Sam pushed forwards, but a moment later felt a sharp pain in his gut. Looking down, he saw a spear of lava poking through his armor and into his flesh. He frowned, the pain more of a distraction than anything else. Before him, the Foreman grinned, his hand thrust out.

"Volcanos grow stronger-"

"Shut the hell up!" Sam barked. "I'm tired of you saying some generic stuff about volcanoes and then powering up. If Daos were supposed to work like that, everyone would be gods by now."

The Foreman's mouth opened, the man for once at a loss for words. Sam shook his head in annoyance, and savagely kicked the other cultivator away. As he did so, his hand swiped down, grabbing a tiny artifact from the Foreman's belt. With a single swipe of his hammer, the weapon lengthening as it went, Sam batted the troublesome foe further into the distance. Dao Juggernaut was about to run out. It was about time that he ended things.

Sensing that he was about to die, the Foreman tried to teleport out, only to find that Sam was holding something in his hand.

"Looking for this?" Sam called out, lifting a tiny rectangle of metal before his face. A sharp burst of Dao energy atomized the artifact.

The Foreman's face twisted in fear, and a moment later, Sam teleported in front of him. Spent from his exertions, the lava cultivator was unable to do much to resist. Sam whipped Terra's Will down, condensing his upgraded Manifestation of Vengeance into it. The weapon elongated, a lance of energy forming at its tip. The Foreman raised his hammer, but the attack broke through his guard, splitting the man down the middle. Sam released his control over the technique, and a wave of obliteration wiped the Foreman from the face of the realm.

Sam turned his gaze towards the others, who were still trying to catch up to him. Seeing that their strongest compatriot had fallen, they scattered, without a reason to be there any longer.

"You're not going to get away that easily, not after what you made me go through," Sam said calmly.

A murderous look flashed across his face, invisible to his foes, but quite present for him. Stringing a few teleports, Sam broke out from the ether in front of the group of his enemy. All of them drew their escape devices, some laying covering fire for the others. Sam was running on fumes, having stretched Dao Juggernaut beyond its normal limits, but he had enough for one final surge of power.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Channeling his actual Dao into the skill, Sam felt an incredible pain erupt through his body as he supplemented his Unique skill with a power that was far weaker than the energy source that it drew from. The white pillars of light were tinted a bloody blue hue as it changed. Sam directed all of the remaining power into a single second of ascendence, pushing his stats to nearly double their normal level. Like a wraith, he sped through the loose formation of his enemies, his hammer tracing a singular silvery path through their bodies.

Sam came to a stop, coughing up blood. It felt like his body was breaking apart. Had he tried something like that during F Rank, or even before achieving the third threshold of Resilience, he would have instantly died. As it was, his health drained to around ten thousand points, nearly empty. The fruits of his labor was evident, however, a cloud of gore, scraps of cloth and armor fragments drifting through the air before him.

The realm began to fade around him as his quest completed, transporting him to the next layer of the Tower. The notifications for four level ups vied for attention, but he pushed them away.

Reality unspooled before him as he stepped out of the ether, landing in a strange new land. Whereas the previous floor had been a large expanse of grey stone and crystalline trees, this new one was filled with water, and the smell of salt. An ocean extended out before him, filled with islands, some large and some small. Of course, all of that size was relative to his power. The smallest of the islands were still dozens of miles across, which would be a journey of a few seconds with his level of speed. The largest ones were like small countries, casting vast shadows across the water around them.

A System notification opened before him a split second later, explaining where he was. A second one followed soon after.

You have entered Floor 1 of the Worldsea(Challenge Mode)

The vastness of the open ocean spreads out before you, taken to a scale unlike any you have ever seen on your home planet. Even one as powerful as you could travel across these waters for days without even traversing a quarter of its total size. To start off, make your way to one of the central islands of the Worldsea, and find the inhabitants of this land.

Completion: 0/1

Rewards: Title Upgrade

Note: A special event has been planned for the later floors of the Tower. As a result, the next competition floor will be the 65th instead of the 75th.

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