Xavier summoned his Midnight Scythe to his hands, his fingers curling around the shaft in a loose grip. The rumbling became louder and louder. It was still a ways away yet—he couldn’t see what manner of beast the incoming stampede was comprised of—but it was travelling at a good speed.

Loud cracking noises sounded among the rumbling. He squinted, trying to tell what was happening through the scant gaps in the trees.

Then he saw it—the trees were being snapped, broken from where they stood. He was starting to get his first glimpses of the beasts as well, though he was struggling to make out the details. They were just grey blobs at this point. From this distance, he should have been able to see them very clearly, but with all the dust and debris that was being kicked by the beasts’ passage, it was close to impossible.

But even if he couldn’t see them at this distance, that didn’t mean he couldn’t use his Identify skill on them.

{Rhinoceros Monkey - Level 195}

The Rhinoceros Monkey is a herd-pack animal that moves and hunts in large groups. Though these beasts don’t tend to be formidable opponents on their own, if you happen to be caught in the middle of one of their stampedes they can be one of the more difficult beasts to face, as their stampedes are known to number in the thousands, and often have a higher level protector among them—an alpha of their species.

You will know the alpha by its size, and the screech of victory it makes when it runs its horn through your chest and into your heart.

Xavier raised an eyebrow. These beasts were called… Rhinoceros Monkeys? They didn’t sound like a real thing at all.

Also he could swear some of the descriptions that his Identify spell was throwing up were beginning to become more personalised. He supposed that could very well be true given the fact that he’d been singled out by the System itself.

Xavier tapped a foot on the grassy ground. Thousands of beasts, and a higher-level protector… Felicia had certainly neglected to mention anything about stampedes or alphas. That still didn’t mean this was a trap to test his abilities—something for the patrons of Hunter’s Home to bet on—but he supposed that didn’t really matter.

He put his mind toward the task at hand. The beasts were getting closer and closer. He still had a fair few souls in his soulkeeping reserve, though he hesitated to use them. The whole point of facing these enemies was so that he could gain more souls, not use them all up.

For his Soul Strike spell to be worth it facing the stampede, he would need to be able to kill at least two of the Rhinoceros Monkeys using a single soul. If he only killed one, then he could only replenish his reserve at the speed he expended it. Using the spell wouldn’t be worth it at all.

There’s an easy enough way for me to test if the spell’s strong enough.

Xavier cast Soul Strike with a single infused soul toward the mass of enemy beasts stampeding toward him. The closer they became—and they were moving faster than he would have expected Level 195 beasts to be moving—the easier they were able to see.

When Xavier had read the name of the beasts, he hadn’t been exactly sure what to expect. A coupling of those two species was nothing more than comical to him. But these beasts didn’t look comical. They were grey-skinned, and their heads were that of a rhino’s, with massive horns jutting from their forehead glowing an ominous red. Some of the beasts ran on four legs—or were two of those limbs arms?—while others ran on two legs. Every single one of them was built like someone competing in a Mr Olympia bodybuilding contest, except they were twice as muscular.

The only comical thing about them was the tail that trailed behind them, swishing this way and that as they ran. That tail looked so out of place that Xavier wondered if the beasts would be better without it.

White lightning flashed from Xavier’s Midnight Scythe as a soul apparition of a Stone Bear soared forward through the air and slammed into the enemy lines. Xavier waited for the kill notification. He waited for several kill notifications. He should be strong enough to one-hit these beasts…

But no kill notification came.

These beasts aren’t even D Grade! I should be able to one-hit them!

Xavier gritted his teeth. The beasts were of a far lower level than the ones he’d been facing, but that didn’t mean they were weak.

They must have a strong toughness attribute.

Perfect. The beasts he wanted to farm just happened to have high health for their level.

Xavier grinned. He found he was glad for that. This little side-mission to gain more souls for his reserve had seemed like a boring thing until this moment. If he were simply able to smash these enemies with a single spell, taking out whole swathes of them and gaining his soul reserve with no effort whatsoever… it would feel like a waste of time, even if he did get the souls he was after.

He looked at the enemies in front of him and wondered what his best approach to defeating them all would be. Usually, he would be utilising Soul Strike heavily—that was how he’d gotten through most of the waves of the Endless Horde, after all—or he could simply cast Willpower Infusion and make the enemies fight each other…

But this was going to go a bit different. This, he thought, would be a chance for him to get his hands dirty.

He sprinted forward, moving far faster than any of the enemies in front of him. He weaved through the trees until he was at the stampede’s front lines. He had a fair few long-range spells at his disposal, but this necessitated a more personal touch.

Xavier’s Midnight Scythe cut straight through the neck of one of the Rhinoceros Monkeys. He blinked as the blade didn’t make it all the way through. He’d been expecting a one-hit kill by his scythe, but when Soul Strike hadn’t managed that, he supposed he should have realised it wouldn’t work.

With all the souls in my reserve I could probably still take out a thousand of these bastards in a single spell, but that would be a waste…

He hadn’t enhanced the scythe’s strike. That had clearly been a mistake, but he’d needed to get a baseline for how powerful these things were.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Xavier cringed at the sight of the Rhinoceros Monkey’s neck. It had been half hacked through and was hanging off by bone and sinew alone. Blood spurted from the wound, but it was evident that it was already trying to heal. He could see the fibres growing and twisting back together.

He slammed his Midnight Scythe into the beast’s neck a second time—still without enhancing the attack—and the neck came clean off, gaining him his first kill notification of the fight.

The problem was, he was already being overwhelmed by the enemies around him. The stampede hadn’t simply stopped. The enemy beasts were trying to bowl him over. If he let them take him to the ground… it wouldn’t matter how overpowered he was for his level, he doubted he’d be able to withstand that many attacks at once.

But Xavier had an easy answer to this.

He activated the imbued ability that his Dark Steel Bracers offered.

Buffer!

The Rhinoceros Monkeys around him were all thrown back twenty feet.

He knew it wouldn’t work on the other enemies that were heading his way, only the one that had already been close—it wasn’t a shield, after all. Just a knock-back spell that kept the enemies it hit away for ten seconds.

Xavier cast another spell—Time Alteration—creating a time dilation bubble around him. He expanded it, making it large enough to cover a fifty-foot radius around him.

Xavier grinned once more. Again he was glad that these enemies weren’t going down so easily. Honestly, he knew he would get bored facing low-level enemies. He had been getting bored facing low-level enemies. Coming up through the floors after returning from Earth to the Tower of Champions had been an absolute grind. Even attaining the titles for the floors hadn’t posed enough of a challenge for him.

The time dilation field trapped in over a hundred of these beasts. And while that sounded like a lot, it was a hell of a lot better than what he’d have to deal with if he didn’t bring the spell up.

He hadn’t been able to count them, but he was sure there were at least over five thousand of these things in the area.

His grin was quickly plastered with blood as he closed the gap made by his Buffer ability and swung his scythe around this way and that, slicing through one enemy after another. He threw a few spells left and right, hitting one enemy with Core Burn and turning as it quickly died, and another with Spirit Break.

Xavier took a moment to assess the battlefield as he fought. With Telekinetic Enhanced Strike, he could one-hit these enemies. Core Burn could one hit them as well, which made him feel a little disappointed in his Soul Strike spell, considering it was his most powerful spell—though he supposed that wasn’t the case when he was only using a single soul with it.

But, within the time dilation field, he could only use each of his spells once, as the cooldowns for them were effectively frozen—this meant he had to kill the beasts the old-fashioned way.

With brawn and blade alone.

Without enhancing his strikes, he could take these things out in between two to four hits, depending on where he hit the enemies.

Though he was enjoying that these beasts didn’t go down too easily, he also knew he had places to be after this—things to do. He could enjoy the battle as much as he liked, but that didn’t mean he was going to make it last any longer than it needed to.

He’d been putting off using Willpower Infusion, but now felt like the right time.

I don’t even need to kill the entire stampede worth of beasts—just enough to refill my soulkeeping reserve back to its fullest.

I’ve had my fun. Now it’s time to finish this.

Xavier cast Willpower Infusion, pushing it toward the largest number of the enemies that he could. Back when he’d faced the Endless Horde, he’d been able to control large numbers of the enemy forces with this spell.

The purple mist flowed out of him, engulfing the enemies within the field. By the time he’d cast the spell, he’d already taken out half of them, so there was just a little over a hundred Rhinoceros Monkeys left within the time bubble, and his mist wouldn’t hit the ones outside of it until the bubble came down.

Xavier’s Willpower Infusion spell came up against a wall. A mental barrier so hard and strong he knew it couldn’t have come from one of these creatures—they were simply too weak for something that powerful.

They were being strengthened by something else—or, by each other?

These aren’t just herd or pack animals, their very minds are connected! How else would they be able to resist this spell?

He’d encountered something like this before, with The Nightmare, though this… this was different. The beasts were still being enhanced by the collective even though they were within the time dilation field.

How could that even be possible?

Did it have something to do with the fact that they were more of a conscious entity than The Nightmare had been?

He didn’t know how to answer that question. And frankly, he didn’t need to answer it to complete his task. He’d already reaped over a hundred souls in the short time he’d been here.

Xavier threw himself back into the fray, cutting down enemies left and right with his blade alone.

It wasn’t long before every single one of the Rhinoceros Monkeys lay dead within the time dilation field. Xavier hadn’t even worked up a sweat. He wasn’t injured, either. His Speed attribute and his Evasion skill were both too high for him to get hit by these things, no matter how many times they’d tried to skewer him with those horns.

Though he knew that would be different once he dropped the time dilation field, at least out there he would have different levers to pull with his cooldowns no longer frozen in time.

Xavier tilted his chin up, looked around the bubble he’d created. He only had a few hundred more beasts to slay before he could leave this place.

I guess this has been fairly easy after all.

The fact that they couldn’t be mind-controlled had thrown him, but that was only one of many ways that he could deal damage to his enemies.

Xavier walked forward to the edge of the time dilation field in the direction the stampede was coming from. He stared at the beasts that were on the other side of the barrier. If he waited an hour, a few of them would get through on their own with how fast they were moving. He didn’t need to rush this, as time outside the barrier wasn’t moving forward. It was a strange way to fight, one he was still getting used to.

Patience.

He paused for a moment, tapping his foot, looking around at the different enemies.

There were several ways that he could play this. If he dropped the barrier, chaos would resume, the stampede would move forward. He could still take out his enemies, but it would be more difficult. He didn’t think he was in true danger here, but if he wasn’t careful, he could be…

Best to play it safe. He wasn’t here to prove anything, after all.

Xavier expanded his time dilation field. This way, he could let the beasts inside only a few at a time, controlling the volume at which he fought them.

This definitely feels like cheating.

Of course, it meant he had to take out every single one of his enemies with melee attacks alone. His Spirit Infusion spell, something he always had active over himself, had run out, too. That was a strange thing to experience during a fight. He would usually recast it, but he wasn’t able to in here.

It only made a slight difference in how many strikes he needed to kill these tough “low level” enemies. Xavier had to wonder how many strikes it would have taken him to kill them if he hadn’t attuned his Strength attribute up to 5%. He wondered a similar thing about his Speed.

Xavier got into a rhythm.

Expand bubble.

Hack, slash, kill.

Repeat.

The beasts tried to grab his scythe with their tails. Tried to skewer him with their horns. A few times he saw the hints of a spell about to activate, but the beasts died too swiftly to manage it. The other beasts he’d initially killed had tried to strike him with a beam of red light, but he’d always dodged it, never letting it land.

It wasn’t long before he’d defeated enough enemies that his soulkeeping reserve was back to full again. He was a little disappointed about how easy it had been, but he hadn’t come here to be challenged, so what should he have expected?

Xavier turned around, facing the direction of the grove. When he dropped the time dilation field, he was going to swiftly run back through the forest. He knew he was fast enough that these beasts wouldn’t be able to catch up—he’d easily be able to lose them.

He could defeat the entire stampede, but it didn’t feel like a worthwhile endeavour now his reserve was full.

Xavier dropped the spell. The bubble burst. The stampede began moving again. He sped ahead, leaving them in the dust.

Then… something strange happened. An odd reg glow surrounded him, and a notification appeared in his vision.

You have trespassed on the stampede and have now been marked by the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey.

As long as you remain upon this world, it will have the ability to track you.