Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 14 - The Thirty-First Descent

[Author note: I hear you guys like bonus chapters.]

Thousands of Monstrosities lay dead around him and Yarien’s party. Their bodies were covered in black blood. The entire Thirtieth Descent looked like the set of some nightmarish horror movie.

Xavier didn’t intend to remain with the group for all the 1,000 clears of the Thirtieth Descent—he’d already gained that title. It was time for him to move on.

But he stayed for the first clear. He wanted to test his abilities against the demons after gaining another twenty-nine 1,000 clear titles.

He had devasted the demons with his martial prowess. Their bladed legs swam in his vision as he’d blocked, dodged, and struck. Shot spikes ricocheted off his wings as he spun this way and that. He still took some damage as he fought them, never more than 5 or 10 percent of his health was lost in the process of fighting the different groups.

When the demons all lay dead around him, Xavier turned to the party of C Grades he’d befriended. “This is where I leave you.”

Maricus stepped up. He grabbed Xavier’s forearm and slapped him on the back. “You fight well, Progenitor. Do try to stay alive. It will be interesting to see what you become as time passes. Something tells me there’s a bright future ahead for you.”

Xavier gripped the man’s forearm in return, feeling a little awkward. He wasn’t one for manly showings of affection. “I look forward to sparring with you when I catch up to your level of power.”

Maricus chuckled. “Cocky son of a bitch, you are, to believe you will catch up.” He slapped Xavier on the shoulder again before stepping back. This time, there was a bit more strength in the slap. Xavier had to brace himself to stop from pitching forward. Maricus saw this, and winked.

Avadon and Avadina each simply gave him a nod. “We look forward to training with you again soon,” Avadina said. Avadon grunted.

Yarien stepped up to him next. There was a small smile on the elven woman’s lips. Her blood red robes swayed slightly as she stopped in front of him. “You have been a valuable asset, and surprisingly good company.”

Xavier raised his eyebrow. “Surprisingly?”

“That is quite the compliment coming from her.” Maricus chuckled.

They hadn’t yet struck a deal for what he would get in return for gaining this party access to their next grinding area for title farming. Xavier had signed a contract with the elf saying that he would agree to negotiate with her about this in the future—right now, Xavier wasn’t sure what he might need most, or even what they might have to offer.

It was something he could worry about when the time came.

“Don’t die down there,” Yarien said. “I would hate to lose you. As an asset.”

Xavier cleared his throat. The elf’s smile was alluring. She clearly knew what she was doing to him. Xavier felt suddenly sheepish. This woman was stunningly beautiful, yet hundreds of years older than him.

“Don’t worry, dying isn’t part of my plan.”

Yarien smirked. “Good to know.”

Xavier parted ways with the true C Grades, leaving them behind as he walked over to the stairwell to the Thirty-First Descent, wondering what might be awaiting him there.

His martial skills were developing incredibly well. He was nearing Rank 150 on most of his weapon mastery skills, along with his melee fighting skills. Body Cultivation had recently reached Rank 140—that was a more difficult spell for him to rank up than he’d first realised, but he was making stunningly good progress—and Soul Strike? That had gone all the way to Rank 150, along with Soul Harden and Time Alteration.

He’d been using Soul Strike a lot on these descents. Fortunately, the demons had souls that he could reap. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever used the spell as much as he had when fighting alongside the true C Grades. Avadina and Yarien’s ability to help restore his cooldown had meant he could use it whenever he wished. That was something he’d taken full advantage of, as they’d soon gotten into a rhythm, all taking turns as they cleared demons on each descent.

There was still a hell of a lot for him to do. He had quite a few spells that were lagging behind, along with several skills that he simply hadn’t been practising—like Identify and Dismantle.

But he had plenty of time. He’d barely been here two weeks of actual time.

He’d spoken to Yarien a few times about their ability to skip cooldowns on spells. Xavier knew that it was incredibly powerful to target an enemy outside of the time dilation field with a tremendous number of spells, then drop the field and have all the spells hit at once.

If the spells could have their cooldowns skipped…

Yarien had nodded, saying she knew the tactic well. It was something that might come in handy on the deeper descents, but as he wouldn’t be with them then, no one would be able to take advantage of it.

Maybe in the future I’ll fight by their side again.

His companions were still grinding on the descents above. They’d reached the Sixteenth Descent now, and apparently Romalda’s undead army of demons was getting a little out of hand—at least the way Rhaalir put it.

Xavier put thoughts of the C Grade party and his companions out of his mind as he stood on the last step before the Thirty-First Descent. He could sense the different runes that were in the walls to his left and right in the stairwell. He hadn’t spent any time examining them lately—it wasn’t something he’d revealed to the party of C Grades, though he wasn’t sure why. He imagined they would have a much better idea of how this place worked than he did.

He also hadn’t had a great deal of time to examine the patterns—the blueprints—for his spells and skills, as he’d been sharing the time dilation field with others, and it took a great deal of concentrated effort for him to sense and decipher those patterns.

Now that he was alone, however, he could finally push forward on so many things.

Xavier stepped forward onto the Thirty-First Descent. He’d not yet activated his Time Alteration spell, and he wasn’t sure what he would encounter on this descent.

At one point, Yarien had offered him a guidebook to the three Hell Moons, one he’d almost taken from her. The System hadn’t restricted him from gaining information about the Hell Moon like it had the Tower of Champions, after all. And clearly there was no restriction on written information about the Hell Moon, either.

Xavier, however, had refused. The System seemed to think it was better for him to come into challenges not knowing what they would be. That level of unpreparedness seemed to be making him much better at adapting to different scenarios, and it certainly made things more of a challenge.

He might not always see eye-to-eye with the System, but its meddling—as frustrating as it was—hadn’t gotten him killed yet. He figured there might be some merit in the way it was restricting information from him and trying to throw him hard into different challenges.

A foul wind suddenly blew through the chamber, carrying with it the scent of sulphur and something rotten. It was so strong that Xavier was forced to crinkle his nose.

How could there be wind down here?

The wind carried with it something more than the foul stench. Mist rolled along above the smooth stone floor. Xavier’s eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the gloom. Dark shapes writhed within the thick mist—he imagined these were the source of the smell.

He summoned Lost Bone of a Dead God to his hand in the form of a scythe-staff, for the old faithful weapon had always served him well, and he waited.

The mist engulfed him. Considering how stiflingly hot everywhere else on this God forsaken Hell Moon was, Xavier was surprised to find the mist cold. The sudden shift in temperature sent a shiver down his spine. He rolled his head to the side, cracking his neck in anticipation for whatever was about to come out of this damned mist.

Something in his stomach churned. It was an odd sensation, but one he couldn’t help but recognise. He hadn’t felt it this abruptly in some time—he was being teleported.

But it wasn’t the System that was teleporting him.

It was the Thirty-First Descent.

His mind turned. He’d wondered, when he’d come to this place, if the descents would be at all similar to the floors of the Tower of Champions. They hadn’t been—they’d been more like the dungeons he’d experienced, the only variety being the different he faced on each descent and their levels of strength.

And they had most certainly never teleported him somewhere else before.

The mist cleared just as suddenly as it appeared. Xavier wasn’t sure, but he thought it must have been that mist that had teleported him. It felt as though it was almost like a portal, and the moment that it had touched him, he’d been taken… Here.

Wherever the hell here was.

There were no notifications to announce what the hell he was supposed to do here. This wasn’t something the System had created. But when that mist cleared from his vision he saw a mountain towering high above him with icy peaks at its tops.

The temperature was startling different to what he’d just been experiencing, but it only took him a moment to adjust to the difference.

There was no sign of the dark shapes he’d seen in the mist, though he could have sworn he hadn’t imagined them.

He took in the sight of the mountain and instinctively gripped the haft of his scythe-staff tightly before loosening it again. On every other descent, he’d been able to simply step back onto the stairs, but there was no sign of the stairwell behind him.

Xavier focused, falling into a meditative state. Doing so, he was able to sense the runes that were in this place. He got onto his hands and knees and briefly dug away the snow that was on the ground.

Beneath that snow, he was able to reveal several different runes. One of them he recognised meant displacement. He stood back up. As far as his knowledge stretched, there was no way for him to activate another Denizen’s rune, and this one wasn’t his.

He’d known, since asking that demon-goat thing through Otherworldly Communion that the runes had the ability to teleport—they teleported the demons in for each floor, respawning them whenever it was necessary, stealing them from demon worlds out there somewhere in the black.

Xavier had to wonder how such a thing was possible. Had to wonder what kind of power sat behind the person who’d made this place. He also wondered how many damned demons there were out there, if they could be teleported back here in such numbers.

But wondering gained him nothing.

I must move with caution.

He didn’t doubt that he would be strong enough to defeat whatever demons he encountered on the Thirty-First Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar, but he’d just stepped into something he hadn’t expected, without any way of returning back to the tower.

Except…

Xavier cast Portal, just to test. He imagined the stairwell between the Thirtieth and Thirty-First Descents as his destination—but something stopped him.

Distance.

Xavier’s Portal spell was strong enough to transport him several thousand miles at this point. That meant that wherever Thazmar was in relation to these mountains, it was farther away than that.

The mists had taken him to another world.

He summoned his Sector Travel Key into his left hand and turned it between his fingers. He could travel away from this place, but the cost of leaving would be too high. Besides, he doubted he would actually need to escape.

Still, it was good to at least have the option.

Roars sounded somewhere in the distance. Deep, dark sounds, from the jaws of something powerful. Grey clouds congregated above the mountain. Lightning cracked, the rumble of thunder following soon after.

Xavier didn’t know how this particular descent worked—were the demon inhabitants he was no doubt soon going to encounter teleported from another world each time a Denizen appeared here?

He shook his head, figuring he’d contemplated things long enough.

At one of the peaks of the mountain, he spotted a tower. It was the only structure that he could see in this desolate ice-world.

Xavier spread his wings. It was time to start moving.