Xavier blinked. Now she was talking nonsense. He was sure about it. “What do you mean, too strong?” He didn’t think it would be possible to become too strong. Besides, he was still only E Grade.
What the hell was she getting at?
“The System tries to give new worlds a fighting chance,” she started.
Xavier couldn’t help but interrupt her. “A fighting chance?” He scoffed, opened his arms, trying to encompass the entire world in the gesture. “...
2024-05-10 07:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The next few weeks after that went by faster than he thought they could. Xavier quickly found that it wasn’t leftover invaders that he needed to deal with. More often than not, it was people from Earth making trouble for other people from Earth.
Just like it had been for thousands of years, he supposed. A naïve part of him had hoped that people would come together after what had happened. That the System coming down to Earth would give everyone common ground. A common goal—gain pow...
2024-05-09 07:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Time seemed to speed up after the statements Xavier had made to the Silver River sector. Earth was officially off-limits.
And while not everyone had listened, the vast majority of the invaders who’d come to Earth had left.
Those who remained regretted their actions, paying for them with their lives after they provided to Xavier what their home planet was. Most of the offenders he’d found had been free agents. Adventuring parties or guilds that weren’t affiliated to any...
2024-05-08 07:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The new arrival turned out to be a woman from the other side of the world. All the way from Australia. Apparently she was from a city called Canberra. Though she insisted it was the capital of the country, Xavier had never heard of it. Besides, he figured it was a little too late to learn the world’s capitals, considering they’d all been shuffled around anyway. She wanted to speak with the first person to create a base on Earth in hopes that they weren’t an invader.
And because sh...
2024-05-07 07:00:05 +0000 UTC
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When Xavier and the others returned to camp, Xavier decided it was about time he have a nap. He honestly wasn’t sure when the last time he’d slept was, and though sleeping wasn’t something that was strictly necessary for him anymore, it was still something he very much liked to do.
Besides, he was sure his mind and body needed it. Maybe even his soul, too.
The bed in his chambers was even more comfortable than he’d expected. It was also far larger than the single bed back ...
2024-05-03 07:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The woman before him did not look afraid. She had a glint in her eye, a slight twist of her mouth at the side. She thought she had won this.
And she was enjoying it.
Xavier looked from the woman to the people in the cell. More than once, he had contemplated what might happen if he had to choose between saving his friends and saving the Earth. Xavier wasn’t opposed to sacrificing himself for the greater good, but right now the math didn’t check out.
He felt horrible for h...
2024-05-02 07:00:03 +0000 UTC
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My soul is damaged.
Xavier put a hand to his chest. There wasn’t time for him to think on what that might mean. Not until they got Justin and returned back to Earth.
There are other things that must be done. My soul is the least of my worries.
He looked at the carnage he’d created. The dead councilmembers. And he frowned, noticing something he hadn’t in the middle of the fight.
Allegra had told him that there would be ten councilmembers. Five me...
2024-05-01 07:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Xavier pulled out the rods for his Subspace Communications Area Blackout Array. He slammed them down into the stone, creating a semi-circle just outside the door of the tower. He had yet to see any Denizens entering or exiting the building. If he had, maybe he could have done this all a bit more quietly. Willpower Infusion would let him control them. A simple mental command would get that door open.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option, and he didn’t plan to wait around for it to be...
2024-04-30 07:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The woman waited outside of the cell. Clearly visible. Leaning against the cold stone. Though she wasn’t visible to the person within the cell. He’d heard her footsteps disappear but hadn’t heard them come back. She was quiet enough to be confident he wasn’t aware of her presence.
She touched the newly acquired ring on her finger. Torturing that child had been the most fun she’d had in a long while.
She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of it. She had always taken...
2024-04-26 07:00:07 +0000 UTC
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First Lieutenant Firenz Altena stood guard by his portal on the planet Nasrien. He had a halberd in his hand, gripped tight, though the wood was slick where he held it from the sweat on his palms. He looked over at the other guards by the other portals.
Most days, the guards had barely bothered to show up for duty. They each covered for the other, but Firenz was pretty sure their superiors had been aware of the situation—not much gets past them.
But since those severed heads sta...
2024-04-25 07:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Alistair Reed didn’t want to die.
But after Commander Flinders had outlined his plan, he was having trouble thinking of a better way to do this.
He looked down at the two items in his hands. One, the device that would teleport him and whoever he was touching at the moment of his death, the other, a Resurrection Stone. The stone was a deep red. The red of blood. Alistair had always thought resurrections wouldn’t be possible—pre-integration and post, despite all the magic that...
2024-04-24 07:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Howard took a step back and to the side as the woman came out of the dungeon. He now stood protectively in front of Siobhan.
Just in case this woman got any ideas.
She was wearing light leather armour and carried a wooden bow. She looked young. Maybe eighteen. Maybe younger. But her eyes told him she’d had to grow up fast. Whether pre-integration or post—probably both.
Unless she’s from another world.
But he didn’t think so.
He tried to scan her,...
2024-04-23 07:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The council sat around the table, each with their hands resting in front of them, each leaning slightly forward in their seats. There were ten of them, five men, five women. They were in charge of the entire Invasion Force Division on the planet Nasrien—a planet that controlled ten others within the sector.
“We’ve received an information packet,” said one of them, tapping something on the table, making a hologram appear in the middle of it. It was a scene of destruction. A battl...
2024-04-19 07:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood there for what felt like a very long moment as the woman’s words sunk in.
Justin has been captured by the enemy? He’s on another world?
The first emotion he felt was anger. Looking down at the woman, he wanted to take that anger out on her. Who was this woman who’d come to tell him that one of his party members was simply captured?
He shut his eyes. Took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. All was silent around him but for the breathing of the ...
2024-04-18 07:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Xavier sprinted across the stone floor of the basement hall that held the portal back to Earth. His steps echoed off the falls. Every stride brought him ever closer to the man who stood in front of that portal.
The tank, whom Xavier thought must be the leader of the D Grade parties that had arrived, had a look of pure rage on his face, but he held himself well. He didn’t look as though he would let his emotions affect what he had been tasked to do.
If Xavier were going to do wha...
2024-04-17 07:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The battlefield was once more a scene of utter chaos. The five parties of D Grades that had come had been turned into a scattered mess as the Spirit of Vengeance tore into them.
The massive ethereal dragon swooped down from on high and sunk its sword-long teeth into the body of a mage who’d been standing too far ahead of the pack.
The woman’s screams were muffled by the dragon’s roar, but Xavier could hear them. The screams were cut off as the Spirit of Vengeance’s jaw cla...
2024-04-16 06:14:52 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood over the dead bodies of the final two D Grade party members. He felt… reinvigorated, and not just because of the levels, and the attributes along with them, that he’d gained from their deaths.
The tank had been tough to kill—not that he’d put up much of a fight, but rather his health had been incredibly high, and his defences strong. Stronger than anything Xavier had ever encountered, actually.
But he had died in the end, just as the other three had died. Xavi...
2024-04-12 07:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Xavier leapt to the left. He rolled hard on the ground. Behind him, a crater formed. The silver-robed man was still yelling at him, but now his words had become intelligible.
The once serene-looking man had let his emotions overcome him, rage twisting his face into something wholly unfamiliar.
That’s what Xavier had been hoping would happen. He wanted the man to lose control. Breaking down the Lord of the Endless Horde’s control of his emotions was how Xavier had gotten throug...
2024-04-11 07:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Xavier rose up from the ground. The battlefield around him was littered with thousands of dead. People he’d slain. And the four D Grades who’d been sent after him were his price.
I took vengeance for what they did, and now they’ll take vengeance for what I did, and so the cycle will continue.
Xavier gritted his teeth. The warhammer strike that he’d avoided cratered the ground where he’d just been. So far, he’d only been hit with one of these people’s strikes...
2024-04-10 07:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Justin looked around him.
The last thing he remembered was killing the leader of that invasion camp. He’d slammed his sword through her and she’d just… smiled, as though that had been her plan all along.
Then he’d been teleported straight out of that camp. Now, he was sitting inside a prison cell of some kind. The woman’s corpse had come with him. It was sitting on the other side of the cell. Three of the walls were made from stone—or something more than stone...
2024-04-09 05:51:58 +0000 UTC
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Xavier wasn’t stupid.
At least, he liked to think he wasn’t.
Facing down four D Grade Denizens when you were only E Grade—and low E Grade at that—made it seem as though he had an absolute death wish. And the more he thought about it, standing across from them, the more he wondered if he was making a grave mistake by not intending to escape.
Defeating the Lord of the Endless Horde had been something impossible. Doing this… Well, it sounded even more
2024-04-05 06:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Standing in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of his enemies, Xavier pinpointed the exact position of the remaining enemy.
A dozen mini portals hovered around him, arrows whistling through them. As best he could, he’d been ignoring these attacks, even as the arrowheads pierced through his robes and dug into his skin. Some of these arrows had interesting effects. Poison. Explosive. And numbing.
His health had dipped down as he concentrated, and both his legs ...
2024-04-04 05:31:02 +0000 UTC
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Xavier was surrounded by portals, an army amassed in front of him. He hadn’t moved from this one spot just outside the fortress of this alien world—this world of invaders who’d come to try and take Earth. Over a thousand of their soldiers lay dead on the ground from his initial attack, but his Soul Strike spell hadn’t taken down as many of them as he’d anticipated.
And now they were puncturing him with arrows.
He had about seven different arrows sticking out of him. He...
2024-04-03 06:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood at the top of a wide set of steps just outside of the fortress he’d left. He’d travelled through one of the invaders’ portals, coming to an alien world somewhere else in his sector.
Not long ago, he’d asked Adranial what he would need to do to make sure the entire sector knew that Earth was off-limits—that invading it simply wasn’t worth their time. She’d told him that he would need to make a statement.
That he would need to announce to the sector exactl...
2024-04-02 05:32:35 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood in his quarters, looking out through the expansive window in his room. Adranial stood by his side, the other members of her team were out scouting for a dungeon. They’d left just after the fight had finished, but Xavier had asked the woman if she could stay behind.
He hadn’t told anyone about the beacon yet. Not a soul in camp knew. If the other members of his party were here, that might be different—Adranial wouldn’t be the first person he told.
But they were...
2024-03-29 06:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Xavier found the elven leader of the invasion force within the fifteen-storey compound to be quite cooperative. Surprisingly cooperative, actually. The man could clearly see how strong Xavier was, and didn’t try to challenge him in any way. At first, Xavier thought that was rather cowardly, then he put himself in the man’s shoes.
It would be beyond foolish for him to challenge me. If I were him, seeing someone able to control over a hundred people with nothing but his mind, I pr...
2024-03-28 06:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Allegra Dellacorte breathed hard and fast. Her eyes were wide. Her face numb, as though the blood had run from it. She must be white as a sheet.
She was staring at the spot where Justin had just been. The man had been invisible, of course, so she hadn’t been able to see where he was.
But she’d known.
She’d seen the commander take hold of him. Seen her grip tighten.
She’s only just met the guy. A guy who’d had actually seemed sweet and genuine, unlike...
2024-03-28 06:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Justin soared over the enemy camp. They were difficult to see through the thick canopy of branches, but when he hovered close above them, he could easily make out the soldiers and tents. He flew through a gap in the trees and perched himself high up in one of them, retracting his large white wings, his sword in hand.
Justin was still invisible. He’d only been using the item for maybe a minute or so—it hadn’t taken him long to get here. He felt a little bad using the item like at a...
2024-03-27 06:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Justin, sword drawn, was about to head to the enemy camp when he heard a noise behind him, like the sound of a stick snapping beneath someone’s foot.
He froze. He didn’t turn around. Not right away. He pushed out his senses, using his Aura Sight. As far as his Aura Sight was concerned, there was nothing there at all.
Could it had been an animal?
The thought didn’t make any sense. There were no animals anymore—not exactly. The animals had all been turned into...
2024-03-26 05:33:34 +0000 UTC
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Ramith Sain materialised outside of a large base that looked as though it had been grown, rather than built.
Someone established a Seed Sanctuary this soon after the world’s integration? Impressive, if a little overly ambitious.
He bent his neck to the side, making a satisfying cracking sound. A Seed Sanctuary this early must be some kind of record—at least in this sector.
Ramith rested his palms on the smooth, spherical pommels of his swords as he stepped towar...
2024-03-22 06:00:03 +0000 UTC
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