Sam watched as his father seemed to have an epiphany about his Dao usage. The man suddenly went still, and a shard of red energy erupted from his body, slicing into the sky. Then the shard condensed, and a sword of light formed within it, dropping into his hand. His eyes opened, glistening red with power, and a smile formed on his lips.
With a wide grin, he slashed forwards, and the world seemed to open up in the path of his sword. Molecules were slashed apart, and the lava mage’s defenses were carved into nothingness. Just before the strike could hit his opponent, the mage was teleported away, out of the fight for good.
Sam let out a cheer, and watched as the water mage’s face fell further and further. A moment later, he was standing in the arena, facing off against the woman. He cracked his knuckles. This ought to be good.
“Anything you want to say first? Most of my other opponents liked to bluster,” Sam remarked.
“I know what you are,” the woman replied.
“Oh?” Sam responded, suddenly worried. Could it be that she had parsed his Dao Heritage?
“You are not of the Multiverse, at least not for long. You and your ally there came from a newly discovered universe, didn’t you?”
“What about it?” Sam said, relieved.
“Just that I have heard legends of your ilk, but never met one on par with you. There is no need to make this battle anything less than civil.”
“Well, I agree with that sentiment. My name is Sam. Sam Atlas. You probably already know that though. You must have scanned me at some point during this tournament, given your interest.”
“I am Glakassa Androvi, scion of the Blade Typhoon Sect. Perhaps we shall get to know one another better though, given our standings in the Tower.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. Was the woman flirting with him? “Well met. Now, shall we fight?”
Sam was getting better at talking to the often flighty and arrogant aliens of the greater Boundless Expanse. Having been born in a world where strength meant everything, they naturally fell into a strict hierarchy, based on power. That necessitated polite forms of address and speech, which was odd, given the general brutality of the Multiverse.
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The woman nodded and suddenly exploded into motion. A sword of ice exploded into being within her hand, a surprise to Sam. He had not been expecting the mage to use a melee weapon. Even worse, it was surrounded by a maelstrom of elemental energy, marking it as more than just an implement formed from elemental manipulation. It was a potent weapon in its own right.
Sam expanded his hammer to about twice its normal size, and rested it on his shoulder. He would let Glakassa make the first move. The woman snarled and slashed her weapon across the air. A wave of frost erupted from the end of the weapon, the air turning into crystalline ice as a wave of cold shot out.
Sam felt the frigid chill of pure elemental Ice beginning to sink into his bones. He girded them against infiltration with a bulwark of Earth, and his body began to take on the stony appearance of his elemental state. Immediately, the cold faded away, and he strode through the ice, not having to worry about the dearth of air there.
Glakassa swiped her sword again, this time sending out a wave of crushing water, sweeping through the air like a tidal wave. Sam raised his hammer and brought it down, sending a blast of Dao energy forward.
The two attacks met in midair, but Sam’s quickly began to gain headway. His Dao Seed was unusually potent, given its fused state and its second order of strength. Most cultivators avoided fusing their Daos, as the process could end in disaster. However, with Sam’s unique bonuses, he was easily able to do so.
His strike lost most of its potency by the time it reached Glakassa, and it skittered off a shell of ice that she formed around herself. Sam sighed and continued forwards, his hammer shining with bright light. Glakassa slashed her weapon through the air a dozen times in the span of a millisecond, sending forwards an array of slices. It reminded Sam of Manarox’s attack, back when he was just a lowly F Ranker facing off against the imposing reptilian man.
The flower of ice screeched through the air, promising a frigid death. Sam raised his hammer and imbued it with power, before bringing it down onto the incoming attack. With a crunching boom, the flower of ice came apart, turning into a rain of sparkling crystals. Sam rushed forwards, each step echoing through the firmament. Within a single moment, he was standing before Glakassa, his hammer descending like an inexorable meteorite.
A wave of Dao pressure erupted out of it, and as Glakassa tried to teleport, Sam crushed down space around her, using his superior Dao to great effect. Instead of teleporting, she found herself stumbling against the air. With a grimace, her entire body turned into ice, before discorporating.
She broke apart and reformed, appearing behind Sam. He whirled around, shocked. Her elemental mastery must have been immense to have formed a type of teleportation not aligned with Dao energy. He was pleasantly surprised, but not any less confident about his chances.
Going by what he was seeing, Glakassa likely had over twenty percent mastery in her element. The gaps between elemental mastery points progressed at an exponential rate, and that meant that she was many times more potent than he was in that field. However, that hardly mattered. He was strong enough in all the other areas to make up for that.