The creature tried to dodge, but it was far too large, and far too slow. The bolt hit home in the center of its head, and the construct shuddered as a wave of electricity wreaked havoc on its systems. The attack was even more devastating than it would have been on a normal creature as the metal served as a conductor, transmitting the current into the bowels of the titanic golem. The fact that Sam had imbued it with his Dao of the Passage helped a lot.
He opened his fist, summoning his weapon back to his hand. The bolt of lightning shifted back to metal, and flew up from the steel dragon’s head, and into his waiting fingers. With it at its largest size, he gripped it firmly with both hands, poured a good chunk of his available energy reserves into it, and shot downwards, the hammer burning with repressed power.
The monster below grimaced, a mouth the width of a river flexing as it opened, revealing a fiery pit within. Opening its maw fully, the titan of a machine spewed forth an ocean of fire, bathing the void in heat. Sam was caught in the blast, but he elected to push through rather than teleport away. His skin crisped beneath it, and he let out a grunt of pain. With a groan, he came out the other side of the fire, his hammer glowing a cherry red, below all of the layered power that surrounded it.
Sam hissed in pain, and concentrated, condensing the energy surrounding his weapon until it clung to the tip of Terra’s Will like a second skin. He accelerated through space, angling his hammer towards the massive golem below.
The construct flapped once, rocket boosters firing on the undersides of its wings. With a wave of flame bursting out from its wings, the metal dragon ascended into space, its maw opening wide to engulf Sam. Blinding light engulfed its teeth, turning them into car sized chunks of laser limned metal. With a snap of its jaws, the creature drove them together, with Sam at their center. He teleported away, feeling the force of the impact as the robot dragon’s maw snapped shut with the force of a tsunami.
A shockwave radiated out across space, buffeting him and the multitude of ships parked in orbit of the asteroid below. Sam pushed forwards, his hammer glowing brightly while he pumped a good portion of his Dao into the weapon. The silvery surface of Terra’s Will was occluded by the immense quantities of Dao energy pouring into it. Another girding of purified mana and elemental energy joined it, until the weapon was invisible under all of the light surrounding it, enough energy to scour a small country.
Sam surrounded himself with a cloak of the Dao, and flew towards the dragon, accelerating in the darkness of space. Every second saw a marked increase in his speed, until he was moving faster than his own senses could track. All he was able to do was raise his hammer, using it more like a battering ram than anything else.
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Sooner than he expected, he felt a titanic impact, his body rippling as it, and his hammer slammed into his foe’s head. Metal crumpled beneath the blow, and he sank into the dragon’s head, at the center of a supernova tinged with the scarlet and azure light of his Dao’s power. Sam sank deeper into the dragon, feeling his Dao carving through its facsimile of flesh. While it was powerful, it was still a golem rather than a living being, meaning that it was far more rigid in terms of its durability. Metal was all well and good for defence, until it met something stronger. Then it would crumple beyond repair, and be destroyed without a hope of recovery. That was what happened here.
Sam’s body turned into a meteor as he continued to push his way into the bulk of the dragon, his Domain expanding around him to empower the vast quantities of Dao energy he was using. Even his prodigious reserves were beginning to drain as hundreds of feet of steel dragon vanished beneath him as he headed into the belly of the beast.
A few moments later, his hammer struck something crystalline with a light tink before shattering it. A nova of radiant power exploded outwards, destroying the golem in an instant, and sending Sam flying out of the construct. His body burned from the heat of the strike, but as an E Ranker, he was far more durable than any mortal. All that happened was a bit of pain, and nothing more. As there was no Dao imbued into the heat, he would be fine. At his current level of durability, he could have walked into a small star, and survived for a bit.
Beneath him, the detonation of the golem’s core flattened the city sized dragon against the asteroid, even as lines of fire raced up and down its body. Detonations tore the monster apart as it lay there, sending waves of destruction through the asteroid below. Chunks of rock tore off into space, and fault lines crisscrossed the surface of the massive sphere of stone as the combined force of an E Rank robot’s power systems detonated like a nuclear bomb.
There was no sound in space, but had there been, it could have been worldshaking. A pillar of nuclear fire streaked up from the center of the ailing robot, pushing it deeper into the asteroid as it fell apart. Then, with one final eruption, the monster came apart completely, shattering the surface of the asteroid into a thousand pieces. The celestial body shifted slightly off orbit, careening off into the unknown. Of those who had lived there, none survived.
Sam turned his gaze to the crippled spacecraft hanging in orbit, most of which had been effectively neutered by his destruction of their weapons. As he faced them, his hammer still burning with the potent energy that had destroyed a monster the size of a city, the ships began to blink away, one by one.
Sam teleported, trying to reach them before they could escape, but he was too late. He had crippled their weapons, but not their transportation devices, allowing them to retreat to a distance further than he could reach alone. Sighing, Sam headed back to the Blacktusk ship. He would get them the next time.
