Xavier’s body didn’t respond to his will.

  He was covered almost entirely in the black ooze that was The Nightmare. He didn’t know if there was an inch of his skin still free from the vile stuff.

  The C Grade demonic beast’s mind was invading his own. Not fully. It didn’t have control over him. It was simply slamming so hard at his mental barriers that it was all Xavier could do to keep from being controlled by it. Every ounce of his energy was going toward keeping his walls up—to keeping this thing from gaining a foothold on his mind.

  For if it did, there would be no coming back from this fight.

  He could hear someone trying to talk to him in his mind. Someone other than The Nightmare. A deep and powerful voice. But he couldn’t at all make out what they were saying.

  He lay, sprawled in a small crater that had been created from his fall. Around him a battle raged between Volkarin, Xavier’s soul puppets, and the infected beasts controlled by The Nightmare. A battle that he couldn’t affect until he regained full control over his own mental faculties.

  He knew the battle was getting closer and closer to him as the enemy closed in on his location. He could see glimpses of the dragon nearby. For the majority of the fight Volkarin had been soaring through the sky. Now, the dragon spirit was on the ground, on all fours, fighting tooth and nail to stop any of the infected beasts from making their way to Xavier.

  And the dragon was getting greatly wounded. No longer soaring through the air, he couldn’t dodge any of the long-range attacks being sent his way by the enemy. These attacks were ones that were clearly damaging the spirit.

  Parts of Xavier’s mind were turning all of this over, but he needed to focus on what he was going through.

  Body Cultivation. Body Cultivation.

  He tried, again and again, to activate the spell, but something was blocking it. Well, not something. He knew exactly what. The Nightmare.

  I need to fight back. I need to win.

  But the voice of The Nightmare was crooning as it spoke to him, imploring him to give up. Imploring him to stop fighting. Those words had meant nothing to him the first time he had heard them, but the weaker he became the more impact they seemed to have on his mind. Slowly, they were starting to feel like something he wanted.

  If he gave in, if he stopped fighting, he wouldn’t be in such mental agony anymore. He could relax his body and mind and let The Nightmare in. Eternal life didn’t sound so bad. Eternal peace.

  No!

  His own voice was weak within his mind, but it sounded all the same.

  You have to fight it. You have to keep pushing! This isn’t where you die.

  Xavier gritted his teeth. He could hear a low rumble, a throaty roar, coming from somewhere—coming from himself. His body shuddered. A rage was building up inside of him. A rage that he needed to embrace. It was something deep within him. Something primal. Something he didn’t at all know how to explain. He wasn’t sure if it came from him—if it was a part of him that had been there since before he had attained his new dragonkin race—or if it was something new. He supposed it didn’t matter.

  Wherever it had come from, it was a part of him now.

  The roar in Xavier’s throat became louder and louder. Once again, he tried to activate the Body Cultivation spell. Once again, it didn’t work.

  There was more black ooze coming toward him, from all of the dead infected beasts in the area. The dragon spirit was fighting admirably, but it wasn’t able to eradicate all of the black ooze that seeped from the beasts’ corpses. He simply couldn’t cover that much ground, and the soul puppets Xavier had at his disposal weren’t able to harm the black ooze at all. The minions were helpful, but not helpful enough.

  The roar died in Xavier’s throat. Whatever strength he’d just tried to take hold of was withering away. He was now five feet deep in the black ooze. The only reason he could still see the battlefield at all was because of his Farscope ability.

  He watched the dragon spirit fight, and as he did, he saw it become more and more hurt. That made him remember something another spirit had told him. That even though the spirits from the Otherworld couldn’t die, they could still be harmed. And if they were hurt enough, it could take them centuries to recover before they were once more able to be summoned back into the Mortal Realm.

  Xavier pushed his mind to its limit, focusing on the Spirit of Vengeance.

  Go, Volkarin. Return to the Otherworld.

  It took all his energy to send that simple command. He had become fond of the dragon spirit. He didn’t want to see Volkarin harmed.

  Xavier strained his mind to hear the single word response that came.

  No.

  The dragon fought with more ferocity than Xavier had ever seen before. Volkarin tore through his enemies one by one and bit straight through their bodies, cutting the beasts in half with his powerful jaws. Streams of flame and ice shot from his open maw, engulfing everything around him in pain and death. It was an amazing sight to behold. The dragon cast other spells, too, ones Xavier had never witnessed the spirit use before. He slashed with his claws, seemingly hitting nothing, and ten feet away a beast would suddenly be sliced into five parts.

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  One by one the soul puppets that Xavier had summoned died around him. There simply weren’t enough of them to defend against what was coming. The black ooze had no effect on the soul puppets, for they had souls but not minds, but the infected beasts could kill them easily enough when they outnumbered them at twenty, thirty, a hundred to one.

  And so it was that Xavier watched Volkarin fight against the enemy infected beasts all alone.

  Lying there, Xavier had never felt so useless in his entire life. Never felt so weak. He was supposed to be powerful, supposed to be the man who would one day become the Weapon of the System, and yet there was nothing he could do right now. Nothing he could do to fight The Nightmare. He was weak. Useless. He was nothing. Giving in to his enemy was something that he deserved. Having him gone would be a mercy to the Greater Universe.

  The dragon kept fighting, and it looked as though he would be able to fight forever.

  Until the massive body of the demon that was The Nightmare landed beside it. The great demonic beast, with its terrifying, ugly, disformed, stitched-together body, grabbed the slightly transparent spirit with powerful-looking arms that consisted of nothing more than the black tar-like substance that it truly was.

  The Nightmare tore Volkarin apart by the wings.

  The dragon dissipated into nothing, and Xavier felt his injured spirit return to the Otherworld.

  This is it, then, Xavier thought as he lay there. His soul puppets were all dead. Volkarin was gone, the dragon that was the Spirit of Vengeance would be too damaged to be summoned back to the Mortal Realm for… who knew how long.

  Xavier was alone, and no longer in control of his body and mind.

  He felt himself giving up. Felt the negative self-talk pile up and up and up until it was crushing him, just as the black ooze that covered him completely was crushing him.

  The mental will of The Nightmare was too much for him to fight.

  Except something had sparked within him at the sight of Volkarin’s defeat. The Spirit of Vengeance had fought until the last for him, and it hadn’t done so because it had to. It wasn’t the summoning spell that had made him act this way.

  Xavier had released the spirit. Told him to return to the Otherworld.

  The dragon had remained out of loyalty—or perhaps something other than that.

  Belief.

  Volkarin, to the last, had believed in Xavier. The dragon would not have remained if he didn’t think there was a chance that Xavier would survive. And Xavier couldn’t sully the spirit’s efforts by lying there and dying.

  Every single thing that he had accomplished since being integrated into the Greater Universe flashed through his mind in that moment. All of the records he’d gained on the Tower of Champion floors. The defeat of the Lord of the Endless Horde. The way he had defended Earth from its enemies within the sector. His defeat of the C Grade Fetid Forest Troll when he had only been E Grade. He had done the impossible over and over again.

  All he needed to do to survive this—to win this—was do the impossible one more time.

  That rage that had sparked in him earlier returned, but this time it was bolstered by something. It took Xavier only a fraction of a moment to realise what that was.

  His body wasn’t in his control.

  His mind was being attacked so much it was almost useless to him.

  But his soul? His soul was all his own, and his soul was strong.

  His soul had been hardened again and again by countless souls since he was F Grade, continuing right until now, and that hardening had been further empowered by his massively strong Spirit attribute.

  Xavier felt Body Cultivation finally activate as a part of his will once more became his own.

  Except there was a problem. He couldn’t draw in any Celestial Energy from the air with the black ooze drowning him like it was. Somehow, the black ooze was completely blocking it from entering him, and he wasn’t able to use any of the different energies from within his core for this spell—that simply wasn’t how Body Cultivation worked.

  Something else flooded his body. A different kind of energy. An energy that he’d known about but never truly felt. It made him feel full and strong.

  It made him feel powerful.

  Xavier controlled this energy, cycling it through his body, making it pool around his skin. Immediately, he felt some relief from the black ooze. He covered more and more of his skin with the pooling energy, until every inch of him was filled with it.

  The black ooze no longer affected his body.

  And with the black ooze gone, his mind was now more free to roam. The Nightmare was still attacking his mind, but when the black ooze was on him The Nightmare’s mental attacks had far, far more power.

  Without it, it was as though Xavier was able to breathe again.

  He burst out of the pit of ooze, leaping straight up into the air until his wings caught him and he soared around the Dark Mountains, regaining his bearings.

  Notifications appeared in his vision as he flew.

  You have gained +20 Willpower!

  You have learnt the skill Mental Resistance!

  Mental Resistance has reached Rank 2!

  …

  Mental Resistance has reached Rank 23!

  …

  Mental Resistance has reached rank 40!

  …

  Mental Resistance has reached Rank 85!

  Xavier split his mind to focus on the notifications, glad he was finally able to do that again.

  He had gained 20 points to Willpower? That took him by surprise. Training had long stopped giving him more attribute points. It was something that had happened early on, when he was still F Grade, but had rarely happened since. Training had helped him attune his attributes, but not gain more.

  And the skill, Mental Resistance… it felt like something he should have already had, but he supposed he’d never come up against something like The Nightmare before.

  There were a few more notifications to look at, but he let that part of his mind do it in the background.

  Moments ago, he had Volkarin and hundreds of soul puppets at his disposal. Now, he had no such help. It was him alone against The Nightmare. He couldn’t cast Soul Sacrifice, nor could he use Summon Otherworldly Spirit. Not in this moment, at least. Not until the spells cooled down.

  Xavier whirled in the air. He looked down upon his enemies as they flung spells at him. The body of The Nightmare stared up at him with menacing eyes in its remaining head—Xavier had only left it with one by the end of his encounter with it. It was one of the troll heads.

  Much of the demon’s twisted body had been torn away and destroyed by Xavier’s attacks, revealing more and more of the ooze beneath it. The powerful arms that had ripped the dragon spirit in half—a spirit that had only been partially corporeal—were still there.

  The demon raised one of those arms and formed a finger that pointed straight at Xavier.

  The infected beasts surged toward him in a torrent. It reminded him of his time facing the Endless Horde. The waves and waves of enemies that would never stop coming. That would never let up.

  Xavier felt a deep loss at the harm that had been done to Volkarin. In that moment he wondered if he would be able to summon him back with Summon Otherworldly Spirit at all. If the dragon was truly damaged, and couldn’t return…

  Will I be able to bring it back in the dragon egg vessel when the time comes?

  All those thoughts swirled through his mind, but he had no time for them.

  Not if he was going to do what he needed to do to defeat his enemy.

  He banished all those thoughts and ordered his mind as best as he could. The energy that had flooded into his body, that had pushed off the black ooze, still flowed within him.

  It was the most powerful energy he had ever felt, and to his surprise, it worked with his Body Cultivation spell.

  It was Soul Energy.

  Accidental Champion!

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