He felt the impact through his Dao, but to his surprise, there was little harm done to the incorporeal form of his enemy. Then he expanded the spear of light, sending tiny filaments of razor thin Dao energy out in all directions. Immediately, he was under assault by what felt like the heat of Hell itself, his skin crisping and flaking as the fire assaulted him through the conduit. Gritting his teeth, he bore down, sending more and more filaments outwards.
He felt a slight tug as he grabbed onto something, and then he tore his hand back through the air, so fast that it burst into flames from the friction. He felt a give, and then he ripped the fiery avatar into tiny pieces, flensing it to the very core of its being. There was a gasp, and he watched as the woman reappeared, the flames winking out as if they never had been there. Her skin was covered in a series of patchwork cuts that soon revealed themselves to be slices through her entire body. Over the course of a second, her body fell apart into a pile of fleshy scraps, killing her instantly.
The other fighter let out a roar of rage, the whole exchange having taken place too quickly, and too far away for him to be able to save his companion. Going by the anguish Sam could hear in his voice, the fire mage had been a bit more than just a coworker. He couldn’t help but wince. However, his life was far more important to him than the relationship of someone trying to kill him.
The other man came hurtling back down, having been launched into the sky by Sam earlier. Even teleporting, he had been too far to reach his companion in time, as the fight had been occluded by the nearby buildings, and it seemed that he hadn’t mastered non line of sight teleportation yet.
“You’ll suffer for that!” the man screamed. “I will carve you into pieces with my ax, and then feed them to the dogs!”
Sam coldly glared at him. “Your companion was a curiosity. You, my friend, are merely a nuisance.”
Before the man could teleport again, Sam sent a spike of his Dao into the matrix of the man’s spatial rift. While he wasn’t powerful enough to enact a spatial lock, Sam was more than strong enough to disrupt the techniques of an emotionally fragile man who had just lost someone dear to him. Once again, Sam found himself wondering just who twisted the Multiverse was that his Dao Seed, which had been formed from a path of Justice, felt nothing at this brutal battle strategy. It seemed that all was fair in war between cultivators of an equal level. His Dao only really frowned on the oppression of those below him, or acts of true moral absence. Had he wished to embark upon a voyage guided by compassion or conciliation instead, perhaps a different Dao would have suited him.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The other warrior faltered, his teleportation quickly turning into an uncontrolled descent. With a snarl, the man decided to lean into his plummeting fall from the heavens, bringing his ax up behind his head, creating a glowing meteor of metal and flesh.
The battle was starting to grow to the point where it was dangerous to those around, and Sam realized that he had to do something about it before the entire district was flattened. Normally, Granthar and his lackeys would have stepped in before something like this could happen, but Sam had a sneaking suspicion that nobody would care in this instance, as long as he died. Prax was a planet of trillions, and the deaths of a few hundred thousand, or even million, meant nothing to its ruler if counterbalanced by something worthwhile.
Sam dropped his hammer and slammed his palms together, creating a circuit of rampaging destruction, combining his Dao energy, purified mana and elemental power into one. A beam lanced out into the heavens, impacting the ax head. The weapon was torn from its wielder's hands, ripping off his fingers with it as he tried to hold on. The clouds above parted as Sam’s attack entered the upper atmosphere, bleeding itself out upon the obduracy of space itself. Critically, no harm was done to the city around him. Eventually, he would have to worry about harming other celestial bodies with his strikes, but for now, he was sheltered by his relative weakness on a Multiversal scale.
The controlled descent of the ax wielding servant of Granthar turned into a tumble, quite ungainly for an E Ranker. He recovered faster than a mortal could blink, but in a battle like this, it was all over. Sam teleported next to him, his motions so fast with the aid of Dao Juggernaut that he watched the other warrior’s eyes flicker in fear. Then his hammer descended, and obliterated his head. Even that might not have been enough to spell an end to the powerful E Ranker, but the pulse of raw conceptual power that tore his body apart at the seams did.
Sam teleported back to the ground, and basked into the essence that entered his body a moment later. He gained two levels for his troubles, more than he had been expecting. Sometimes, his overwhelming might made him forget just how low a level he was at compared to his true strength.
All around, the streets had become curiously vacant, save for a few who were too out of it to even move when their lives were on the line. All in all, though, little damage had been done to the neighborhood, save for a patch of lava left by the passing of the elementalized fire mage. Had some of the later attacks, like Sam’s beam, or the ax-man’s meteor strike hit the ground, there would have been almost nothing left. Sam shook his head at the meaningless loss of life that Granthar had created, and then moved on. He had some Dao cultivation to catch up on, and a domain to form.
