Locus Tree, Vallenar

Sam’s path across Vallenar had started to slow, now that he was forced by the System to cooperate with the defenders of the Forest Folk. However, he was gaining something more valuable. An opportunity to truly engage in something beyond the confines of not only his own universe, but his own Multiverse. A few days had passed since his first mission with them, and much of that time had been spent training alongside them.

Infuriatingly enough, most people were not like him, able to throw themselves against the odds continuously, and without fail. Even the elites of the Forest Folk were still mortal, despite their level. They grew tired, and had all too familiar foibles. Fear chief amongst them. While Sam was confident in a one on one fight against the Voidrot Guardians, due to his unique confluence of potencies, the Forest Folk were not. They worked in a team, and refused to go into situations where victory was uncertain. After all, even one of their demises would represent a large portion of the bedrock of the defense forces of Vallenar.

Sam had been unwillingly forced to become a sparring partner for the aliens whose skills were below his own. Not their weapon skills, which were immaculate, but their overall power was nothing compared to his own, especially in a one on one fight. While Sam was perfectly able to obliterate hordes of equally leveled fighters, he excelled against single foes at a higher one. He was incredibly mobile, and the existence of his ability to demolish legions meant that channeling such power down to a single target was even more devastating.

“Again,” Bronvar said sternly, snapping Sam out of his reverie. He looked up, and saw five members of the Council of Guardians picking themselves up from the heap that their latest fight had left them in. Of course, Sam had been the instrument of their embarrassment.

“He fights like a demon,” one of them muttered, giving Sam a look of begrudging respect.

“I wonder how he’s like in a different arena of battle,” one of the few female members said, giving him a look that made him quite uncomfortable, not least because they were completely biologically incompatible. As far as he could tell, the Forest Folk bred like mushrooms, with clouds of spores carrying their genetic material to females. That was why there were so few Forest Folk women among their number.

“I appreciate the offer,” Sam replied with a grin, “but I’m not sure I would like the price.”

“Does the pretty boy here not want his prized possession covered in splinters?” the woman replied, showing a disturbing amount of knowledge about Sam’s anatomy, knowledge that she really shouldn’t have possessed, given her species.

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Sam grimaced at the mental image. “I’m already spoken for.” Then he paused. He hadn’t given much thought to his tentative relationship with Glakassa. Hell, they hadn’t even kissed. Just talked. Was there really anything going on there, anything more than mutual curiosity?

The Forest Folk woman scoffed, and raised her weapons once more, followed by her allies. Bronvar had instructed them to fight Sam until they could fight no longer. Apparently, some of them had taken that order in a different light.

He held his hammer in a loose grip and prepared to take the charge. All of the Forest Folk could teleport, but Bronvar was the only one who could do it with any degree of consistency. This was because their species teleported in a different manner to the inhabitants of Sam’s Multiverse. Rather than cutting a hole through reality with their Daos, they instead communed with the elemental nature of their planet. It took far more out of them, but also gave them much longer ranges with which to move.

With the presence of the Voidrot though, such long range transit was impossible, and they were limited to local scale travel, which still exhausted them profusely. Because of this, Sam’s basically unlimited teleportation enabled him to run rings around them.

His hammer rose and fell, splintering wood, but doing little else. He kept his strength in check, and used no Dao energy save for his teleportations. This was just a friendly match, after all.

Before he could continue though, an alarm rang out loudly, splitting the air with its noise. He paused, recognizing its meaning by now. There was an active threat from the Voidrot. Sadly, so many of Anavri’s Sentinels were already corrupted that the Council of Guardians prioritized the protection of newly threatened Sentinels over the already taken ones. If too many were infected, then the entire balance of Vallenar would shift, and victory would be impossible. The planet would melt into a slough of decay and ooze, forever devoid of life.

Even if the Forest Folk could leave, none of them were powerful enough to live out their natural lifespans without the connection to their planet that they enjoyed. The F Rankers would have a mere decade or two left, and the E Rankers could only expect about a century. For the already long lived species, that was nothing.

Sam himself already had millenia of life left, an amount beyond the range of his imagination. It was longer than most of recorded human history. Even if he never cultivated another day in his life, he would have so much more left before him. He could become a true master of his professions, or create a dynasty that spanned entire solar systems. That was of course, if Tantalos wasn’t there, like the Dao of Spanners, ever in the works. Even with the promise of salvation from the Adventurers’ Guild, there was always some ever greater threat. When he finally came into his own as a Dao Incarnation, there was no way that the powers of the Multiverse would simply let him be.

With these thoughts spinning through his mind, he followed the Guardians to an outer branch of the Locus Tree, already girding himself for war.