Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 42 - Shock Terror

The back of Xavier’s head smashed into the marble floor with a massive crack. Something in his skull caved in.

Pain shot through not only his head but every inch of his entire body. With that pain came something else: Fear.

He shuddered with complete and utter terror.

You have been afflicted with Shock Terror. This will interrupt your ability to think until you recover.

The notification seared into his eyeballs. He was dizzy. Lightheaded. His body, mind—everything—felt wrong.

Shock Terror?

“XAVIER!” a shout rang, echoing about his skull. “MOVE!”

He knew that voice, didn’t he? He couldn’t place their name.

Xavier blinked. Above him loomed a terrifyingly powerful man with eyes glowing red.

The Collector!

A spike of fear shocked him, sending the terror into overdrive.

A grinning Gregori slammed a kick into Xavier’s side. More things cracked. The kick sent him tumbling through the air.

Think, think, think!

His Farscope was active. The entire room should have been clear to him, but fear clouded it. As the kick flung him across the room he pushed himself to see—

The time dilation fields his drones used had been thwarted. The Collector, along with his twenty-five B Grade guards, were moving again. And they were moving at the same speed as Xavier.

The time dilation field I had around myself and Palini is gone too! Palini… That was the voice.

The fear was still inside him. The Terror Shock status effect making him feel frozen with it.

His thoughts were a jumble. A total and utter mess. Why had he come here? Why had he thought he would be able to defeat the ruler of an entire sector? He should run. He should take Palini and run!

No!

A voice in his mind said, stopping that line of thought. The voice was his own. It felt weak. Struggling.

This isn’t you. Fight it!

Xavier slammed into one of the large marble pillars that held up the domed ceiling. The pillar cracked along with a few of his bones, yet somehow it didn’t entirely break.

Xavier slid down the pillar and hit the grand throne room’s floor. A booming laugh echoed about the large hall. His mind was still a foggy haze of fear. The terror still gripped every part of him.

And he was dying.

Over and over.

He felt his neck crushed. Felt a blade pierce his heart and keep going until it came out his back. Felt fire consume his entire body, melt his skin and muscles and tendons and move on to turn his very bones into a fine powder.

The pain. God, the pain.

Not me. Not dead. I’m not dead.

It was his drones. They were being slaughtered. When The Collector had punched him and afflicted him with Terror Shock, it had interrupted his thoughts. He hadn’t been able to hold onto the mental burden of defending against the B Grades pushing at the drones’ time dilation fields and they’d all broken at once.

But Xavier’s mind was still inside those drones. Parts of it, at least. He felt their deaths like it was his own. Every death sent another shock of fear through him. And in that moment he wasn’t strong enough to pull his mind back together.

He needed time. Time to think. Time to recover. The notification had told him he wouldn’t be able to think until he recovered, and that was true enough—his thoughts were a complete, utter, shattered mess. There hadn’t been a timer, either. No indication of how long the status effect would last.

But Xavier had been shattered before. He’d put himself back together before.

He could do it again.

He just needed to do it faster this time.

Time…

Xavier cast Time Alteration. The spell wasn’t in cooldown. He’d made sure of that. The B Grade time mage still had a time dilation field around the throne room, so it wasn’t as effective as it needed to be—but it would at least buy him a moment or two.

When the spell activated and was wrapped about himself, fingers about his heart that he hadn’t even realised were there loosened their grip.

He released a single, long breath, then burned a chunk of Reality Energy to reinforce his mind. Before he’d been punched, he’d been cycling only two different energies: Reality and Celestial.

If he hadn’t been cycling those energies to strengthen his body and mind, that punch would have done a lot more damage.

The Collector was far more powerful than Xavier had expected.

With a chunk of Reality Energy burned, Xavier’s mind snapped itself back together. The energy was like a buffer—a cushion between him and the fear. Once it was in place, the fear swiftly dissipated, ejected from his System.

You have recovered from the status effect Terror Shock.

The relief was only short-lived as Xavier took stock of the position he was in.

His mind wasn’t the only think that had been shattered. His entire plan had been destroyed. Half his drones were dead. With Time Alteration in cooldown for the remaining ones, they could no longer serve their intended purpose.

Xavier cycled Reality Energy and Celestial Energy through his body once more, as like his thoughts it had been interrupted when he’d been punched. The energies rejuvenated him, relaxing his mind and muscles then amping him up to deal with the problem at hand. His mind worked with a furious speed, far faster than his body could move, allowing him to assess what just happened before moving forward.

As his mind moved, the wounds in his body healed as fast as it could. The crack in his skull from the punch. His broken ribs from the kick. Whatever had snapped in his back when he’d crashed into that pillar.

Something in his own mind had warned him before The Collector had moved. Xavier was now able to identify what that was.

The Collector hadn’t been affected by the drone’s time dilation field at all.

He’d been frozen, just like all the others. And like the other B Grades, his heartrate and breathing had slowed to a complete stop—that was how Xavier had checked to ensure each of the B Grades had actually been affected by the spell.

Yet Gregori The Collector had been faking it.

How had he managed to freeze his body’s processes so fast that Xavier hadn’t caught it until it was too late?

The reason he’d noticed something was amiss was that every other B Grade had been pushing against the drones’ time dilation fields—all except Gregori, as he didn’t need to.

He hadn’t broken through the time dilation field at all. He hadn’t needed to. He’d simply ducked under the drone’s glowing hands.

The red smoke around his body. Whatever protective spell that is, it must have stopped him from being enveloped by the time dilation field.

Mind still moving lightspeed fast, Xavier examined the throne room and the positions of everyone within it. Palini was, for the moment, holding his own against two B Grade guards—but he wouldn’t be able to for long. The other B Grades were swiftly dealing with the remaining drones. Only twelve left. Xavier wondered if he should pull his mind back from them so he wouldn’t have to experience their deaths, but he was sure he would need them.

A part of him raged. This was not how things were supposed to go.

He wondered, for a fraction of a second, if he should summon the Spirit of Time now. But no. All was not lost. He wasn’t out of ideas.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. I knew this might all go belly up, and I have other things up my sleeve.

Xavier had wanted to make The Collector’s death a spectacle. Had wanted to overpower him in such a way that showed every Denizen in that throne room just how powerful he was…

That was pride and arrogance talking. Yes, he needed them to know how strong he was in the hopes of stopping them from challenging him. And yes, he wanted to do his best not to kill these people.

But the only thing he really needed to do here was kill The Collector. Everything else would follow after that.

The Collector, even hindered as he was by the time difference between their respective fields, was making his way toward Xavier. As he thundered across the hall, he jabbed a finger straight through the eye of one of the drones. The finger sunk straight through the drone’s eye and followed on into its brain. Xavier felt the stab of pain as though it was happening to him.

He didn’t recoil from the pain. He embraced it. He could take the pain. Could take the deaths of each and every one of his drones.

And he would let that pain fuel him.

Xavier whirled, black wings snapping wide, a grin lighting his face as he locked eyes with The Collector. The Collector’s eyes widened when he saw how swiftly Xavier moved and the grin. A spike of fear moved through the man. As The Collector felt the fear, the red smoke about him swirled, glowed brighter, like fuel thrown on a fire.

The fear—even his own—he’s feeding off it!

As Xavier locked eyed with the onrushing B Grade ruler, his focus was split, locating the two time mages in the room. To take out the time dilation field The Collector and his guards were under, Xavier needed to take out the time mages.

A thousand scenarios moved through his mind and were discarded in turn.

The only way to do it fast enough would be to kill them, or break them in such a way that it would take a long, long time for them to recover…

He wasn’t ready to do that.

He spoke through the Communication Stone he shared with Palini. The man wasn’t in the same field as Xavier, so he would be slow to respond. But he had a right to know what was about to happen.

[I’m going for The Collector. I can’t protect you while fighting him. You’re on your own, Palini Damascus. Survive.]

Guilt stabbed at him as he thought of the man’s wife, the man’s family. The man himself.

But he had chosen to come.

Xavier activated Teleport.

 A necklace about his neck glowed—a talisman etched with runes that allowed him to disregard the city’s protections.

Xavier materialised behind The Collector, his scythe-staff gripped tightly in his hands. The Collector roared in rage as he tried to whirl around—but he wasn’t fast enough.

Body Cultivation infused every muscle and bone with Celestial Energy. Cycling Reality Energy infused even more strength into his body. Then, Xavier burned a chunk of Reality Energy straight from its core.

Xavier possessed a physical, spiritual, and mental strength that went far beyond what was previously ever possible in his corner of the multiverse for someone at his level and grade before these three things further empowered him.

But it wasn’t only these things that further empowered him, either.

He possessed artificial cores that allowed him to use all six attribute energies. That allowed him to gain certain spells.

Speed Infusion and Strength Infusion were activated, their joint energies imbuing him with more power. Toughness Infusion and Spirit Infusion made the scythe-staff glow with extra durability and a sharpened edge that could cut to the soul.

Spiritual Trifecta lent more strength to his mind, his body, his spirit. Piercing Cut whittled the blade’s edge to a finger point. Enhanced Telekinetic Strike coupled the strength of his body with the strength of his mind, allowing those two forces to combine.

And half a dozen other passive spells fired him up to a level that made the air radiate around him.

Xavier was more than a physical fighter. Far, far more. He could move things with his mind. Could reap souls and send their apparitions to strike his enemies. Could conjure forth spirits from the Otherworld. Control minds. Hurl fire. Summon lightning. And cut through muscle and bone with but a thought.

Yet from the very beginning when he’d initially chosen the path of mage and that first staff had been handed to him by the System, when he’d needed to he’d fallen back on the ability to strike hard, fast…

And crack skulls.

The blade of his soul bound weapon, in the form of a beautiful, fierce scythe-staff, cut through the air with ungodly strength and speed. It broke the sound barrier, but the boom did not come. Not yet.

The Collector, though Xavier saw that if they’d been in the same time stream the man had a speed close to rivalling his own, was barely a twentieth of the way around to facing him as the blade came down at his head.

A fraction of a second before the blade hit, the red smoke around The Collector shifted. Another spike of fear had run through him, initiating this shift. Xavier had observed that red smoke closely since he realised it had not only been the reason Gregori hadn’t been caught in the drone’s time dilation field, but also since he realised fear was what drove it.

He didn’t know what the spell was or exactly what it did, but he was beginning to get a good idea.

It’s not just defensive, it’s offensive. It’s the reason he moved so fast across the throne room.

That smoke was solidifying, becoming defensive once more. His spiritual sense told him the barrier was a powerful one.

Xavier’s blade slammed into protective shell of red smoke and was… slowed.

Doubt bloomed in his heart as the blade was stopped an inch from The Collector’s head.

This was his most powerful physical strike. He’d thrown everything he could think of behind it. Xavier knew strong B Grades had the power to break planets, and though Xavier wasn’t B Grade he was sure that strike would have at least cracked a small moon, if not made it split in half completely. Xavier’s own power was on a level that it was hard for even him to contemplate.

And yet the strike had been thwarted. Stopped as though it was nothing.

Xavier stepped back. The Collector finished turning. His eyes were still wide in fear but that wicked grin of his was back as he sneered.

Then something happened.

The protective shell of red smoke about the man cracked. Fine, spiderweb lines formed from the point of impact and flowed around the entirety of the shell. For Xavier, this happened intensely slow motion. The fear in The Collector exploded as those spider silk-thin lines widened, creating gaps in the shell.

When the gaps widened enough, the smoke was swept away and disappeared, leaving Gregori The Collector standing there in nothing but those sturdy trousers of his. The fear inside him still spiked, but now it seemed to do nothing at all—well, nothing but make the man panic.

Then his gaze settled on Xavier. His eyes became over-inflated balloons. Something flickered behind those eyes and the attention of every single guard in the room turned toward the real Xavier—ignoring the drones, ignoring Palini, who stood with a dozen bleeding cuts and his sword raised in a block.

Still standing. Hurt, but alive.

Xavier wasn’t sure what he’d expected from his strike. A part of him thought it might be enough to kill The Collector outright. He should have known better. Yes, he had a power no one at his grade had ever wielded before.

But he was stepping into the wider universe now.

He chuckled silently in his mind. Wider universe? This wasn’t the wider universe. Even the Orin sector was still on the far, far outskirts. Yes, Xavier had killed a B Grade—the Arakashinai Queen—and bested another—Palini Damascus—but the step he’d taken into the “wider universe?”

It was barely a step at all.

If he wasn’t careful, wasn’t balanced or strong enough, that step would see him falter and fall.

Palini had been right when he’d warned Xavier about this plan. Had been right to tell him it was foolish. Prideful. Arrogant. Xavier had looked at these B Grade guards as though they were beneath his power. Maybe they were. He believed he could take each of them in a one-on-one fight. And he’d truly believed he could neutralise them all simultaneously without harming them so they wouldn’t even be an issue.

And I almost did…

Xavier released a breath. He’d broken The Collector’s protection, but he couldn’t let that make him relax.

He needed to move.

Use every advantage.

A line of energy led from Xavier’s chest to a spell pattern outside the throne room. Pocket Time Stream. His cooldowns were all renewed exceptionally fast. He could perform that strike a second time if needed.

But spells were already streaking through the air toward him. The Collector was taking a step back. Xavier could feel it—he was going to flee. The city’s modified runes were supposed to stop whatever escape plan the man had in place, but Xavier could be wrong. There could be a way for him to get out that he hadn’t considered.

Xavier had already underestimated Gregori before. He couldn’t risk doing that again.

The Collector had built the city. The defences served to protect him, but they also served as a prison, stopping anyone leaving without his permission. Gregori might be the most terrible person Xavier could currently conceive of, but that didn’t mean he was stupid—he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to build a prison that could lock him inside if it was turned against him.

He would know how to escape.

A fearful man like The Collector would have a thousand contingency plans. The “hidden” B Grade guards would only be the beginning. He hadn’t brought out the big guns yet.

Now he would—and so would Xavier.

Use every advantage.

Xavier launched forward.

As he pushed off his back foot his wings flapped, propelling his momentum. He activated Teleport, appeared directly in front of The Collector, and grabbed onto the man’s wrists in a vice grip as he cast Soul Chained, a spell he’d picked up a few years ago. Ethereal chains sprang into being around The Collector’s wrists. Chains that bound the man to Xavier. Chains that would stop him from being able to teleport or step through a portal unless Xavier willed it. Chains that would stop the man going twenty feet away from Xavier until the binding was broken.

Xavier had collected other binding spells over the past ten years. Ones that would make it impossible for an enemy to cast even a single spell of their own. Ones that would work like the runes in that containment room. But they would only work if he could pierce an enemy’s mental defences, and just in case The Collector’s mind was stronger than he thought, he didn’t want to risk it at that moment.

Xavier was confident that the Soul Chained spell—a Reaper spell that wrapped around target’s soul—would hold for at least a few seconds.

Long enough.

As Xavier had teleported toward the man he’d cast another spell—Portal. The portal sprang to life behind The Collector. Xavier, still holding The Collector’s wrists, flew toward the portal.

They both went through.