Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 10) - Chapter 1 - I Can Stop You With a Thought

Xavier hovered in space above the capital planet of the Orin sector.

Taking over the Orin sector should have been easy enough, considering he’d already defeated Sovereign Rewke Fouran, the True B Grade who used to rule over the sector. But the sovereign had done something incredibly foolish—though some might have considered it clever, Xavier wasn’t one of their number.

The late Sovereign Rewke Fouran had not been in possession of a soul at the time of his death, which to the System meant he technically wasn’t dead. He still had the claim of leadership over the Orin sector, and there was no way for anyone to directly challenge him.

Instead, his soul needed to be located first.

The sovereign’s death, however, meant that the entire sector was in turmoil. Their leaders, their protector, was gone, and they had never been more vulnerable.

Only, not even a week had passed in universe time since that had happened, so that turmoil would be short-lived.

Xavier had a quest to locate the soul, but he was done playing the game the way the System intended. The approach he had in mind—to take the Orin sector by force, one planet at a time—would technically take him longer to accomplish, but time didn’t matter much to him. Besides, it didn’t matter how fast the entire sector came under his rule when it came to System terms. What mattered was how fast he converted each of the planets into his society.

Being labelled the official ruler of a planet was a hell of a lot different to actually integrating that planet into an empire. Xavier had already found that out more than once.

Xavier was the only one from his empire currently in the Orin sector. He was the vanguard force—the entire vanguard. Now that he was B Grade, even one of his drones was strong enough to take over an entire planet. He could challenge anyone from any of these worlds with incredible ease.

Xavier wanted the transition to be as peaceful as possible.

In an instant, he encompassed the planet into his time dilation field. Suddenly a whole world that had just been frozen from his perspective was now buzzing with activity. It wouldn’t take long for people to notice they were in a time dilation field. Even citizens who hadn’t reached System age would realise something strange was going on soon enough.

He flapped his wings and let out a breath, then created a massive projection of his image in multiple places all over the sector’s capital world. He’d addressed other planets in a similar way, like when he’d taken over the Ventorin sector. But this was different.

The Collector had been despised, while Sovereign Rewke Fouran had been universally loved by his people. Now, here Xavier was, coming in to announce his rule. An entity they weren’t aware of. An entity they had no loyalty toward. The only reason they had to follow him was because he was more powerful than them.

Xavier wanted to give them more reasons than that.

He’d thought about the type of speech he would make. What he would tell these people to ensure they came to his side. In the end he knew there was nothing they could do to stop him from taking control, but he didn’t want it to be a bad experience for them.

That, of course, seemed like an impossibility.

 “My name is Xavier Collins, and I am addressing every citizen of this world at once. I come from a planet called Earth, and I am here to liberate you.” He let the words sit for a moment. He knew what he sounded like—some insane villain, no doubt. He was sure the world liberate wouldn’t be taken at face value. “Sovereign Rewke Fouran is dead. He died at my hand because of his arrogance. He challenged my rule of another sector, and he refused to surrender.”

Xavier projected a vision of the end of the fight. Of him and his drones, slamming down their weapons on the sovereign all at once, taking him down far more easily than expected.

“I understand this will be a difficult time for all of you, but I have some assurances. First, I assure you all that you will have the freedom to govern your world however you see fit, as long as it sits within the overall laws of my empire. Second, I will never demand that you fight for me. Third, the use of System contracts will be completely abolished, with no exceptions to that rule. And, as I have the ability to erase contracts, that is a rule that will be heavily enforced.”

This caused a massive amount of chatter. Xavier was watching the world with The All-Seeing Eye, taking in as much as he could. He was also scanning the entire planet with his Immortal Soul lens, looking for those who would try to challenge him, as he knew there would be a great many. As this was the capital, it was home to many of the sovereign’s soldiers—soldiers who’d fought in interstellar armies, soldiers who’d had been around for hundreds, even thousands of years. Many of those Denizens would be the same soldiers who’d helped the sovereign conquer this galaxy in the first place.

He wasn’t threatened by them. In fact, he eagerly awaited whatever it was they were going to try. He wanted to show the world how futile fighting him was—and at the same time, he wanted to show them that he was capable of mercy. More capable than any other Denizen coming to rule a new planet would be.

“I sense there are many doubts amongst you at my words, and these doubts are understandable. You are afraid. Afraid that I am deceiving you. But I promise, that is not the case. I come to rule your planet, and your sector, with the best of intentions.” He paused. “With the ruler of your sector dead, the threats he was keeping at bay from the surrounding sectors will come. They will try to impose a rule of their own, and they will not be so gentle as me.”

His words were losing them, he could see, and he couldn’t blame them. He needed to get to the root of it.

“As a citizen of my empire, I will keep you safe from these threats and more. But safety isn’t all I offer you—I offer you power. Powers you’ve never heard of. Powers you’ve never seen. Powers that will help you save this entire universe from destruction.”

This was the part he’d debated about with the others back in Silver River. He’d worried, in the past, about showing even his closest friends and allies what the true threat looked like—the memories of the Interdimensional Dragon he’d gained from Roln.

But finally, he’d decided he needed to show them. There was no point hiding it. It might be billions of years until they faced the threat in reality, but his people should know what they were up against. They should know right from the beginning what they were getting into, how serious it was, and that they needed to band together, to unite, if they were going to have any hope of defeating the Interdimensional Dragon.

And so that was what he showed—the Interdimensional Dragon, raking holes through the walls of reality and breaking into Roln’s universe. He didn’t merely show this as a projection, either. He rained orbs of light down onto the people, showing them System-confirmed memories.

Even as Denizens all around the world were picking up the orbs and experiencing the true memory, others were mobilising. He felt several of them pinpoint his location in space above their world. He could have hidden from them easily enough, but hiding wasn’t necessary nor part of the plan. He couldn’t hear their communication—the sovereign’s armies would have strong, interconnected Communication Stones at their disposal—but from the way they acted he knew they were coming after him.

The army comprised of C and B Grades—and weak B Grades at that—and while not every one of them appeared to have the ability to make it into space on their own, there were many portal mages among them.

“I see you,” Xavier said. He changed the projected image to a bird’s eye view of one of the armies mobilising their people, the portal mages raising their staffs, ready to open a gateway straight to his location. “It is admirable, to wish to resist an enemy coming for your home, but ultimately it is futile. You are not able to harm me.”

Some of their gazes flicked up to the projection. He sensed fear in every one of their hearts, though that fear didn’t stop any of them from acting. One of the Denizens, a female mage who had the air of a commander, was standing right in front of where the portal was about to open. She was the one out of all of them who had the least fear, and it was clear everyone else was following her lead.

“I can stop you with a thought. I could scatter that portal you are about to create, if I so wished.” Xavier paused. None of his words were stopping the army from doing what they were doing, and to be honest he never expected them to. “But I am going to let you through. I am going to show you exactly what I am capable of, and then you will see why you should follow me.”

While Xavier looked to be hovering all by himself there in the void, he was anything but alone. Behind him were four thousand of his drones, heavily concealed and invisible to the senses of the entire planet. Even if the army were right in front of them, they wouldn’t be able to see those drones.

Xavier didn’t need the drones there to face what was about to come, but he wanted to make this look as effortless as possible without kicking these people out of the time dilation field. Making use of the drones’ Soul Energy seemed like the best way to do that.

The portal was created. He watched as it simultaneously came to life on the planet and then in space. The portal mages weren’t the only specialised force among the army, either. Xavier was able to sense at least two dozen time mages. The time mages would be well aware that there was no way they could match his own time dilation field, a warning he was sure they would have passed on to the woman who appeared to be taking charge of the armies of this planet.

If those warnings had been given, they hadn’t been heeded.

Xavier narrowed his focus, gazing at the portal in front of him, knowing that the instant the B Grades and C Grades came soaring through it that spells and attacks would be heading straight for him in a massive barrage.

The soldiers had to know that if Xavier was able to defeat their sovereign, they had absolutely no chance of surviving this assault, but perhaps they thought that with enough force they would be able to take him down with them. Perhaps each of them had the ability to blow up their cores. Maybe they thought that would be enough.

Xavier would show them otherwise.

He didn’t much care for displays like this, though he knew they were necessary. There were other ways to show his strength, but he wouldn’t be taken seriously unless he demonstrated it in a way that made it perfectly clear just what was going on here.

Xavier created a bone staff, and held it loosely in both hands, as Denizens started streaming through the portal.