Xavier flew through the air above the clearing with the party of C Grades sent to capture him, a portal he’d summoned hovering between him and his enemies to act as a shield.

  The Archer of Fortune’s arrow that had sailed through the portal slammed straight into the Chains that Bind. The man hadn’t been swift enough to dodge it. It hit him square in his exposed chest. Though the archer was clearly a damage dealer, the effect of the arrow seemed to be a crippling one. Despite the fact that it didn’t hit the man in the legs, he crumpled to the ground, unable to walk.

  Of course the Archer of Fortune wouldn’t strike me with something they thought could kill me—they’re trying to take me alive, after all.

  Xavier wondered about the specifics of their orders. Wondered if taking him alive was a best-case scenario, or the only option they’d been given.

  If it was the former, that would mean they would soon change their tactics when they realised they were facing someone that was a threat to them.

  With two of the enemies incapacitated to varying degrees, Xavier cast Soul Strike. He saw no point in delaying his most powerful spell, especially while Time Alteration was cooling down. He needed to hit these bastards with everything that he had, else he might not have a chance of getting out of this.

  Xavier could feel the bodies around him that were ripe for the picking, souls still inside of them. The deaths of the Great Shells had happened inside of a time dilation field, mere moments ago. Xavier hadn’t harvested their souls—and there were thousands of them. He’d intended to do that after the Time Alteration spell ended. He was going to use Soul Harden, as he usually did, until his reserve lowered enough to need refilling.

  But he’d left the corpses to sit for a time, their souls not yet reaped.

  This was a tactic he’d been experimenting with of late, something he honestly hadn’t expected to need right away. Having a field of corpses ready to reap souls from meant he could exhaust his entire reserve without worrying about it being depleted.

  That gave him a myriad of options.

  Rhaalir, scout the area. Are there any others nearby?

  He needed to ensure these four were the only threats.

  Xavier didn’t wait for a response, however. The spirit could move swiftly in his current form, he simply couldn’t affect the real world. But Xavier didn’t need him to—he just needed more information.

  Xavier made a snap decision. Before he heard a reply from the elf spirit, he cast Soul Strike, targeting those beneath him—the three Denizens that weren’t stuck in the Time Prison spell. He formed Lost Bone of a Dead God into a scythe, but he didn’t imbue any Soul Energy into the strike. He’d used plenty of that back in the fight against the Elemental Dragon, and while he still had a strong reserve if he needed it, he didn’t want to use it unless absolutely necessary.

  He’d seen the consequences of overuse.

  White lightning sprang from his scythe and arced through the air. Thousands of soul apparitions took form. Beasts that he’d been hunting recently to replenish his reserves. They came in all manner of size and species. The sight of them shocked the C Grades almost enough to freeze them to the ground, but one of their number acted before the others, more swiftly than Xavier had anticipated.

  The Walking Shield cast a spell. Bright light encompassed him, along with the other members of his party, though it skipped over the Divine Helper, as nothing could affect her in the state that she was currently in.

  His party members were teleported to his side.

  Some sort of summon ally spell? Xavier thought. He wouldn’t have expected a tank to have that.

  The tank managed to cast this spell an instant before the soul apparitions slammed into him and his party members. He raised his shield and stared defiantly at Xavier.

  That shield isn’t going to do anything, Xavier thought. The soul apparitions couldn’t be stopped by physical defences.

  He was, however, wrong.

  Whatever spell the tank had cast, the shield he raised seemed to suck all of the soul apparitions toward him, as though he’d redirected the attack. The soul apparitions moved through the shield, but instead of coming out the other side they flowed to either side of the man, harmlessly floating through patches of grass, hunks of rock, and the trees farther away on the sides of the large clearing.

  The attack didn’t harm the party at all.

  Xavier had cast his most powerful offensive spell and it hadn’t done a damned thing.

  He didn’t have time to contemplate how something like that might be possible. Clearly whatever spell the man had cast had been a powerful protective spell.

  But a spell like that didn’t seem like something that someone would be able to use multiple times in a short period.

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  At least, that was what Xavier hoped. These people were C Grade. Who knew what they were capable of?

  Xavier most certainly couldn’t cast Soul Strike again, not for a while. He’d imbued thousands of souls into that strike, his entire reserve. He replenished much of the reserve the instant after he cast the spell, pulling the souls from all of the dead Great Shells.

  But the cooldown for his Spirit Strike spell had never once bunched. One second per spirit, no more, no less.

  Xavier gritted his teeth, frustration flaring in him at the thought of waiting several minutes to cast the spell a second time—and even if he did cast it once more, he would need to ensure the same thing wouldn’t happen again. He’d been sure that attack would kill a few of them, or at least deeply wound them. The fact that it had been completely ineffective hit him hard.

  He moved on from it, however, casting Spirit Break directly at the tank. The Walking Shield didn’t scream in pain, but he did let out a small gasp, his forehead crinkling as he strained.

  Xavier, still flying above his enemies, thought of casting Willpower Infusion, hoping they wouldn’t have one of those stupid devices that stopped him from controlling another’s mind—they were far too convenient for an enemy to use against him.

  Perhaps it would be wise to cast a different spell…

  He grinned, and cast Chronomantic Mindforge. It wouldn’t matter if they had one of those devices—there wouldn’t be time enough to get it out of their Storage Rings.

  Everything froze around him. Even Xavier froze. Only his mind was still working. He targeted the tank with this spell—perhaps he should have gone after the damage dealer, but if the tank was able to pull off another one of those damned stunts like he had with Xavier’s Soul Strike attack, then his cores needed to be hamstringed of their energies.

  And this was the best way to do that.

  Xavier took hold of his enemy’s mind, drawing in the man’s energies and at the same time bolstering his own. The Walking Shield had no way of mentally defending from this attack, not while his mind was frozen. Xavier had free rein.

  He stole as much energy from the tank as he could, pulling from multiple cores. The man’s Toughness Core was the largest. Something to be expected. Unlike when he’d done this against the Elemental Dragon, he felt as though he could drain half the man’s reserve in one casting.

  I’ll have to do the rest in another.

  The spell ended. Xavier cycled the energy and burned off what he couldn’t handle. His portal shield was effective, but the Archer of Fortune had a few tricks up her sleeve. She nocked three arrows simultaneously, holding them between her fingers as she did so. It looked as though she was aiming for the portal, but when she loosed the arrows they arced in three different directions.

  Then they became invisible.

  Xavier’s eyes widened. Invisible arrows? Well, that wasn’t fair. Rather than cast portal once more, Xavier simply reserved the direction of the portal that was directly in front of him and soared through it. He landed on the ground in a sprint, heading straight toward the damage dealing archer, casting spells as he went.

  Soul Shatter! Willpower Infusion! Core Burn!

  The Soul Shatter hit home. The woman gasped out in pain. Shards of her soul shot out and hit her comrades. The Chains that Bind grunted. The Walking Shield loosed a growl. The tank had whirled around and was racing to intercept Xavier.

  Purple mist flowed through the air. Xavier had targeted all three of the enemies that he could, still seeing no sign of that damned device and glad for it. But something flashed before the spell could take hold. A shield coming into existence. Xavier felt one of his spells that had been active a moment ago stop—the Time Prison.

  The Divine Helper had her wand hand outstretched, the wand facing the air and glowing brightly from its tip. She’d cast some sort of mental defensive spell, as the Willpower Energy from Xavier’s spell slammed into an invisible barrier around his opponents’ heads. The woman’s eyes were wide, and Xavier felt the fear in her. She must have been disorientated from being frozen in time, but she hadn’t been frozen near as long as Xavier had hoped.

  Not even half a minute!

  Xavier, not having anticipated the woman to have woken so swiftly, cast Fear Dominion directly on her. He’d seen what happened when he cast that spell on an enemy that was clearly already afraid.

  The effect was instantaneous. The woman’s face went incredibly pale. She turned as though to flee but it was as though something was stopping her. Her mind must have been strong enough to resist the primal urge of flight. She gritted her teeth and pushed her back leg along the ground, bending at her knees, holding her wand outstretched in front of her, the tip no longer glowing—the woman looked ready for anything.

  It seemed as though Xavier had underestimated her.

  Xavier had closed the Portal that had been at his back the moment he’d come out of it, in hopes of preventing the Archer of Fortune’s arrows from reaching him. His ears had been pricked for the invisible arrows, but thus far he hadn’t heard them zipping through the air.

  Something bit into his right leg.

  Then something else bit into his left.

  Finally, a third bite of pain slammed straight into his right shoulder.

  Where the pain points were, Xavier found he couldn’t move his limbs. His Farscope ability gave him an unhindered view of his entire body. Once the arrows had hit him, they’d become visible again. He tore the one out of his shoulder as he stumbled. He tried not to let himself fall, but both his legs were no longer responding, and neither was his right wing.

  He instinctively flapped his wings to try and keep himself upright, but as he could only move one it made him flip around.

  He tumbled to the ground, hitting the dirt hard.

  Xavier winced. He snapped the arrow he’d pulled out of his shoulder, letting the broken pieces fall, but that wing still wasn’t working. Whatever status effect the damned archer had given him needed time to wear off. He’d thought that Chains that Bind man was the binding specialist. Turned out the archer did a plenty good job of that too.

  Get up, Xavier. Get the hell up!

  Chains rattled. Whatever status effect had affected the Chains that Bind man had worn off, and movement in the man’s legs had returned—it had clearly been a different spell to what the Archer of Fortune had done to Xavier.

  The man unfurled his chains, and they glowed with a sinister red light.

  Xavier could barely move, but that didn’t stop him. He could see his enemies closing in around him. Once again, Xavier thanked the heavens or the System or the gods that lurked behind it for the fact that Portal Blocks worked on devices and not spells.

  Xavier leant forward onto his left hand—his left arm being his only working limb—until that arm held all of his weight. Then he pushed, just enough to have him rise in the air.

  In the same instant, chains were whipping toward him.

  He cast Portal for a second time that fight. This time, he had the twin portal appear several miles away from his enemies. The portal appeared, flat on the ground below him.

  He fell headfirst straight into the portal and shut it down on the other side.

  Accidental Champion!

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