The effect of mitigating such an obviously powerful attack would make it so that the Overlord was basically invincible. Sam could not and would not allow that. With every last muscle fiber in his body triggering, Sam punched forwards. His fist felt like it was a rocket, speeding towards its target at almost imperceptible levels of speed. However, it would be impossible to redirect now that it was in motion.

When it landed, Sam immediately felt every bone in his hand break. He let out a cry of pain and watched as the rest of his arm crumpled. However, it was not for vain. The body of the previously invulnerable Overlord streaked through the air, impacting the arena wall like a gunshot. The man immediately got to his feet, but the damage was done. A single drop of blood dripped down from his mouth and the man stumbled.

He came in again, this time at barely more than Sam's top speed. Sam smiled and twisted around, grabbing the man’s hand and throwing him over his shoulder in a judo toss, slamming him head first into the ground. He let go and jumped back, waiting for the other man to get up.

A red light began to shine from the man’s body, and the sand started to melt beneath him. With a demonic roar, he got to his feet, and stared at Sam. His muscles were bulked up with power, and his body radiated energy that started to break down Sam’s cells with its pure power. It was not painful, but Sam could see the veins of necrosis starting to work their way up his skin.

He snarled and started to channel his Dao to counteract them. It was like fighting a fire with a squirt gun, but it at least stemmed its spread. The Overlord let out a deafening cry that caused the audience to recoil in their seats, and Sam’s ears to bleed. Then he spoke in a gravelly, raspy tone that sounded like that of a demon.

“You are the first to force me to show this form, Arbiter. I was surprised that you figured out my abilities so quickly, but I suppose that was going to happen eventually. Now, I will give you one chance to surrender, and then I shall attack. Will you do this?”

Knowing the man’s powerset now allowed Sam to guess what he was trying to do. Willing capitulation would increase his power far more than a forced surrender would. Sam shook his head and began to channel his Dao and Elemental energy. The two forces crashed together inside his body like titanic waves, and started to spread throughout it, creating a web of power that girded his bones and skin. It was slowly tearing him apart, but he could deal with the pain for now. He had never attempted this before, and the energies wanted to get out of his body, but he would not let them do so. They were his, and they would obey.

On the outside, his body began to glow and he lifted off of the ground by a tiny amount. Most did not notice it, but the stronger fighters did. Everyone had gone silent by this point and the atmosphere was such that one could hear a pin drop. And drop it did.

With twinned screams, the two fighters rushed each other. As soon as Sam crossed fists with his opponent, he knew that he had lost. His right arm shattered instantly, and the shockwave spread up the rest of his body, rattling his skull. His already broken hand was reduced to a mess of pulp and shattered bone shards, and it took all he had to not cry out in pain. Instead, he surrendered, just before the next fist could shatter his skull. The other man retracted his fist and chuckled to himself.

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Sam walked out of the arena, at least able to still stand, and he collapsed into his chair. The people around him started to whisper and he drifted in and out of consciousness. He probably should have looked for a healer first.

Sam woke up some time later, lying on the bed of his room. Somebody had hooked him up to one of those healing drips, and he wondered why he was not in the hospital room. Instead, he was surrounded by a few of the other members of his faction and he looked up to see Eduardo and Lao looking down at them. Both of them looked concerned.

“That was not as equal of a fight as I was expecting. That man is bad news,” Eduardo said, looking down at Sam with a worried expression.

Sam nodded.

“Just one punch from that final form of his broke my arm. I'm going to need to train a lot if I hope to surpass him. At least I figured out his weakness, not that it does much good.”

“What was that you were doing with your attacks? It seemed like you were aiming for some effect beyond just damage,” Lao asked Sam.

“The Overlord has a Dao that has something to do with how powerful he is in relation to others. If he lands a hit on his opponent, he gets stronger, but if he misses or is blocked, then he gets weaker. Still, it doesn't do that much though.”

The others nodded as they suddenly understood what had been happening. Lao and Eduardo exchanged glances and then shooed the others out of the room. The fighters left without a word, and they were left alone with nobody to eavesdrop. Eduardo sat down by Sam on his bed and let out a sigh.

“Well, I guess we can at least aim for second place. Both you and Rodney Kane are in the losers’ bracket right now, and you will have to fight him to leave it. That will be the last thing that you will need to do to get second place. As for us, we will definitely get top ten, but I do not know which place in it.”

Sam nodded. They were both in the winners' bracket now and they were in the last segment of the battle. The only problem would be if they had to fight each other. It probably would come down to that eventually.

Sam lay back and winced as his arm was jostled by the motion. He forced himself to look down at it and was pleasantly surprised by how intact it was. The bones had pulled back together somewhat and his arm bones were almost fully repaired.

“How long has it been?” Sam asked the others.

“About 3 hours,” Lao said, looking at something off in the distance. Sam followed his gaze, but there was nothing there. He had expected to see a clock or something like that, but it seemed that the man had simply known the time from somewhere else. Lao noticed Sam’s gaze and he smiled.

“The System clock is quite useful,” he said.

Sam gave him a look.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes.

Lao smiled at him.

“Look at your System interface and imagine seeing a clock. It should pop up immediately.”

Sam followed the man’s instructions and found that there was indeed a function for a System clock. It appeared in front of him, and he was finally able to see the time again. That must have been why there were no clocks in the arena because they had assumed that all the fighters had access to a clock of their own. It made a good deal of sense to him. As he opened it up, he saw that it was 4:37 in the afternoon.

Sam closed the screen and closed his eyes briefly. Ignoring the others, he tried to visualize everything that he had done in the battle. However, all that he was able to surmise was that the Overlord was too powerful to fight, no matter what he did. Sam needed to level up and to develop his skills some more in order to even have a chance.