Xavier swallowed at the sight of thousands of beasts trampling through the forest, destroying everything they touched, trying to get to him.

And he had trapped his Midnight Scythe—the only weapon he had—with the damned Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey.

The weapon offered him much—higher attributes, something in which to channel his magic, and the imbued ability Restorative Spirit. But that didn’t mean he was weak without it.

He swiftly went through his options. There were several things he could do. Technically, he could still run, but that didn’t feel right—nor did it feel necessary.

He wasn’t going to turn away from a battle he knew he could win.

He just had to use a different strategy.

If I free the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey from the Time Prison spell, I could get my weapon back off it…

But that didn’t seem like the smartest thing for him to do. The alpha was the strongest beast he’d ever faced. He didn’t fancy facing it with several thousand of its closest friends around it.

Xavier glimpsed his soulkeeping reserve. He’d used two thousand souls just now, and only recouped a thousand of them. He still had a good number of souls remaining in his reserve, but if he were to rely on them to kill all of these beasts…

Xavier came to a decision. He leapt backward into the air. Beams of red light shot upward toward him. He cast hover dodge as thousands of energy beams tried to incinerate him. The beams were solid things that tracked him just a tad slower than he could move. If he didn’t have the hover dodge skill, leaping in the air would most certainly have gotten him killed, but he wanted to make some distance between himself and the enemies below.

Xavier wanted to preserve his soulkeeping reserve unless it became absolutely necessary to use it, so Soul Strike was off the table.

Soul Shatter, on the other hand, was not. Soul Shatter did destroy the soul of the one he cast it on, but it was also an area-of-effect spell, one that hurt all those around it—but even if it killed those around it, it didn’t destroy their souls.

It will have to do.

That wasn’t the only spell Xavier cast while he was in the air. He cast Willpower Infusion as well, hoping that now their alpha was stuck in a Time Prison, where he was physically no longer in their flow of time—however in the hell that worked—that whatever influence, whatever protection, the alpha offered its brethren, it wouldn’t be able to offer that in its current state.

Purple mist flowed out from him. It didn’t flow from Xavier’s scythe, for right now he had no scythe. Instead, it flowed out of his hands.

Xavier was met by the same mental barrier as before. He gritted his teeth. It wasn’t the only lever he had to pull in this fight, but he’d been hoping…

Xavier cast Soul Shatter on one of the beasts in the middle of the pack. It wasn’t strong enough to kill it, but Xavier kept his eye on the beast. Soul Shatter didn’t have a long cooldown.

He cast the spell again.

The beast died, and all those around it were injured.

It’s a start.

Xavier managed to cast Soul Shatter twice more before he fell back to the ground. He cast it in the same area, and on the fourth cast, he received over twenty kill notifications.

Xavier grinned as he landed back on the ground. Four spells for twenty kills wasn’t exactly amazing, but as he’d thought before, he had other levers he could pull…

And he started doing that right now.

He might not be able to control these beasts while they were living, but once they were dead?

The tables turned.

The stampede closed upon him. Xavier wasn’t confident that without the ability to strike the enemies around him down with his scythe staff that he would be able to effectively avoid their attacks while he was still on the ground, so he had to keep on the move, leaping back into the air every time he touched down.

Hover Dodge has taken a step forward on the path!

Hover Dodge is now a Rank 20 spell.

Hover Dodge is now a Rank 21 spell.

Hover Dodge is now a Rank 22 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Aerial Combat has reached Rank 15!

Aerial Combat has reached Rank 16!

Evasion has reached Rank 70!

Well, that’s certainly something.

He had been steadily gaining ranks in skills and spells as he’d fought beasts in the forest when he was waiting for Time Alteration to reach the end of its cooldown, but none of his ranks had gone up this fast in while.

This fight, the “low-level beasts” that Felicia had sent him to, he hadn’t expected to get much of anything from it but a few souls.

Now, it seemed as though he was about to get a hell of a lot more.

Xavier cast Soul Shatter over and over, every time it reached the end of its cooldown he hit the herd with it once more. Then he cast Soul Puppet.

He was careful, though. Soul Puppet used a single soul every time he cast it. The main thing that he didn’t want to do was use up too many souls.

Well, actually, the main thing he wanted to do was not die, but not using too many souls was high on his list.

Xavier slipped left and right through the air as beams of red light shot toward him. The pack-herd were becoming more and more frantic as time went on. As the soul puppets began attacking them, they made weird, screaming, screeching noises. The beasts had always worked as one—had always worked as a unit. To have its own start attacking it… Xavier couldn’t imagine how distressing that must be.

But he relished the chaos his spells were causing. He reaped souls left and right, making sure that for every beast he killed with Soul Shatter, and every beast he brought back as a Soul Puppet, he consumed two souls for each soul he used.

Slowly, his reserve was creeping up.

More spell notifications came as he fought as well.

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Soul Shatter has taken a step forward on the path!

Soul Shatter is now a Rank 72 spell.

Soul Shatter is now a Rank 73 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Soul Puppet has taken a step forward on the path!

Soul Puppet is now a Rank 65 spell.

Soul Puppet is now a Rank 66 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Soul Harvest has taken a step forward on the path!

Soul Harvest is now a Rank 61 spell.

Soul Harvest is now a Rank 62 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

With each rank that his soul spells gained, his soulkeeping reserve grew larger and larger.

I guess I’m farming more than souls here.

He’d thought the loss of his weapon would have caused him more difficulty, but this… this was child’s play.

Then a massive roar sounded. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before. In that moment, he felt something click—the Time Prison spell had… started its cooldown?

Xavier had been so focused on the fight that he hadn’t even realised his Time Prison spell hadn’t started its cooldown timer. He was able to sense when a spell hadn’t reached the end of its cooldown, but he only now just realised there was a different feeling for when a spell wasn’t cooling down at all.

Which meant that roar was…

Xavier was currently above the stampeding pack-hard of Rhinoceros Monkeys when a figure began hurtling toward him from on the ground. The roar was coming from that figure, and there was no mistaking it.

It was the Alpha Rhinoceros Beast.

The Time Prison that Xavier had cast on the beast clearly hadn’t lasted very long.

Xavier gritted his teeth. The damned beast—it was holding his Midnight Scythe!

As the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey came closer and closer, Xavier still slipping left and right with his Hover Dodge skill, evading the countless beams of red light that were streaming toward him, stared hard at the Midnight Scythe in the beast’s hand.

The Midnight Scythe looked incredibly heavy in the alpha’s grip, and it took Xavier a split-second to realise why—this beast didn’t have the requisite attributes to wield such a weapon. And whatever class the beast had, if indeed beasts even had classes, wouldn’t be compatible with the weapon, either.

Wielding that thing will be a hindrance for the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey, but even with the drawbacks, it’s still holding it…

There was a look of manic glee mixed with anger plastered on the beast’s face. It was holding Xavier’s weapon as though it were a trophy—it was wielding it to piss Xavier off.

Xavier was sure of it.

Spirit Break! Soul Shatter! Core Burn!

Xavier cast the three spells before his enemy had a chance to reach him. The spells hit the beast. Spirit Break made it roar ever louder. Soul Shatter made it call out in pain. Core Burn—Core Burn did nothing. This was the beast that was responsible for stopping him from using Willpower Infusion on the entire pack-herd. It had an incredibly strong resistance to mental attacks, even with Spirit Break softening it up.

When the beast was close enough, Xavier used Hover Dodge to slip to the left. The Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey was too fast, however. It grabbed him with one of its tails, wrenching him toward it. Then it slashed out with Xavier’s weapon. Xavier couldn’t dodge out of the way with the alpha’s tails wrapped around him, and everything happened too fast for him to use Soul Block.

He got hit with the full force of his own weapon. The Midnight Scythe cut through Xavier’s Midnight Robes. A red-hot line of pain spread from Xavier’s right shoulder down to his left thigh. He cried out in pain. This close, he was able to grab onto his Midnight Scythe, but he wasn’t strong enough to take it back. Just as before, he could tell the beast was struggling to hold the thing, and yet it had been able to swing it with such power, such force, if it had been a few inches closer it might have cut Xavier in two.

God, what in the hell was Xavier going to do? He couldn’t fight this thing with his bare hands, and his spells had done barely anything to it! Time Prison wasn’t an option for him to use—not right now. It was still in cooldown for another [x minutes!]

Willpower Infusion and Core Burn were completely ineffective against the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey, and on top of that, his Soul Strike spell wasn’t effective either.

Think, think, think.

Xavier was trapped. One of the beast’s two tails had his right arm, the other his left leg. He wasn’t able to move out of the way.

Using the swiftness of his mind, he went through all the spells he had, and the Imbued Abilities, trying to come up with an answer.

Spiritual Trifecta, Spirit Break, Spirit Infusion, Soul Harvest, Soul Strike, Soul Block, Soul Harden, Soul Shatter, Soul Puppet, Summon Otherworldly Spirit, Otherworldly Communion, Willpower Infusion, Hover Dodge, Time Alteration, Enhanced Telekinetic Strike, Time Prison, Core Burn…

His mind turned through all of the spells, until finally he came up with a combination he hoped would help him.

Heavy Telekinesis and Hover Dodge!

It wasn’t much, but it felt like his only option. As the second strike from Xavier’s own weapon came at him, Xavier cast Heavy Telekinesis. The Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey was pushed backward with so much force that its tails both lost their grip on Xavier.

With the use of Hover Dodge, Xavier was able to throw himself in the opposite direction. This was the only reason the gambit worked.

Xavier sighed in relief as the thing soared back to the ground. Xavier was falling too, though not quite as fast. He also had much better control of himself in the air than the enemy beast did, what with Hover Dodge and his Aerial Combat skill. He looked forward to meeting back up with Justin in the future and showing him what he could do—though it wasn’t like Xavier had the ability to fly.

Though if he were to ever gain the ability to fly, he couldn’t help but imagine himself with large, bat-like wings… the robes, the scythe, the wings, that would be quite a sight.

As Xavier was falling back to the ground he cast Time Alteration, glad he was able to use the spell once more since gaining his last level.

He made sure he was far enough away that the Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey wasn’t near him—that it wouldn’t be within the sphere of influence of his time bubble.

Xavier did, however, ensure that he captured quite a few of the Rhinoceros Monkeys.

It was harder to fight the monkeys this close without his scythe, but it wasn’t impossible.

Xavier dodged this way and that. He gritted his teeth. Without his scythe…

He counted the number of Rhinoceros Monkeys he’d trapped within his time bubble—there were three hundred cramped within it—then he cast Soul Strike, packing six hundred souls into it.

White lightning erupted from Xavier’s hands. Soul apparitions—every single one of them of a Rhinoceros Monkey—sprang to life and hurtled toward the beasts.

The beasts died in an instant. Xavier landed back on the ground. He was surrounded by corpses. Lots and lots of corpses.

He sighed and sat in the dirt after making room for himself, then promptly put his head in his hands.

This wasn’t the way things had been supposed to go. He looked at the cooldown for his Time Prison spell.

Time Prison has a cooldown of 15 minutes. It cannot be used for another 14 minutes and 54 seconds.

Six seconds? Only six seconds had passed since that damned thing had gotten out of the Time Prison?

Xavier took the time he had in the bubble to think things through. It was nice and quiet in here. Calm. Still. An illusion, given all that was going on outside of the time dilation field.

The Alpha Rhinoceros Monkey is damned strong. At Level 290, it’s the most powerful beast I’ve ever faced. It must have been able to break out of the Time Prison so quickly because of that.

Xavier had only just gotten the Time Prison spell. He hadn’t had a chance to experiment with it. He hadn’t expected to need to use it farming low-level beasts.

Felicia clearly knew about the alpha…

But now wasn’t the time to get mad. Now, he had to think and devise a plan.

He didn’t have his weapon. First thing was first, he needed to get his damned weapon back!

But that was easier than it sounded.

I still need to kill all of the alpha’s brethren. I can’t fight it with them around. I can barely fight it at all, with it being immune to so many of my spells…

He raised his chin and looked around at the corpses within the bubble. There was… something, itching at the back of his mind. An idea slowly forming.

He titled his head to the side.

The Rhinoceros Monkeys. They were E Grade, like he was. They were tough for E Grades. But, regardless, the beasts were E Grade…

Which meant he could use their parts with his Assimilate Properties skill.

Xavier’s eyes widened and he perked up for... about half a second, until he realised that even though he had the Dismantle skill, the skill was only Rank 1.

And he didn’t have his Midnight Scythe, or any other blade for that matter. How was he supposed to cut through these things?

Xavier almost dismissed the plan altogether, but he had time to explore his options while he was within the Time Alteration spell. There was no point dismissing it when he literally had hours to investigate if it could work.

Patience, Xavier told himself. Order your thoughts.

He let out a breath and did just that, allowing him to better focus on the task at hand.

He stood and stepped over to the nearest Rhinoceros Monkey. He tilted his head to the side, looking at it in detail. The beast had ferocious looking claws, a single tail—unlike the alpha—and the horn at its head.

Xavier tapped a foot on the ground.

If he were able to take off that horn…

He grabbed the horn, put a foot on the beast’s chest, and pulled.

Xavier was strong. Damned strong. He would be able to crush a normal human’s bones with his bare hands.

But the horn? It wasn’t budging.

He wasn’t able to pull out any of the beast’s claws or teeth, either. Not with nothing but his bare hands.

Still, he kept trying, for lack of anything better to do right now.

Then an idea occurred to him.

He laid the Rhinoceros Monkey onto its back. He stood on its shoulders and found a rock that he put under the base of the horn.

Then he cast Heavy Telekinesis on the top half of the horn.

Snap.

The horn broke off.

Xavier’s plan might just work.