A single teleport snatched him from his position within the Brutalizer, and deposited him in space, surrounded by the glowing remnants of the enemy ships. He drifted there for a moment, and then turned his gaze towards the stellar core below. The orb looked like any other planet, its heat long since dissipated by time and the efforts of Abrinadus and his faction. The only thing remaining was the intense gravity, which even now was beginning to draw Sam in. He let the pull take him, beginning to channel monumental quantities of his various energies into his hammer. It was time to truly cut loose.
His eyes flashed as he glared down at the planetoid below, its surface gleaming as the ultra compressed surface made even the faint light of the solar system’s star look like that of Sam’s own sun. Terra’s Will grew to its full, immense size as Sam clutched it, oceans of the Dao pouring into it with every passing second. Rockets of elemental power and purified mana formed behind Sam’s feet, pushing him down towards the stellar core below.
His speed quickly became immense, the gravitational pull combining with his own propulsion until he could barely see anything nearby. Reaching speeds he had never seen before, Sam was just about able to raise his hammer, as his energy reserves dropped beneath a quarter full. He pulsed Dao Juggernaut, blasting his physical stats into the stratosphere, before condensing his domain around himself for an extra boost in durability. Finally, Sam imbued his armor with his Dao, the metal glowing as he reached a state of peak defence. Combined with his third threshold Resilience, there were few things, save from other cultivators, that could damage him.
Sam aimed for the center of settlement on the celestial body below, spotting the same massive palace he had noticed earlier. It was clearly built for a dragon, with every bit of it sized appropriately. None of that mattered to him, though. Between one moment and the next, he pierced the atmosphere, and descended like a meteor, the gasses burning up around him. Something within his hammer snapped, and a burning corona of amalgamated light streaked from its end, looking like a comet’s tail. He was faintly aware of a thousand robots trying to stop him, flying into his path, but it was as if a mosquito had tried to block a bullet. Their paltry forms broke upon his body and weapon, barely slowing him down.
Sam roared in primal exertion as he swung, just as he struck the planet’s surface. Pain ripped across his body as the impact sent a shockwave rippling through his flesh, but it was nothing compared to the devastation that he wreaked upon Wyrm’s Haven.
Watching from orbit, the Blacktusks saw a pillar of raging light explode upwards from the surface of the planetoid below. Claws of energy raked across the land for ten miles in every direction from the impact zone, and the immense palace was blasted apart into a thousand pieces, a dust storm the width of a small country rising into the sky. A wave of force tore a vast crater into the stellar core as the force of Sam’s descent caught up to the light it had released. The pillar of pure energy turned into a hemisphere of utter devastation, erasing every trace of Abrinadus’ stronghold from existence.
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On the ground, Sam’s senses caught up to his situation, finding himself lying in the middle of a crater the size of a mountain, his hammer lying on the ground beside him. Ash choked the air, falling in a heavy rain upon the scorched earth around him. Now that he was on the surface of Wyrm’s Haven, he could appreciate the strangeness of its composition. The ground beneath him was a shiny, almost metallic substance, far harder than any mundane stone.
His meteoric fall from the heavens could have boiled a small ocean, or cracked a tectonic plate back on Earth, but here, it barely marred the planet’s surface, a mere scar upon his foe’s stronghold. Immense amounts of essence swirled around him, from what he assumed was the combined deaths of every last one of Abrinadus’ elite forces. As another surge of pain raced across his body, Sam winced. Perhaps that had been overkill.
Sam’s layer quest completed, but he pushed the surge in his stats to the back of his mind. Then the essence hit him, and he gained another level, white light enveloping his form as he rose into the air.
“I hope you enjoy that level,” a crackly voice said from behind him. “It will be your last.”
Sam turned to see an old man standing there, two hundred or so feet distant, his arms folded behind his back. White hair drifted in the wind as he faced Sam, and his face was as wrinkled as the surface of a brain. Within his eyes, though, burning orbs of crimson lightning sparked and danced, signaling to Sam who the man really was.
“Abrinadus. Are you hoping I’ll take pity on you, with that decrepit body of yours?” Sam called out, even as his leveling finished, dropping him back to the ground.
“On the contrary. You must think you are somewhat of a prodigy. A genius even. I am your fiftieth floor challenge, after all.” The dragon smirked. “You seem surprised by my knowledge. I would like to say that I am simply wiser than you could ever know, but the truth is much more pedestrian. I simply read your mind during that last fight of ours.”
“If you know that, then you know how powerful I am,” Sam replied, starting towards his enemy. Terra’s Will slapped into his palm as he summoned the weapon from the ground. The massively increased gravity weighed down upon him, but it was child’s play to hide its effects. He was used to mortality after all. Demigodhood was new to him. “How many foes I’ve killed. How many impossible things I’ve accomplished.”
Abrinadus’ smile lengthened, until it pressed beyond the limits of the human form. With that, his body split apart, massive, scaled limbs erupting out of his own. “What I know, Sam Atlas, is that you can die. And that’s all that really matters.”
