Xavier watched in absolute awe as The Nightmare became one with all of the black ooze that remained on the entire mountain.

  Its grotesque, stitched-together body began to shift and change. The demon became taller, broader. It had already been massive. Soon it looked as though it would rival the size of the very mountain itself.

  I’ve really pissed this thing off now.

  Perhaps Xavier should have been afraid. This was the most dangerous entity he had ever faced. But fear was not what he felt.

  He felt exhilaration.

  Xavier soared back toward the demon. He could have portalled toward it, but he wanted to see what the beast would do first. He hadn’t seen this thing fling any spells at him, all he’d felt so far were its psychic attacks—and they had been nothing to sniff at.

  Xavier wondered if this was The Nightmare’s final form and couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at the reference. He knew if anyone was watching—like the barkeep, Felicia, with one of her little birds—that they might think he looked a little bit crazy right now.

  Maybe I am a little bit crazy.

  No spells were launched from The Nightmare. Instead, The Nightmare took to the air on wings even more massive than those it had possessed before. The wings were made almost entirely of black ooze. Xavier could still see the writhing bodies of the beasts and Denizens that were trapped inside of this thing. It was as though the demon wanted to display them. As though it revelled in showing them off.

  Maybe it does. Maybe it thinks of them as trophies.

  Xavier shuddered at the very thought.

  Flying toward Xaiver wasn’t the only thing that The Nightmare did. Bits of black ooze began to branch off from the main body, shifting and twirling through the air toward him. The black ooze remained connected to the larger whole, but it spiralled out at him like tornadoes of black tentacles.

  Thousands of dark tendrils shot toward him at an incredible speed.

  All right, time to spend some of those free stat points.

  Xavier had made his decision as he’d flown toward his enemy. He knew that right now, dumping everything into a single attribute wouldn’t serve him. He needed to spread it a little wider than that.

  Xavier split the free stat points four ways—he put 200 points into Strength, Speed, Willpower, and Spirit. As far as he was concerned, these were the four most important attributes that he would need in this fight, and it wouldn’t do to sell any of them short.

  Though nowadays 200 attribute points weren’t a great deal to him, he still felt a slight shock to his system as they all hit him at once. He felt that much faster, that much stronger. His mental defences and attacks were emboldened, his soul empowered.

  Xavier grinned as he created a portal. There weren’t a great many attacks that would help him in this fight now that the infected beasts had all been killed.

  All he needed to do was slash the hell out of this thing until it died.

  That meant getting in close.

  Xavier soared through the other side of the portal and straight into one of the demonic beast’s wings. The instant he appeared through the portal, dark tendrils of black ooze shot toward him. Xavier didn’t even reach the wing before he had to defend himself.

  This was different to when he’d last fought the demonic beast in a melee confrontation—it had shot ooze at him, but never at this scale.

  The damned demon has been taking it easy on me. No more.

  That was good. He certainly wouldn’t be taking it easy on the demon.

  The dark tendrils tried to latch onto his arms and legs before Xavier had a chance to get out of the way. He slashed at them as they came toward him. With every slash that met his enemy, the Soul Energy exploded on impact through the power of his Body Cultivation spell. It destroyed the black ooze with ease, leaving nothing but burning air behind.

  Xavier cut down tendril after tendril. He whipped his wings around him, pooling Soul Energy into them so that the black ooze couldn’t cling to the leathery skin.

  He fought with every ounce of energy he had, but he simply wasn’t fast enough to fend off the dark tendrils. Not because he was slow, but because there were a countless number of them. He couldn’t tell how many thousand were attacking him all at once. One of his legs was the first thing to be hit by the tendrils.

  Fear entered him then, as it perhaps should have before when The Nightmare had whirlpooled the entirety of the black substance that was its body into one large form. Only brief moments ago he was stuck beneath the black ooze, almost ready to give up everything.

  That was something he never wished to ever feel again.

  But the black ooze couldn’t get a grip on him. Not this time. It slipped off, just as he’d known it should. Soul Energy pooled around his leg, felt even through the fabric of his robes. It was more than enough to repel the tendrils.

  The fear disappeared as quickly as it came and was instead replaced with a strong sense of confidence.

  Xavier had already faced his darkest hour against this thing. Now, it was time to kill.

  The Nightmare attacked his mind with everything it had. Xavier could feel the mental attacks. A barrage of them pounding against his defences.

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  Mental Resistance has reached Rank 90!

  …

  Mental Resistance has reached Rank 95!

  Xavier threw his head back and laughed. The Nightmare’s rage only grew with each mental attack Xavier thwarted. With each tendril he destroyed. The main body of the demon was slowly starting to shrink as the fight wore on.

  Soon, it would be turned to nothing.

  Mental Resistance has reached Rank 90!

  Body Cultivation has taken a step forward on the path.

  Body Cultivation is now a Rank 60 spell.

  …

  Body Cultivation is now a Rank 65 spell.

  One cannot walk backward on the path.

  Xavier ate up the notifications as they came.

  He’d gained a few ranks in Body Cultivation as he’d fought against the infected beasts and as he’d attacked the main body of the demon the first time, but he was glad to see even more rolling in.

  Xavier revelled in the carnage and destruction he was causing this thing. The Nightmare was only growing further enraged and confused as its attacks were doing nothing to Xavier.

  Xavier had somehow stumbled upon the perfect defence against this thing, and the perfect way to kill it.

  I didn’t stumble on Body Cultivation. I asked for something like this. I just never knew how powerful it would be—how much it would really turn this fight around.

  The Nightmare would never have seen something like what he was doing. It didn’t know how to fight against it—didn’t know how to defend against it. And with Xavier’s mind locked up tight, there was no way for this beast to harm him.

  The battle was won.

  All Xavier needed to do was ensure the Denizens trapped within this thing survived.

  I need a new plan.

  Xavier soared through a portal he summoned in front of him and appeared a few hundred feet away from The Nightmare. The demonic beast was nowhere near as large as it had been when it had taken on its final form. Hell, it was even smaller than when he’d first seen the main body of the demon.

  He couldn’t help but grin at what he’d done. At the destruction he’d wrought. This entire mountain had been changed because of him. Soon, The Nightmare would no longer roam here, and these mountains would have to be renamed.

  They certainly won’t be dark anymore.

  But that time hadn’t come yet, not with The Nightmare still living.

  As he watched The Nightmare writhe in the air, trying to get to him, he saw the black ooze regrow. Some of what he’d destroyed was coming back. That was something he’d already noticed as he’d fought this thing—it was able to regenerate.

  Just like any beast or Denizen, it has the ability to regain its health.

  Xavier just needed to come up with a way to deal a death blow to this demon without harming Ardon or the other Denizens trapped inside of it.

  He could see Ardon even more clearly now than he had before. The man was suffering even more—as though The Nightmare were actively torturing him, taking its anger at Xavier out on the man. And not just on Ardon, but on all of the Denizens and beasts trapped within it. They were in complete and utter agony.

  Xavier had tried to get close to them. Tried to slice them free with his claws. He’d done this first for one of the beasts that were trapped, but he hadn’t trained enough in Body Cultivation to be precise enough with his actions, and he’d accidentally taken the thing’s head off.

  Well, he’d exploded the thing’s head off.

  Considering how poorly that had gone, he’d figured he just needed a little practice to get it right.

  Ten more beasts died before he decided doing it that way simply wasn’t the best plan—he didn’t think that Liana would want her husband back without his head.

  Xavier examined the demon, watching it regrow, wondering how he might be able to do this.

  He thought of the first time he had faced this beast, before he’d even had an idea of what it was, how he’d taken over a portion of its mind.

  Xavier was afraid to try something like that again. Not only had the beast been able to eventually somehow have an effect on his Time Dilation field—something he still didn’t quite understand how was possible—but he’d also been able to influence Xavier’s mind back.

  Something clicked within Xavier’s mind in that moment. It was something he should have realised before, but hadn’t been able to…

  The reason Xavier’s Time Dilation field had been degrading faster, and the reason he hadn’t been able to push it… It wasn’t because The Nightmare had suddenly become powerful enough to change time, it was because it had adapted to the speed at which the time dilation field was moving.

  The C Grade demonic beast had used the massive power of its interconnected mind to breach the time lag. It had connected to the Infected Rock Worm Xavier had been fighting, and in doing so, it had piggybacked its mind attack through the field.

  Xavier had been influenced by his enemy for a lot longer than he’d even realised. A subtle, insidious influence that had him making poor decisions like attacking the main body of the demon—that same influence had affected his Time Alteration spell without him even realising.

  He took a moment to examine his mind, and somewhere deep inside of it…

  There! Something has been hidden from me!

  The beast… It had been controlling one of Xavier’s split minds! The control had disappeared when all of his minds had come together once more, when Xavier had fallen unconscious from his enemy’s mind attack.

  But for the longest time, Xavier hadn’t even been aware of the thing controlling him. It reminded him of the exact way that Xavier had controlled The Nightmare when he’d originally come across the beast.

  It hadn’t been aware of me, just like I hadn’t been aware of it…

  While the realisation helped explain a lot of what had been going on during this fight, it didn’t help him figure out his current predicament. Xavier was running out of options. He had a limited number of ways that he could hurt his enemy, and what he needed to do…

  It required a far more delicate touch than he’d been using.

  The onslaught of mental attacks from The Nightmare hadn’t let up. Xavier could still feel them. But there was something interesting happening with those attacks, something he hadn’t even noticed at first as he’d destroyed more and more of the black ooze.

  The demon’s mental attacks were growing weaker.

  The more of the black ooze Xavier destroyed, the weaker this thing’s mind was becoming. Xavier had felt this thing’s mind before, and at that time he’d known he would never be able to rival it.

  But that time had passed.

  Xavier made a decision.

  He created another portal and flew straight through it, appearing directly behind The Nightmare. He slashed into its tar-like flesh once more, managing to take the demonic beast unawares—something that was happening more and more often.

  The Nightmare had controlled his mind. Had influenced his actions. And Xavier was about to return the favour.

  A tendril of black ooze followed him back through the portal. He cut the portal. A fraction of a second later, Xavier cast Time Alteration, creating a time dilation field where he hovered in the air. It captured the black ooze that had been cut off from the main body of the demon.

  The ooze, no longer connected to the body of the demon, began to fall. Its mind might still be connected to The Nightmare, but this was different.

  Xavier swooped down toward the ooze, ready to catch it. He altered the way he cycled the energy running through his body, making his right hand susceptible to the black ooze’s grip.

  At the same time as he swooped downward, he did something else. He altered the time dilation field itself. There were several ways in which he was able to alter a time dilation field. He could make the field larger. He could move the field. He could slow down time, or he could speed it up.

  Time was already sped up within the field, making everything outside of it appear frozen. But Xavier knew that wouldn’t be enough, not after The Nightmare had adapted to the time lag.

  Xavier had to do better.

  He had to increase the speed within the time dilation field beyond what it had ever been before.

  And so that’s exactly what he did.

  Only then did he grab the black ooze and allow it to sink into his skin.

  Finally, he cast Willpower Infusion.

  It was time to take back control.

  Accidental Champion!

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