Sam nodded to his teammates and motioned for them to stop.
“Alright. This is it. By the sounds of it, someone is already fighting the thing, and from the fact that they have not died yet, I am reasonably sure that it is one of the high rankers, or perhaps multiple of them. We will survey the scene first and then help out. If they try to kill us or betray us, I want you to put them down immediately. Is that understood?"
They all nodded in agreement and with nothing else to say, they stealthily slipped through the trees, or as much as a group with a ten foot tall stone man could, and paused outside of the fight. There was a sunlit area in the middle of the forest and it was about the size of a few football fields. In the middle, a vast tree stood, and it was being attacked by four figures.
The tree was not just a tree however, and as it turned towards them, they could see a massive cyclopean eye dominating the center of its upper trunk. Tentacles of moving wood extended out from its upper and lower branches, darting around and trying to catch the fighters. Small drops of green venom dripped down from them and sizzled when they touched the ground. One of the figures, who Sam recognized as Anonymous from the mask, clutched their arm from where a drop of the poison had landed earlier. The spread of wood seemed to have stopped, but the entire limb was basically useless.
The other three figures were Rodney Kane, the Scourge and the Overlord. They had entered into an uneasy truce with each other and had put aside their differences to deal with the larger threat. Even with all of their power, the three were still outmatched. The Overlord was protected from the venom by his clothing, but he was still tossed around like a ragdoll by the whipping branches of the tree. Apparently tiring of this, he planted his feet and roared out a challenge, fielding his Dao aura for the first time.
Everyone except for Sam was blown backwards as if by a gale from the power of the man’s aura. Sam himself barely held on, but as he began to field his own aura, the force lessened. Even though the Overlord was more powerful than Sam, his Dao was still weaker. Sam was the only person on Earth so far to have two Daos, and both of them together were more powerful than the Overlord’s.
Unfortunately, the use of his aura attracted the attention of the monster and a tentacle speared down towards them from near the top of the tree. Sam jumped to the side, hoping that the others could avoid it. The tentacle moved almost faster than Sam could see, and certainly faster than some of his companions could. The Bear did not bother to dodge it, instead relying on his armor to protect him. This worked and the tentacle glanced off of him, instead targeting the woman standing next to him. She tried to cut it in two with her weapon, but it sped up and impaled her on its jagged end, lifting her up and back towards its body. Sam watched in impotent rage as the tree opened up a previously hidden mouth and swallowed her whole. A moment later, a wooden facsimile of the woman popped out of the base of the tree, heading straight for Sam. That explained how the immobile tree had been able to poison people from so far away. It had created minions from the bodies of the slain and used them as agents to spread its foul toxin.
Sam and the others burst out of the woods, knowing that their only hope was to have more maneuverability. Whoever had created this boss arena had known what they were doing. It purposefully forced those around it to enter the open space, and in doing so enter the range of the creature’s attacks. Sam tried to scan the tree monster, but nothing came up. He tried again, but it was as if the skill did not work anymore. This reeked of the games of the System and Sam added this to his list of grudges against it.
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Sam hefted his mace and charged directly at the monster, knocking aside the myriad of attacks that sped towards him from on high. He only had one shot at this, and he was going to make this ability count. Sam zigzagged back and forth to avoid the poison on the ground and reached the base of the tree. Imbuing his mace with an even blend of his Daos, he triggered its once a day ability. A cone of red light erupted out of the mace, colored with white and orange tints. A celestial chime mingled discordantly with a demonic roar as the Dao infused attack went off.
The beam slammed into the tree, carving a 10 foot wide hole into its side. Sticky sap-like ichor spilt out of it and Sam was filled with a boundless supply of power as his Dao energy flooded back towards him as well as the power of the skill. His body began to glow with light and he jumped up onto the body of the tree. This was a dangerous move as the thing was covered in its green poison, but it evaporated upon touching his skin. Sam clambered up, within the minimum range that the tree needed to properly attack him. He reached its eye with a mere moment to spare and slammed his mace into it with all of his strength. The tree let out an eardrum bursting roar of pain and fury, blasting Sam off it with the vibrational force of its cry. He rocketed down into the ground, out for the count.
Sam woke up a few moments later, his body aching from his overuse of his Dao. His gambit had paid off however and the tree was now inhibited by its lack of clear eyesight. It was able to detect its assailants through the use of some other sense, but it was not as sharp. His companions and the others were in the process of whittling away at the tentacles, blunting, quite literally, its means of attack.
Sam got to his feet and was immediately put down into the dirt again as the ground rumbled. The tree screamed in pain as it ripped its roots out of the ground and began to thrash them about. The move seemed to hurt the tree immensely and its bark started to become gray, but it was able to seize three of the fighters in the time that it had its roots exposed and began to lower them towards its mouth. As Eduardo, the Bear and Rodney Kane dangled over the cavernous mouth of the tree, a flare of light burst out from the trees like a comet and drop kicked the monster. As the light faded, an old man was revealed, limned in the glow of a masterfully utilized expenditure of Dao energy. A wave of energy coursed up from the point of impact, seemingly doing nothing until it reached the root that grasped the three fighters. The tip of the root exploded outwards in a storm of shards and they were dropped down to the ground. All of them, except for the Bear, were covered in the green poison. They were already starting to turn into wood and Sam rushed over to take them to safety.
It seemed to be spreading more slowly on them than it had been on the other people, perhaps because of their personal power. In any case, they only had about 30 minutes left to live at the rate that they were transmuting.
Profound Visionary stared at the tree, his face a mask of impassivity, and he began to cycle his hands in a strange pattern. In between them, a glowing ball of energy collected and after a moment, it shot out of his hands towards the tree. It let out a rumbling laugh and slammed its tentacles into the ball, removing it from sight. As it gloated, its noises were suddenly cut off as most of its mouth disintegrated in a ball of blue fire. The old man stumbled backwards but caught himself and watched the aftereffects of his attack.
It still was nowhere near dead, but it was going there at this rate. It had too many people to deal with and more of them came every minute. The Overlord looked over at Profound Visionary, his mask concealing his true emotions, but Sam believed that he was almost afraid of the old man by the way that he stood. Sam definitely was. That use of his Dao had been far more powerful than anything that Sam had been able to do yet. Despite nominally being above him on the Dao leaderboard, Sam felt like a novice next to him. He needed to find out how to use his Dao more efficiently if he was to stay on top.