As soon as Sam opened the door, he was tossed back inside the room by an explosion. It wasn't much of an explosion, barely searing his flesh, but it had a lot of kinetic power to it. After realizing that there was no smoke or fire coming from where the explosion had originated, Sam saw that it was actually the fist of a massive robot. It was at least 10 feet tall and built like a bodybuilder who had eaten another bodybuilder that was doing all of the steroids in the world at the same time. Needless to say, it was a big robot. Sam briefly wondered how it was attacking him within the arena area, but then remembered that there must have been some provisions for robots as the training robots were able to attack people.
“Very clever, Berrigious!” Sam called out, not sure if the other man could hear him. His attention was stolen back by the robot as it prepared to attack. Its eyes were lit up with a fiery light and Sam ducked as its fist slammed into the ground next to him, leaving a crater in the floor. Seeing as the floor was made out of stone, the robot packed a serious punch.
It seemed to be quite slow however, quite a bit slower than Sam. It made up for that with its strength however, and as Sam was soon to find out, its durability. He brought his mace up and over in the first of one of his mace katas, bringing it down onto the robot’s head with a cry of anger. Instead of crumpling the creature like similar attacks had done to the weaker robots, the thing reached up and grabbed the mace out of the air, blocking it with its gargantuan forearms. They were the size of Sam’s thighs and were made out of polished steel. Seeing as Sam had put on a lot of muscle since the System had come, those forearms were like sides of beef.
The mace clanged off with a metallic noise, not even leaving a dent. The robot leered down at him and opened its left palm, revealing the barrel of a gun. Not only was it strong and tough, but it had hand lasers. Some people just won the genetic lottery, or rather in this case, the assembly line lottery. Wait, was it racist to assume that robots were all made in an assembly line? The intrusive thought came and went as Sam was clotheslined by the robot in the moment of unsteadiness after his mace had bounced off.
He was tossed backwards yet again as the robot impacted his flesh and this time some of his ribs cracked. The bot would have made a very impressive WWE champion, that is if they let robots fight in it. And assuming that it was still around of course, which Sam doubted very much. He had a sudden vision of a unit of pro wrestlers who had all leveled up, fighting against a horde of gremlins, which somehow made him laugh.
He got up gingerly, making sure not to disturb his damaged torso and noticed that the door was left unguarded. There was no point in staying to fight this behemoth, and it was time to show the robot that humans were superior. Sam ran at his opponent and ducked down at the last moment, sliding between its legs and out the door. He slammed it shut behind him and locked it, listening to the rhythmic pounding of the robot on the door. That thing was built like the door of a bunker, so it wouldn't be going anywhere soon. Sam put away his key and leaped back as a laser beam crossed the space in front of him. Berrigious stood on the other side of the hallway, his face filled with rage.
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“KNEEL!” The man shouted, sighing as Sam did nothing of the sort.
“So you were able to dissolve your contract. I guess that I will just have to kill you. There is no point in letting someone as promising as you one day grow up to be the person who kills me. Farewell, Sam.” Unsure of how exactly the pitifully weak clone expected to kill him, Sam was not prepared for the aura that dropped down on him like the gravity of a black hole. The ceiling above him crumbled away, and a man floated down regally through the hole, alighting on the ground in front of Sam. It was Berrigious, but also not. The feeling that Sam received off of this man was nothing like the image that the clone projected. That thing was too weak to even project its aura, but this man was like a god compared to that. This was the real Berrigious, in all his glory. The clone next to him faded away like mist on the wind, nothing before the majesty of its true self.
One minute ago, Berrigious had felt the contract dissolve between himself and Sam Atlas. Realizing that he would have to kill the man before he became a threat, Berrigious did something that was decidedly unwise. He forced his true self into a lower ranked universe. The appearance of a god like being in a newly integrated universe had multiple effects, not least of which was the destabilization of its cosmic membrane.
The cosmic membrane was what protected a universe from the ravages of the Astral Plane, otherwise known as the space between worlds or the Interbranal Space. The Astral Plane was home to countless monsters, many of which were unfathomably powerful. It was one of those that made its way to the now defenseless universe at that moment.
Salvakthros, Sovereign of the Billion Void Shards, appeared in the space next to the universe, creating a bow wave of aura pressure that started to unravel the fabric of reality within the fragile orb of matter. One of the stronger of the weakest class of Interbranal Titans, Salvakthros was considered no more than an insect by its elder brethren. Despite this, it possessed power sufficient to destroy universes. There was a reason why those who tampered with the cosmic membranes were hunted down and dealt with viciously.
None of that mattered to Berrigious at that moment, not that he could sense it anyway. The only thing that he wanted to do was to kill the thorn in his side. Preparing to smite Sam down with the wrath of a spurned god, Berrigious instead found himself, along with everyone else in the universe, floating in empty space.