An hour passed, and he continued to refine his abilities, mastering his foresight. The maximum he could see into the future was about a second, but given how short timescales could be in E Rank fights, that was an eternity. It gave him the opportunity to not only respond to an attack, but plan an entire counterstrike in the meanwhile.
Sam also tried to create a skill from his Dao Mote of Prescience, but was having far less luck with that than he had with his other Dao. It was far more esoteric, and given that he was already using an aspect of its power with the natural treasure, he found himself going down conceptual dead ends.
Still, he was pleased with his progress. Two new Daos was more than he had expected, and he knew that there would be more to come before the end of the Tower.
The next day rolled around, the sun rising in the heavens above to illuminate the city of Prax. Sam and the Marns headed out of the noble compound and to the arena. Each of them were emboldened by Sam’s previous success in the battles, but none of them knew of the quest that he had been offered by the masked man in the tunnels beneath the arena. Had they realized what sort of danger would be coming to Prax before long, they would have been far more apprehensive about casting in their bets with Sam.
As it was though, each had been helped by Sam in ways both small and profound. It wasn’t everyday that you could simply realign your Dao to a more perfect form. In fact, such things were generally considered to be impossible, or at least immensely difficult. It required someone with a massive amount of Dao expertise to be present, and in the same Dao line as the person being readjusted. For Sam to have done that for multiple different Daos, and at E Rank to boot, was nothing short of a miracle. The only reason he had even dared to show one of his most valuable abilities was because there was little chance of him ever showing his face on this planet again.
By the time they had reached the arena, it was already full, millions of people lining the stands. If anything, it was even more packed than it had ever been before. It seemed like a challenge to the king’s authority was a spectacle that everyone wanted to see, if not admit the reasoning behind it.
As Sam swaggered out onto the sands, his hammer held loosely, he shot a pointed glance at Granthar, challenging him yet again. The king pointedly ignored him, instead snapping his fingers, and summoning a portal in the middle of the arena.
Out of it slunk a monster, many legged and low to the ground. To Sam’s surprise, he recognized it. It was a herpetopede, just like Rax. Well, not exactly. This one was simply an animal, low hisses coming from its mouth rather than words. However, it was truly massive, at least a hundred feet long. Each of its legs looked like a small tree truck, and its body was a length of corded muscle that possessed enough strength to snap apart small mountains. Sam watched as the beast approached, feeling an oppressive aura sweeping out from it. Dao energy of the concepts of Momentum and Force drifted from every inch of its body, empowering its movements beyond their normal limits.
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Like a streak of scaled lightning, it erupted across the ground, throwing drifts of sand high into the air. It moved like a serpent, tearing across the arena. Sam widened his stance and looked into the future, analyzing the thrashing movements of the creature’s limbs.
Within the span of a second, it would snap at him, its fangs slicing through the air like butter. This beast was over level 200, and while its strike might not have been instantly fatal, it would definitely leave a mark.
Rather than let this happen, Sam teleported above the monster, just as it enacted the strike that Sam had already seen play out in the shadowy realm of Fate. His hammer blazed as he sent his new Dao energy into it, lightning wreathing its form. Rather than the lightning that came naturally from Mjolnir’s fusion into the matrix of weapons that made up Terra’s Will, this one was rich and golden in color, thrumming with the conceptual energy of the cosmos.
Sam brought it down, the lightning leaping from its tip towards the herpetopede, a rain of golden threads transfixing it. Initially, it simply snarled, feeling a light burn as the electricity tugged at it. Then, as the power leaped around its scales, it ramped up, pushing itself to further heights. It didn’t have a chance in hell of actually killing the monster, or even seriously injuring it, but it was a good distraction.
As the monster convulsed, writhing as it tried to get to Sam, he sent his Dao Seed’s power into his weapon. There was an immense difference in the power between this and his previous strike, and as the meteor of metal, red and blue impacted the scaled monstrosity, its armor buckled beneath it, crushing the flesh beneath.
Sam leaped back, using his hammer as a lever to push off the rapidly gyrating monster. With the noise of a dozen shattering scales, he was free, launched into the heavens above.
Below him, the herpetopede reared up on its hind legs, stretching up for almost fifty feet. With the explosive noise of a dozen tons of flesh breaking the sound barrier, it leaped, streaking through the air. Unfortunately, it was too slow for Sam, who could teleport.
He appeared behind its head, swinging for the already weakened section of broken scales there. Then, to his surprise, a chime rang out through the air, and the monster accelerated to devastating speeds, sending its plough shaped head into his gut. His armor bent, and he was shot backwards, skipping along the ground for a dozen miles. Where he had landed, the energy of his descent had melted the sand to glass.
He grimaced, and got to his feet, now aware of a new threat. He picked through what had just happened, realizing that the monster had used its momentum based Dao to simulate teleportation by sending all of the force of Sam’s strikes into its body at once. While not sapient, the beast was intelligent enough to use something that approached a System skill.
