Sam’s next mission was a relatively simple one, to accompany the army he had been sent to reinforce as it cut across the surface of the planet. He soon found out that he was on the outermost planet of the system, which was called Gravos, after one of Granthar’s sons. It was far smaller than Prax, but still larger than Earth.
MIllions of soldiers crisscrossed the planet, fighting against hordes of monsters, ranging from G Rank all the way up to high E Rank. Thousands of E Rankers led those armies, fighting to claim the planet fully for Granthar.
Sam had already spent a day there, fighting alongside the trio of E Rankers he had encountered during the battle with the titanic metal bear. In that time, he was informed that Granthar’s grasp over his domain was far more tenuous than it seemed. Most of the planets in his solar system were barely colonized, with Prax being the only safe one. The rest were filled with monsters and dungeons, and any permanent settlements there soon were destroyed.
In the asteroid belt beyond Gravos, the rebels dwelled, the organization that Sam had briefly made contact with. At some point, he would likely have to meet them, in order to plan their overthrow of Granthar.
Meanwhile, his next goal was to kill another three monsters on a similar level to the bear, Mid to High E Rank beasts. Gravos was filled with partially elementalized monsters, who could draw upon their conceptual might to summon expressions of their chosen element. The bear had been the second strongest in the region, and the nearest three were a Fire element serpent, a Water element drake and a Dark element spider. Out of those, the drake was the forerunner, as it had the most powerful bloodline. The other two were merely mundane animals that had evolved to E Rank, but the drake was of a lineage famed for strength, as it possessed a fraction of the power of a true dragon. Sam decided to save that one for last. Instead, he started with the serpent.
As a result, he stood upon a crest in the ground, covered in bubbling lava. In the middle of a vast pit in the ground, a monster that looked like a curled loop of lava and obsidian slumbered, hundreds of feet in length. Each breath blasted out air so hot that the rock beneath it glowed brighter. Sam was alone, with the rest of the soldiers he had met fighting a few miles distant, against the beast’s progeny.
He took a step down into the crater, and watched as the monster stirred, beginning to unspool its prodigious length. Each coil expanded, until the beast was fully awake, rearing up before him. It had the head of a cobra, with a hood made out of pure flame. With a hiss, it regarded him, before darting down, opening its mouth wide.
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Sam leaped to the side, and as the head struck the ground, he swung his hammer. Scales cracked beneath the blow, and the monster was sent swaying away, hissing in pain. Sam raced after it, leaping at the last moment. The creature’s eyes flashed, and a geyser of lava erupted below where Sam had been. The heat could be felt even from a distance, and he instantly knew that it was no normal lava. The air around it flickered as fire caught hold, and Sam felt a wave of hot air bake the outside of his armor.
He let it buffet him through the air, and with a whoosh, a jet of pure Dao energy formed behind him, propelling him at the speed of a rocket. His hammer led the way, and he kept its haft between his arm and his body, so that it wouldn’t tear through his flesh upon impact.
A spectral spear of energy formed around the end of the weapon, and with a rending noise, it sank into the monster’s head.
The elemental cobra reared back, bleeding great orbs of searing blood, which sank into the ground, melting through the rock with ease. Sam pushed the spear of energy deeper into the serpent, and it writhed more and more, each coil blasting apart the rock as it impacted it. The crater of lava and superheated stone around it began to come apart, and Sam soon found himself whipped around with the movements of the monster.
He was forced to let go, and went flying over the rim of the crater, landing softly a few hundred feet away. His hammer sparked with the raw energy of his Dao, and with a smile, he used his newest Daos in unison with it, empowering it with a sheath of crackling electricity, and his mind with a boon of minor foresight.
With a shuddering boom, he raced forwards, his steps obliterating the ground beneath him. Great drifts of soil and rock were forced out of his way, forming dunes behind him. So great was his strength that he warped the very world around him, creating new landscapes in the place of the old ones.
The cobra rose up above its crater, growing larger and larger as it flared a cloak of lava around itself. The obsidian scales that girded its form grew brighter and brighter as currents of pure heat were channeled through them, and with a roar, the monster disgorged a spear of molten rock the length of a bus.
Sam could feel the heat of the attack on a conceptual level, and he could instantly feel that it was packed full of rampant Dao energy, as well as enough Fire elemental energy to melt an entire city. Rather than dodge or back down, Sam swung his hammer, charging it with the full weight of his Primal skill. A dense lattice of pure mana, the energy of his Dao Seed, and a hefty investment of Earth elemental power all slid into the weapon. With a boom, the weapon impacted the incoming strike, and a wave of power coursed from its head, and into the spear of lava.
The serpent’s technique was blasted apart all the way down its center, sending a wash of lava out into the land nearby. Like a drill, Sam’s more powerful skill sliced through the spear, and then into the monster’s head.
