Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 6 - Curiosities and Demons

[Author Note: Here's a bonus chapter because the last one was late!]

Xavier stared at the rune that was etched into the stairwell wall between the Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar.

He ran his palm along the wall. After having chiselled off the first layer of rock, the rune had been revealed. Just like the rune he’d drawn in the air to conjure a cool breeze, he could feel this one’s connection to wherever it drew its power from.

Touching a hand to the rune didn’t improve his perception of that connection, but it did allow him to feel the rune’s grooves in the wall.

The handbook he’d been learning about runes from had a few hundred different runes in it—whereas there were many thousands that one could learn. This rune was one of the many Xavier had yet to encounter.

He tilted his head to the side as he wondered what the rune might do. He produced a piece of paper from his Storage Ring along with a stick of charcoal. Placing the piece of paper over the rune, he did a rubbing of it so the rune would appear on the blank page.

He’d already committed the rune to memory, and could no doubt reproduce it in a drawing himself, but this seemed the better way to capture it.

Xavier took a step back. As he took his hand off the wall, something strange happened. The stone wall shimmered like the reflection of the moon on a rippling pond.

A moment later, the stone was once more smooth, as though his chisel hadn’t touched it—as though the rune he’d revealed wasn’t there at all. Xavier stepped back to the wall where he’d uncovered the rune and touched his hand to it once more. He could no longer feel the grooves.

“Interesting,” he muttered. “Very interesting.”

Xavier had been contemplating how the Hell Moons of Demonica might function, as they had been around before the System had integrated them. That meant they were “naturally” occurring—at least, they occurred without System influence.

But clearly, there was nothing natural about this place. The way the demons avoided the stairwells. The way the demons respawned on the different descents. Nothing about this place seemed to function “normally.”

Xavier sat back down on the steps, simply staring at the wall. He looked down at the etching on the paper on his other hand. The rune he’d captured was still there. The way he’d captured it, it would have no power. It was simply a depiction.

There were several different ways to draw a rune. One could draw a rune in the air, as Xavier had done to produce that cool breeze.

One could etch a rune into an item—like what he’d been doing with his armour. And one could etch a rune into a location.

One could also etch a rune into someone’s soul—that was what Empress Larona had done to him to graft someone’s class onto him. But doing something like that was far more advanced than Xavier was capable of.

The first type of rune, the one drawn in the air, were temporary runes. They were almost like spells one could cast. The second were like buffs or enchantments. They weren’t necessarily permanent—that depended on the strength of the inscriber—but they were close to it.

A rune that one could place in a location could apply a permanent enchantment to an area. It might give the place a certain level of protection. It might create a glamour. Or it could be as simple as regulating the temperature of the space.

The possibilities, he knew, were almost endless.

Whatever the rune was that was etched into the wall, Xavier had a feeling it wasn’t the only one. He could still sense it, though only when he was concentrating to his maximum ability, in that same meditative state that allowed him to draw runes in the first place.

He walked down the steps, tracing his palm along the stairwell wall. Ten steps down he sensed another connection on the smooth stone.

Xavier cast Time Alteration, then brandished his soul bound weapon as a chisel once more.

In that stairwell alone, Xavier revealed two dozen different runes. He didn’t recognise what a single one of them did. They all disappeared once he’d stepped away, the stone itself healing. He wondered if that was the Hell Moon’s defence mechanism.

Xavier had made sure to create a copy of each of the different runes, along with committing them to his memory. With the time dilation field still active, he sat down on the steps and contemplated what he’d found.

In the grand scheme of things, Xavier was barely an inscriber. The fact that he’d managed to sense the connection in the wall… There was no way that he’d been the only one to ever do that. Romalda, Volkarin, and Rhaalir hadn’t mentioned anything like these runes, but that didn’t mean the fact that they existed wasn’t common knowledge in the more powerful sectors of the Greater Universe.

Any inscriber worth their salt walking down one of these stairwells—and though he’d yet to confirm it, Xavier had a feeling there were more runes on the other stairwells, and no doubt on the walls, or even floors, of the descents themselves—would have been able to sense them.

Just because people know about it, doesn’t mean that’s knowledge they would wish to share.

Knowledge was power, and it was rare that people freely wished to share the power they possessed. Very rare.

Xavier tapped his foot on the stone steps.

This place was artificial. He didn’t know what those runes were, but he was sure of that. If runes were the language of the universe, someone had written this entire Hell Moon—likely along with the other two Hell Moons—like a program.

Someone who’d been powerful enough to do that before the System had integrated them.

All of these demons were here before the System. They may not have possessed grades or levels on the same sense, not until the System had come and put that classification onto them, but they’d been there.

Who could have created this, so early in the time of the universe, without the System’s help?

Xavier wasn’t sure how much time passed in his time dilation field as he contemplated that question, but he knew it had been a long while before a thought occurred to him.

Inscribing was something he’d had neither knowledge nor interest in up until very recently. The fact that he’d developed his inscribing ability in the first place, let alone enough to detect these runes, seemed to be incredibly convenient.

He smirked.

Empress Larona.

She was the one who’d given him the book on inscribing. She’d even nudged him toward learning more about it. She’d put the thought in his head, then she’d shown him just a snippet of what it could do with the Class Grafting she’d done for him.

That had piqued his interest, and with the empress… Well, nothing was a coincidence now, was it?

That woman could see the future. For whatever reason, she’d seen something that told her nudging Xavier to learn inscribing would be valuable to him.

“Maybe I’m reading too much into this,” Xavier muttered. It could be the woman didn’t know anything about it at all. But he didn’t think that was the case.

There were forces at work in the Greater Universe, forces that seemed determined to steer the course of his life.

Xavier looked at the walls around him once more. Even though he’d copied the runes he’d uncovered behind those smooth stone walls, he doubted he would be able to understand how they worked for a good long while.

Still, he felt like it was a good time to use his Otherworldly Communion spell. If he’d been right about Empress Larona nudging him toward inscribing being important, then that made this little discovery of his important, too.

Even if he had no idea what to actually do with the information he’d just acquired.

Still tapping his foot on the stone of the stairwell, Xavier first thought about what question he would ask the spirit he summoned. He could ask the spirit what the different runes were, but that seemed like information he might be able to buy from the System Shop in some sort of inscribing manual—one a little more advanced than the one he had at the moment. Or, he could always ask that question after gaining his next level.

Tilting his head from one side to the other in contemplation, Xavier came upon the question he wished to ask rather quickly.

Xavier stood. He turned his soul bound weapon into a scythe-staff—always the best weapon for him to use when it came to casting his spells, as it gave him the biggest boost to them. Then, he cast Otherworldly Communion.

Colour drained from the world. Time froze ever more in the portion of space that Xavier stood within. He kept the question strong in his mind as the spell was cast.

A bright light burst into being before him. Xavier’s eyesight was powerful enough that he didn’t need to look away, and nor was he blinded by the light. He could pierce it to see the figure that was standing in its midst—though all he could make out was a vague outline until the bright light diminished, then slowly faded into nothing.

The spirit that stood before him was nine feet tall. They were male and humanoid, but he’d never seen anything quite like them before—at least, not in the flesh.

The spirit had massive horns coming from his head. The horns were sharp and curled. The spirit also had goat legs, and its skin was blood red. The muscles of its torso were on display, and more developed than anything Xavier had ever seen. They had a goatee, but they were no satyr.

No, this was a demon—at least, a demon in the way they were often depicted in mythology back on Earth. The demon looked Xavier up and down with a passive expression.

What question do you wish to ask of me, dragonkin?

Xavier tilted back on his heels as he took in the demon before him. He wondered if he would be facing anything like it down in the deeper descents.

Who created the Hell Moons of Thazamar?

The spirit blinked. The passive look disappeared, replaced with a look of rage—though that rage didn’t appear to be directed at Xavier. The Hell Moons of Thazamar. The words were said in a growl that would give Volkarin a run for his money. They are a despicable place that preys upon the lower demons. The spirit made a spitting motion to the side. I curse the woman who created that place.

Woman?

At first, Xavier received nothing but a growl in response to his question. The demon angled its head to the side, cracking its neck.

Yes. Woman. There are few who know anything of this woman. She created the Hell Moons. She connected them to the demon worlds. She tears our lower beings from their natural habitat and forces them into a place they do not wish to be.

Xavier blinked. You mean to say… The Hell Moons weren’t created by demons? The demons weren’t born here?

The demon spirit growled again. No. They are not of this place. The Hell Moons are not our lands.

Xavier was receiving answers to question he hadn’t initially asked—this happened on occasion with spirits. Sometimes they offered more than others. But he hadn’t received an answer to his actual question yet, and the things he’d learnt only made more questions pop up in his mind.

He shook his head and focused.

Who is this woman?

The demon growled once more. I do not know much, only that she surfs the void.

She surfs the void? Xavier’s eyes widened. She’s a void being?

The demon shook his head. No, dragonkin. She is no void being. She is very much alive, not a spirit. She is human—I think. Perhaps elf. A Universe hopper. He scratched one of his horns. I often have trouble telling the lot of you apart. You are hard to differentiate, what with having no horns.

Universe Hopper. A human, or elf—a Denizen. A live Denizen, who could travel from one universe to another.

And they could clearly do it without the help of the System, for the Hell Moon had been created somewhere where the System did not yet exist.

Xavier wondered how that could be possible. Goblins creating a portal to Earth had been what made the System integrate his planet in the first place. Wouldn’t a Denizen travelling to a non-integrated area force the System to then integrate it?

This was so well beyond his realm of knowledge.

But Xavier knew that the Hell Moons had existed in Rhaalir’s universe, which meant they likely existed in countless universes—how could one woman create them in so many?

Because she isn’t only one woman, just like there isn’t only one version of Xavier Collins out there. There are countless alternate universes where I exist, he thought to himself.

Why would she create this place? Xavier asked.

That isn’t an answer I possess. I have told you all I know.

The spirit, without ceremony, disappeared, leaving Xavier once more alone in the middle of the stairwell, contemplating things he didn’t understand.

Universe Hoppers…

He’d wondered whether it was possible to venture to different universes and remain there—he of course had already been to different universes, but only ever through stepping onto a Tower of Champions floor.

That made him wonder…

If there are Denizens out there with the ability to hop from one universe to another, and this universe is fairly new in the grand scheme of things, could there be Denizens out there—ones that were still alive, that had survived the ends of their own universe—that had existed for untold trillions of years?

That very thought sent a shiver down his spine.

If it were true—and in a vast Greater Universe where the possibilities were literally endless, how could it not be—then the staggering amount of power these people must possess…

How had they not been able to prevent a universe from ending?

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