The pressure pushing down upon him had started to tear at his body, crushing his flesh down into a smaller form. It almost felt like the monster beneath him had gained its own gravity, one far stronger than anything Sam had ever felt before. Still, he fought to the best of his ability. Straining to lift his hammer, he hefted it high above his head and sent it surging out in length, trying to maximize the tiny advantage that he had. Swirling energy coalesced around the weapon, and Sam drove the meager amounts of power that he had gathered over the last few moments into it. Then, as the monster’s clawed feet neared him, Sam brought it down.
The immense pressure pushing him towards the center of the Avatar of the Volcano drew his hammer in as well, and for a moment, it exceeded the ends of Sam’s own vision, moving too fast to see. His hands were wrenched down with it. Had he still possessed bones, they would have snapped in half from the speed. As it was, he simply let his body follow the natural course of the weapon.
The hammer buried itself into the monster’s flesh, releasing more energy than a meteor impact. The creature’s body shuddered as a wave of pressure traveled through it, and then a wave of Dao energy after, scouring the creature’s flesh like a pulse of nuclear light.
It was too late though, and the two meteoric globes of energy finally reached Sam. He felt the pressure of a falling star slam down upon him, finally dislodging him from the monster’s body. The tidal forces created by the two intersecting pressure fields threatened to tear him apart, but his body just barely managed to survive.
Then the feet themselves hit him, and his body broke apart. He let out a cry of rage, tearing his hammer down through the Avatar’s flesh, dealing a grievous blow to it. He then pulsed his armor’s durability skill again, having recharged it over the last minute or so. All he could hope to do was to tank the attack.
He was driven into the ground, Dao energy coursing around his body like acid rain, digging into his flesh through the gaps in his armor. He screamed in agony as his skin tore apart, deep furrows carved into it by the pressure. Then he hit the ground, and the torment began in earnest.
For miles in every direction, the earth was blasted upwards in a tidal wave of semi molten rock, and at the epicenter, Sam felt like someone was attempting to crush him down into an infinitesimally small speck. His body started to flatten, his armor groaning as it struggled to hold against the power being leveled against it.
Sam tried to teleport, but so dense was the maelstrom of searing energy around him that it was impossible. The monster had directed all of its considerable power to destroying the main threat to its life. Of course, this left it vulnerable to the attacks of the other E Rankers.
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Glakassa and Jacob rode out the pulse of molten rock, focusing their fire on the wounds that Sam had etched into the monster’s body. As the man was crushed beneath the creature’s all out attack, the two fighters sent their strongest attacks hurtling towards the wound in its chest.
A rending wave of red poured into the wound, widening it and sending a torrent of Dao energy into its body. The Overlord clenched his hand, and the energy exploded outwards, punching holes in the monster’s scales from the inside. Then Glakassa sent a freezing mist across the battlefield, and into the monster’s body. The sudden contact between the searing interior of the Avatar of the Volcano’s corporeal form and the subzero temperature of Glakassa’s attack created a pressure bomb that nearly tore the monster in half.
At this point, it was living off of will more than anything else, desperate to kill Sam before it in turn died. All of its power had been directed to its forelegs, crushing Sam into a pulp.
As Sam struggled to survive, he waited for his energy reserves to recover, even as he felt his flesh being pushed out between the gaps in his armor. Because he was an E Ranker, there were technically no limits to how small he could be compressed. It was still intensely painful though. He fought through that pain and eventually found enough power within himself for one last attack. It would be the difference between life and death.
He twitched his hands, enough to stimulate the flow of Dao energy, and then released it all at once in an omnidirectional jet of red and blue light. For the briefest of moments, the energy gathered around the monster’s feet was pushed back, and Sam took that opportunity to spring up, and sent his hands against its flesh. Then, with a titanic heave that seemed to belong more in the annals of mythology than anything in the mortal world, he pushed the immense monster upwards, and away.
The pressure was like standing within a hydraulic press at this point, but unlike a base human, whose bones would have shattered by now, Sam could still stand, despite his predicament. With the knowledge that he was far harder to kill, pain was less of an issue.
He held it there like his namesake, Atlas, holding up the sky, waiting for his allies to finally kill the monster so that he could escape. His arms trembled, jellied flesh barely up to the task. The only thing keeping him going were the raw currents of primal energy racing through his body from Dao Juggernaut. His strength was so high in this form that it had become something more magical than physical, a manifestation of his will onto the world around him. After all, what he was doing should have simply sent his fists plunging deep into the monster’s flesh, but instead, he was able to hold it up. It was like his Strength stat had started to extend a field of energy into the world around it to render his feats possible.
Too busy to ruminate on this for long, Sam simply stood there, drawing upon his Mantra for the first time in over a month. The crystalline core of blue metaphysical power that represented his concentrated will and desire to live burned bright within him. While it brought no power on its own, it ensured that he would fight until the very end.