Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 46 - Wearing Glass-Cannon Mage Robes (Patreon)

Xavier, standing between two armies, glanced up at the floor boss for the third floor of the Tower of Champions.

He had no idea what the hell it was, but it lookedterrifying. Far more menacing than the Puma Prime or the Rat King had been. This looked like a true beast. It stood on four thick, trunk-like legs. It looked like some sort of weird cross between a rhinoceros and a three-headed hellhound, though this thing would give Cerberus a run for its money.

Each of its three heads were wreathed in flames. Each had a long horn jutting from the top of the head that looked more like sharpened metal spikes than they did bone.

The horns glowed, and Xavier couldn’t help but wonder if they had some sort of magical properties.

If I kill the floor boss before the enemy soldiers, does that end the level? He was 99.99% sure that it wouldn’t, which made him all the more tempted to try, as terrifying as the damned beast looked.

Xavier scanned it.

{Cerotri Infernum – Level 40}

Cerotri Infernum? What the hell is that? Didn’t infernum mean hell?

That thought made him shudder, wondering what the System’s version of hell would be like. The more he looked at the Cerotri Infernum, the more he realised the differences between it and a rhinoceros.

Like someone already bad at drawing had done a drunk sketch of one.

This beast wasn’t like any of the others that he’d encountered since the integration. The Black Pumas and the Giant Mole Rats appeared to be animals from earth that had been transformed—or from somewhere incredibly similar to Earth. Which he supposed could be possible, as apparently there were humans on other worlds.

Not apparently. There are humans on other worlds.

But this beast? This beast was totally alien. Its skin didn’t look like skin. It looked like molten lava. Like it was constantly flowing and shifting and changing. The red glow of its flesh washed over the enemy’s side of the battlefield, as though painting it in blood.

The beast roared—from all three heads. The roar was as alien as the Ceres Infernum itself. It sounded like explosions set off. Like bubbles bursting. Deep rumbling and high-pitched hissing mixed with the roaring of a jet engine.

That sound did sting Xavier’s ears.

The level of the beast took him by surprise, too.

The last floor boss was level 20. This is twice that level. Not to mention the bloody beast stands thirty-five feet tall!

He supposed he wouldn’t have to face it alone. He had an army behind him. It would be more like facing a raid boss with a guild than facing a single boss solo.

And I could probably take that thing on my own if I had to.

He was eager to finally test out Spirit Break on the beast. It didn’t seem like something that would be helpful against multiple opponents, especially when he could kill them all so easily. But against that? It might be a different story.

Xavier flicked his attention back in front of him. He must have taken out seventy enemies casting Heavy Telekinesis twice. Spiritual Trifecta was still well and truly active—and both of the spells had just ranked up, not to mention Magical Potency was at Rank 6, giving him an effective Intelligence of 101.

He would have been at 100 when it had hit Rank 5, which meant he’d broken 100 before casting the second spell.

That last spell… it hit harder than the first without me even realising. I think I killed ten more enemies than the first. He had definitely passed some sort of barrier when he’d gotten 100 points in Spirit, then again in Intelligence. The next closest would be Toughness.

Tearing his focus away from the level 40 Cerotri Infernum, Xavier cast Heavy Telekinesis against the line of enemy soldiers. The elven warriors had been climbing over the corpses of their kin to get toward him. Half of them looked like they were already injured—they must have been hit by the soldiers he’d already thrown.

Crack!

Dozens of kill notifications assailed his vision. He willed only the things he wished to see to the surface.

Congratulations, you have reached level 9!

Your health has been regenerated by 50%!

Your Spirit Energy limit has increased by 100!

You have received +1 Intelligence, +1 Willpower and +1 Spirit!

You have received +5 free stat points!

All your spells have refreshed and are no longer on cooldown!

Magical Potency has reached rank 7!

A level up, already? And another rank in Magical Potency? The skill was adding 11% magical damage to every one of his spells now, and boosting his Intelligence by 11% as well.

Xavier could barely believe how much damage he was inflicting. Spiritual Trifecta was still active. How long does that last, now? He stepped forward, over the corpses of his enemies. He remembered what Howard had said—that he needed to learn how to fight without simply using brute force.

But right now, that didn’t seem quite as relevant, especially when he had no shortage of Spirit Energy and his Heavy Telekinesis spell kept refreshing every 2 seconds.

Xavier threw 1 point into Toughness—he was now 5 away from 100—and the other 4 into Intelligence, going for as much mass damage as he could muster.

This is a bloodbath. A massacre.

He cast the spell again. More enemies fell. He had to remember that he didn’t want to clear this floor. Not yet.

He’d killed less on that last spell. The enemies were running away from him now, no doubt clearing a path for their long-ranged fighters to get a bead on him.

An arrow thunked into his shoulder.

Crap. He was out in the open again, mostly because he’d killed all the soldiers that had been standing in front of him, and the ones he hadn’t had run away. So much for not taking risks.

Heavy footsteps thudded behind him. Within seconds, the honour guard were in front of him with their shields up.

Howard was at their front. “We’ll push you forward, then break and let you through when you near their lines again!”

“Good plan!” Xavier shouted back. He looked down at the arrow in his shoulder, realising that… it hadn’t really hurt all that much. It had glowed purple—penetration arrow?—on its way toward him, but now it was dim.

The conventional wisdom was not to pull something that had punctured through your skin back out, as it was plugging up the blood. Blades tended to do more damage coming out than going in. But Xavier figured this situation was different.

He yanked the arrow out of his shoulder, knowing he could pull a Lesser Health Potion—or even munch on some food—from his Storage Ring if he needed it, but looking at his health… That arrow only took it down by 1%? And it’s heading back up? He’d need to get hit by a hundred of those things—at the same time—to get taken out.

And that’s wearing glass-cannon Mage robes. I wonder how much more resilient I’ll be at 100 Toughness…

Once again, Xavier was realising just how great the divide between him and anyone else was. It lit a fire within him. A desire to push forward even faster.

That army is nothing compared to me.

The Cerotri Infernum roared once more. The enemy soldiers had made a path for it. When it had arrived, it had been at the very back of the elven army’s lines.

Now, it was nearing the front.

It will be on us soon. Very soon.

Xavier stepped on something metallic between enemy corpses. Looking down, he realised he was standing atop the door to the Staging Room. He’d already pushed the enemy army back far enough to reach it. “Sergeant Bradley! Help clear the trapdoor! We need it ready to be opened!”

Sergeant Bradley, who’d been not far behind him, bellowed orders to the soldiers he’d gathered for this very duty, even if he didn’t know what the door was.

Howard and the honour guard reached the line of enemy soldiers. Howard barked that it was time for Xavier to step in, and they made a hole for him to step through.

Xavier felt like the battering ram of a siege tower. Protected by the soldiers around him until he reached his destination.

And it was time to punch a hole through the elven army. A hole that would lead him straight to the third-floor boss.

Xavier cast Spiritual Trifecta upon himself once more, then inflicted as much death upon the enemy as he could muster.

He flung thirty or so soldiers one way, took three slow steps as he counted down from two to zero, then flung another thirty or so soldiers the other.

I must already be halfway to level 10 by now!

He wasn’t sure how many enemies he’d killed. Maybe two hundred. But with his efforts coupled with the efforts of the human army, it looked like only a hundred of them remained. If he didn’t ease up, they’d all be dead before he took out the floor boss. And the last thing he wanted right now was to accidentally clear the floor.

This has definitely been the easiest floor so far. It felt different, having so many people there to protect him while he fought.

The Cerotri Infernum was close. Damned close. It loomed over him, casting its fiery shadow. There was no longer a single enemy soldier between him and the floor boss.

Time to face the hell beast.