For a time, Xavier simply watched the people stream through the mass portals, heading for a safer world. Though Xavier knew they wouldn’t be able to run forever. He wondered how long it would take for the entity to consume the entire galaxy… That was how big the Silver River sector was, after all.
How long has it been in the Silver River sector? Xavier wondered.
It may have been twenty years since this Earth had been integrated into the System, but that didn’t mean ...
2025-05-06 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
[Author Note: Here's a bonus chapter because the last one was late!]
Xavier stared at the rune that was etched into the stairwell wall between the Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar.
He ran his palm along the wall. After having chiselled off the first layer of rock, the rune had been revealed. Just like the rune he’d drawn in the air to conjure a cool breeze, he could feel this one’s connection to wherever it drew its power from.
<...
2025-05-06 06:18:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Five hulking demons loomed over Xavier.
The demons were reminiscent of the Bladed Crawlers from the first floor, only these ones were twice as large and had twenty legs. Each of those legs was bladed like the crawlers had been, but the demons had a ranged attack that the crawlers had lacked too—their bulbous body could manifest and shoot spikes toward their enemies with intense alacrity.
And they were C Grade—Level 350.
The bastard things attacked in groups of f...
2025-05-06 06:17:36 +0000 UTC
View Post
[Author Note: Here's a bonus chapter because the last one was late!]
Xavier stood in the middle of the square, a time dilation field around him, thousands of people outside of it fleeing toward the massive portals, trying to escape the Earth.
This Xavier only reached C Grade a year ago?
That made Xavier wonder how many versions of him there were out there that had followed a similar path to his own. The world he was standing in… To be here, the or...
2025-05-06 06:05:32 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier stared at the notification in slight shock.
The world you stand upon is in danger. A powerful entity is making its way here.
Here. To Earth. To his world.
An entity that will destroy the Earth…
Xavier looked up at the muted stars. Time was still stopped, the countdown ticking the seconds down to zero.
He had no doubt what that entity was. It must be the threat that was coming toward the Silver River sector.
...
2025-05-06 06:03:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chapters will roll out really soon. I usually schedule them on (my) Monday, but I had an ADHD assessment that day and totally forgot, only remembering now.
Oh, and apparently I do have ADHD...
I saw a comment saying they hope I'm well, and wanted to reassure that I am! Just forgetful, on occasion.
2025-05-06 05:59:52 +0000 UTC
View Post
It had taken until the Thirtieth Descent for Xavier to find enemies worthy of grinding for his own levels.
He had gained a title for the first twenty-nine descents of the Hell Moon Thazamar, and his theory about how the percentages would accumulate had been correct. He now had a +14.5 percent boost to all of his stats, along with a modifier of +14.5 percent damage against demons.
Xavier had only gained a few levels along the way—not that he’d expected to gain many.
His c...
2025-05-01 19:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Stepping onto the twentieth floor was an eerie, strange experience.
He’d never imagined that he would go backward through the tower floors. There was a part of him that wondered if this was an acute waste of time, but he wouldn’t have been sent here by the System if it was, would he?
Maybe I’ve been giving the System far too much credit.
One thing was for certain, if there were things he needed to learn on these floors—as he suspected—going throug...
2025-05-01 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
The notification that popped into Xavier’s vision was a title.
When Xavier’s companions had cleared the First Descent, even though Xavier had cast Time Alteration, he hadn’t actually dealt any damage to any of the Bladed Crawler demons, meaning he hadn’t gotten the title then. Time Alteration wasn’t a support spell in the same way healing or a buff might be, so he hadn’t gained even a portion of the credit for any of his companions’ kills.
Which was actually Xavier...
2025-04-30 19:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier always felt like there was more to do than he had time for.
Which was funny, considering he could practically stop time entirely. He would have killed to have an ability like that back before the System integrated Earth.
He remembered having that fantasy, more than once—oh, the things that he would have been able to accomplish…
Now that he had that power, he was taking full advantage of it.
Xavier knew he’d had the ability to unlock his core for a while no...
2025-04-30 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
“This is not how I prefer to fight, Xavier.” Romalda held her chin high as he stared at him. “I need to be able to cast my spells. Reanimate these corpses. Build my army.”
The E Grade necromancer was breathing heavily. Her staff was covered in demon blood, and she had a stricken expression on her face, somehow looking even more pale than usual.
Rhaalir stepped forward. “The necromancer is right. Without anything cooling down, I lack the power of the spells at my...
2025-04-29 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier arrived in the hallway just outside of his quarters. It felt a little strange, being back here, after all he’d done while he was gone. It felt like he’d been away from the Tower of Champions for far longer than four months—and he supposed, as he used his time dilation field so heavily, that was the truth of things.
As he looked down the hallway, he couldn’t help but smile remembering the time he’d been using a vending machine to do strength exercises. He shook his head ...
2025-04-29 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier stepped out of the portal onto a different world. He stood in Ravni, the capital city of Laracon. It was nighttime here, though the light of the city made it as bright as the major cities back on Earth used to be when the sun went down.
The buildings to his left and right were built from ancient grey stones, but they were built as tall as skyscrapers. Xavier’s gaze turned upward, and upward, his neck craning to see to the very tops of them.
The towering buildings were so ...
2025-04-28 19:00:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier, Volkarin, Rhaalir, and Romalda entered the First Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar.
Thazamar was the first of the Hell Moons of Demonica, three dungeon-like moons that lay on the other side of the universe to Earth.
The moons inhabited one of the first sectors to have ever been integrated by the System. They were ancient—almost as ancient as Adranial’s ancestor.
Stepping inside a place that had been around for a billions years was a surreal feeling. The rock wall...
2025-04-28 19:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier stared at the notification with a furious expression. His eyes glazed over, he swore, seemingly at nothing.
He stood in the middle of a large clearing filled with demonic, plant-like beasts that he’d finished slaughtering a moment ago. The plant-beasts bled an odd, green ooze which covered the ground. He’d used the Lost Bone of a Dead God as a scythe-staff—it seemed the most appropriate weapon to deal with these things.
Rhaalir, Volkarin, and Romalda were nearby.
<...
2025-04-24 19:00:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier felt energised.
More than he had in a while.
He had returned to Collinsville only briefly, to inform those that were there that he wouldn’t be close enough to contact for the foreseeable future.
Guardian would be more than strong enough to protect Collinsville, and those he was leaving in charge were the strongest people on the entire planet when the Champions were in the tower, and the old members of his party still hadn’t returned. He would have gotten a message...
2025-04-24 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Where to next?” Volkarin had asked.
Xavier stood, looking out at Volkarin, Rhaalir, and Romalda on the Twentieth Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar, wondering just that.
One of the other Hell Moons was the most logical choice. He still had two months before he would be returned to the Tower of Champions, and he wouldn’t need to be back on Earth for that to happen. He’d be teleported straight there from wherever in the universe he happened to be.
He still felt a littl...
2025-04-23 19:00:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier returned to Earth. He hadn’t wanted to, but he knew he needed to come up with a plan. He couldn’t simply step through any random portal he wished and hope he would end up somewhere that could make him stronger.
He’d also been through the different hunting grounds the gnome information broker had given him enough times to know that while he could get stronger in some of them, they wouldn’t really be enough.
Though they could potentially be good hunt...
2025-04-23 19:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
The Class Grafting process was a painful one, though Xavier had endured worse.
Empress Larona did not explain the procedure as she performed it—apparently, she’d ended up requiring more focus than she’d initially expected. Xavier’s frequent and obsessive use of the spell Soul Harden had made him unreceptive to this particular ritual.
He’d had to focus on his own soul. Had to delve into the protections the spell had given him and alter them slightly. This was something th...
2025-04-22 19:00:34 +0000 UTC
View Post
A demonic mimic?
Standing on the steps leading down to the Fiftieth Descent on the Hell Moon Thazamar, Xavier listened as Yarien explained the threat that lay ahead.
Yarien: [The Fiftieth Descent is the first of what is known as the Boss Descents, or Challenge Descents depending on who you talk to. Boss Descents have a single demon on the entire descent to fight.]
Xavier raised an eyebrow. [One demon? That doesn’t sound so bad…] But his mind wa...
2025-04-22 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier sat, cross-legged on one of the steps in a stairwell of the Hell Moon Thazamar.
It was the stairwell between the Forty-Ninth and the Fiftieth Descents.
He was examining one of the spells within his mind—his Portal spell. It had taken him some time, and just about every ounce of his concentration, but he could finally perceive the pattern that made out its blueprint.
And the runes that made up the pattern.
Xavier still couldn’t read over 90 percent of the run...
2025-04-21 19:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
The door Empress Larona stepped through opened onto a long hallway filled with doors on either side. She stepped swiftly down the hallway with a graceful stride. Xavier followed behind, glancing at the different doors as they passed them.
None of the doors had any markings on them, saying what might be inside. A closed door, a secret behind it—Xavier had the intense desire to open every single one to peek at what might be there.
The empress stopped at a door roughly halfway down...
2025-04-21 19:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
[Author note: bonus chapter]
“Only one?” Xavier asked, sitting across from the most powerful Denizen in the sector. A Denizen that had seen glimpses of the future—a future with him at the centre.
And he was in space. The back room of that bookstore was through a portal to space.
Whenever he forgot that, he would simply turn his head and look through the window at the stars out there in the void.
“That is more than I give other...
2025-04-21 00:54:30 +0000 UTC
View Post
[Author note: bonus chapter]
The Demon of the Depths glowed in a brilliant light. The light remained steady, static, as Xavier was inside of his time dilation field. He peered at the tower—the one filled with mist that would return him to the Hell Moon Thazamar. Though he knew what the inside of that tower looked like, he still couldn’t pierce the stone walls with his Farscope ability.
If the idea he had worked, he’d be back there sooner than he’d thought....
2025-04-20 23:46:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
A fraction of a second before the Demon of the Depths broke through the ice, Xavier flew straight upward, toward the clouds he knew would take him out of the tentacle-mouth’s range. He didn’t want to engage with the enemy until he had access to his cores once more.
Those damned tentacle-mouths were fast, and they were on him the instant the ice broke. Xavier’s portals drifted along behind him, keeping apace, and as fast as the tentacle-mouths were, they weren’t able to catch up ...
2025-04-17 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier sat across from the woman who claimed to be Elitsa Flian, a humble bookstore owner in the city of Mareketh, and a Level 102 Inscriber.
He sat in a plush chair, on the opposite side of her desk, in a luxurious office that suddenly didn’t feel right. He almost clutched the armrests to dig his claws into them when his mind clicked, as he thought he figured out who this woman truly was.
Xavier had been taken off guard many times before since being integrated into the...
2025-04-17 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier stared at the weapon in his hands.
He was standing on the smooth stairs of the stairwell between the Thirty-First and Thirty-Second Descents of the Hell Moon Thazamar, and a voice he’d never heard had just sounded in his mind—in the same way that spirits he summoned spoke to him.
Xavier didn’t look away from his soul bound weapon. He knew where that voice had come from. He had just repaired the Lost Bone of a Dead God by giving it a part of his soul. Standing there, h...
2025-04-16 19:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier stood in front of the portal to the frozen world. The necromancer he’d freed from the dungeon blinked at him, tilting her head to one side in slight confusion.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, Xavier Collins.” Romalda raised her chin. “But it looks to be a fun one.” She grinned. That same sinister grin she’d worn when she’d been freed only a few minutes ago. “Where are we off to?”
Xavier retraced his steps.
T...
2025-04-16 19:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Xavier watched as the spirit disappeared back to the Otherworld. He could feel the connection to the Otherworld snap back out of existence, leaving an empty space as though it had never been there before.
He released a long sigh and sat on the steps once more. The Lost Bone of a Dead God still lay in two pieces before him. The Time Prison spell remained active. It was something that felt as though it would last for a very long time. He needn’t worry about the weapon’s soul deteriora...
2025-04-15 19:00:22 +0000 UTC
View Post
Night had fallen in the dark wood. Shadows from the nearby trees encroached on the clearing, the light of the silver moon hanging in the sky only falling about the area in small slivers. The elf spirit Rhaalir raised his translucent hand, examining it as a moonbeam cut straight through it.
No matter how long he had been in this state, he wasn’t sure he would ever truly grow used to it. Wasn’t sure it would ever feel normal, or right. Even though he had been a spiri...
2025-04-15 19:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
