Xavier soared straight for the C Grade Infected Rock Worm. The bounds of the time dilation field were small, and right now The Nightmare was preventing Xavier from changing that in any way.

  But that might just work to his benefit. The Infected Rock Worm was far larger than Xavier. Within the confines of the time bubble, it had far less room to move.

  And there was something else that would work to his advantage, too—the rocks that the Infected Rock Worm hurtled at him suddenly stopped. He’d only had to avoid a few of them since the beast entered his time dilation field.

  The cooldown on the beast’s spell wasn’t counting down.

  Xavier grinned.

  Body Cultivation had no cooldown.

  Xavier tore through the air. He cycled Celestial Energy through his body, funnelling it into not just a single claw, but every one of them.

  He reached the Infected Rock Worm and sliced at its rock-hard skin. Xavier had been strong enough to cut through the Infected Rock Worm’s tough skin before he’d learnt the Body Cultivation spell.

  This time, with his claws enhanced by Celestial Energy, there was an added explosion of energy to his attack. Where he clawed at the massive beast, he did not just leave gouge marks—he exploded holes in its rock flesh.

  The beast did not call out in pain, but Xavier imagined it only refrained because it was being controlled by The Nightmare.

  The instant Xavier cut through and exploded this thing’s skin, black ooze splashed out instead of blood. It got onto Xavier’s robes. A bit of it even got onto his cheek.

  Xavier kicked off the Infected Rock Worm while his wings were tucked in at his back, flipped around, and soared as far from it as he could—which in this confined time dilation field, wasn’t very far.

  He could already feel The Nightmare crawling through him, trying to get to his mind. The last time this had happened to him he’d taken over the entity and controlled it right back, giving it a simple order to stop, and then later learning to order it to die.

  But that was no longer an option. The Nightmare had adapted to Xavier’s control, learning how to control him in return even when he was inside of the time dilation field. He couldn’t risk connecting their minds. Not again.

  There was something else he needed to do.

  As swiftly as he was able, Xavier funnelled Celestial Energy to his cheek. There was a part of him that cursed himself for melee fighting against this thing. He’d known how dangerous that might be. He could have at least used The Lost Bone of a Dead God as a scythe-staff.

  But that would have completely defeated the purpose of learning how to use Body Cultivation in the first place.

  I guess this is the true test.

  He pushed the Celestial Energy out of the skin at his cheek, in the same way that he might have were he trying to strike an enemy.

  In his haste, he’d funnelled a little too much energy to the area. The explosion that came forth didn’t only hit the little black ooze of The Nightmare—it destroyed a part of his cheek and melted through a few of his teeth. He could feel them welded together inside of his mouth, and when he moved his tongue to the affected area, he felt fresh air touch the tip.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly what I had planned.

  His cheek would grow back. Not before the end of this fight, maybe, but at least he wasn’t infected.

  Still, he would need to be more careful.

  With fluid grace, Xavier moved his large black dragon wings and turned in the air. The Infected Rock Worm hurtled toward him, the lower part of its body cutting through the earth. Xavier dodged the beast as it snapped at him with its rows and rows of powerful teeth—teeth that would turn him to stone if they ever touched him.

  There was still black ooze on Xavier. It had gotten onto his robes and was slowly crawling up him.

  This isn’t good. How is Body Cultivation supposed to help against this damned thing?

  Xavier ordered his thoughts. His mind was split into multiple parts, as it always was in battle these days. One part of his mind was observing the fight in as much detail as it could. It examined exactly what had happened when the Celestial Energy had pooled around Xavier’s cheek, an instant before the explosion had happened, and Xavier had his own little eureka moment. That part of his mind informed the main part, and now he knew exactly what he needed to do.

  Xavier ignored the crawling black ooze, letting it crawl up his robes until it met the skin of his neck. When it reached his skin, it found Celestial Energy cycling around the area. As much of the energy as Xavier could manage.

  The black ooze wasn’t able to penetrate his skin with the energy there. That was what Xavier had seen when he’d examined the fight. With his Farscope ability, it had been clear—he just hadn’t realised it in time.

  Xavier never had to explode his cheek to get rid of the entity.

  He flipped around in the air as he flew and it just… slipped right off him.

  He laughed as he soared on powerful wings.

  There was still so much more to the Body Cultivation spell that he didn’t know. So much that he needed to learn.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  This must be what the monk-like spirit I spoke to meant when he said the spell would help me fight this thing.

  Xavier pooled the Celestial Energy at his claws once more. Not as much as he had access to—just enough that he knew he wouldn’t be melting his fingers off.

  The Celestial Energy infused his claws with an explosive power as he slashed out at his enemy. Xavier was going to take this thing down by any means possible.

  He carved through the stone, exploding the rock skin with every strike. The more he did it, the more natural this way of fighting was starting to become. His energy channels were already robust and strong from all the cultivation training that he’d done for his different cores. This was just making them even stronger.

  As he fought, notifications were streaming across his vision. He was gaining ranks. He had one part of his mind pay attention to those as he focused on the fight.

  The Infected Rock Worm was slowly flagging. It wasn’t as fast as Xavier, and even though it was incredibly tough, it couldn’t handle the constant, repeated abuse, and it couldn’t move around in the time dilation field effectively enough to strike back at him.

  When the beast finally died, Xaiver flew down to the ground and landed with a thump.

  He’d killed the thing just in time, because any moment now, his time dilation field was going to fail.

  Xavier prepared himself for what he knew was going to be the hardest fight he’d ever been through. He infused his claws with Celestial Energy, while at the same time he cycled energy through the exposed areas of his skin, to stop any bits of The Nightmare substance from being able to infect him.

  He spread out his wings, opened his arms before him, his claws extended to their fullest, and prepared himself for battle.

  The Time Alteration spell, however, took longer than he expected to fall. He could have deactivated it himself, but instead, he took a moment to breathe.

  He dropped his arms and summoned a mug of coffee from inside of his Storage Ring, slowly sipping on it as he paid closer attention to the ranks he’d received.

  Evasion has reached Rank 106!

  Red In Tooth And Claw has reached Rank 105!

  Close Combat Fighting has reached Rank 105!

  That was good. Those skills had been getting harder and harder to rank up since he’d reached D Grade. He guessed pushing hard against a C Grade, even an infected one, was what had done the trick.

  He looked at the ranks he’d gained for Body Cultivation. Before the Infected Rock Worm had reached the time dilation field, he’d gained several more ranks after 40. Every rank he’d gained had furthered his confidence in his ability with the spell.

  Body Cultivation has taken a step forward on the path!

  Body Cultivation is now a Rank 46 spell.

  …

  Body Cultivation is now a Rank 51 spell.

  One cannot walk backward on the path.

  Xavier nodded to himself and kept sipping his coffee for a few more moments. That was progress. A lot of progress.

  Though he knew he still had a long way to go.

  When the time came, he casually deposited the mug of coffee back into his Storage ring and readied himself for battle.

  The time dilation bubble finally burst.

  Xavier didn’t hesitate. He leapt straight upwards and flapped his powerful wings to help him surge through the air. Volkarin, who’d been hovering in the air not far from him, did a double-take as the massive dragon spirit saw Xavier fly up from the ground.

  Where the hell did you come from, young dragonkin? And—you killed one of the rock worms? How?

  Bafflement was clear in the dragon’s voice. Xavier couldn’t help but feel proud about that.

  I’ll tell you later.

  Xavier’s claws infused with Celestial Energy, he swooped back down at one of the Infected Rock Worms. There were three Infected Rock Worms remaining. One of them was still locked in his Time Prison spell, but something told Xavier that wouldn’t last all that much longer.

  Especially since The Nightmare seems to be able to influence my time spells…

  That still came as a shock to him, but there wasn’t anything to do about it but keep fighting.

  Xavier grinned widely as he soared for the closest Infected Rock Worm. There were countless other enemies on the battlefield, and countless more beast corpses. As he flew, he cast Soul Puppet. Every moment he could, he would be casting that spell, to bring his own minions to the field, even if they would be nothing more than distractions to his enemy.

  But the first minion he brought back as a Soul Puppet? Well, that was the dead Infected Rock Worm of course, and Xavier used the beast’s very own soul to control it.

  Something told him the beast would hold a grudge against its former controller. He hoped that would influence the beast into further bloodlust as it fought.

  Kill notifications blossomed into his vision even as he flew. The Rock Worm soul puppet was already destroying enemies on the field.

  Now that he was out of the time dilation field, Xavier felt like heavy shackles had been lifted from every one of his limbs. And that wasn’t the only reason he suddenly felt so free.

  He could finally fight how he was meant to. How he’d been training to do for so long.

  There were several spells that weren’t of use to him right now—Willpower Infusion, Spirit Break, and Core Burn were a few that simply weren’t effective in this fight, and Soul Strike was one he didn’t want to risk using while there could be more powerful enemies to face in the near future.

  But that still left plenty of spells in his arsenal.

  Xavier dodged rocks as he soared, feeling a marginal increase in his ability to do so since he’d gained two ranks in Evasion since reaching the Dark Mountains. With two of the worms neutralised, there were also less projectiles coming his way.

  Xavier gouged a long cut through the side of the Infected Rock Worm. In doing so, he exploded parts of the beast’s skin away.

  Dragonkin, do not get so close!

  The warning came as the black substance splashed onto Xavier’s face, then fell straight off.

  Xavier didn’t respond to Volkarin. Instead, he focused purely on the fight—there would be time to speak with the dragon spirit later.

  The instant Xavier flew away from the Infected Rock Worm he opened a portal and soared straight through it, slamming into the back of the beast.

  God, he’d missed using portals while he was in his time dilation field.

  He sliced more gouges into his enemy. He could have tried to put this thing through a portal and cut its head off, but he’d found that C Grade beasts tended to be too strong to let that happen—they somehow stopped the portal from cutting off. If they were in contact with the portal, it wouldn’t shut down until they stopped touching it. It was some kind of defence mechanism that prevented them from being decapitated by one.

  Xavier could understand that. If an E Grade mage with a portal spell could kill a C Grade with it… well, that just didn’t make any sense.

  I don’t need to kill these things with portals.

  With Volkarin fighting by his side, and his ability to use Soul Shatter and Portal, it was much faster dealing with this second Infected Rock Worm than it had been dealing with the first, even with all the chaos of the battlefield.

  Every moment that he could, he recast Soul Puppet. With the abundance of dead beasts around the battlefield, and bringing back yet another of the Infected Rock Worms, Xavier was beginning to build up quite the army of his own.

  Xavier, Volkarin, and his soul puppets tore through one enemy after another. Xavier’s Body Cultivation spell protected him from getting infected by The Nightmare’s black ooze.

  More and more of the enemy were being destroyed. The Infected Rock Worm that had been frozen by Time Prison soon came back to the normal flow of time, but by the time it did, all three of its brethren had been utterly destroyed.

  And Xavier was incredibly close to reaching Level 203.

  There’s no way we can lose this fight, Xavier thought, feeling more confident than ever.

  That was when true being that was The Nightmare made itself known.

  Accidental Champion!

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