Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 80 - Easy Prey

Xavier raised an eyebrow as he looked around the arena. This place… it reminded him of the Colosseum in Rome. He would have thought the arena was beautiful, if not for the brutality of what it was used for.

He reread the message from the System.

The Melee is a challenge of survival! You will be marked on your participation!

He frowned, tilting his head to the side. He stood on a small, circular platform, one just big enough to fit his feet, really. There was a barrier around him. Something told him that even he wouldn’t be able to break through that barrier, considering it had clearly been made by the System. There were eleven other identical platforms and barriers, with eleven other Champions standing upon them. If he’d read this correctly, the other Champions were from all around not just the sector, but the Greater Universe. They could be from anywhere.

And though the System had said he would be placed with Champions of similar skill to his own, he had trouble believing that was true, or, well, even possible.

Yeah, that doesn’t scream of arrogance or anything.

Xavier bit his lip. Siobhan. Justin. Howard. What if they can’t get through this alone? What if they can’t survive without my help?”

He had to push those worries from his mind. Sam had warned him, and he hadn’t listened, but it wasn’t as though they had a choice. They would have had to go through with this. If they stalled for too long, the System would have forced them to do this floor. That was another thing Sam had told Xavier, back when he’d asked about the other Champions who refused to move forward on their floors.

The System liked giving consequences for inaction.

Which meant Xavier had a moral dilemma to sort out, and barely any seconds left before the timer reached zero to come to a decision. He was trying to get number 1 on every single floor that he could. The challenge of this floor was fighting these other Champions, and if he was being marked on participation, wouldn’t that mean he was marked more highly by, well, killing more of them?

If he wanted a chance to get the number 1 title for this floor, he should do what he always did—kill every single enemy before him as swiftly as possible.

But this was different to the other floors he’d been on.

They’re just people like me. What if one of those Champions was Siobhan? Justin? Or Howard? What if they were just some innocent kid from a galaxy far, far away?

He bit his lip. None of these people were likely to be innocent. They would have all killed before to become Champions in the first place. But that fact alone didn’t make any of these people his enemy. As many people as Xavier had killed through the different floors, like when he’d been facing the Endless Horde, slaughtering soldiers by the thousands, he’d still tried to protect the lives of those who deserved protecting.

Then again, maybe that was just something he was being naive about. Something he was applying his twenty-first century Earth logic to, just like when he thought he didn’t want to invade other planets, even though it might be what he’d need to do in the future.

Will this floor even have a top 100 leaderboard? Is seems so different to the other floors. This scenario isn’t something that can be replicated, because the Champions will always be different Champions, meaning the challenge will never be the same.

Xavier sighed. One second left on the countdown timer. One second for him to decide what to do here.

He thought of the operative word in the notification. Participation. That could mean a lot of things.

~

Arturous Lothbrokian gripped his chains tightly. The tenth floor. He’d been looking forward to this one. He couldn’t wait to be pitted against Champions from all over the Greater Universe. Couldn’t wait to prove that he, Arturous, was their better.

He held his head high and blinked, looking around at the other contenders, trying to appear disinterested.

They don’t really look like much, do they?

His instincts told him to use his Identify skill on them, but he knew that was futile. Identify didn’t work on the tenth floor. Everyone knew that. He scoffed to himself. Some of these idiots might not know that. They could be from some backwater baby planet that’s just been integrated into the System.

He gripped his chains more tightly as his gaze swept from one Champion to the next, then it paused on a man in dark robes, holding some sort of scythe-looking thing. That’s an odd pole-axe. He tilted his head to the side, examining the man’s face. He was human, like Arturous, but he was most certainly older than System age. At least five winters older. The only explanation for that was…

Arturous chuckled to himself. Easy prey. He’d actually encountered one. New blood. The Greater Universe was so unimaginable large, the frontier of the System so far away from Arturous sector, that he hadn’t imagined he would encounter new blood even in ten thousand years.

And yet, here one stands before me. This is going to be fun.

The countdown reached zero. Arturous’s chains were wrapped around his fists. His mother had looked down on his combat style.

She called it savage. Said it relied too heavily on being in close quarters. Arturous, like all from his family, chose his fighting style at the age of five. He’d been given many options by his mother, father, and his dedicated trainer, Rainolt. Rainolt had been the one who’d presented the chains to him. Arturous had been captivated by them.

On occasion, Arturous had wondered if his mother had been right. Wondered if he’d made some sort of mistake in his choice. There were many things he hadn’t known, before he’d gained the System. All the training he’d been able to undertake was before he’d gained the System and his actual skills and spells, and finally had the opportunity to gain levels.

The more enlightened planets really should get the System at an earlier age, especially those from families like mine. It’s only fair, considering we’re superior.

He’d been telling his mother to inform the System of this since he was eight—he hadn’t wanted to wait eight more years. She’d always just brushed him off.

He raised his fists. His mother had been right about one thing. His fighting style was savage. But it turned out that’s exactly the way he liked it.

When the barrier around his platform and every other platform disappeared, Arturous activated Shadow Step, a spell that let him teleport into his enemy’s shadow. He was going straight after the new blood.

He appeared just behind the man, but something wasn’t right. A purple mist flowed outward from the dark-robed figure. A mist that he recognised. Willpower Energy. He scoffed internally, going in for a punch. There was no way that Willpower Energy alone would be strong enough to overtake his powerful mind—

It seeped into him. Through his nose. Through his mouth. Through his eyes.

This is rather unpleasant!

He threw up all of his mental barriers. He’d been trained in the art of meditation. Trained in the art of blocking unwanted thoughts. Trained in blocking unwanted control, even, as it was proven if one used Willpower Energy on someone who hadn’t yet been integrated at System age, having them try and fight it off gave a boost in their stats, even if only marginal.

His barriers were shattered. It felt as though they hadn’t been there at all, and suddenly, his body froze in place, his fists and chains an inch from striking the man’s back.

All he could do was blink and look around, as he’d received a mental command to stop. What he saw terrified him.

His parents had warned him about what becoming a Champion could mean. Told him it might be too rich for his blood. He’d ignored them, of course, as he often did. He wanted to experience the Tower of Champions. He was from an elite family. His parents were B Grade, for System’s sake.

Yet maybe they’d been right.

Every single one of the other contenders had frozen in place alongside him. The man in the dark robes glanced about. He had a somewhat bored expression on his face, an air of disinterest so perfect there was no way it could be crafted. He sighed, as though being here at all were a herculean task, then he hiked up his robes slightly and sat cross-legged in the middle of the arena, muttering something about hoping this would be considered full participation.

Then he just… waited.

Arturous’s eyes widened the more he stared at the man. He did some mental math, trying to figure out how it could be possible for someone to do what this man was doing. Controlling one other Champion of an equivalent level, that might be possible for a second or two. Maybe longer, if the Champion doing the controlling were particularly gifted, but this? How could he expect to control someone for five minutes?

And it wasn’t just one of them he controlled. It was allof them. Eleven Champions, all who’d made it to the tenth floor, all who’d been matched up with him, Arturous Lothbrokian, so they must have at least a decent level of power…

Yet this man was controlling all of them and showing not even a hint of mental stain.

Th-that’s impossible! Who in the Greater Universe is this monster!?

Arturous stood there, absolutely frozen and completely unable to move. A simple command of stop had been enough to make him just… stop. A fear began to grow in his chest. One he’d never felt before. He’d done everything right. He’d been training on each floor again and again and again before clearing them, gaining as many levels as he possibly could from them—or so he thought.

He’d been in this damned tower for months.

Maybe I should surrender. If I surrender, I’ll be barred from my home, lose half my levels, but I’ll still be alive. Besides, in the grand scheme, one hundred years really isn’t that long.

It wasn’t as though he’d be the first in his family to flunk out of the Tower of Champions. Kulrous, one of his older brothers—like, really old, the guy was over two hundred years old when Arturous was born—apparently only made it to the tenth floor, too.

I really shouldn’t have made fun of him so much for that. I was a fool. I should have listened to my mother.

That was a lesson he wouldn’t forget. And a hundred years away from his home planet… well, it wasn’t as though they didn’t own multiple planets in their sector. He’d still have access to the family’s bank account. He’d be able to live in luxury. Maybe take a break from levelling for a few years, to recover from this trauma…

It wouldn’t be cowardly. This man is a monster.

Arturous willed himself to surrender, but… the System wasn’t responding! Something was stopping him from communicating with it properly!

Oh no… he’s not letting us surrender! He’s going to kill us all!

~

Xavier rested Charon’s Scythe along his legs and looked at the other contenders. One of them, the kid with chains wrapped around his fists, had actually been close to punching him in the back. He could have slipped the attack, or whirled around and blocked it, but he was impressed by the kid’s swift teleportation and Speed stat.

Higher than Justin’s, that’s for sure.

He tapped his fingers on the haft of his scythe-staff. The worry about his friends hadn’t left him, but he was no longer worried about killing these people. Controlling every single one of them so thoroughly? Making it impossible for them to attack him, or anyone else? That had to gain him full marks for participation, right?

And it means they’ll all survive this. Really, I’m doing them a service.

Besides, maybe he could gain something from this. There was still over four and a half minutes left, after all.

Xavier cleared his throat. “Can any of you tell me about the next floors of the tower?”