The Overlord charged forth a moment later, his fists the center of two novas of brilliant power. Jacob Atlas was in the prime of his expertise, honing his ego on those that should have been beyond himself. Sam almost felt a sense of unequivocal pride in his father, before reality reasserted itself, and he remembered the gulf that they still had to cross to create any semblance of a real relationship once more. From the man’s almost insurmountable xenophobia to his personality, there were many things that stood between them.

Sam teleported in, readying his hammer to strike. As he went, he raked the monster’s body with pillars of pure elemental power and Dao energy, weakening its armor. Obsidian blistered and boiled beneath strikes that could have scarred a country. Against the high E Rank monster, such attacks were nothing more than a painful distraction. It really put into perspective just how much Sam had changed.

His hammer impacted the monster’s head a split second later, glowing so brightly that the metal seemed to have transformed into the incandescent glory of a star. With his various bonuses from reaching E Rank, he could use his strongest attack skill multiple times within a fight. The only one that still posed any sort of difficulty was Dao Juggernaut, but even that had receded in its danger.

The obsidian buckled beneath the blow, liquifying as the raw potency of a Dao Seed slammed into it. Sam felt a foreign force fighting against his own Dao, but he stomped down with his will. With the monster’s power divided out between so many foes, it was far too distracted to be able to muster the full might of its Dao against him.

Sam narrowed down his will and intent into a spike of energy that cracked through the armor, landing on the monster’s scaled forehead like a comet sent by an angry god. The scales cracked, but ultimately held. Sam found himself wondering why so many powerful beings used armor that was actually weaker than their own skin. Then again, he had been guilty of the same offense.

Sam used the redirected force to leap upwards and gather power for another strike. By that point, the monster had mostly recovered, and the sockets on its helmet flared. Two points of light blazed within them, vast amounts of elemental energy gathering within the creature's eyeballs.

Sam teleported, but to his surprise, he felt a resistance as the monster attempted to lock down space. It seemed that it had a great deal more intelligence than it projected. The two eyes glared up at him, and in the brief moment where he was unable to teleport, they sent their energy racing forth, streaming through the air. Sam was caught, transfixed by the beams of pure heat. His armor did a good job of resisting it, but even as he desperately used all of his buffs, he felt his doom approaching. His armor flared white hot, crisping his skin beneath it. Only his E Rank body saved him from instant death, as the heat was distributed equally across his form. Even then, it was a close call.

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Sam was blasted backwards by the sudden expansion of air, and traveled miles in the blink of an eye, his flesh flaking off as it regenerated. With his E Rank body, nothing was beyond reach in terms of regeneration, as long as he hadn’t already died. He could regenerate lost limbs, if not with ease, then with far greater speed than he would ever have expected. More superficial wounds were nothing before his power.

He angled his descent, and then teleported safely to the ground, before leaving back into the air. Had his armor been off, he would have looked like something out of a horror movie, and even now, his suit of armor was filling up with pieces of charred flesh. It was a very uncomfortable experience to say the least.

He reached the battle a few moments later, his hammer already gathering energy. At this point, he was starting to run low on his elemental power and mana, a rarity at his level of power. He instead drew upon his massive stores of Dao energy, far greater than most at his level. The resulting flame of flickering potency that was generated on the end of his hammer blazed blue and red, with hardly a hint of the yellow energy of his elemental power, or the blinding light of his purified mana.

As he went, Sam scanned the monster. He was starting to get tired of referring to it as such in his mind.

Avatar of the Volcano(Elite)

Level 220

Its name was highly fitting, and its level, concerning. It was almost seventy levels higher than his own, and more than strong enough to spell an end to almost everyone in E Rank below its level. The fact that Sam could even fight it without dying was a miracle.

He watched between teleports as Glakassa and Jacob ringed the monster, sending in waves of energy and power that kept it from ravaging the rest of the gathered E Rankers. In turn, they sent a constant barrage of projectiles towards the Avatar of the Volcano, weakening it, if only marginally.

The monster was wreathed in chains of hoarfrost and glacial ice, but every movement of its body sent out waves of star-level heat that melted Glakassa’s best efforts as if they were mere icicles desperately fighting against the light of the sun.

The Overlord was having a bit more luck in his endeavor, and his punches steadily weakened the structural integrity of the monster’s armor. Even then, he was flagging, the heat starting to get to him. Had it been simple heat, then none of the E Rankers would have suffered so much. The problem was that it was imbued with Dao energy, which leveled the playing field significantly.

Sam was the only one here with the potency in that regard to resist. Had this monster been a true high E Ranker, its Dao would have been insurmountably powerful. Instead, it was capped at the level of Sam’s own.