Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 32 - For the Thrill of Battle

Xavier had never moved faster in his life.

The instant he arrived inside the Roving Seed Base, he was able to cast all his spells again. Teleportation and Time Alteration were the first ones he’d cast, and he’d had Pocket Time Stream active briefly after creating that first portal to rejuvenate his cooldowns. Body Cultivation, of course, was active as well.

Celestial Energy and Reality Energy coursed through his channels, cycling in their respective patterns, strengthening his body, mind, and spirit. He could have resumed cycling all eight energies, but this fight required far too much of his concentration to be split even that much.

God, this Damascus can move.

Xavier hadn’t known what to except when he’d thundered toward the man, flying at him like a bat out of hell. Honestly, he hadn’t expected Palini to stop and talk when he dragged him in here, nor had he expected to be the one to initiate the fight.

He’d told the truth—he could have escaped. Not only through the portal he created, but with the use of his Sector Travel Key, which unlike his Universal Travel Key was fully recharged and ready to use.

But he didn’t wish to sacrifice the Roving Seed Base. It wasn’t just the items that remained inside the base, either. He could freeze Palini, wrapped the time dilation field only around himself, and gather everything left behind into several Storage Rings, but the base had a place in his heart.

He would only abandon it if his life were at risk.

Xavier’s life was not at risk—not against Damascus, at least.

Palini Damascus was a better swordsman than Xavier. That much had been clear the moment the fight started. But Xavier was faster. Even stronger, he thought. Unless his enemy was holding back.

He didn’t think the man was. Not anymore.

Because after maybe three seconds from when the fight began, Damascus started moving differently. Xavier couldn’t identify what the shift was, exactly, only that it had occurred, and it was significant. The man had already possessed perfect form to his eyes. Could already move with almost prophetic ability, anticipating Xavier’s every strike.

Now, it seemed Palini knew his movements before Xaiver did. If Xavier’s connection to his universe hadn’t been shattered, he would have thought the man was using some form of precognition.

But no. Palini couldn’t see the future. He just moved like nothing Xavier had ever seen.

Like water…

Xavier barely held his own. Honestly, he wasn’t holding his own. Even when he started burning Reality Energy at a rate he really shouldn’t have.

He was taking hits. A lot of them.

Too many.

But he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t remember the last time a single fight made him feel so much improvement before. Notifications had been swarming his vision since their swords began to clash.

Sword Mastery has reached Rank 171!

Error…

You are not the requisite grade for a Rank 171 skill.

This rank will be held in reserve until you advance to C Grade.

Xavier suppressed a smile even as he continued to move more swiftly than he ever had. The highest rank he could hold for either a spell or a skill was currently Rank 150. He’d pushed a lot of his spells and skills hard enough that he had several ranks in reserve—but he’d never managed to get a rank in reserve for Sword Mastery.

In this fight alone, in the space of less than a minute—without landing a single blow against his enemy—he’d received 21 ranks in reserve for the Sword Mastery skill and 10 for Evasion.

And 25 in Physical Resistance. Because despite the fact that Palini wasn’t stronger than Xavier, he certainly hit damned hard.

Xavier knew he was being foolish to continue the fight in this way. Damascus was B Grade. Before this, Xavier had only faced a single B Grade and it had almost killed him. Hell, it should have killed him. Yet Xavier had thundered forward at his enemy, not using any of the myriads of tactics and spells at his disposal—just his sword, Body Cultivation, and Reality Energy—before he’d known how powerful his enemy was.

All because he wanted to test himself.

Well, at least it paid off… but if I’d been wrong about this man, if I’d only been able to survive a single second…

The only other spell he’d used in the fight so far had been Teleport, and that had been just by reflex. And the only spell his opponent had used had been Sword Aegis—Xavier recognised it from his extensive reading on spells.

Now, Xavier sidestepped one way, only to realise too late the strike he’d tried to avoid was a feint. He took a hit to his left calf. The sword pierced his armour, dug through his skin—another rank in Physical Resistance went into reserve.

But for the single spell each Denizen had used, the fight had remained strictly in physical combat. So when Xavier had thought the man was no longer holding back, he knew it wasn’t the whole truth. Time dilation field or not, the B Grade’s would have countless spells at his disposal he hadn’t cast. Perhaps he was feeling Xavier out, testing him, and as Damascus was the superior swordsman, finding him wanting.

He wants to take me alive. How else would he get answers from me?

For Xavier’s part, he didn’t want to kill this man. Damascus might be trying to force a contract on him where he didn’t think there was cause, but even with how stubborn Xavier had been about refusing it he could see the man’s perspective.

Even if he disagreed with it.

A slow smile started to tick up the sides of the Damascus’s lips as the fight went on.

Xavier stumbled backward after his calf was hit. His armour, though at the height of what a D Grade could equip, was like paper against a B Grade’s sword, covered in holes he didn’t bother repairing.

His flesh was another story.

Xavier had been an incredibly powerful D Grade before the shattering of his cores. Now, at Level 300, with even more stats and titles at his disposal from the Hell Moons he’d visited during that decade of training with his students, coupled with the alien advancement to Tier 2—an advancement he was now at the peak of, inching toward Tier 3, making him vastly stronger than when he’d first advanced in the foreign path of Cultivation—he was an absolute beast.

The wounds taken by the B Grade’s blade healed swiftly. More swiftly than even Xavier had imagined they would. Even so, he was taking wounds faster than he could heal them.

Yet he barely felt the pain. All he could felt was giddy.

Excited.

Positively exhilarated!

Twelve years and some change had gone by since Reality Energy had invaded the alternate universe he’d almost died in, worming its way into his body and through his channels, nestling somewhere deep inside to slowly form an alien core, and this was the first time Xavier had truly tested himself.

He’d fought beasts, all the way to peak C Grade.

Not in one-on-one fights, either.

He’d fought his students, individually and grouped together.

He had not restricted their abilities.

Not once in that time had Xavier felt challenged. Not in a fight, anyway. He’d been challenged in his training, in his experiments, in his creation of cores, and his mastery of spells, skills, and weapon forms.

But Fighting Palini Damascus reminded Xavier of what he truly lived for—not just for the goals he held in his heart: The goal to protect; the goal to bring peace. Not only for the friends he considered family, or his passion for writing.

Xavier lived for the thrill of battle.

And yet right now, Xavier was only challenged, only losing, because he was holding back.

A D Grade against a B Grade, and Xavier was pulling punches.

Palini’s smile only grew. Strike, thrust, slash. Every second attack found a home in Xavier’s flesh. The wounds healed fast. Not faster than he took them.

He was flagging. Stumbling. Losing his grip on his sword. He’d burned far more Reality Energy than was prudent, but doing so was all that kept him upright.

Time to stop holding back.

Palini Damascus’s sword froze a hairsbreadth from Xavier’s right wrist. Though perhaps froze wasn’t the right word. The movement was agonisingly slow, but it was faster than Xavier had seen anything move while inside his current time dilation field’s level of power.

Xavier moved his arm away and stepped back, the time dilation field wrapped almost as close as his armour around him, now working only on him. If the B Grade’s sword touched the field’s barrier, he would be enveloped by it. Even if only briefly—only while they were in contact.

Even though it would have taken a very long time for that sword to reach his wrist, the thought was unsettling.

Breathe and heal.

Xavier inhaled deeply through his nose. The sweet scents from Kelly’s garden mingled with the metallic tang of his own blood, tickling the insides of his nostrils. He released the breath. His awareness turned inward, toward every inch of his body. He no longer burned Reality Energy. He’d used half of what had been stored in his core.

Half.

It would take him a long time to replenish that.

Foolish.

Xavier banished the thought, focusing instead on his breath and body. There would be time to reflect on his actions and think on his next.

He cast Self-Healing, a spell he’d acquired at Siobhan’s recommendation, and was enveloped by a soft blue light that glowed brighter where it flowed toward his most serious wounds. The healing spell wasn’t the only thing at work—Body Cultivation and his now normal cycling of Reality Energy each had strong regenerative properties, coupled with his body’s already heightened regeneration.

Five seconds later, every wound he’d received from the superior swordsman was gone. While that didn’t seem like a long time, in a fight against a B Grade it would have been an eternity. He didn’t only heal his wounds, either. He funnelled extra Spirit Energy into his armour to hasten its repair enchantment, watching as the holes disappeared.

Xavier peered at his enemy. He wasn’t sure “enemy” was the right word. In fact, he was being intentionally gentle so that he wouldn’t turn this man—and by extension, Sovereign Fouran—into his enemy. His forehead creased at the thought of Sovereign Rewke Fouran, the True B Grade that was the ruler of this entire sector. The man was purported to be powerful. Far more powerful than The Collector. Xavier had assumed he would be more powerful than him, for he would be a fool to assume otherwise.

Yet his fight with Palini Damascus had taught him something. B Grades weren’t the big scary things they’d been the last time he’d come up against one. Xavier was punching two grades above his advancement, and he didn’t need to almost kill himself to do it.

The fight isn’t over, Xavier reminded himself. Not necessarily.

He also recalled when he’d stretched out his spiritual sense over the main portal hub and pierced all the Denizens’ veils there and felt the difference in their power. There had been C Grades of the same level who’d had vastly different strengths of their auras. He couldn’t judge all B Grades from the man before him.

Xavier couldn’t even judge the man before him, not truly. Damascus hadn’t been fighting to kill; he’d been fighting to incapacitate.

I wasn’t fighting to kill either.

Either way, he didn’t know if he could take on Sovereign Rewke Fouran, and as he didn’t have anything against the man except for the “misunderstanding” that had led him here, he didn’t see any reason to seek a fight with him.

Raising his chin, the dragonkin thought through his next moves and the options he had. The time dilation field might have been wrapped around him, but the moment he left the Roving Seed Base he’d be back in that containment room. His active spells would be cancelled out, and it surely wouldn’t be long until backup arrived. He would have to break through that room. To do that, he would need to ensure Damascus wouldn’t follow…

Xavier shook his head, smirked. No. There was another solution. The talisman about Damascus’s neck, the one he showed off during the attempted interrogation. Touching the man would wrap him in the time dilation field, but Xavier had access to Light Telekinesis these days—and a myriad of other new spells he’d acquired over the last decade. There could be a way to get past the B Grade armour’s protections and to the talisman beneath.

Though many enchanted items, especially those of a higher grade, tended to be resistant to telekinesis by design.

If that’s the case, I’ll just have to rip it from his neck.

And he would have to hope that it was the talisman that allowed the man to teleport into the containment room, and by extension off the moon that was the Sovereign’s Satellite Fortress. He could escape with the Roving Seed Base and head to Ventorin after he recharged his Universal Travel Key.

As I should have done in the first place, apparently.

Xavier tapped his foot on the ground, shut his eyes, and released a frustrated breath. The plan was sound, but it didn’t feel right. The Orin sector not only neighboured Ventorin, where The Collector ruled, it was also startlingly close to Silver River. It wouldn’t take much effort for them to figure out who he was. Even if he killed or stole the memories from Palini Damascus, there were likely surveillance devices inside the containment room. When he’d dragged Damascus into the Roving Seed Base, he’d expanded his wings, revealing him as dragonkin. He wasn’t hiding or glamouring his face, either.

This wasn’t an alternate universe he could wreak havoc in—even if only minor havoc, from his perspective—then disappear and never have to worry about being followed. In his own universe, his actions would have greater consequences toward the things that were important to him, the things he’d taken responsibility for. They were already calling him the ruler of Earth. With the plans he’d made with his other students, and what he intended to do, Earth wouldn’t be the only world under his rule soon.

Maybe leaving as he planned wouldn’t make an enemy of Sovereign Rewke Fouran, maybe the B Grade ruler wasn’t as petty as that, but that didn’t mean it was the right choice.

Especially since killing The Collector was only the first thing he intended to do when he ventured to the Ventorin sector.

Xavier released a long sigh and hung his head.

I suppose it’s time to have another chat with Palini Damascus.

He smiled, then, for there was no reason this couldn’t be a fun chat—at least for him.

The man thinks I showed him my hand when I dragged him in here. Now, let’s show him the other cards up my sleeve…