Sam and Glakassa watched from a safe distance as the Overlord let loose, and the battle paused as the nearest fighters lost their nerve. They all knew Sam to be the strongest among them, and if one of his companions was so powerful, then that spoke volumes about his own skill. A sudden wave of teleportations swept across the land as many of the E Rankers realized that this battle was hopeless. It was better to take the loss here, and hope for a better chance later.
At this point, only the elites were left, about a thousand of the most powerful E Rankers in this section of the Tower. Ranging from the lava mage twins to even stranger beings aside, these were far more powerful than most. Sam would find both the greatest challenge here, and the greatest rewards. Of course, the former was hardly saying much.
He paused in his absolute domination of his foes and watched as the survivors began to gather their energy together. Sam simply waited. He was eager to see what sort of technique they were about to use. Perhaps it would make this more interesting.
The Overlord finished up his part of the battle and teleported back to Sam and Glakassa, standing beside them as they stared down the small legion of E Rankers before them. It represented a force that could have devastated an entire planet in a matter of hours, but all Sam saw was weakness.
“This is your last chance to leave before I let loose,” Sam declared, wanting to give those arrayed before him a way out.
“You might have dominated those of us on the more pathetic side of the power scale,” one of the lava mages declared, “but you will find that we are very different.”
“I remember the tournament, and I’ll make my judgment from that,” Sam replied, grinning as the two mages gritted their teeth at the slight. “Why should it be any different now? I don’t even remember anyone save for you two.”
“Attack!” One of the other E Rankers howled, incensed to the utmost. With a quick scan of his Dao, Sam read that the man had a stereotypical berserker Dao, one aligned to some form of ego related concept. It was like the Overlord’s Dao, but far weaker.
The man charged, eliciting a hiss of anger and fear from the others waiting beside him. Sam didn’t even look his way, instead snapping his fingers. Using his advanced Dao mastery, he created a downward facing bolt of energy right above the man’s head. It was unnecessarily flashy, and somewhat unnecessary in general, but it was worth it. With a single scream of terror, the man surrendered, just before the ground beneath him was obliterated for almost a mile straight down. The hole was narrow at the expense of horizontal power, but it had been calibrated to obliterate the man alone, rather than everyone around it.
It was a display of power that firmly cemented Sam’s presence within the eyes of those watching as a true monster of E Rank potential. Most of them had no doubt seen the power of those far beyond them, D Rankers, or perhaps even higher, but none of them had expected for someone like Sam to exist within the Tower. Tales were told of the beings that reached Tower levels past fifty, or even seventy five, but they were few and far between.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It was known for certainty that level ninety was the cut off point for A Rank potential, and there had been less than a thousand of those in the entire history of the Multiverse, which had existed for untold eons. B Rank was a bit more reasonable, but still incredibly rare. Only C Rankers had any sort of regular contact with those of the first two Tiers, acting as arbiters of the will of their B Rank masters and A Rank overlords.
Sam took a single step forwards, and almost unconsciously, those facing him took a step backwards. The proudest of this Tower run’s crop of challengers actually lost their nerve in the face of a single man. Had Sam been the Overlord, his Dao energy reserves would have been high enough to obliterate a country by now.
“This isn’t worth our lives!” One of the E Rankers shouted, before surrendering.
Quite a few more followed her example. A good portion of his success so far was through the cultivation of his own image, which he found far more palatable than embarking on a killing spree at a rate too quick for his targets to escape.
“Three,” Sam intoned, raising his hammer. A bolt of lightning descended from the cloudless skies, and the weapon began to glow with an oppressive fervor. “Two.” His body started to glow alongside his weapon, and his aura rolled out. Bolts of energy flickered down from the head of his weapon, obliterating everything they touched. By this point, his weapon was brighter than the sun in the sky. His energy reserves vanished like frost before a midsummer’s day as they entered his weapon. To make this work, he really had to sell it.
Flickering teleportations transported the vast majority of the remaining fighters to safety. A few enterprising challengers teleported behind Sam, trying to land a hit, but they were instantly killed by Glakassa and the Overlord.
“ONE!” Sam roared with all of his might. He swung his hammer, expanding it to its fullest size at the last moment. The air burst into a raging pyroclasm as the hammer tore through it, ionizing the atoms. The ground beneath melted, but the energy swirled around Sam and his allies harmlessly, entirely under his control.
A wave of pressure preceded the blast wave, tearing up the ground for a dozen miles in every direction. E Rankers were tossed like grains of dust in a maelstrom, and with one final snap, their collective will broke. A single bolt of lava lanced downwards, one final act of defiance. Compared to Sam’s fully realized strength, it was nothing. He was fighting at a level far beyond anything he had shown so far, save for in the tournament. Saving his power for now had been wise, but ultimately pointless. It hardly mattered if anyone knew his abilities. They were too weak to do much to him in any case.
As the last two fighters disappeared, his attack hit. The System seemed to pause, giving him an opportunity to witness his might for himself. His awareness seemed to ride out through his Dao, granting him full awareness of the scope of his power.
Spectral knights of red and blue rampaged along highways of conceptual energy, each hoofbeat melting the rock beneath and creating a sound like the harbingers of Armageddon. A tiny change in mental state changed them into an endless wave, representing the futility of escaping an devotee of Vengeance. Millions of different images existed at the same time, representing a Dao that had as many facets as users. For one moment, Sam witnessed everything, and received an infinitely small taste of his future.
A quasar of power erupted into the atmosphere of the dimensional space, and a wave of destruction rippled across the land. Rock turned instantly to vapor, leaving a tiny ledge of stone standing in the middle of a crater filled with bubbling lava. It extended down for miles, and was so wide that it would have taken a mortal a day to cross it on foot. Only then did the System finally exert its dominance, and transported Sam back to the 25th floor of the Tower.