Xavier swooped down through the forest, heading straight for the Forest Dryads he’d spotted from high above in the air.

Just like the first time he’d done this, the Forest Dryads spotted him well before he made it down to them. Xavier wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, flying through the air on massive, black wings. The whoosh of his wings was loud enough to be heard from quite a distance as well.

But he wasn’t attempting to be stealthy.

Once more, they closed off the canopy, using their affinity with nature to control the very trees, the branches growing and intertwining, getting in his way.

Xavier could have used Heavy Telekinesis for a second time and crushed those trees to make a way for him to fly through, but that wasn’t how he wanted to do this.

Unless he felt in any way threatened, Xavier was restricting the number of spells that he could use during this fight.

To only one.

The only spell that he was going to use against the Forest Dryads was his new Portal spell. He knew he could defeat all of the Forest Dryads—if these were anything like the last six he’d faced—with incredible ease. He could certainly destroy them with his melee abilities alone.

And that’s what he was going to do—he was just going to incorporate his melee abilities with that of his new spell.

He’d never done any of this in actual combat. He’d only practiced it by himself back in that clearing. But he had a good idea of what he wanted to do.

Still soaring through the air, Xavier cast Portal. As he’d gotten a good look at the clearing below before the dryads had closed off the gap in the canopy, he now had an “intimate knowledge” of the area in which he wanted the second portal to appear.

This was something he’d tested out a lot before coming here. Glancing at a spot he’d never seen before, then turning around or closing his eyes and creating a portal in that spot. It required him to take a precise snapshot of the area and lock it in his memory, something he found was easy to do considering how powerful his mind had become.

The portal anchored to him appeared about six feet in front of him and he flew straight threw it, curling his wings around him to become smaller and at the same time increase his speed.

Xavier had learnt how to move that anchored portal farther and farther away from him. He could put it around twenty feet away from him, but so far no more than that. This, he knew, would help when it wasn’t him that he wanted to put through the portal, or if he needed a bit of a run up—or fly up?—before reaching it.

The secondary portal, he could put roughly as far as he could see—maybe a few miles more—but it was getting stronger with every rank he gained.

Xavier appeared in the clearing. From the wide-eyed looks of the Forest Dryads he came upon, this move had definitely taken them by surprise.

Xavier had intentionally created the portal so it would appear directly in front of one of the dryads he’d spotted from above. So, as he came through it, he slammed straight into the dryad and they both went flying into a tree.

There was a crunch as the dryad’s bones broke, cushioning the impact for him. Xavier managed to push off the dryad and flipped over, extending his wings to gain better control in the air. He launched himself back to the clearing where the other dryads were, his wings increasing his speed dramatically, even though he was already incredibly fast.

There were more dryads in this group than there had been in the last one that he’d faced, something that took him a little by surprise.

The last group of Forest Dryads he’d faced—one warrior, two archers, and three mages—had only been six. This group was double that.

For a moment he considered if he should play this differently. It might be a little bit of a risk to restrict his spells.

But it was only a small part of him that considered such a thing. The rest of him was excited at the prospect of an even greater challenge than he’d first anticipated.

There were several bow-wielders and mages in this group, and so many attacks were already coming at him as he flew back to the clearing.

Xavier grinned. This was exactly what he wanted to test.

The first portal he made was still in the middle of the clearing where he’d left it. The instant he’d made it, he’d split his mind so that he could keep one part of him always ensuring the portal didn’t close. He had enough mental capacity to handle that with ease.

Xavier cast Portal a second time. As the wizened old spirit had said, the cooldown would reduce significantly as his proficiency in the spell grew along with its ranks.

And that had definitely been the case.

The second casting of the Portal spell of this fight had him create multiple portals. This was something he was still straining to get better at. It was one of the more difficult things he needed to master with this spell.

He made three different sets of portals, and not only did he need to make sure he positioned the anchored portals in the right spots, he also needed to position their twin counterparts in the right locations too.

The arrows and spells soared straight through the portals he’d created, missing Xavier completely, ensuring that he didn’t need to dodge the spells or use Soul Block—not that he would allow himself to use that spell right now.

The connecting three portals appeared near his enemies. Xavier wasn’t sure how much damage these arrows and spells would do to the dryads themselves, but he was about to find out.

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He had one portal facing three different dryads. He’d targeted three of the mages, as he knew that they would have the weakest Toughness out of the Denizens here.

One of the mages managed to bring up some sort of defensive barrier. She reacted quicker than her kin. The other two mages were hit by the spells and arrows. One of them, an arrow slammed straight into his throat, while an arcing bolt of green lightning hit him directly in the stomach.

He went down, hard, dying in an instant.

A kill notification popped up in his vision, and that wasn’t all.

Portal has taken a step forward on the path!

Portal is now a Rank 76 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier grinned manically at the sight of the notification. That had been exactly what he’d hoped for.

The third of the mage’s he’d hit had been hurt, but not quite so severely as the second. Still, they were not long for this world.

Xavier fanned his wings out so he stopped abruptly in the air. He’d created the three portals that were anchored to him so that they would face the enemy, meaning he’d been able to fly directly through them. Now, he paused on the other side, using his wings to allow him to hover.

He turned and punched directly through one of the portals—the one that connected to the mage who’d put up a defensive barrier—and managed to claw through that barrier through sheer Strength and then grab the dryad by the forehead.

This was about to get gruesome.

He pulled her head through the small portal until her neck was at the opening. Her eyes had gone incredibly wide as she stared at him, for she knew what was about to happen next.

Xavier killed the portals.

The Forest Dryad’s neck was severed, and all he was holding was her head. He dropped the head to the ground and flew directly upward. The cooldown after creating that many portals had been brought down since he’d gotten better at the spell, but it was still about five seconds.

While that was better than the shortest cooldown he’d had when he first used the spell—which had been a full minute—it still wasn’t quite where he wanted it to be.

Xavier soared through the air, breaking branches as he flew. Vines were coming at him from every angle now. The Forest Dryads were trying to trap him. He felt of those vines try to lash onto his wings, but he was moving too fast and was able to shrug them off.

He dodged the different spells and attacks at he made his way to the centre of the clearing. It didn’t take him long to re-enter the fray. He landed on the ground. The portal in the centre of the clearing was still up. He grabbed one of the two sword-wielding Forest Dryads—like the last time, these were the most powerful of the group—and tossed him straight through the centre portal. He heard the beginnings of a shout rip from the man’s throat, then that sound suddenly was coming from high above, where the portal had originally been activated.

Actually, it came from two places—he could hear it through the portal as well. It was an eerie echo.

He doubted the fall would do much damage to someone at Level 299, but at least he got the dryad out of the clearing for a moment.

Xavier grabbed another of the dryads—this time an archer—and was about to toss him through the portal when vines wrapped around his legs. Even more than had the first time. The vines crawled up to his arms faster than Xavier could throw the dryad he held.

Xavier grunted as the vines managed to lock him in place—but they only stopped him for a moment. He was strong enough to move, though he was much slower than he had been a moment ago.

At the same time, the Portal spell reached the end of its cooldown. Which was good, because in the few moments that he’d been in the middle of the clearing, he’d already been hit by several arrows and spells. His wings had slapped a few of those arrows out of the way, but one had lodged itself in his thigh, while a bolt of arcing green lightning had hit him square in the chest.

Xavier’s mind was split into multiple parts, as it often was when he was fighting. One of those parts monitored his health. He may have been restricting this fight to only using the one spell, but if he got himself in any true danger, he could always change that.

Your health is at 90%.

Xavier blinked.

He’d taken two hits from D Grades, and his health was still at 90 percent? When he had first come here, enemies weaker than the ones he was currently facing had been able to take his health down by more than half in a single strike.

Xavier had of course known he’d come a long way since entering to the hundredth floor, but seeing it from that perspective… it was eye opening.

Though it did remind him that even though he was far, far more resistant to these enemies’ attacks than he had been in the past, he still wasn’t immune to them. They could hurt him, and if he let them get in enough hits, they would.

Being locked in place by their vines certainly wasn’t doing him any favours.

Xavier had taken out two of the dryads so far, and displaced a third through a portal—though he knew it would only take a moment for the first of the two sword-wielding Forest Dryads to gain their bearings and teleport back to the glade where he fought.

Actually, he thought the dryad would have returned faster than they had…

Then Xavier had a thought—maybe the teleportation spell the dryad used, the one that turned them into leaves and had them sprout from the ground, had limiting requirements like Xavier’s old Soul Step ability had. The dryad might very well need to have their feet on the ground when they cast it.

Xavier focused his mind and created several portals as another volley of attacks came his way. He still had his hands on the other sword-wielding dryad, who he’d been about to toss through the first portal he’d made during this fight, and the attacks came from either side of him with incredibly accuracy—there was no way they would hit the other dryad.

He had to push his mind a little harder this time. He was making more portals than he had the last time. Last time he’d made three sets of portals.

This time he intended to make five.

Three of those portals served the same purpose as the last time. To protect him from being struck by the long-ranged attacks. The fourth and fifth portal, however, served a different purpose.

It took a surprising amount of concentration for him to create these portals while he was in the middle of battle, much more than it had needed when he’d simply been training in the middle of a clearing all by himself.

He needed to ensure that each portal appeared in the exact spot that he needed them to, facing the right direction.

The portals sprang into life, their light illuminating the forest around him in a purple glow.

Several arrows and spells sailed through the first three portals, not a single one of them hitting Xavier. They moved through their twin portals and slammed into one of the enemies—the sword-wielding Forest Dryad that he was holding fast in his hands.

The dryad was struggling against Xavier’s superior strength. Xavier held his neck in a death grip, squeezing as hard as he could, crushing the man’s airways. Not that he needed to take constant breaths. He knew it wouldn’t be enough to kill this dryad. He should have struck with his claws, but the vines were making it difficult for him to move.

He’d normally be strong enough to rip himself away from these damned vines. For some reason, there was something that was making them stronger than they had been before. Maybe it was the fact that there were more spellcasters in this glade than there had been in the last one—they may have been combining their powers.

That’s what the last two portals were for. He’d had to angle them perfectly if he’d wanted this to work. Xavier had been practicing with these portals for days, but this wasn’t something he’d ever done before.

He knew how to place the portals where he wanted, but he’d never needed to be this precise before. It had put an even deeper strain on his concentration and make sure he knew he exact trajectory the arrows would go, and he couldn’t be off by a hairsbreadth.