The dragon expanded to his true form over the next few seconds, tree trunk like legs slamming down onto the ground as he took a step. His age in this form was barely noticeable, as an E Ranker with nothing to bear the weight of years, save for his soul. Sam could tell the dragon’s true lifespan, though. The beast’s aura was faded somewhat, patchy in places. It was still impressive enough, but it hinted more at past glory than future potential.
Sam launched himself forwards, feeling a level of exertion far beyond the norm as the shackles of gravity pulled down upon him. A leap that could have carried him a few miles on Earth barely brought him a few hundred feet towards Abrinadus.
The dragon raised one clawed arm, and the sky above flickered, threads of scarlet electricity gathering above the monster. A spear of lightning shot down, and Abrinadus grasped it, before hurling the bolt at Sam.
As opposed to the normal, apocalyptic effects of an E Rank skill being used, the air did not boil, and flames remained firmly in the minds of the beholders. Instead, it was as if a mundane lightning bolt had been plucked from the heavens, and cast towards Sam. However, all of that was merely visual. Only the world around him was inoculated against E Rank power. He was still the same strength that he always was.
Sam drew back Terra’s Will, and swung it like a baseball bat, the end sparking as he condensed a charge of Dao energy into it. While his reserves were drained somewhat from his initial attack, they were replenishing quickly enough. Abrinadus and his banter had given enough time for them to rise back above the halfway point.
The lightning bolt split as Sam smashed his weapon into it, and a ripple passed along the stream of electricity, dispersing it into the air. He raced forwards, each step kicking up dust from the scarred ground beneath. Abrinadus swept his wings through the air, stirring up the dense E Rank gas into a whirlwind that threatened to drag even Sam off his feet. Rather than let the swirling air take him, Sam condensed his Dao around himself, and teleported, appearing above the dragon’s head. Only, there was already something waiting for him there. Abrinadus’ open maw, disgorging a torrent of lightning at a speed far beyond what Sam could dodge in the high gravity of Wyrm’s Haven.
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His armor began to melt under the stream of electricity, fusing to his skin. Curling his lip, Sam expelled a brilliant blast of his own Dao out of his body, contesting the elemental energy, and overcoming it. Before he could do anything else, he felt his foe’s Dao closing in on him. From his experiences with the dragon in his battle with the clone, he knew that Abrinadus possessed a Dao that fit his millenia of life. In short, an extremely powerful one that Sam could not hope to contest in a fair fight. Only, the Dao was far from his only weapon.
Shafts of the purest white impaled his body as the raw potency of the cosmos lent him its strength. Sam roared in primal rage and ecstasy as the power of Dao Juggernaut bolstered him against everything that the world could throw at him. Before Abrinadus could do anything but galvanize his own Dao, pressing the concept of Sovereignty down upon Sam like a weighted blanket, he was already moving. The intense gravity acted in a manner akin to an elastic band, stretching and stretching, gaining more and more power the more Sam struggled against it. With another roar, Sam drew upon the powers granted to him by his Dao Heritage, deeper than ever before. With his earlier display, acting as a living meteor, he was tired of being constrained by the gravity of this world. He was more powerful than that. This decrepit old worm would not stand in his path to the top.
The Tower was barely halfway done, and that was halfway too little for Sam. While the Challenge Mode was meant to pose a threat to even him, he knew that it shouldn’t have felt this hard. There was always a way out, and that way was through his own strength.
Flames of the Dao flickered around Sam as he forced his way through the unnaturally thick air, past both the gravities of the real world and the conceptual, aiming his hammer towards Abrinadus’ skull. The dragon laughed, a deep, resonant sound, and beat his wings again. Only this time, Sam didn’t falter. All three of his Daos combined within him to form a greater whole, his purified mana and elemental energy joining them. He grimaced as a feeling not unlike biting into a live electrical wire assailed him. Then Sam smiled. That meant he was making progress.
He set his eyes on his foe, and drew upon a few skills that had long since been outgrown. Resolve of the Avenger, Girdings of the Arbiter and Earth Elemental Bulwark had been skills acquired during F Rank, and while powerful, did not do much for his new E Rank form. All three hinged on his Daos and elemental energy, with his mana left neglected. It was time to change that. His energy was one of a tripartite nature, with the Dao, his element and mana acting as three aspects of a greater whole. Using his three skills as a base for what he was visualizing, he forced them together within himself.
