Sam expanded his hammer to its fullest size, setting the wagon sized head down before himself. Although the weapon had increased in size, it maintained its integrity, and its E Ranked durability.
The wave of energy washed over it, and the weapon began to heat up. Sam felt the heat even through the hammer, blistering his flesh. He slammed his palms into the weapon, and sent his own energy through it. A wave of red and blue erupted from the other end of the hammer, catching the Overlord by surprise. The man tried to teleport, but Sam snaked his awareness around the weapon, slamming down his will and Dao energy upon space around him.
He felt a sudden resistance as the other man leveraged his full willpower against the restraint, but he bore down, using every ounce of his Dao energy to keep the Overlord stationary. There was a distinct sizzling noise as the wave of energy washed over the other man, followed by a bellow of rage.
A moment later, a fist impacted the far side of the hammer, sending it hurtling into Sam’s torso. He tried to teleport away, but there was nowhere to go. Instead, he was sandwiched between the forcefield and the metal, his body compressing. Luckily, as an E Ranker, little damage was done, as there were no bones to break or organs to compress.
Sam flexed his might and imposed his will onto his hammer, shirking it down to its normal size. As the layer of armor receded, he was met with a thunderous right hook blazing in like a star let loose from its universal constraints. Sam snapped his hand up just in time to catch it, but he was hardly in a position to resist. The momentum of the Overlord’s entire body and strength was behind the strike, and although Sam was able to utilize his entire Strength stat’s worth at any point of his body, by dint of his E Rank status, it was futile. His hand was driven back into his face, slamming him into the wall with a resounding thud.
With a groan of pain, Sam extricated himself from the situation with a blastwave of energy that knocked his opponent away. Blood ran freely down his lips. As he watched the Overlord blaze with Dao energy, more than he had ever seen before, he realized that his seeming defeat was propelling the other man to heights of power previously unseen.
“I appreciate the warmup,” Sam said, spitting red fluid to the side. “I suppose it’s time to start the real battle.”
For the first time since ascending to E Rank, Sam really let loose. His Dao Heritage thundered forth, and shafts of blindingly bright light transfixed his form. Unlike in F Rank where the signature skill of his Dao Heritage almost killed him upon use, Dao Juggernaut now simply filled his body with pain. However, pain was a thing he could deal with.
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His effective stats rocketed up into the stratosphere and he clenched his fists as a heady rush of potency buoyed his entire being to a state of supremacy. The entire arena, E Rank materials and all, shattered beneath him as he took off, the glassed floor of the area shattering and vaporizing in equal measure.
A thunderous wave of pressure rebounded from the walls partitioning the area from the rest of the arena floor, conversing on Sam. He rode the pressure wave forwards, traveling at speeds eclipsing anything humanity had ever created, save for the most powerful of rockets. His body accelerated to over ten thousand miles per hour for a brief moment. In the suddenly tiny space, it felt like he was standing still. There was nowhere to go, save for towards the Overlord.
The man roared, the noise echoing like the bellows of a primordial forge. Every ounce of the Dao Energy that he had cultivated from the previous few minutes condensed into his form. For a single second, it appeared that he had become a being entirely made out of energy, every muscle limned in incandescent light.
Sam’s hammer led the way, his body turned into a ramrod of condensed flesh and power, propelling his weapon so fast that it tore vacuums into the fabric of the air around it, the snap and crackle of a thousand cavitation bubbles serenading its approach.
Mustering potency into his being that shocked even Sam, the Overlord raised his arms, seeming to tear through the suddenly soupy air in a desperate bid to block. A supernova of Dao energy erupted from the point where his arms touched, and a phantasmal figure rose into the air behind him, easily fifty feet tall.
Sam registered this all in a time so short that he could have watched a bullet travel through the air at a pace that would have seemed absurdly languid. He was testing the very limits of his perception. Had he still been a creature of flesh and blood, he would have lost track of his motions.
As it was, he had just enough time to flare his power through his hammer, creating a comet of devastation that could have taken out an entire city. In response, the energy manifestation that the Overlord had created punched forwards, moving at comparable speeds. As it punched, the energy making up its form peeled back, funneled into its torso, and then into the arm attacking. It glowed brighter and brighter the more it was condensed, until Sam faced off against a fist that seemed to be nothing more than a coagulation of pure celestial matter, torn from the heavens to oppose him. It was so bright that he had to close his eyes, for the first time since reaching E Rank. Even if the light could not harm him anymore, it occluded everything else.
At this point, neither man could do anything save to follow their attacks to the end. Sam’s hammer struck the end of the Overlord’s spectral fist, struggling against it. A shockwave of Dao energy was released from the weapon, but to his surprise, it crashed against the fist like it was a rock in the midst of a raging river. Then the metal of the hammer touched the aggregation of reddish light, and all hell broke loose.