Bit by bit, thousand by thousand, Abrinadus’ soldiers died. Whether at the hands of Sam, or the Blacktusks, they met their end regardless. There were many casualties on Sam’s side, but that was relative to their numbers, and not overall. The entire pirate fleet only had ten thousand members, and although most were quite strong, they were still numerically disadvantaged.
Sam was the variable that tipped the whole scale. Combined with the maneuverability of the Brutalizer, he could turn up anywhere in the Desolation Belt, bringing death with him. His hammer had claimed a hundred thousand lives, or perhaps even more. He sought out the toughest of foes, and his level had risen significantly, up by two. Well, it wasn’t that significant numerically, but at E Rank, it represented a massive increase in stats.
His quest was a mere hundred kills away from completion, but those kills were the toughest servants of Abrinadus that still lived beyond his aegis, spread out in the reaches of the asteroid belt. Those fighters were arrayed before him in space, as he stood next to the Brutalizer, staring them down. There were all manner of foes, ranging from gunslingers to bestial, clawed monstrosities. Most of them were weak, but one made him slightly apprehensive. A man, cloaked in a strange Dao, and a stranger elemental energy. Fate was the rarest element mastered by cultivators, as far as Sam could tell. It was quite powerful, though.
Boss, Scar and Red floated beside him, holding their weapons. All three used axes, and were quite proficient with them. Their strength paled in comparison to Sam, though, and he usually took the central role in battle.
There was no point in talking to their foes, as all were under the dominion of Abrinadus. Sam had learned that they gave no quarter, if cornered like they were now, their ship a blazing ruin lighting up space. Their eyes looked dead, save for a tiny spark of crimson lightning burning within them, signifying Abrinadus’ power. It was interesting that the dragon had chosen to follow a path that emulated the natural abilities of dragons with a purer bloodline, and spoke to his ego.
The battle began as a wave of ephemeral energy exploded outwards from the Fate mage, enveloping his allies. A faint halo of power surrounded each of them, their forms glistening in the faint light.
Sam rushed forwards, his hammer sweeping towards the front lines. The enemy unit moved in unison, their eyes going glassy as they were permeated by the power of Fate. All of them moved out of the way of his hammer strike, before attacking, loosing projectiles from afar that were pinpointed at the weakest points on Sam’s armor. In the blink of an eye, a host of improbable events occurred, with some of the attacks merging with others, empowering them with the resonance of their concepts. Blasts of Fire and Light melded into massive conflagrations of nuclear devastation, scouring the front of Sam’s armor with enough heat to cook a city.
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He pushed through regardless, as although his foes might have been unerring in their aim, that meant little when he possessed the third threshold of Resilience. Attacks that could have shattered mountains and boiled seas broke against his implacable defence, his armor taking more of a beating than his flesh beneath. At this point, as often happened, his suit of armor was more of a form of decoration than anything else. He had already outgrown it, while not even being past low E Rank in level.
Sam teleported into the midst of his foes, his hammer striking like a cobra towards the nearest warrior, a woman limned in a fiery cloak from which tendrils of white hot flame licked at the world around, sending pulses of heat into space. Those tendrils snapped out towards Sam, operating faster than their wielder. Even with the aid of Fate, the mage was far slower than he was, and he could see her eyes widening, even as her defensive measures kicked in.
His left fist glowed with the Dao, and he snatched at the flames, grabbing them in a powerful grip. Pressing his will down upon the elemental attack, he ripped the cloak off of the mage in its entirety. His hammer descended a moment later, turning the woman into a smear upon the firmament.
Behind him, the three Teruvarian Blacktusks were pummeling their way into the forces of Abrinadus. Their axes looked like tiny stars as they flitted around at high speed, eviscerating those they touched. Limbs and heads were suspended in the void of space by their passing, expressions of horror and fear upon them.
Sam put all of this to the back of his mind, and teleported directly before the diviner, the man’s face twisting as he saw Sam emerging from the ether. Before either could even move, a pulse of Fate erupted from the mage, and enveloped Sam. A wave of uncomfortable heat pulsed through his body. He tried to attack, but suddenly, it was as if he were one half of a magnet, and the mage, the other. A circle of repulsion surrounded him, and even swinging his hammer towards his foe simply pushed the man away to safety.
In the meanwhile, the mage was able to attack Sam, and his hands danced as he conjured a massive orb of interlocking rings, filled with strange, ghostly shapes of worlds that had, would and could have been. Then he loosed it at Sam. As opposed to before, the repulsion fiend inverted, drawing the technique in towards Sam unerringly. He teleported, but there was no change in its trajectory, and it continued to speed up in time with him, until it eventually reached him.
