A week passed as if it were a day, battle after battle melding into one tapestry of slaughter. The number on his quest slowly ticked up, until he was finally hovering at the edge of progressing to the penultimate layer of Vallenar. With nine successful battles under his belt, there was only one more waiting between him and his next title upgrade.
That battle was the hardest by far, pitting him and his allies against a trio of Voidrot Guardians, all of whom had picked one of the largest Sentinels Sam had seen, other than the Locus Tree, to attack. It was home to almost fifty thousand Forest Folk, and stretched for miles into the sky. Needless to say, its loss would be a grave one.
Sam and his twelve allies descended from the sky like living meteors, with him and Bronvar leading the charge. Terra’s Will expanded to its maximum size, which felt so commonplace at this point that Sam barely noticed willing it to happen. The weapon was only just beginning to bond with him. As an E Rank weapon, it possessed depths beyond what he had experienced so far. Not only was it E Ranked, but it was exceptional for that rank. Sam had no way of knowing its degree of craftsmanship, but it was certainly far higher than anything he had made. It was certainly not Perfect ranked, as that would have been highly unlikely, but it was closer to that than not.
Sam suspected that such a thing as a Perfect ranked weapon was something that a faction would go to war over. For something to be truly Perfect meant that it was both the only example of its kind in existence, and greater than everything else at its rank and of its type. When Sam had some more time to surf the Interweb, he resolved to dig deeper into the mysteries of professions, of which he was only scratching the surface.
The three monstrosities of rot peered up from their positions on the ground, pausing in their assault of the city perched in the branches of the tree. Forest Folk scattered like leaves in the wind, flapping away on wings of woven wood. Some were too slow to escape with the others, and although many were carried, there wasn’t enough time.
Sam aimed for the biggest of the Voidrot Guardians, leveraging the three levels he had gained from the last week’s fights to their fullest effect. For the first time in the Tower, his leveling speed was beginning to pick up. Where E Rank normally took decades to pass through, even for prodigies, Sam knew that his habit of engaging in battle with the direst of foes would pay dividends, either in the form of levels, or his death.
The trio of monsters leveled their elemental control at Sam and his allies, their hands lighting up with the purple energy of their unique brand of decay. Three beams of corruption lanced into the sky, the air around them seeming to darken and ooze like a festering wound. The Forest Folk sent their own elemental energy hurtling down, a shield of roots and bark forming in the air.
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Sam shot through a hole in the middle, right before the shield fully formed, and continued on his path. The end of his hammer glowed faintly from the heat of his descent, which he knew by now was just posturing by the semi sentient weapon. As an E Rank hammer, it wouldn’t have been affected by such paltry things unless it wanted to. Terra’s Will could have taken a nuclear strike without suffering much, if any, damage.
A tidal wave of red and blue coursed from Sam’s body into his hammer, causing its entire form to light up with ethereal flames. Boosters of Dao energy exploded from his feet, sending him down at thousands of miles per hour. His E Rank body kept him safe from the air pressure and acceleration, and he simply let the wind buffet his armor, breaking on it like a river on a boulder.
The Voidrot Guardians seized great clumps of elemental energy from their elemental conduits, drawing upon the carpet of rot that covered the world behind them. Their forms expanded, dark energy padding out their bodies. Soon they stood almost a hundred feet in height, covered in bulging muscles made from decay.
Sam’s body shattered its own limits as he used all of his buffs at once, leaving only Dao Juggernaut for emergencies. He had no idea what the next stage of his Dao Heritage was, but he knew that utilizing his skill properly had something to do with it. As an E Ranker, his connection to his Dao was far greater than ever before. Hopefully, he could achieve the upgrade before the end of the Tower.
The three monsters sent tentacles of rot whipping up through the air, cleaving through the firmament as they went. Streaks of dark corruption were left in the wake of their attacks, the sky bruising beneath the assault. Sam felt a wave of conceptual power overtaking him, trying to mutate his body into a pillar of rotten flesh. He easily overcame it with his Dao, and continued on his path.
Between one second and the next, his hammer was above the head of the central Guardian, and he blasted it down into the ground, its armor of concentrated decay bursting apart under the assault. With a grin, he rode the beast down to the ground with his feet, and sent pulses of Dao energy through his armored boots, further injuring the colossus.
He teleported away as the other two monsters cleaved blades of rot through the space he was standing, watching as they impacted one another. The blades exploded into tides of pestilent mist, further corrupting the air.
The sound of distant screams made a macabre backdrop as the Sentinel tree started to crumble, its previously impenetrable bulwark of bark turning into a swamp of ooze and mush. Some of the unlucky Forest Folk sank into the morass, the corruption rotting their bodies from the inside out. Sam gritted his teeth and tried to sever the connections of the monsters to the lake of Voidrot behind them. Unlike before, when his Dao had severed the tendrils of a single Guardian like butter, the three monsters were able to combine their strength to resist him.