Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 39 - A Price Worth Paying (Patreon)
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Xavier quickly realised that what he had on his hands was a damned math problem.
At the rate he was gaining Mastery Points, he would need to kill over nine hundred E Grade enemies. It might even be more, though that was difficult to know. Though each level he gained needed more Mastery Points than the last, he usually gained more Mastery Points from each new E Grade he faced, as they tended to be higher level than the previous wave bosses—he hoped it would balance out.
Else he would have to take out one E Grade roughly every minute and a half. And though he may have managed to do that with the firstwave of his last day until the degeneration began, that by no means meant he could maintain this pace.
I don’t even know if there are that many waves on this side of the portals.
During that minute and a half, he wouldn’t be able to deal with the normal enemies of each wave, making them build and build until there were millions of the bastards all around him. Assuming he somehow even managed to do this…
God, it’s impossible!
These thoughts kept raging through his mind as he fought, and he hoped what Siobhan had said might happen soon would come true—the normal soldiers in a wave becoming E Grade instead of F Grade.
So far, all these damned enemies were still Level 99.
War drums still sounded all around him. The Endless Horde were becoming more and more ferocious.
Xavier pushed forward, striking against the next wave before the first was anywhere near being cleared.
You have struck a blow against the Endless Horde before their next timed wave.
This choice has consequences.
The Endless Horde are no longer limited to triggering their waves every 30 minutes. The Endless Horde may start a wave every 15 minutes.
Be cautious of your next step.
One cannot walk backward on the path.
The System cut the timeframe in half again.
Something told him that pattern would continue. And, like the System said, there was no coming back from this. He gritted his teeth, pushed out his purple mist to take over a nearby soldier and steal their thoughts.
Then he hunted the next E Grade wave boss.
Hours passed in this way. Xavier was becoming quite accustomed to sustained violence. He’d been fighting almost nonstop for more than six weeks. But almost was the important word there. During his breaks, even if he wasn’t able to sleep, he was able to eat. Now, there was no time for that at all.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem as though he needed to eat quite as much as he used to—something that didn’t make a lot of sense to him, considering how much stronger he was now.
My body must be burning thousands of calories more than a normal human’s would. How am I refuelling?
Perhaps it had something to do with his consumption of Celestial Energy. He already knew it fuelled his body in more ways than one, considering it fed both his cores. Maybe it fed him, too.
Regardless, by the time the tenth hour rolled around, Xavier felt a pit of hunger deep in his stomach, and a wave of exhaustion that surged through his entire body. He’d been keeping count as the day raged on. Trying to remain aware of how many E Grade enemies he’d killed, and how much time had passed.
In ten hours, he’d killed 242 E Grade wave bosses. A feat he wouldn’t have imagined was even possible even a couple of days ago. A feat that sounded absolutely impossible for an F Grade Denizen to even achieve. It should have been something that made him proud. The very fact that he was still alive was absolutely amazing, after all. To achieve something like this on top of surviving…
But it wasn’t enough.
He was roughly 140 kills behind where he needed to be. He’d gained twelve levels over that time. Another feat that should have impressed him. Another feat that should have made him proud.
But the countdown timer still kept on ticking.
He’d distributed the majority of his free stat points into Willpower and Spirit. Spirit had always been—and would always be—his most powerful asset. His Soul Strike spell was perhaps the only reason he’d gotten this far in the first place. It allowed him to deal a tremendous amount of damage to the E Grade bosses he encountered. He was able to refill his soulkeeping reserve by using Heavy Telekinesis to kill beasts and soldiers on his way to the next wave boss. He didn’t even have to aim the spell. The battlefield was like a mosh pit that spread for miles and miles. It was so clogged with enemies he couldn’t see the ground.
Quickly killing the wave bosses wasn’t Xavier’s only problem. The biggest problem he’d encountered was locating that wave boss in time, and moving around the battlefield fast enough to reach them. He had added points to Speed, figuring it was one of his most important attributes right now, but Speed didn’t exactly give him the ability to fly.
Flying would certainly come in handy.
Another issue was how quickly the waves came. Of course, it was an issue he’d caused, and one he was well aware would happen.
They were down to every fourteen seconds. This only served to make the wave bosses even more difficult to find. His soulkeeping reserve could hold 1,970 souls. A part of Xavier was eager to use every single one of them in a Soul Strike, just to see how many enemies he could clear off the battlefield. To make some space to breathe. But that would just be a drop in the bucket.
And he’d have to wait almost thirty-three minutes for the damned spell to reach the end of its cooldown.
If I’m ever able to get past the cooldown of that spell, I’ll be unstoppable on a battlefield like this.
Then again, he supposed he was unstoppable here. He just wasn’t fast enough.
I wish there was someone here with me. Someone who could show me what I need to do to push forward.
A small part of Xavier wondered if he should pray. He’d been wracking his brain, trying to come up with a way to speed up his progress, but he kept hitting hard limitations. Limitations he didn’t know how to surpass while in the middle of… all of this.
Xavier had never been religious. Never believed in God, or any other kind of deity. But he’d also been someone who looked to science for answers. Someone who was willing to change their mind if proof was presented to him. And though he’d seen no proof of a God that many back on Earth believed in, he did know deities existed—they’d been mentioned in the Summon spell he’d decided not to choose.
And, assuming they did exist, how would he be able to contact such beings?
His mind ran in circles. Even if he could contact such a being, deities in a universe that the System governed… something told him that if they were to grant him anything, they would want something in return. Whether that was devotion, or some sort of pact, would he be willing to give it to them?
Then there were the presences he’d felt observing him. Two different ones, on two different occasions. The first had made him feel like nothing but a speck of dust, and it had come after he’d reached the top spot on the leaderboard. The second one hadn’t been quite as intense, though there had been much power in it.
These beings… they would have the answers I seek. They would know how to get me to E Grade, even without having to reach level 100. If only I could speak to them, somehow…
It made him think about what Siobhan had recommended he do—return to the Tower of Champions and speak to Sam. But that wasn’t an option. That was far too much of a gamble.
All these thoughts soared through one half of his mind over and over as he fought. The other half was consumed with the fight. A state of flow had overtaken him. There was nothing else in the Greater Universe but him and those he sought to kill. Nothing could stand in his way. He felt as though he was Death itself. He consumed the souls of every foe he killed. He hunted E Grade after E Grade. Saw their fear as he came for them. Saw their disbelief at what was happening.
The battlefield was his. There was nothing more powerful. Nothing more dangerous.
Wave after wave after wave began. The war drums and war cries. The horns and howls. The roars and ragged shouts. He couldn’t keep up with it. More waves were beginning than E Grades he’d killed. He couldn’t count how many enemies must be in the fight. Didn’t know how many waves had become active. A constant stream of enemies flowed from each and every portal at the back of the enemy lines. He wondered how they could all fit.
The odds are against me. I am Death, but my scythe cuts too slow. I need to change the game again.
He leapt over the heads of his enemies. Arrows, fireballs, lightning, ice shards, boulders, air-whips and all manner of spells and weapons came for him while he soared in giant leaps. He no longer bothered using Soul Block. He knew he could take these attacks. His Toughness, his Tissue Regeneration, it made him practically invulnerable against these nuisances.
Change the game…. Change the game… Change the game…
Think, think, think.
His gaze fell on the portals once more. He imagined what must be on the other side—the Endless Horde’s most powerful enemies. He bit his lip. If he stepped through a portal, what would the System do? So far, the waves and waves and waves of enemies active in the battlefield had not attacked the castle. The same truth that had been proven in the past was proven in the present—they wouldn’t attack the castle until everyone defending it on the battlefield had died.
But he had to imagine it was the System that was preventing them from moving forward. That was preventing them from attacking the castle.
Xavier weighed his options. His determination to destroy the Endless Horde was still there, as insane as his task was. He still wished to protect the queen, but his desire to do so… it was not stronger than his desire to save Earth.
How could it be?
Xavier didn’t know how many people were still alive back on Earth. He hoped it was in the billions, and not the millions. But no matter the current population, no matter the casualties they’d endured, he needed to save them.
Siobhan’s words hit him once more: Earth’s only hope.
If stepping through one of the Endless Horde’s portals to find enemies that would give him enough Mastery Points to reach Level 100—then finally advance to E Grade—meant that the waves were given permission by the System to attack the castle?
It was a price worth paying.