Xavier soared toward the Dark Mountains that was The Nightmare’s domain.

  From what he had learnt about the C Grade entity, the beast was… a demon. Something that controlled the minds of all those in its territory. Every beast. Every tree. It infected all of them, much like the Fetid Forest Troll infected the forest that it had once called home, but this demon… it was far more sinister than that troll had been.

  Xavier landed at the foot of the Dark Mountains. He withdrew something from his Storage Ring. The Hunt Quest notice about The Nightmare.

  It didn’t say anything he didn’t already know.

  Xavier couldn’t help but feel a bit of fear at the prospect of facing this thing. That fear, a flutter in his chest as his heart beat harder, made him grin.

  He hadn’t felt its like in a little while. It made a thrill run through him.

  God, he liked a challenge, and fighting this thing… it would be the biggest challenge that he’d faced yet.

  But he wasn’t here just to defeat a C Grade beast and earn a Hunt Quest reward. He was here because he wished to save someone.

  Liana, the time mage that he had trained with—the one who’d not only shown him how to use his Time Alteration spell, but also shown him how to attune his attributes—had met her husband while in the Tower of Champions.

  The man had been in a different party to her, and he’d gone missing on this very floor. She’d managed to make it so she could turn up on this instance. So that she could try and find him.

  Her husband had been infected. Taken by the demon that was The Nightmare. That was why Xavier had found her here the day he’d come searching for her, when he had his first encounter with The Nightmare.

  The woman had been almost consumed by the dark, oozing tendrils. They stretched over her entire body. She would have been infected had he not intervened.

  Xavier was glad he’d been there. If he’d been even a few seconds too late, he never would have made the woman’s acquaintance. Part of that gladness was selfishness, for without her he wouldn’t be as strong as he was now. She had taught him much.

  But she was also a good person. Someone he’d grown fond of. The Greater Universe was a better place with her in it—that was just a fact.

  Xavier hoped he would be able to do the same for her husband. He hoped that the infection hadn’t addled his mind, or killed him. He hoped that he wasn’t already dead, having been killed by a Champion who had simply been defending themselves against one of The Nightmare’s infected minions.

  Liana was back in the tavern, in her room there. Many months had passed since she’d put herself in that time dilation field. To her, mere seconds, maybe minutes by now, would have gone by.

  Xavier released a breath and ordered his thoughts. Yes, he was here to save someone. Yes, it was for the sake of another. But he couldn’t let his mind focus on such things. He needed to be fully alert. He wasn’t able to summon the Spirit of Time during this fight. It wasn’t something that he would be able to do over.

  He only had one chance at this.

  Come on, Xavier, he chided himself. You’ve fought C Grades before. This can’t be that bad.

  He took a step forward, entering The Nightmare’s domain. The trees around him were infected with the darkness, the black substance covered every inch of them.

  He took a few steps. It wouldn’t be long until he was sensed. Champions who ventured around the Dark Mountains always did so carrying salt. It was the best way to defend against The Nightmare—demons didn’t like salt, after all.

  Something told Xavier that it wasn’t as effective as it seemed, however. He doubted that The Nightmare would be cowed if its minions were being attacked. But that wasn’t something he’d tested. He hadn’t wanted to garner the attention of The Nightmare before he was ready to fight it.

  Xavier had been thinking about this fight for a very long time. He still didn’t really know how to go about it. How do you fight an entity that was essentially an infection? One that, as far as he knew, didn’t even have a physical form of its own?

  He’d asked Gimble about the beast. The man was knowledgeable about all of the C Grade beasts on this floor, that was part of his job as a Raid Leader.

  But the man didn’t know much about The Nightmare.

  The way that information about the Tower of Champions was shared was through word of mouth. The System didn’t allow for any other way. That meant that all information about the hundredth floor that Gimble had access to was things that either other Champions in Hunter’s Home knew, or information that he’d been able to learn back on his own world.

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  And the information on his world was limited to the information known around that sector.

  The Greater Universe was a vast place. There may very well have been many Champions who’d faced and killed The Nightmare, but Gimble hadn’t heard of any.

  Xavier walked up the mountain. With his Farscope, he kept a lookout around him. So far, there hadn’t been any sign of the infected beasts, but he knew that would change fast. Once one became aware of him, they would all become aware of him, and if he was deemed a strong enough threat, they would all come after him.

  He heard something to his left. He turned his head. Whatever it was, it was out of range of Xavier’s Farscope ability. He spotted it instantly. A wolven, covered in darkness. And it wasn’t just a single wolven either. It was many.

  Xavier stopped walking. He contemplated his next move. He released a sigh.

  He knew exactly what he needed to do, he was just afraid that it wouldn’t actually work.

  Xavier stood his ground as the pack of wolven came for him. In the sky above him, owl-like beasts were flying toward him, their wings illuminated by the moon. Xavier ignored the flying beasts.

  The wolven would make it to him first.

  Xavier scanned the one at the head of the pack.

  {Infected Alpha Wolven - Level 225}

  The beast wasn’t high level. A scan of the other beasts near it showed they weren’t high level either. In theory, he should be able to make quick work of them. Though there was an issue with facing these beasts that he didn’t have facing other beasts—if he used his melee attacks, it would be far easier for them to infect him. Especially if he used unarmed melee attacks.

  He shifted his soul bound weapon back into a staff and held it, two handed, before him.

  The Infected Alpha Wolven bounded toward him. The beast was eerily silent as it moved. It didn’t howl or snarl. It simply ran.

  Xavier tracked its movement, then he cast Time Alteration, catching the beast inside a time dilation field.

  The other infected beasts were stuck outside of the shield, seemingly frozen in time, and unable to enter. Xavier sidestepped the leaping Infected Alpha Wolven with incredible ease. This beast felt so slow to him, it was a little hard to imagine it ever having been a challenge to face.

  Xavier recalled exactly what he had done the last time he had encountered The Nightmare.

  He had been infected by the dark substance. It had crawled up his skin and threatened to invade his mind. He’d done everything he could to fight it off.

  It wasn’t until he’d cast Time Alteration and cut off the entity from the rest of itself that he’d managed to take control over it. He’d only left a single speck of black alive before lowering the time dilation field.

  Xavier needed to recreate what he’d done before.

  The Infected Alpha Wolven landed, stopping short of leaving the time bubble. It must have been just powerful enough to discern its boundaries. It whirled around and pulled back its teeth in a silent snarl, then leapt toward him again.

  Xavier raised his staff and cast Soul Shatter. The Nightmare wasn’t a necromancer. The infected beasts it had control of were still alive, which meant their souls remained within their bodies, and he was able to inflict soul damage onto them.

  Soul Shatter instantly killed the Infected Alpha Wolven. It went slack in the air, its momentum carrying it on the same trajectory. Xavier curled his wings around him like a protective shield—a technique he’d learnt in his last few months of training, one he even had skill for called Iron Wings. The wolven slammed into them with a thud and it was like hitting a brick wall. Xavier didn’t budge even an inch. The wolven slid to the ground. Xavier opened his wings and looked down at the dead beast.

  Something was oozing out of it. The Nightmare—or, at least, a small part of it. The black substance crawled toward him. Xavier crouched and touched a finger to a drop of the entity, letting it crawl onto his skin.

  Xavier stood back away from the bulk of the oozing substance. It wasn’t long before he felt the entity try and invade his mind. He released a breath and cast Willpower Infusion.

  He took control of the entity with ease and felt the connection to the rest of the oozing substance on the ground within the time dilation field, it all having seeped out of the now-dead wolven.

  Xavier expanded his control it to the rest of the oozing substance within the field. Disconnected as it was with the rest of itself, it was easy for him to do. He recalled thinking this thing was like some kind of interconnected hivemind, and as far as he knew he’d been right about that.

  His Willpower Infusion spell was significantly stronger than it had been the first time he’d done this. And his Willpower attribute? It was now attuned to 25%, and it was well over twice as powerful as it had been back then too.

  The version of Xavier that had been on this mountain the first time had been nothing compared to the version of him that stood there now.

  Yet he still worried this wouldn’t work. He tilted his head to the side. Though his Time Alteration spell had cut the connection to the rest of the demon off, he could almost feel it trying to reconnect. He had an awareness of the entity’s “mind” that he hadn’t possessed before, though even then it was only a slight awareness.

  If this entity had an awareness of him, as he had always worried, then this could go terribly wrong.

  Xavier walked up to the edge of the time dilation field. He looked at the Infected Wolven on the other side, then glanced at the Infected Giant Owls soaring down from above.

  Xavier smiled and realised that he did, indeed, have a plan. He knew exactly how he was going to try and destroy this thing. He didn’t know if it would work—he’d never pushed either his Time Alteration spell nor his Willpower Infusion spell this hard before.

  He also still didn’t understand The Nightmare. It was only a theory that this thing didn’t have a body somewhere. Some central consciousness that controlled… all of this.

  But a plan was a plan.

  Xavier pushed the time dilation field forward. This was something that Liana had taught him how to do early on in his training. She’d shown him how to manipulate the boundaries of his Time Alteration spell. He could shift and change the walls. If he wished, he could cast his Time Alteration spell at one side of a field full of enemies, then carve a path through them with his time dilation field that managed to avoid him alerting any one of the beasts of his presence.

  Xavier had done something like that in the past—though instead of avoiding the enemies, he’d carved a path toward every single one of them. That was how he’d taken down the stampede of Rhinoceros Monkeys whilst avoiding the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey, as the beast—at the time—had been too powerful for him to face alongside its kin.

  Xavier was going to use a similar technique to that one now, except this one…

  He would have to carve a path around the entire mountain.

  Is that even possible?

  Accidental Champion!

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