Every time Sam read a general System message within the Tower, it felt subtly off. He knew some of that was due to his translation ability, after all, Raid Boss was a term common to Earth and unlikely to be in use across the wider Multiverse. There was something else though. The announcements were much more clinical in a way, as if they had already been written long before he ever arrived in the Tower. It was quite different as opposed to the notifications that he received for skills and Dao upgrades, which were far more personal in nature.
He only spared a moment’s glance to the message before reality bent, and he found himself standing on a vast plain, next to the Overlord and Glakassa. Tens of thousands of E Rankers stood arrayed before them, about ten miles away. The ground beneath them was cracked, made out a volcanic rock that resembled obsidian, but was far cruder. The Overlord cracked his knuckles. It was a flagrant display of bodily mastery for something that was completely unnecessary for an E Ranker to ever do. However, as the noise echoed across the plain, he generated a small amount of Dao energy.
It was followed by silence, and then the army before them charged. Sam hefted his hammer and expanded it to its largest size, resting the telephone pole sized weapon on his shoulder. His immense strength prevented it from pulling him backwards, as he used his shoulder as the fulcrum of a massive lever. As his opponents were E Rankers, despite being far weaker than himself, they crossed the distance in a matter of seconds. Sam let out a roar, bolstering it with his aura. He smiled as a few of the E Rankers quailed.
The vast majority of them were propelled forwards by momentum, or perhaps stupidity, and they continued on their path, pushing those too afraid to continue to the ground. Sam could see the desperate light in their eyes, the rabid self deception of someone up against impossible odds, bolstered by something that would never make much of a difference. To Sam alone, the difference between ten and a hundred average E Rankers would mean little. Even thousands of them were not especially tough to deal with. Considering that the Overlord and Glakassa fought beside him, it would be even easier.
He opened with the most devastating attack that he could muster at short notice, wanting to break the morale of his opponents before they could even draw near.
Dao energy flickered across his form as he raised his hammer, imbuing it with the blinding light of pure energy. Purified mana, elemental energy and Dao energy came together into an unstable matrix of power that once loosed, could scour cities from the surface of the world.
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Sam kept his hammer raised as it blossomed with greater and greater power, and a few moments later, he deemed it worthy to be released.
With a cry, he brought it down, slamming it into the ground. The stone beneath cracked, but that was the least of its effects. A blistering wave of energy erupted outwards at incredible speeds, turning the stone beneath to lava, and then that lava to vapor.
Sam felt a shift in local reality as thousands of E Rankers teleported out of the arena, having surrendered. Those that remained pooled their energy behind the all too familiar forms of the lava mages, imbuing them with power. As E Rankers, they had enough control over their energy to transfer it to others. Such a thing rarely happened, but in this case, it was certainly warranted.
A shield of lava exploded upwards, miles tall and wide. It shielded all of the challengers behind it. Sam’s attack continued on, and slammed into the shield, causing it to buckle almost instantly. The lava boiled away, and the dome started to cave inwards. However, the attack was beginning to lose some of its potency, and Sam watched as it petered out upon the representation of tens of thousands of mana pools. A tiny hole formed in the middle of the shield, and the remainder of the attack sliced through, but at this point it was weakened dramatically.
Sam felt a few shards of essence enter him, but other than that, there was nothing. Either it had failed to kill many people, or everyone in the area had already surrendered.
The shield of lava collapsed in on itself, returning to the earth. It revealed the forms of the E Rankers behind it. There was a line carved into the ground in the middle of the formation, stretching outwards for almost a mile.
The array of fighters had parted around it, and nothing was left of those unlucky enough to be struck by the attack, save for a few specks of ash drifting in the air. The two lava mage twins stood at the front of the army, their hands still outstretched.
Sam smiled slightly and strode forwards, taking his time. The Overlord let out a laugh, and rose into the sky on wings of scarlet energy, zooming across the sky in a matter of seconds. He plunged down like a meteor, wreathed in the energies of his Dao. Where he landed, a crater formed, and a burst of power exploded outwards, shredding those nearby. As the dust settled, the more courageous of the nearby E Rankers charged, trying to close the gap between them and the Overlord. Instead of attacking, he simply waited. The challengers must have thought their luck to be immense, but they had no idea what was to come.