Sam felt as if he were a god, the world itself slowing around him to humor his whims. The Foreman's descent was now comically languid, as if tossed by the breeze rather than by a strike that could have broken mountains. Unfortunately for Sam, as the entire battle was taking place midair, he couldn't exactly take advantage of his immense speed. Without the ability to teleport, he was limited to using energy propulsion techniques, which were quite slow in comparison.
Instead, he settled on projectile attacks, raking a barrage of Dao missiles across his foes. Only the Light elemental cultivator was capable of matching his speed, or at least, reacting to it with injury. She zipped between the falling beams, ascending on a shining path of luminescence.
As all of this happened, the Shadow Raven looked on in what a sapient would call bemusement, unsure of what was happening. It was an ancient being, but the vagaries of sentience eluded it. The Raven existed to fulfill a concept, and could not understand anything beyond that goal save for survival and in a dim sort of way, allegiance to other elementals, especially its children.
The gnats flying around it might have been tiny, but they stung when they attacked. With the chains that bound it, the Raven was unable to properly retaliate. Long ago, it had bound itself in an exchange with the very element of Darkness, finding the power of space at its fingertips at the price of being limited in its own movement. It was common enough for E Rankers and D Rankers to do this, but such a thing was considered shameful beyond that rank. Of course, the Raven couldn't care less. It didn't even know what Ranks were.
The creature made its move, releasing a portion of the latent energy stored in its core. The storm of spatial potency orbiting the elemental turned into a maelstrom, dark clouds gathering in the heavens as forked bolts of shadowy lightning shattered the skies. With a screech loud enough to cause a tidal wave, the monster beat its wings at a thunderous tempo, whipping the skies into a fury. Hovering there like a god, the monster glared down at the ants that had disturbed its rest. Especially at one in particular, the one who had slain its children. He would be the last to die.
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***
Sam and his foes danced around one another, though, to be fair, Sam was dancing to a far faster tempo than the others. Both he and the others ignored the Shadow Raven, which seemed content to wait for the battle to reach its peak. The massive elemental, the size of a small mountain, loomed like a storm cloud overhead as it gazed with eyes of shining pitch. Sam couldn't afford to let it distract him, though, and instead focused all of his efforts on dealing with the Foreman and his compatriots. Even with Dao Juggernaut, the battle was hardly one sided. While Sam could hold his own against the twelve high E Rankers, an impressive feat to say the least, he wasn't such a genius that he could dominate the battle. Most likely, such a being didn't exist.
Weaving in and out of blocks, strikes and parries, Sam chipped away at the health of his enemies. Going by what the System had said, none of them would be leaving this place like the Foreman had before. Sam needed to kill them all, or at least have the Shadow Raven contribute.
He shot a glance at the elemental, and slowly started to lead his foes back towards the monster. At the speeds that he was moving at, most didn't notice anything, save for the Light mage.
"Don't follow him!" she shouted, falling back. "He's trying to lead us into a trap."
Sam quirked his lip in annoyance, and zeroed in on the woman. With a series of sharp retorts, he broke the sound barrier as he zigzagged towards the mage. Terra's Will glowed brighter and brighter as he channeled his Dao into the weapon, wanting to kill the pesky speed cultivator as quickly as possible.
As he moved, he was forced to tank a few attacks from the others, with the Foreman leading a change. He and a few of the more durable cultivators tried to block Sam with their bodies, swelling with elemental power as they summoned suits of conceptual energy to gird their bodies. Their bodies swelled in size, literally in the case of the Fire elementalist, whose robes billowed outwards as she transformed into a humanoid pillar of crackling flames.
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