The ground continued to grow worse and worse and the terrain more treacherous. Sam gradually slowed, and his path grew harder the further he went. Lava began to spill out between the cracks in the ground, superheated to levels that would harm an E Ranker. The sky above shifted to match the ground below, and bolts of lightning started to touch down every now and again, pillars of volcanic thunderstorms stretching up into the sky.
Ash choked the air, and Sam had to close his mouth and nose, relying on his E Rank physique to carry him through. Soon, the visibility was completely gone. All he had to guide him were his other enhanced senses, and his own enhanced intelligence. He managed to keep a more or less straight path, and his sense of touch allowed him to detect pools of lava ahead of him.
Even without sight, he was able to paint a picture of the world around him. The lava grew more and more ubiquitous the further he went, turning from a few pools into a raging sea beneath his feet, only punctuated by tiny islands of obsidian in its midst. The heat had become intensely uncomfortable, so Sam used his new armor’s ability. A wave of cooling durability spread across his body, and the heat suddenly diminished to levels that he barely noticed.
A few more projectiles came arcing his way from Jacob, who was still hot on his tail. The Overlord was simply bulling his way through the lava, using blocks of Dao energy as stepping stones to avoid having to divert his path. It was an effective method, but it lacked the natural guidance of the rocky islands, which formed a natural path to the end of the track. As a result, the flame of the man’s Dao, which Sam could sense burning its way across the obstacles, was moving in a manner that would bring him to the end of the path in a more circuitous fashion. Meanwhile, Sam was able to keep going on a more or less straight line.
“Having trouble back there?” Sam called out, knowing that if he could influence the other man’s Dao, then he could leech strength off of him. However, there was no response, only a redoubling in the Overlord’s speed.
Suddenly, the ash cleared, and Sam found himself running full tilt at a vast chasm that stretched for easily a mile in width. There was no way across other than by his own momentum, so he sped up rather than slowing down.
There was a short ramp of clear stone before him, without any obstacles or lava in his path. His legs pumped like pistons, and he gathered all of his strength and speed, leaping off the ramp at the last moment, burning a few of his buffs as he went.
The air cracked apart around him as he shattered the sound barrier many times over, his immense strength propelling him through the air. The chasm stretched out below him, and he made the mistake of looking down. At its bottom was a massive maw filled with teeth. A series of coiled tongues stretched lazily out of the corners of the mouth. Sam could feel immense potency drifting up from the mouth, and he knew that it was connected to something far larger beneath. One bite from that thing, and he would be gone. It was at least Peak E Rank, or perhaps even D Rank.
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Luckily for him, his Perfect Ascension boosted stats were more than enough to carry him across the divide. He landed with a light thud on the other side of the canyon, and continued running. Soon, the ground beneath him turned to air, leaving a narrow parkour course of loose blocks of stone hanging in the void. This time, there was no monster below, just emptiness. In many ways, it was scarier than anything Sam might have felt from looking at the maw in the canyon. At least there was a chance to escape there. Here, there was simply nothingness.
At the very bottom of the pit was a speck of pure darkness, suffused with potent Dao energy. It looked like a black hole, and Sam could feel a slight tug from it. A single misstep here would mean his death. There would be no teleportation here, no Dao trickery. The event horizon was set a few dozen feet below the parkour course. The gravity was far too strong to escape for any E Ranker.
The only good thing to come of all of this was that Sam could see the end of the course. He sped up, but before he could do anything, he heard a sonic boom behind him, and a whoosh of air as the Overlord streaked through the sky, coated in a shell of Dao energy. A moment later, he plummeted to the ground, the System ensuring that his momentum wouldn’t grant him an unfair advantage in this section of the race.
Sam sent a few projectile attacks streaking up his way, but the man easily avoided them, darting and jerking around them. A laugh boomed out from his mouth, and Sam cursed, watching as he drew ever closer to the end of the track.
More and more fighters were drifting in, after Sam had been forced to slow down by the change in terrain. He could hear them a few dozen miles back, not much of a difference to an E Ranker. To his surprise, Glakassa was not among them. The mage’s skillset was not exactly suited to this sort of competition, but it hardly mattered, given that she already had the three wins that she needed to pass the floor.
Instead of worrying about that, Sam pushed himself to his limits, keeping the endpoint of the track in sight. He was ready to win this thing, but from the looks of it, Jacob had a good chance of making it as well.
Sam weaved his way across the stone blocks that separated him from the void beneath, but just as he reached about a mile’s distance from the end, something unexpected happened. His body suddenly seized, and a wave of pressure bore down on him, canceling out his stats. Within the span of a second, he had gone from being a god to a mortal. The gaps between the blocks suddenly seemed punishingly large, and as he began to pick his way across them, fear struck him. This was not what he had anticipated.