Sam howled in pain, and fought back, shrinking Terra's Will, and flipping it around like a spear. Thrusting it in and out of the Foreman's lava infused skin brought forth great sprays of molten blood, but the overall effect was limited. Curing at his weakness, Sam let the hammer fall, gathering vast quantities of his Dao to his right hand. Each punch from the Foreman added an extra spark to the fire of Vengeance, and once his hand was enveloped in a fiery red glow, Sam punched straight into one of the wounds left by Terra's Will.
A thunderbolt of pressurized energy cooked the Foreman from the inside out, turning the veins of lava into vapor. If the previous attacks had been like insect bites, then this was the maw of a lion, closed tight around vulnerable flesh. Sam grinned through the pain and extended a conduit of raw energy straight from his core and into his foe's body.
The Foreman's skin crisped and blackened around the impact point, and Sam found his hand submerged in roasted E Rank… matter. The immense lava cultivator reared back from the pain, letting Sam go. However, Sam did not let the Foreman go in turn. More energy raced down his hand, and straight into his enemy.
The Foreman brought his hammer down like a thunderbolt, a corona of thick, almost solid elemental energy surrounding it. Sam raised his free hand, and transferred all of his available energy to it, while maintaining contact with the wound in the other man's gut.
"You shouldn't have come here," Sam said. "This world does not want you, or you ilk."
As the hammer descended, he snapped his fingers, and a sturdy disk of elemental energy, mana and Dao energy formed above it, thickening until it was almost three feet wide. The hammer smacked down a mere fraction of a second later, instantly cracking the energy construct. Despite his earlier words, Sam felt his body tearing free of his tenuous grip, the force of the Foreman's strike so great that the air pressure alone was pushing him. His hand slipped free, and he plummeted down.
The Foreman towered over him like an angry god, impossibly large even as the distance between them increased. Then, there was a slight crack in the veneer as the man shrunk by a few inches. The magma veins cooled a bit, no longer as bright as before. Sam smiled. He could win this yet.
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The other fighters came rushing in as they saw the Foreman's strength diminish, deeming it safe enough to enter the fray once more. Sam turned to face them, and blasted forwards, rockets of fiery energy shooting him towards his foes. The Foreman slapped at the air so hard that he flew, a ring of fire exploding out from the impact point. However, Sam was already on his way.
As he went, he looked over the remaining cultivators, all ten of them. Without the presence of the Light mage, only the Foreman was left to contest his speed, and that man was too far behind. The Shadow Raven still hovered in the distance, not bothering to engage. Likely, it realized that its chances were higher against a single enemy, regardless of a third party's presence. With the chains binding it, the creature had little mobility.
Sam was beginning to push up against the limits of Dao Juggernaut. He could feel the empowerment fading, his body returning to its normal state. If he didn't want to make the Gemlands his grave, he needed to finish this up quickly. Setting his eyes on the Shadow Raven, an incredibly dangerous idea came to him.
Sam sped up, accelerating faster and faster, blowing right past his previous targets. Unprepared for this, the cabal of elementalists missed him with their instinctive attacks. He crossed the sky in the blink of an eye, appearing next to the Shadow Raven. Sam held out his hand, and called to Terra's Will with his weapon mastery. The weapon hummed as it tumbled through the air, landing in his hand a moment later. Then, willing it to expand to its maximum size, Sam coated it in the skill matrix of Manifestation of Vengeance, his Primal Skill enveloping the weapon. Before the Shadow Raven could move, Sam shot down at the nearest chain, gathering the strength in his body to the utmost.
Terra's Will struck the dark chain with a sharp ringing noise, injecting a spike of power into the binding. Sam pushed forth with all of his might, using up as much of his energy as he could to ensure that his plan worked. Weaving his empowered elemental affinity and Dao into the strike, Sam could now see what the end goal of this floor had been. Within the chains, he could sense a reserve of stored power, gathered by the Shadow Raven over decades. Had he tried to kill the elemental without breaking the chains, it would have simply drawn upon this reserve of power, breaking itself free. Rather than keeping the monster restrained, the chains seemed to be a device of the Raven's own making. Even as he worked, the elemental weave struggled against him, fighting to overwhelm his energy reserves. Had he not upgraded his Dao, and his element, there wouldn't have been enough power, both in quantity and quality, to do anything.
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