Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 46 - The Right Choice

Xavier’s fingers curled into fists as the unfolding ended.

The Spirit of Time stared at him curiously. You are angry. Why?

I failed.

The Spirit of Time had a confused look about her.

This isn’t even your universe—how could you think you failed?

Xavier forced his fists to unclench. He took two deep breaths, letting each out slowly, before the tension began to leave his body.

He wasn’t used to losing.

Every single time he’d gone after something, he’d gotten it. He’d known it would be insane to make this choice—insane to come up here and try to fight the World Destroyer. He was still a few years from having to do it back home.

Could he really have expected to win?

And yet, there was that part of him, that part deep inside, that seemed to think he was invincible. He’d watched himself die before. Several times. But even then, he’d always found a way.

He’d defeated the Lord of the Endless Horde.

He’d protected Earth.

He’d killed a C Grade when he was still E Grade. He’d slain the Elemental Dragon.

And he’d demolished the Demon of the Depths a thousand times!  

Why couldn’t he manage this?

Walking away from the Fiftieth Descent had felt like one of the most difficult things he’d done. He didn’t walk away from fights, and yet he’d begrudgingly agreed it was the right thing to do.

Fighting a B Grade Mimic hadn’t been in the cards for him yet.

And now, again, here he was, walking away…

Not for lack of trying.

Xavier knew his confidence was closer to arrogance, but he’d never had a reason to truly doubt himself when he’d kept on winning and winning, despite all the odds that were against him.

Like I couldn’t lose.

He wondered what Empress Larona had seen. She’d told him that there was a chance. But clearly, there wasn’t one. Those words were part of what had kept him going.

Had she simply lied to him?

Was there a chance?

He couldn’t see it if there was one.

Xavier shut his eyes. The Spirit of Time was waiting patiently for him to make a decision. Apparently the unfoldings in this area of space weren’t even coming close to ripping the fabric of reality—this spot wasn’t one that was “heavily tread,” whatever that meant.

Which meant he could keep going. He could keep trying.

But the last time he’d used an unfolding the new version of him had simply taken that moment to escape. That had thrown him off, surprising him to no end.

Even I don’t think I can win this…

Xavier didn’t decide right away, however. He felt as though there were a lot of variables at play here. At lot of things for him to consider. Things that might not be apparent at first glance.

He’d already been thinking outside of the box by coming up here in the first place. But what if he wasn’t thinking hard enough? What if there was something else that he could do, that he just couldn’t see?

God, sometimes he wished he could peer into all of the alternate universes. Surely there was a universe out there where he’d defeated this thing by now. The insight he could gain…

He certainly wasn’t gaining the type of insight he thought he would from this fight.

Xavier started to think through the different variables at play.

The first of those things was that he was on a floor that wouldn’t end until he stepped through the Staging Room door. His foot started tapping, though there was nothing for it to tap onto, so it was just bobbing up and down in the void of space, making his entire body move as he slowly floated about. He had to constantly adjust where he hovered with his wings.

Xavier had stayed on tower floors for a long time to accomplish impossible feats, though he’d tended to do that when there was a time advantage. The fifth floor of the tower, the one with the waves of the Endless Horde, only ever lasted an hour in his own universe even if one spent months there.

The hundredth floor was similar. Time didn’t pass at the same pace, meaning he could spend almost as much time as he liked there with barely any passing back home.

Here, he’d already passed sixty days because of the Time Alteration spell, because he’d wanted to summon the Spirit of Time. And so far, it didn’t seem as though that had done him any good.

He could have gained a lot of power in those two months, and now, he’d not only thrown that time away, he’d wasted a use of the Spirit of Time

It would be another six months until he could call on her again.

Just because I didn’t succeed, doesn’t mean that time was wasted.

He’d seen how strong the World Destroyer was. Seen what it was capable of—and seen that it was entirely resistant to soul damage.

That was valuable. That would help him. He could forge a better path to its ultimate defeat in his home universe.

But what if there was a way for him to remain here… A way for him to become stronger now? It would take years for the World Destroyer to make its way around the Silver River sector and destroy everything—wouldn’t it?

Surely that would be enough time for him to grow strong enough to defeat it, and still return to his home world…

But that seemed foolish. Years would pass back home, on Earth, in his sector. There were things he needed to accomplish there, people he’d promised to help. Being away from them that long…

It didn’t feel like the right thing to do.

Besides, there was the problem of the Staging Room door. This world, this Earth, was about to be destroyed. He would need to protect that door, and he didn’t have the first idea as to how to make such a thing possible.

Xavier, the Spirit of Time said gently. Have you made a decision?

Xavier opened his eyes. He pursed his lips and shook his head. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been floating there, lost in thought in this frozen moment.

Not yet.

Take your time. That is one thing you have in abundance.

Xavier tilted his head to the side at the woman’s words.

Time.

It always seemed to be both the problem and the solution.

If he could only manipulate time more effectively in this place, in this universe. Change the speed at which it flowed…

But something like that simply wasn’t in his control. He couldn’t make this like the hundredth floor by sheer will.

Xavier was grasping at straws.

He looked over at the other version of himself, floating frozen in the middle of the time dilation spell, but not in the frozen moment Xavier shared with the Spirit of Time. He would have to tell the man that he’d failed. Would have to convince him to escape, as the last version of Xavier in the unfolding he’d just witnessed had done.

Admit defeat…

He shut his eyes once more, releasing perhaps the longest sigh he’d ever uttered.

There were beings in the universe that could wipe out the threat before him with a wave of their hand. They might even be able to do it with a thought, for all he knew. But none of those beings were here, and he had not yet become one of them.

He could not remain in this universe, not when it risked him getting stuck here.

This was something he had to walk away from.

~

The streets of Paris were empty, a contrast to the chaos they’d been in when he’d arrived. The people of Earth who could escape, had escaped.

There wouldn’t be much time for Xavier to make it through the Staging Room door. The other version of him had already escaped, using a Sector Travel Key that the man had in his Storage Ring—Xavier had watched him use that key several times during the different unfoldings.

That was how he’d known he would be able to convince him that it was time to give up.

Though even now as he reached out for the Staging Room door, Xavier felt a sense of regret. Trillions of people remained in this sector. All of them were going to die. Some would escape, but the majority would succumb to the World Destroyer as it wreaked havoc around Silver River.

And they wouldn’t only die once.

They would die trillions of times.

Every time someone stepped onto the eightieth floor, another alternate universe would spark up where this happened, where the other version of him failed.

The loss of life was simply too much for him to contemplate. The scale of it too immense. To the point where it simply felt unreal.

Before he touched the handle to the Staging Room door, Xavier looked up at the sky, as though he were staring at the System itself. The rage he’d been feeling toward the System returned in that moment.

But he knew that rage was misplaced. The System wasn’t the cause of all this suffering. It didn’t create new universes because it liked death. It pushed conflict. It was unforgiving. But it wasn’t some sadistic AI playing a death game with the Denizens for entertainment.

It had been created for a purpose, and it executed that purpose without an ounce of mercy—to save the universe.

And if one universe could be saved, if Xavier could one day succeed in that, then other universes could be saved, too.

That didn’t stop him feeling what he was feeling. Yes, that rage was misplaced, but he had to direct it somewhere. Perhaps he should have aimed it at the World Destroyer, but the World Destroyer was almost mindless in its need to devour. To consume. To become more. If anything, an entity like that was something to be pitied, even as one sought to destroy it.

Xavier grabbed the handle and returned to the Staging Room of the Tower of Champions, leaving the eightieth floor behind him.

When he got there, he wasn’t surprised when he received a notification saying he’d gotten the top record for the floor. He waved the notification away and went to sit in the centre of the floor. The Lost Bone of a Dead God was in the form of a sword, scabbarded at his waist. Xavier gripped the hilt.

You made the right choice.

Xavier hung his head. I’m still not so sure that I did.

Failure was a part of life. Something that every successful person had to go through if they wished to succeed.

Since the System came down… Xavier wasn’t used to the feeling of failing. He didn’t want to get used to it.

He slapped his knees and abruptly stood.

He might not be used to it, but the last thing he was going to do was sit there and wallow about it. His world hadn’t been destroyed. His sector was still safe.

The threat to the Silver River in his universe was still on its way. There was still time to win this.

Xavier stared up at the ceiling. “Was that why you sent me back through the tower floors? So I’d be able to see the World Destroyer? See how much more powerful it is than me?”

No response came. No response would ever come. Even if the Voice of the System suddenly he appeared, he doubted he would be given an explanation.

He clapped his hands together and looked at the door to the next tower floor.

Two months had passed since he’d stepped onto the eightieth floor, and while in some ways it felt as though he had nothing to show for it, his failure at defeating the World Destroyer in that particular universe lit a fire under him.

The threat was no longer something completely unknown. He knew exactly what he was up against now.

That Soul Amalgamation… God, it was fast.

Xavier would have to be faster.

My Time Alteration spell is weakened by the enemy, my soul spells have no effect, it appears impossible to mind control the enemy, and touching them to lock them in time only drains my health and energy.

That didn’t leave a lot of options. Unfortunately, during that fight, Xavier had seen a hell of a lot of the enemy’s strengths, but none of its weaknesses.

Even throwing it into the sun hadn’t worked.

Fighting the Soul Amalgamation in melee might be effective, assuming Xavier became fast enough. His Body Cultivation spell was an absolute advantage. He’d even noticed he’d done a bit of damage to the thing—though as it was a soul-construct, and not an actual Denizen or beast, he wasn’t sure that his Health Seer skill would work on it. He’d simply observed the damage. The surprise on the smug entity’s face had been priceless.

Until he’d severed Xavier’s head clean off.

At the time, Health Seer likely hadn’t worked on it because the level discrepancy had been too high—not that he’d been able to Identify the damned thing to see what level it was. He hoped Health Seer hadn’t failed because it was a soul-construct. He wasn’t sure how to test that.

The other, C Grade, version of Xavier hadn’t been able to Identify the World Destroyer or the Soul Amalgamation either.

Even if Xavier was fast and strong enough to take the Soul Amalgamation in a melee, how would he kill the World Destroyer itself? Simply hitting it with a sword, or loosing arrows at it, didn’t seem like a viable plan.

It devours everything it touches…

Xavier tilted his head to the side in thought—he wasn’t going to figure it all out at once.

He strode toward the tower door.

It was time to keep moving. Time to keep gaining titles.

He didn’t know how many floors he would need to clear before the System allowed him to return to Earth.