Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 76 - Like a Hero From Myth

Bolts of brilliant white lightning sprang to life from the Soul Strike spell pattern, filling the chamber with their glow before shifting and materialising into ten thousand soul apparitions that launched themselves toward the Arakashinai Queen.

The soul apparitions were stopped at the edge of Xavier’s time dilation field.

Xavier paid no attention to the pressure on his body, mind, and soul from holding so many spell patterns active. Instead, he expanded his time dilation field. Not toward the queen, but back through the tunnel, all the way to the Arakashinai city that still held millions of Arak drones.

He couldn’t see the city—not even with Farscope, as it was too far away—but he didn’t need to. He’d memorised the feeling of how far he needed to stretch the spell and had blanketed a large enough portion of it with his time dilation field to encompass at least a million of the drones. More than he would need.

Then Xavier initiated one of his Soul Harvest spell patterns that hovered over the city, connected to him by a long strand of energy that stretched through the tunnel.

There were still almost twenty thousand souls to harvest down there from when he’d initiated the five-hundred soul infused Soul Strike spell pattern.

Xavier’s soulkeeping reserve once more full, he immediately initiated the second of the one hundred Soul Strike patterns he’d drawn within the chamber, infusing another ten thousand souls into it.

He could have placed his entire reserve of souls into the pattern, but he intentionally left a few hundred behind so he could infuse them into one of the Soul Strike patterns back over the city.

Xavier continued on like this in a cycle, initiating a Soul Strike pattern inside the queen’s chamber with ten thousand souls, then initiating a Soul Strike pattern back over the Arakashinai city with four hundred souls only to activate Soul Harvest again, making his reserve full once more.

Again and again, Xavier activated the patterns. He hid the thousands upon thousands of kill notifications that would have clouded his vision if he let them. Other notifications popped up, but as focused as he was, he ignored them. At one point, he thought Bones was trying to talk to him, but he didn’t register anything the soulbound weapon said.

All Xavier could see was what was before him—the bolts of lightning from the Soul Strike patterns bursting into life, making more and more soul apparitions materialise before him. Thousands upon thousands of the apparitions were gathered at the edge of the time dilation field, only able to inhabit that space at all because they were incorporeal.

All he could feel were the souls flooding into his reserve through the strands of energy, then flooding back out of him into the patterns.

That and the pressure. The weight on his mind that wouldn’t let up.

His time dilation field was incredibly strained, stretched as far as it was. A part of his mind was conscious of it, knowing he only had mere seconds before the field he’d spent so much time in on this planet, and accomplished so much within, would finally fail him. That part of Xavier’s mind coaxed the part of him that was activating the spell patterns.

Faster, it said. You must go faster!

And so he did.

All the while, the pressure and weight that had settled on him from having to keep so many spell patterns active at once didn’t ease.

It built.

Initiating the spell patterns didn’t take away that pressure as he’d expected it to. A pain entered his head, one that started as a dull ache then turned into something so excruciating it felt as though a thousand drills were being lodged into his brain.

His plan was insane. Why had he done this? Pushed the patterns so far? Why hadn’t he stopped when he started feeling that pressure? Why hadn’t he simply drawn them, one at a time, maybe even ten at a time?

He could have done this differently.

Why had he pushed forward instead?

I wanted to know… Wanted to know what I was capable of…

Though the better part of Xavier’s conscious mind was taken up with the task of initiating all of the spell patterns in the correct cycle, taking in and infusing what was now hundreds of thousands of souls and—if he kept it up like this and initiated every pattern he’d drawn—would eventually add up to a million soul apparitions slamming into the Arakashinai Queen, there were other parts of his mind at work.

These parts were responding instinctively to whatever he needed to keep going. His Body Cultivation spell was active, flooding Celestial Energy through every one of his muscles so that he could keep standing. Flooding it into his mind, to bolster his concentration, speed of thought, and strength of will.

But it wasn’t enough.

At one point, Xavier blinked, suddenly realising he was on his knees. He hadn’t known when he’d fallen. Hadn’t even registered it. His body was failing him. The strain was too much.

All the energy he had was redirected to his mind.

Another blink, and he found himself looking up at an odd angle at the Arakashinai Queen—the B Grade insectoid Denizen barely visible through the light of so many soul apparitions, even if they were transparent.

He’d fallen to the ground. There was something wet around him, as though he was lying in a puddle. A puddle that was… Red.

Blood. My blood.

Even on the ground, barely able to move his muscles despite his Strength, despite Body Cultivation, his continued to initiate the patterns as though by reflex.

His vision blurred. No… It had been blurred for a while. Now, it was going dark, the only thing allowing him to see was his Farscope ability. He saw himself in that puddle of blood, his body twitching, his eyes staring into nothing.

Again, his body and mind reacted to his needs. This time, Soul Energy flooded his muscles, his channels, his mind. He couldn’t control the flow. He wasn’t even conscious of it.

But it was enough to keep him going.

There was a single second remaining before his time dilation field failed.

Xavier initiated the final spell pattern within the chamber just before the barrier flickered out of existence, bringing him into the normal flow of time for the first time since he’d come to this planet.

In that moment, Xavier watched through his Farscope as a million soul apparitions were finally unleashed upon the Arakashinai Queen. The big eyes that had flickered toward Xavier widened in shock.

The B Grade insectoid Denizen didn’t have time to react. Didn’t have time to command her drones to attack him. Didn’t have time to do anything but shriek with ungodly rage as the power of a million souls slammed into the two-hundred-thousand-year-old creature.

The shriek echoed around the chamber. To Xavier’s ears it felt as though it was coming from every possible angle. Felt like it was coming from near and far, far away. His hazy mind vaguely registered it wasn’t only the queen that was shrieking—her honour guard of several hundred Arak soldier drones, all of whom Xavier had left standing as they hadn’t gotten in his way, were shrieking too.

The puddle of blood Xavier lay in grew, and everything went black before that shriek could be cut off.

~

King Elric held his large tower shield up in an iron grip, his short sword snaking out, slipping through the chitin armour of the Arak bastards in a rhythm he’d been repeating for what felt like forever.

Shield up. Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

Ten years they’d held this castle. Ten years the standoff had gone on. Ten years he’d stood here shield up, sword thrusting forward again and again and again.

And that was just this castle.

He’d stood like this at thousands of other fortifications over the last few hundred years, fighting with everything he had, defending his kingdom—

Failing to defend his kingdom.

Every last one of those fortifications had fallen.

This was the last.

The rhythm continued. Shield up. Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

There was a part of him, a part that was once buried deep but was slowly creeping toward the surface, that wondered why he kept trying. Wondered if he even deserved to keep on living for what he’d done.

Not that this could be called living.

His world had been safe, until he’d doomed it by travelling to the Arakashinai’s home planet.

But he kept fighting. Kept defending. The vast majority of his people might be dead, but he wouldn’t stop while even one of them remained.

They’re the only thing that keep me going.

The rhythm continued. Shield up. Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

That man, that Champion, said he could end all of this. King Elric wanted to believe that. But the way he spoke, the strength of his confidence—a confidence that Elric couldn’t help but think was nothing more than sheer arrogance—it was like a hero from myth. Like how legends in stories spoke.

People like that didn’t truly exist. And if they did, what use would they have coming to a doomed world like his own?

Yet still, even though he couldn’t believe what the man wanted to do was possible, it had ignited a flicker of hope in his chest that he hadn’t felt for very, very long time.

Araks died before him, falling to his blade, falling to his brothers- and sisters-in-arms blades. Falling to their arrows and spells. But they kept coming.

The rhythm continued. Shield up. Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.

Then, something changed. He thrust his sword forward, but it met nothing but air. The area in front of him was clear.

Impossible. They always advance…

King Elric had a mere split second to think that thought before a noise louder than anything he’d ever heard before made him want to clamp his hands on his hears and shut his eyes from the pain of it. The only thing stopping him from doing that was the hard-earned discipline of hundreds of years of non-stop combat.

He couldn’t even understand what that noise was. Not until he glanced over his shield to look through the joint barrier his fellow Tank Defenders had active.

The Araks at the top of the wall were simply standing there instead of moving forward. Their mouths were open. King Elric didn’t understand what they were doing for a moment until he realised that was where the sound was coming from.

They were screaming.

He glimpsed the Araks over the wall, the amassed army of the bastard insects that had never stopped coming for hundreds of years. Every single one of them had stopped and opened their mouths to scream.

Arak drones never made a sound. Their wings buzzed. Their feet slapped the ground. Their blood squelched when a blade tore through them.

But they did not scream when they died. They did not shout battle cries. They did not laugh. They did not weep. The only time he’d ever heard one of them speak was when the Arakashinai Queen was speaking through it.

King Elric was about to open his mouth and ask what the hell was happening when the screaming stopped as suddenly as it had started. Fearing the Araks would return to their assault, and nothing would have changed from whatever this anomaly was, Elric thrust his sword in the air and shouted a battle cry. As he wouldn’t be the only one with pounding, damaged ears, he made sure to send the command down the link he shared with the other Defenders.

“DEFENDERS OF ELDAARN, ADVANCE!” the king shouted at the top of his lungs, pushing his D Grade voice to its limits.

The Araks in front of him were slain with ease. All along the wall the same thing was happening. The defenders advanced. The Araks were slain. The battlement was cleared for the first time in ten years. This was the longest reprieve—the only reprieve—they had ever had.

The Araks’ screaming having ceased, the drones still stood, unmoving in that massive army. Empty shells awaiting a command.

Could it be…

Hope swelled in King Elric’s heart, but sheer realism forced him to continue to act in case his hopes were dashed. But before he could even consider his next move, a notification popped up in his vision.

The Champion you summoned to help you with this conflict has successfully completed their mission and been returned to their universe.

King Elric’s eyes widened at the message.

He did it. The crazy bastard actually did it!

Despite the System message, despite the way the drones just stood there, useless without their orders, King Elric couldn’t believe what was happening.

After the years of struggle, after so many people have been lost, after his entire planet had almost been completely wiped clean of human life by the Arakashinai plague…

One man had come and slain the queen, ending years of blood and conflict with a single move.

That’s what I need to become, if I’m to keep my people safe in this unforgiving universe.

King Elric still moved with caution. He did not cancel out the two main spells of the Defender line of classes as he led a small contingent of Tank Defenders down from the battlements to the gates that hadn’t opened since they’d arrived at the last standing castle in his kingdom.

With his soldiers at his side, their shields interlocked and a barrier active, he pushed forward out the gates to slay the unmoving Araks and finally reclaim their world.

In his mind, King Elric swore to himself, to his people, and to the man who’d saved them, that he would never let a threat like this ever befall his kingdom again.

~

Xavier!

The word brushed lightly against his consciousness. It was familiar to him. A name. Someone… Someone he knew?

Xavier!

The voice became louder and louder. More insistent. Repeating the same name over and over again for what felt like forever.

Xavier! Wake up!

Xavier? His sluggish mind tasted the word, the weight of it, then something slid into place. That’s… Me.

He was lying down somewhere. His eyes were closed. He was so, so tired. Had he fallen asleep during a lecture? If he opened his eyes, would he see Professor Manning peering up at him over his half-moon glasses? Would the girls who sat in front of him be giggling behind their hands?

I’m lying on the ground… I wouldn’t have fallen out of my chair, would I?

A pain erupted in his head, unbearable in its intensity.

XAVIER!!!

He forced his tired eyes open, if only to tell off whoever it was yelling at him and making his headache worse.

He wasn’t in the lecture theatre.

He was in a white room with what looked to be training equipment to one side and a strange looking glowing chest in the centre.

I know this place…

Xavier glanced around for whoever it was who’d been shouting at him, but no one was there. He was alone.

Finally. I thought you would never wake up.

The voice… It was speaking straight into his mind!

Xavier’s eyes widened as he suddenly snapped fully awake, and the memory of all that he’d just done came flooding to him. He went to stand but did it too quickly, only getting halfway until he fell back down. The impact made the pain in his head flare.

His body was sluggish, slow, weak. The pain he felt wasn’t only in his head.

It was everywhere.

And it ran deep.

The Arakashinai Queen… A million soul apparitions flowing toward her… The sound of her shriek…

That was the last thing he remembered before everything had gone black. His task completed, his body and mind had simply let go.

With no great haste, Xavier made it to his feet on shaky legs. For a long moment, he just stood there, blinking slowly as everything he’d gone through, and everything he’d done, ran through his mind.

A host of notifications were awaiting him, but the pain in his head made looking at them right away feel far too difficult. His mouth was dry, parched, and there was an empty pit in his stomach that produced a loud growling noise.

Thirst? Hunger?

Such base things never bothered him anymore, never reached the top of his consciousness, let alone screamed at him.

With what felt like far too much effort, Xavier summoned an armchair, a bottle of water, and a piece of toast that had been kept hot and fresh by the power of his Storage Ring. He sunk into the chair and took some tentative sips of the water and tiny bites of the toast, getting the feeling that if he ate too fast he would be sick.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this terrible.

I’ve never felt this terrible.

“I killed the queen,” he said aloud. “I killed a B Grade.”

Xavier was still D Grade. He’d punched above his weight before, but this…

That’s… That’s not all you did… Bones’ voice sounded strange. Xavier had heard the soulbound weapon worried before, but this sounded… Different. Worse.

Xavier blinked. Even that small act hurt his head. Strange. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t had headaches as a D Grade before when he’d pushed himself too hard—but they tended to disappear after he stopped whatever he was doing.

How long was I out? Xavier took another bite of the toast. And what do you mean, that’s not all I did?

There was a long pause before Bones responded.

You were asleep for three months.

Xavier’s shock was palpable.

Three… three months!?

He thought being out for three minutes would have been a long time, especially for someone like him. He’d only just lost consciousness back in that chamber a moment ago!

How could three months have gone by?

With the threat of the World Destroyer coming to the Silver River sector, he couldn’t afford to simply lose that much time!

The shock was quickly replaced with a deep sense of worry that, if he wasn’t so exhausted and in pain and on the verge of being sick, might have turned into a full-blown panic. Bones still hadn’t answered his second question, and he was beginning to realise the pain, the weakness, the exhaustion he was feeling, it wasn’t the only thing strange he could feel—but that other thing was something his mind was reeling back from, trying not to touch.

Trying not to believe.

What did you mean when you said that’s not all I did, Bones?

Silence was the soulbound weapon’s only reply.

ANSWER ME! Xavier yelled, clutching his head as the strength of his thought made the pain in his head flare to new heights.

I can only sense so much, but… Your veil dropped from your cores when you were initiating the spell patterns, and it still hasn’t returned. What I feel is faint, but… Your cores… They’re damaged, Xavier. All of them. I have never seen anything like it.

In a flash, Xavier turned all his focus inward. The act took more energy than it should have.

What he found shocked him more than being unconscious for three months.

He couldn’t feel any of his cores at all.

The End of Book 6