Two thousand versions of Xavier Collins hovered in the void near a two thousand identical-looking holes in reality, each hole leading to a different version of the seven-hundred-and-fiftieth floor of the Tower of Champions.
Ninety-nine versions of the S Grade True Dragon still lived, but they wouldn’t live for long.
Xavier had been dreaming about doing something on this scale for a long time, ever since he realised he could not only create other versions of himself with an unfolding, but inside the void he could actually interact with them. The creation of Xavier Prime had been a massive boon—he wouldn’t have been able to defeat the World Destroyer without him.
Not that fast, at least.
Now, he was scaling up the power massively.
The new nineteen-hundred versions of Xavier Collins had been created after the original Xavier’s S Grade True Dragon had been defeated. Because they’d been created after, new unfoldings of the S Grade True Dragon hadn’t been created, as it no longer existed for them. As Xavier hadn’t used all the remaining power he’d been gifted from the planet Galadsea, these nine hundred versions of him still had 18/30ths remaining.
It had taken fifty versions of Xavier using 10/30ths each of that the Galadsean power to defeat one S Grade True Dragon, adding up 500 pocket spaces worth of power.
With ninety-nine True Dragons remaining, they needed another forty-nine-thousand-five-hundred pocket spaces worth.
Now, with the two thousand Xaviers, they had over fifty thousand—more than enough to defeat the remaining dragons.
Almost every version of Xavier hovering there in the void began to create their bone arrows. With their psychic link connecting them, they were all perfectly in sync, and they knew the exact holes in reality they needed to target.
Fifty of them wouldn’t have a direct hand in defeating the True Dragons, as they’d used up all their energy to gift the original Xavier power for his time dilation field. But that didn’t much matter—they had all played their part. Those fifty would likely miss out on the possibility of getting a title, but Xavier was quite sure titles were irrelevant to him these days. He wouldn’t even be able to gain any titles until he reached the next level, as he’d maxed out his use of Refined Celestial Energy again.
Which meant none of them would be getting a title for killing an S Grade while still B Grade.
Disappointing, but ultimately titles aren’t why I do any of this, even if they were a massive motivator when I first got into the Tower of Champions.
Titles were a tool, nothing more. And now, Xavier had far more advanced tools at his disposal.
The S Grade True Dragons died, one after the other. The Xaviers all still needed to heal their energy channels after they created their arrows, but this process happened faster and faster with all the refinements they’d gained from their mental constructs.
When all was said and done, and every one of the hundred S Grade True Dragons were dead on the other sides of the holes in reality, there was a massive shared sigh of relief from the two thousand versions of Xavier Collins. Mixed in with that relief was a sense of disbelief that they all shared.
What they’d just accomplished was far more than defeating a single S Grade enemy. They’d just shown what the potential of combining the strengths of multiple universes together could make them capable of.
Their thoughts were shared, and so all two thousand of them were thinking the same thing at the same time.
This was what they would need to defeat the Interdimensional Dragon. (A dragon that was a version of Xavier Collins. Several versions. That was a revelation they all still felt incredibly strongly.) The Interdimensional Dragon had gotten to the level of strength they were at by consuming energy, by essentially destroying everything in its path. It had been out there for an uncomprehensible number of years, devouring one universe after another, constantly, unendingly, since before the System had been created.
The two thousand Xaviers had the shared realisation that they’d just done something the Interdimensional Dragon couldn’t. They’d just done something completely opposite to what that universe-eating beast did.
Using a similar strategy to the one they’d just employed, they had the potential to create an untold number of different universes, and with the creation of those universes they could then unite the power those universes held. This was, of course, a plan Xavier had had in mind for some time, but it wasn’t until that moment, seeing the fruits of their labours, seeing all those other versions of him, that he realised his plan was the antithesis of how the Interdimensional Dragon had gained its power.
Where the Interdimensional Dragon destroyed, the Xaviers could create.
The majority of them were still healing from the damage to their energy channels, and as the original Xavier’s time dilation field was the most powerful, they decided to remain within it until everyone of them was fully healed. Only then would they go their separate ways and return though the different holes in reality to the seven-hundred-and-fiftieth floor.
The second each of them returned the floor would be complete, and back to the tower they would go.
Through their psychic link, they were able to learn the energy signature for their respective universes, giving them the ability to travel between them using their universe-hopping portals. The psychic link, though incredibly powerful, would break down the instant they returned to their universes.
That was a problem each of them wanted to solve. If they were able to have such a strong connection while still in their own universes, they could solve a great deal of problems a great deal easier. The next best thing was for them to exchange Universal Communication Stones. Xavier created ones that had the same channel as Xavier Prime. As they created the stones and exchanged them, Xavier wondered what Xavier Prime was up to right now.
He also wondered if that other version of him had created other Prime versions.
Could something incredibly similar be playing out for Xavier Prime as what had just played out for Xavier Alpha?
He would contact the other version of himself, but he wasn’t able to do that from a floor of the Tower of Champions. Though, technically he wasn’t on a floor of the tower.
He was in the void. Meaning, the Communication Stones wouldn’t be inhibited by the System…
Then again, it would be difficult to make contact with someone while he was running at this particular speed. Still, he decided he would try to contact Xavier Prime the moment he was back in the Tower of Champions. It would be good to gain an update and see how the other man was doing.
It was while a few versions of him were still healing that they all felt a ping in their Immortal Soul lens. They each had been careful not to stretch their Immortal Soul lens too far into the void. Xavier had once alerted a power Void Being of his presence accidentally by doing such a thing. Even inside the most powerful time dilation field he’d ever had, there was a chance a Void Being would be able to just… ignore that, as both time and space were strange here.
When Xavier had started creating these unfoldings, he’d avoided causing too much damage to the hole in reality he’d entered the void through. As he wasn’t the one to create the next unfolding, it hadn’t damaged his hole in reality.
But, of course, there were now two thousand holes in reality, and by the standards of the void, they were all close together. The combined powers of those holes would be a massive lure to any Void Beings out there. Xavier had been reassured that once he and the other versions of him returned through the holes, the void would move them, and they would no longer be so close together.
He didn’t exactly understand how the void would do that. Roln had waved a hand, saying something about space and the observer effect and weird void magic nonsense.
They all knew what that ping was. A powerful creature was heading straight for them, heading through the void. At the speed it was moving, it was as though the time dilation field around the two thousand Xaviers didn’t exist at all.
The Xaviers had to make a decision—stand and fight the Void Being, or disappear back to their respective realities and hope that whatever it was didn’t break through one of those holes.
Buoyed by the victory they’d all just experienced, there was no way in hell they were going to just step away from this fight.
All two thousand Xaviers grinned.
It was time to combine their powers once more.
~
In a different phase of reality, an ancient entity watched Xavier Collins as he, and the other nineteen-hundred-and-ninety-nine versions of him, annihilated a Void Being that would have been out of Xavier’s league had he been acting alone,
They destroyed the being with ease—just as they’d destroyed the S Grade True Dragon.
The ancient entity didn’t have a body, all it had was a soul and a mind. Technically, it had many souls. A near uncountable number. And its mind was perhaps as vast a universe—maybe even several universes.
The ancient entity was the Xavier Collins’s Astral Soul.
Even though the entity didn’t possess a body, it tended to imagine itself within one. In response to what it watched, it leant back in a comfortable armchair and raised its chin. A smile drifted onto its face, an eyebrow raised, inching up its forehead.
Its thoughts raged. Trillions upon trillions of thoughts all tumbling together. It wasn’t merely watching this Xavier Collins. It was watching every single Xavier Collins that existed. But increasingly, it was this Xavier Collins that gained the main part of its attention.
The crazy bastard actually did it.
After so many years in existence, after seeing so many things, there was little if anything that surprised the Astral Soul.
This version of Xavier Collins, however, had been constantly surprising him seemingly since he’d first been integrated into the System.
For the first time in a very, very long time, the Astral Soul possessed something it thought had been extinguished sometime after the Interdimensional Dragon had come into existence—hope.
Hope that his plan would actually come into fruition. Hope that the Interdimensional Dragon, something created from him, would finally be defeated.
And that he would be redeemed.
For it had been the Astral Soul, all that time ago, long before the System was but a dream to the being who’d conjured it up, that had made a mistake. It had nudged that version of himself toward becoming a dragonkin. It had nudged that version toward making the transformation. And that was when everything had gone terribly wrong.
The Astral Soul had steered reality in the wrong direction.
Now, finally, he might be able to steer it back on track.