The great forest on the hundredth floor of the Tower of Champions became eerily quiet as he entered the area on the mini-map where Gimble had told him the C Grade beast held its territory.
The birds in the trees that usually flittered from one branch to another were nowhere to be seen. No critters could be heard crawling across the forest floor. Even the breeze had stopped, as though wind couldn’t touch this place.
The trees were different to ones he’d encountered in other parts of the forest as well. In a way, they reminded him of the trees in the Dark Mountains, where The Nightmare resided. Except these trees had an odd, putrid smell to them.
The trees—and every other plant that he could see—were rotting. Something terrible resided within this forest, and it was that very thing that Xavier had come here to find.
Xavier tried not to focus on the oppressive smell. According to the dwarf, it was only going to get worse. At least Xavier wouldn’t have to worry about any infected beasts in the area. Again according to Gimble, the only beast in the entire area was the C Grade beast that he sought.
The only other thing that roamed within its territory was the pervading silence that seemed to blanket everything.
Xavier supposed that should have been ominous, but if he were honest, he found it reassuring, and, well, convenient. The last thing he wished was for other enemies to get in the way of his battle.
When Gimble and his party had been telling Xavier about the C Grade beast, Xavier had asked them why they hadn’t taken the beast on themselves.
The truth was, Gimble hadn’t seen the value in the fight. He had apparently found the beast a long time ago—at least, a long time ago from his own perspective. Gimble, though he had spent much of his life on this floor, never seemed to want to do anything that he couldn’t quantify as having value to him, and so if a beast crossed his path and he wasn’t forced to fight back, he saw little reason to engage with it unless it would actually serve his ultimate goals to do so.
Xavier had asked the dwarf, jokingly, how spending so much time drinking in the tavern served Gimble’s ultimate goals.
The dwarf had answered him quite seriously, “Leisure is one of the most important cornerstones of a good, long life. That is why I value my time so highly—because there are always better ways in which I could be spending it.”
Xavier wondered at the wisdom of those words as he walked through the fetid forest with the rotting trees. He had learnt a thing or two about taking it easy from Liana, during his time in so many time dilation fields, but if he were honest, he still found it difficult to actually relax.
Xavier paused in his tracks and quirked his head to the right, ears straining. He could have sworn that he’d heard something. A faint roar, somewhere far away. Though it was hard for him to judge distances in this place, so he wasn’t sure how far away it had actually been.
But he did know one thing for certain—the noise was getting louder, and it was joined by something else. A thump, thump, thump that reverberated through the very ground. Xavier could feel the vibrations coming up through is legs.
He smiled. Whether he was truly ready for this fight or not, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter—the fight was about to begin.
Xavier readied himself. He quickly surveyed the area that he was in. The rotten trees, the bramble bushes, the dangling vines. It all felt too close. Too claustrophobic. Not enough room to move.
So he solved that with a use of his Heavy Telekinesis spell. He pushed it out in front of him, toppling the trees and pushing them out of the area. He managed to use the spell four more times before he finally saw the beast running his way.
It was exactly as hideous as Gimble had described.
The beast in question was a troll. From Gimble’s information, it was a Fetid Forest Troll. It had strange abilities that the dwarf had observed, but Gimble had never actually faced the troll, as he hadn’t seen the value in it. He’d only observed it briefly.
Xavier tried to scan the C Grade enemy, but even with Identify at Rank 100, he simply wasn’t able to use the skill on something this high level.
Fortunately, he didn’t need to. Gimble had shared the description of the beast with him.
{Fetid Forest Troll - Level 300}
The Fetid Forest Troll is a beast commonly found on many planets within the Greater Universe. They tend to appear in large forests and infect the area around them with their Rot. They feed off the dying energy of the plants and other life forms that they infect and are strongest in their own territory.
Do not let them infect you.
These beasts are weak against Divine magic.
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When Xavier had first read the description, he had thought of Siobhan. Her class was called Divine Beacon. Though she had few offensive spells, he assumed that her Divine Guardian had attacks infused with Divine magic—something he hadn’t even realised was a thing until now.
Perhaps we should have experimented with her attacks in that dungeon with the necromancer. She may have been able to hurt necrotic enemies with her healing magic.
Rhaalir appeared a few feet away from Xavier, standing where a tree had been only second ago. The elf crossed his arms and stared at Xavier.
You are sure you want to do this, Xavier Collins? Facing a C Grade at your level… I have never heard of such a thing going well.
That was another thing Xavier was aware of. According to Gimble, and Felicia, and Rhaalir, and Liana… basically, everyone he had talked to since entering this floor, none of them thought that an E Grade had ever faced and defeated a C Grade by themselves.
Having that knowledge actually made Xavier want to do this even more.
There were some accounts of E Grades surviving encounters with C Grades, but those were few and far between, and they were more like legends than anything else, for none in the sector Xavier was a part of, or the sectors around them, had accomplished such a feat. At least, not as far as he’d discovered.
Xavier pushed all of those thoughts from his mind as he watched the Fetid Forest Troll bound toward him. Though bound, he supposed, wasn’t the right word. It had more of a lumbering quality to its steps. It was strange, because the beast was moving incredibly fast, but it looked slow and plodding.
Xavier wondered how fast the beast would be when it was trying to be fast.
The beast was large, but not as large as many he’d faced in the past. Of course, Xavier had quickly learnt that size wasn’t everything. The troll stood around fifteen-feet in height and hold a gnarled club that seeped some sort of black, oozing substance. That same substance oozed from the side of the troll’s slack mouth. The Fetid Forest Troll looked, well, kind of thick-headed. Xavier couldn’t help but be reminded of the troll from Harry Potter. This one looked a lot like that one, except for all the rot.
Its entire body was infected with it.
This beast didn’t wear traditional armour. Instead, its armour looked like it was made from wood, and it only covered its legs and torso. Its arms were free, and that was where Xavier could see the rot.
If he didn’t know any better, Xavier might have thought this beast was some sort of undead creature.
He was glad it wasn’t, for if it was, then his soul spells wouldn’t have any effect on it.
Xavier thought of the area they were in. Gimble had said there wouldn’t be another beast for miles of this place, and as far as Xavier could tell, that information had been correct. Which meant he had the place all to himself. Though he was still hesitant to use certain functions of his Time Alteration spell out in the open, especially when he didn’t have any sort of backup, he knew that it would at least be an option for him.
And the area being deserted opened other avenues too him as well…
The first thing Xavier did was cast Soul Sacrifice.
He dumped a thousand souls into the spell, meaning it would be active for 100 seconds. He had used this spell enough times to know that he would be guaranteed to attract some very powerful spirits—especially now that he had brought it all the way to Rank 100. But he had yet to use the spell when he was coming up against a C Grade.
The spirits that came through the bridge were too unpredictable to be unleashed in an area where he had any allies around. He wasn’t about to risk the safety of his raid group.
The bridge opened in an instant, and before the Fetid Forest Troll had closed the distance between them, spirits from the Otherworld were streaming through, entering the Mortal Realm.
As it often was, the first spirit that came through was Volkarin, the dragon that was the Spirit of Vengeance.
The dragon threw back its head and laughed as it saw the enemy before it.
You have brought me a true enemy to face, young Denizen! It roared the words in Xavier’s mind as it launched itself forward at the Fetid Forest Troll.
Xavier took a few steps back as more spirits came through. At the same time, he sent a mental command to other things under his sway.
As he’d strode through the ancient, rotted forest in search of the Fetid Forest Troll, he hadn’t come alone. Others were with him.
Though not other Denizens.
Soul puppets began to bound through the trees toward the clearing that Xavier had created. He had made more Soul Puppets than he ever had in the past. He had found there was a hard limit to the number of soul puppets he could maintain at any one time, a limit that he wasn’t able to push forward until he gained more ranks in the spell.
At Rank 100, that limit was five hundred soul puppets.
And that was exactly the number that he had sought out before coming here.
Though he wished to deal with this fight as swiftly as he could so he could finally advance to D Grade, he knew it would be foolish to rush things.
It had taken him some time to gather this many soul puppets, and he was sure that the C Grade beast would be able to rip through each of them with ease, but even so, he needed to throw everything he had at this thing if he was going to have a chance at not just surviving this encounter, but triumphing.
At the same time as the soul puppets entered the clearing, Volkarin roared louder than it ever had, and with that roar the dragon unleashed a torrent of fire and ice that slammed into the Fetid Forest Troll. More spirits from the Otherworld were joining the fray, sending spells of their own at the enemy, or else ripping into it with fang, claw, or blade. There were a myriad of different types of beings among these spirits—beasts and Denizens of all different variety.
The Fetid Forest Troll found itself distracted by the spirits and the soul puppets. Originally it had been lumbering toward Xavier, but now it had its sights set on the nuisances around it.
Xavier took a deep breath and let it out slow as he contemplated his next move. Though he’d had time to prepare for the fight, that didn’t mean he’d planned the whole thing out beforehand. It was difficult to know how something like this would go until you were in the thick of it, so it was often better to come into a fight with a rough plan, rather than a play-by-play order of attack.
He still had thousands of souls in his soulkeeping reserve at his disposal. His strongest attack was still, and likely always would be, Soul Strike. But he was hesitant to play that card yet.
He had to see if this thing was vulnerable to his other attacks, and he didn’t want to exhaust his reserve only to get attacked and lack the use of Soul Block.
There were three different spirits that he could summon directly from the Otherworld. Lately, he’d been heavily relying upon the Spirit of Protection. That spirit had helped keep him alive in the other encounters he’d had.
But there was another spirit that he thought might be even more powerful than that one. A spirit that he had recently learnt about from Rhaalir, but one he had never summoned.
Xavier smiled widely as for the first time ever, he was about to use Summon Otherworldly Spirit to bring forth the Spirit of Time.