beneath him to glass, he met his two nemeses with his hammer, sweeping it across in a mighty swing. The Overlord grinned, and his hands warped, turning into massively clawed implements of war. Strength filled his form, and he brought his hulking weapon down, sundering the earth. For hundreds of feet in every direction, stone rippled and shattered, sending Kane off balance. Sam simply teleported a few inches into the air, and avoided the worst of it.

He flitted forwards, and grabbed both of the other men with his hands, shrinking his hammer down to a more convenient size. He teleported miles into the air, and then fell, channeling his spiritual might into himself and his weapon. He locked down the air around his two foes with his Dao, gritting his teeth as they pummeled him with all they had.

Faster and faster they fell, until they impacted the ground with an apocalyptic smash. Sam felt his bones compress, but nothing broke. Dazed, the other two men rolled away, straight into another swing of Sam’s hammer. Kane was lifted off his feet, his teeth shattering, and the Overlord was knocked backwards, only his last second block with his hammer saving him from worse.

“Give. It. Up. You cannot defeat me here,” Sam declared, although his body was aflame with the consequences of overtaxing himself.

Rodney Kane noticed this, and grinned through broken teeth. “You’re full of shit, Atlas. You did something to yourself during that fight against Gaea. Even now, you’re growing weaker.”

Black fire surged around his form, and he launched himself forwards, each beat of his stygian wings propelling him. With a series of clattering strikes, he wove Excalibur around in a blurring arc of slashes, all of which were deflected by Sam’s hammer. He had to leverage a surprising amount of his weapon mastery to stand against the other man. Apparently, Kane had been training as well.

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Sam eventually broke through the other man’s guard, and he stepped right into a devastating blow from the Overlord, who had been biding his time for the perfect chance to strike. Sam’s head rang as his armor dented, and he stumbled backwards.

Kane cackled, but he went silent soon enough as the Overlord turned his gaze on him. Red lightning cracked around his form as he channeled his egotistical fulfillment of matching Sam into his body. His weapon surged forwards like a snake, and slammed into Rodney’s chest. Bones shattered, and he went flying backwards, skipping along the ground for a thousand feet.

Sam looked back, only to see the corrupted form of his father raising his weapon high above his head. It glowed with red light, and up in the sky, a phantom copy of it descended, hundreds of times larger.

Sam swore, and teleported away. However, the ghostly weapon followed him. He stood his ground and struck back, his own hammer blazing with the light of a Dao Seed. Even then, he was still unable to fully fight back. Supremacy was a narrow path, but one that brought great benefits.

His bones cracked and popped as he was forced down into the ground, but eventually the force dissipated, leaving him standing in a crater. He grimaced, and glared at the Overlord, whose aura of red light had diminished somewhat.

Sam raced in, his head tingling, and drove his hammer into the Overlord. The man tensed his muscles and stood still, the ground beneath him cracking. He turned his head, smiling so widely that Sam almost thought his face would tear in half. This was likely to bolster his failing Dao reserves. It was extremely disturbing watching this expression on the visage of his own father. However, he still had more power to bring to bear.

With every ounce of his Dao energy and stats, he pushed through the resistance, and knocked the man off his feet. Blood sprayed as the Overlord flew, and his aura of red light diminished again.

Sam roared, blood flying out alongside the spittle through a hole in his helmet. He was getting sick and tired of having to fight against the people who should have been working with him to defend the planet. It was time for the tribalism and the backstabbing to end.

Power surged through him as he channeled Dao Juggernaut, but rather than letting it rampage through his body, he leveraged all of his Dao Seed to limit the scale. Power rushed into him, and he let out a scream as threads of white light slammed into his body. However, the effect was far less than before.

Rather than exponentially increasing his strength, it merely doubled it. The fire in his core and channels built to a fever pitch, but it was enough. He flew forwards, his feet blazing across the ground, and snatched the Overlord’s weapon from his hands. With a roar, he slammed both hands together. Light surged as the weapons merged, and he was left holding what looked like the hammer of a god in his hands. There was only one piece missing, and there was a clear indent in the back of the weapon. There was only one thing that could fill that hole. Excalibur.

Before the Overlord could do anything more than rage, he blitzed Rodney Kane and sent him a hundred feet into the ground with a Dao enhanced punch. Excalibur was ripped out of his grip, with his hands coming with it. With one final grin, Sam pressed the weapon to the back of his hammer, and felt his armament go through apotheosis. Golden light bathed the area like the sun had been summoned, and the hammer floated into the air, tugging Sam with it. A notification appeared before him, and he read it. It was the description of the hammer.

Terra’s Will

E Rank Artifact(Hammer)

A combination of seven of the most potent weapons from the planet’s mythos, this weapon represents the collective will of its inhabitants. As long as Terra stands, and a guardian with it, this weapon will forever blaze bright.

Special Ability: Arsenal of the Old Gods

Any one of the constituent weapon skills can be used by the wielder of this weapon.