They reached the arena a few seconds later, and the Overlord began to warm up. He cracked his knuckles, and started to channel his Dao energy into himself. Sam simply watched, hefting Terra’s Will on his shoulder. The massive hammer had a conceptual weight to it that went beyond anything he had experienced before. Dao energy slid into it like silk, but he purposefully held back, not wanting to harm his father too much. However, the Overlord seemed to have no such qualms.

He blasted forwards, fists limned in reddish light. The sand beneath him glassed over as heat flared through its surface. Speed hundreds of times greater than the human norm sent him forwards like a rocket, and his fist barreled in towards Sam’s face.

Sam raised his new weapon and planted his feet, engaging his various buffs. The attack hit the hilt of Terra’s Will, and sent a ringing vibration through the weapon. However, the majority of the force was absorbed by the ground beneath him.

Sam pushed forwards, and whipped the weapon around, using the size manipulation aspect of Sun Wukong’s Staff to change its shape to a more fitting size. The weapon blurred towards the Overlord, who just in time got his hands up to block. Red light raced up and down his forearms, creating a shield of energy that blocked the incoming strike. Sam brought the weapon down with as much strength as he dared, sending his father hurtling backwards. The Overlord flipped around in the air and skidded along the ground, remaining in an upright position.

Wings of red light blossomed from his back and with one mighty flap, he rocketed towards Sam. The air crackled and boomed as the sound barrier shattered, and the arena was rocked by a blast of wind that stripped the sand off its base.

The sand blasted Sam in the face, filtering in through his armor’s eye slits. However, he simply ignored it, his eyes too durable to take any damage. He stomped the ground, projecting a charge of energy through the ground towards the Overlord. The man dodged around the wave, but he was met with a sudden bolt of energy from Sam’s free hand. There was a detonation of multihued light as the bolt exploded, blasting the other man off his feet.

Sam raced in, raising his hammer above his head. The Overlord emerged from a cloud of dust, and barreled towards Sam, in his transformed state. His body bulged with muscles, and horns rose from his brow. Behind him, his wings flapped, adding speed to his motions. His fists came rocketing in, deflected at the last moment by Sam’s hammer.

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The two men exchanged blows continuously, unwilling to commit to their full power, but still filled with an intense sense of rivalry that went beyond the scope of any normal battle. For the Overlord, his ego necessitated some degree of power compared to Sam, power that would allow him to salvage his fractured Dao. Sam meanwhile could only feel conflicted during this fight. His opponent was a man who should have stood with him from the very beginning of the induction of his world into the System, but instead had become one of his greatest enemies.

His father had treated him with nothing but kindness for most of his life, save for his abandonment of him after his mother’s death. Even then, Sam had learned that had not even been his sole fault. However, he was a different creature now than he had been before the coming of the System, tugged along by his Dao. His willpower was strong enough to prevent him from losing himself to his way, but he still was changed. No longer was he the drifter, unenthused with life, that he had once been. Now he was an arbiter, a devotee of wrath, a resolute paladin of justice, an avenger. Although he did not define himself by his Daos, they were defined by who he was.

Now that he thought about it, his constant depression before the coming of the System was likely the result of his psyche being pulled in every direction at once by his Dao Heritage. Rather than bringing any sort of strong emotion, instead it simply created a flat plane. Suddenly, he started to feel a change within himself, a sense that he was drawing closer to a breakthrough in his Dao. It would not come during this battle, but he had touched upon something close to the core of who he was.

With a sudden burst of strength, he slammed his hammer forwards, using the hilt like a shield. His opponent was unready for this, and was blasted backwards, and into the arena wall.Cracks spread across the stone, and the man groaned. He still rose to his feet almost instantly, but his aura was diminished.

“This is a curious feeling. My Dao seethes with rage at your constant overshadowing of me, but I have come to realize that you are destined for far greater things than I. My own Dao Heritage-“

“Your what?” Sam exclaimed, not having expected that. “You have a Dao Heritage?”

“As, I assume, do you. It must be a hereditary trait. Why else do you think that nobody else has a Dao close to what mine is? A Dao Fragment, that in the right circumstances, can be as powerful as a Seed? My Heritage is that of Supremacy, a Dao with few peers. However, I find myself constantly struggling to define myself as something beyond my ego. Sometimes, I feel as if there is something else at play, separating me from my true self.”

“Yes. The mental domination of an A Ranker.”

“However, this is who I truly am,” the Overlord continued, as if he had not heard Sam’s declaration. “Curious.”

Sam sighed, knowing that nothing he said could bring his father back, at least at his current level of power.