NOVEL NEXT Chapter 679
All in all, it was a great new suite of abilities. Both of his new skills were potent to say the least, and more importantly, ranking up his Daos had given him thousands of stat points. His Dexterity was over ten thousand now, and his Strength was drawing near.
"I think I'm getting close…" Sam muttered to himself. "I'm more than twice as strong as when I faced Granthar."
He clenched his fist around the hilt of Terra's Will, and smiled. Sam pushed himself to his feet, and gazed up at the sky above. He needed to wrap this thing up. The final floor was waiting, and he was ready.
***
The rest of the Forbidden Heavens was relatively straightforward. The fourth and fifth quest had him deal with two more pseudo D Rankers lurking around the region. Doing so had drawn the attention of Lord Ramiel, who had sent enforcers after Sam. The Lord himself was too proud to sully himself by facing a mere E Ranker, especially one who wasn't even at the halfway mark of the Rank. It was a marked change from the last D Ranker Sam had dealt with, Granthar, who had simply attacked after some minor insults.
This had allowed Sam to, if not breeze through the floor, at least make his way through it. He practiced more and more with his new portal creation ability, finding it to be incredibly useful. His limit of simultaneous portal creation was based on his total Dao energy reserves, and every subsequent portal meant an exponential increase in the cost. One was effortless, two was doable, but more than three started to ramp up the amount of his Dao needed. His current limit was five portals. Additionally, the more matter he transported through it, the higher the cost. It wasn't like the exponential increase of before his Dao upgrade, where he had to shield physical matter with his Dao before entry, but it was still significant.
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This allowed him to attack from multiple angles at once, using his E Rank mind to synchronize his attacks to massively superhuman levels. He could barrage his foes with a rain of deadly projectiles while his hammer attacked from one blind spot, and his fist from another.
Sam could move through the portals like a spider in a web, with them increasing his mobility, but hindering everyone else in comparison. It allowed him to escape death on many occasions.
The fifth quest had been almost fatal, with him facing off against a cloud giant. The creature was humanoid, but about fifty feet tall and made out of ultra dense water vapor. The cloud was so compressed that it had almost been like steel, and with the addition of a D Rank elemental's natural advantages, that ensured that it was far more durable than any mortal metal.
The giant, which had gone unnamed by the System, had wielded a titanic club. It was forged from an azure crystal, seemingly made out of solidified lightning. Each swing sent the skies shaking, and the shockwaves carried intense electricity charges with them. They were almost impossible to dodge without teleportation, and very hard to even with a movement ability. It had only been Sam's ability to create multiple portals that prevented his death. One hadn't been enough, destabilizing around him as enough pressure to forge diamonds out of coal pressed down.
After that, he had fought the servants of Ramiel, entire armies of warped angelic creatures, and some cherubs that looked much like Ezekiel. These ones were far stronger, though, and some posed a challenge even to him. As they were not cultivators, the monsters weren't limited by the same Rank system to the same extent. There were many halfway between E Rank and D Rank, just like Sam seemed to be. If not in reality, then certainly in power.
A war had begun in Heaven, one man against an entire world. That did not last, though. As he went, Sam discovered something. If he slew the direct overseer of an angel, generally one of Ramiel's family members, he could claim their bonds as their own in the brief moment that it took for their contracts to update. As he was the closest cultivator, he could make up for his lack of authority with proximity and power. It didn't always work, a bit less than half of the time, but he amassed a small army out of the times that it did.