Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 25 - That Doesn’t Bode Well

Purple mist flowed from Xavier’s Soulblade and floated through the air. When it hit the fully-armoured, E Grade Winged Bear it just… dissipated. Xavier felt the barest of connections to the beastman’s mind. A connection that lasted no more than a split second.

What he felt was a mind built like a fortress. One completely impenetrable to his mind control.

The beastman smiled.

Now, Xavier had never seen a bear smile before. He didn’t think such an action was possible. And he wasn’t embarrassed to say that he took another step back.

He tried to scan the beastman, but even before that failed, he knew it wouldn’t work. He hadn’t been able to scan any of the other E Grades, and this wave boss was likely even stronger than the last.

And I’m not able to control it.

“This farce of an invasion has gone on too long,” the beastman said. Its wings extended, each one larger than a car. “You die today.” It launched itself forward, flying low near the ground, building up speed as it closed the distance between them.

No more time for hesitating.

Though Xavier had grown reliant on his Willpower Infusion spell, it was certainly not the only weapon in his arsenal. His scythe-staff was infused with Spirit Energy and Willpower Energy already. He hadn’t found much use in the spell when it was infused into his weapon, but that was mostly because he one-hit the normal enemies on a wave. He wondered if it would have any effect on this bear, when direct control hadn’t been effective. Spiritual Trifecta was active—it was always active.

And all of his other spells were powerful enough.

Xavier, not knowing how strong this beastman’s magical resistance would be, sidestepped the oncoming attack. At the same time, he threw a Soul Block and a Heavy Telekinesis at the enemy. He’d just used Soul Strike to take down the last remaining enemies in the wave, so it would be on cooldown for another minute and a half.

I’ll keep this winged bastard busy until then.

The Soul Block was infused with twenty souls. The beastman couldn’t change direction in the air swiftly enough to hit Xavier after he’d sidestepped. The Soul Block apparition formed. A massive, glowing chimera that silently roared at the rapidly approaching beastman.

The Winged Bear’s halberd slammed straight into—and thenthrough—the apparition as though it wasn’t there at all. The glowing chimera dissipated into nothing, whisps of its soul floating through the air until they faded.

Good thing I tested that.

That’s when Xavier’s Heavy Telekinesis hit the winged beast. It stopped the E Grade wave boss in its tracks, halting its flight in mid-air. But it didn’t push the beastman back. The bear gave a small grunt, then shrugged the spell off, and swiftly changed direction to come at Xavier. It hadn’t even fallen to the ground, somehow able to remain in the air even after being hit by Heavy Telekinesis.

All right. This thing is strong. Very strong. That didn’t bode well. But at least Heavy Telekinesis had stopped it. It’s effective enough for what I need to do.

The beastman flew straight at him Xavier once more. Xavier cast Spirit Break. The bear flinched—like it had gotten a hard slap to the face—but kept flying.

Xavier waited until the last moment. Then he sidestepped the attack, sent a Heavy Telekinesis at the bear, and swung an overhead strike straight down at one of its massive wings. Soultaker’s pitch-black blade pierced the feathered wing as the beastman came to an abrupt halt mid-air.

A roar of pain released from its maw. And… Was that a hint of fear in that roar? Willpower Infusion, when used on one of Xavier’s weapons, was supposed to inflict fear onto his opponents when he struck them. It was also supposed to negatively affect their mental resistance.

Xavier had assumed such a thing wouldn’t work on this beastman, considering how resistant it had been to a direct usage of the spell.

Perhaps it’s different when I break the skin with Soultaker…

Regardless, even with his rapid speed of thought, he didn’t have time to think on it. While Soultaker’s blade was still lodged inside of the beast’s wing, it whirled faster than Xavier knew it could move. Xavier’s grip on the staff was strong, else it would have been ripped straight out of his hand.

He held tight, and instead of losing his scythe-staff, he was flung into the air across the battlefield.

Oh, crap.

Xavier had a very, very big weakness—he couldn’t manoeuvre in the air. At least not effectively. It had never really been something he’d needed to worry about, as unlike Justin he wasn’t able to fly. An inability to manoeuvre in the air was the exact reason he didn’t do fancy leaping jumps when attacking an enemy.

Even if such a thing would look totally cool.

A loud whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wings sounded from behind him. Something told Xavier that the beastman could fly faster than he’d been thrown.

Xavier threw his arms about, Soultaker gripped in one hand, trying to turn around in the air. At the last second, he managed to do so.

The halberd was coming down to strike his face.

Xavier raised Soultaker and sent at Heavy Telekinesis at the bastard simultaneously. The halberd slammed into Xavier’s blade, which only threw Xavier farther back. Then Heavy Telekinesis yanked the bear backward—no, it wasn’t yanked backward, it just looked that way.

It was stopped in mid-air while Xavier kept flying.

He threw a glance over his shoulder, tried to turn back around—too late. The ground came up to greet him. He fell backward. Unable to slow the fall, Xavier slammed into the corpses of the beasts he’d killed during the wave. Their bodies did barely anything to cushion his fall, but that didn’t matter. A fall like that couldn’t really hurt him.

But it did disorientate him. He got back to his feet and shook his head, trying to gain his bearings.

Whoosh, whoosh.

SLAM!

The full weight of the Winged Bear flying at what must have been over a hundred miles per hour slammed straight into Xavier’s side. No, it wasn’t just the E Grade wave boss’s weight—it was their damned halberd. The beastman must have had it pointed out in front of him like a medieval knight jousting on horseback.

Pain blossomed in his side. Sharp pain. The shock, his Willpower and Toughness weren’t enough to numb the agony the strike brought him.

How much damage did that bastard do to me?

Your health is at 64%.

Xavier read his health’s status as he rolled uncontrollably along the ground, in a patch of the battlefield clear from corpses. When he finally made it to his feet he was completely covered in ash.

He gritted his teeth. His health had been around 95 percent before that attack. One hit took me down 30 percent! It mightn’t seem like a lot, but it showed him how much he didn’t want to get hit.

Even if Soul Block wasn’t effective, he should have used it—should have infused 100 souls into one. But that damned attack had taken him by surprise.

That doesn’t bode well.

Facing this Winged Bear, Xavier wondered—not for the first time—if his confidence had been misplaced. If, perhaps, he was well and truly in over his head.

I suppose the only way to find out that is to keep fighting.

The wound in his side hurt like hell, but it was healing. And it didn’t stop him from standing. Xavier glanced this way and that. His ears pricked as he heard a whoosh coming from above.

The Winged Bear was flying straight down at him.

Xavier, jaw still clenched, gave a strained grin.

Spirit Break! The bear flinched. Heavy Telekinesis! It was halted in mid-air.

And, finally: Soul Strike!

Xavier infused 500 souls into the spell, which turned into a giant apparition of death. The beasts he’d just faced—Winged Bears, Giant Spiders, Flame Chimeras—they all materialised.

The attack was eerie in its silence. It always felt as though Soul Strike should be loud. That it should boom like thunder, especially considering the brilliance of the white lightning arcing from his scythe-staff before materialising into the apparitions.

Each of the beasts’ souls opened their maws and roared, yet they made no sound whatsoever.

The E Grade wave boss, on the other hand, did make a sound. One of twisted agony. Of tremendous pain. Fear filled its eyes, its face contorted.

The Heavy Telekinesis only stopped it moving for a moment. After getting hit by the 500-infused Soul Strike, it fell—not flew—to the ground. Its massive weight slammed into the dirt, digging a small crater around from the impact.

Xavier didn’t waste a single second. He got into position and swept Soultaker down, slamming the blade into the beastman’s back. Once, twice. Four times, five times. A dozen, a hundred. He kept the beastman in place by sending constant Heavy Telekinesis and Spirit Break spells down at it, while at the same time attempting to use Willpower Infusion on it.

Though he knew Willpower Infusion would work, he couldn’t help himself.

Xavier cultivated Celestial Energy into his body, turning it to Spirit Energy as he sent it to his main core. The last thing he needed was to run out.

What he was surprised by was the fact that the beastman hadn’t been killed by the 500-infused Soul Strike in the first place. This is the strongest enemy I’ve ever faced by far.

And he was laying waste to it with every swing.

Xavier was surprised by how many it took. He’d been able to defeat one of the other E Grade bosses by cutting its head clean off—but he imagined he’d only been able to do that because it was already injured. He’d controlled that elf to loose arrows into it.

Its defences were weakened, leaving it susceptible to my attack.

On strike one hundred and one, the Winged Bear finally died. Breathing heavily, Xavier stood straight and threw his head back, looking up at the sky, a sense of relief coming over him.

He read the kill notification.

You have defeated a Level 130 Bear King (Epic)!

You have gained 100,000,000 Mastery Points.

Xavier’s gaze was drawn to the number of Mastery Points he’d received for the kill. Then he saw (Epic) by the Bear King’s name.

Epic… Is that why it was so damned strong? And why I gained so many more Mastery Points, despite it only being a few levels higher than the last E Grade boss I defeated?

Xavier knelt by the beastman’s corpse. He touched a hand to its armour—dented and damaged by his many strikes—and stored the Bear King in his Storage Ring.

Perhaps there’s something I can do with this…