Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 10) - Chapter 2 - I Am Beyond Your Powers

Liaha Gadrin gripped her staff tighter than she ever had. She felt like a new recruit, about to take their first step onto a battlefield. Except she was no such thing. Liaha Gadrin was one of the most powerful generals in the entirety of the Orin sector, and she had been with Sovereign Rewke Fouran almost since the beginning.

What Xavier Collins had shown her planet was real. Her sovereign was dead. This was something she already knew.

She had been well aware of her sovereign’s strange absence. All the generals of his army had Communication Stones that gave them a personal channel for contacting the sovereign, a channel that could be used at a distance of one hundred sectors.

The sovereign hadn’t responded to any of their messages.

He’d been in the wind, something that had never happened before, and tensions in the sector had been high.

Then, Liaha had seen something from an Information Broker. A memory given by a sector ruler who’d been an audience member in the arena when the sovereign had been defeated.

So it was clear that Xavier Collins wasn’t lying. The sovereign hadn’t told any of his people that he was going to challenge the dragonkin in that arena. None of them had even known such a thing was happening.

Sovereign Rewke Fouran had always been arrogant, Liaha knew that perhaps better than anyone, but that arrogance had always been warranted—until now.

Liaha didn’t care if the sovereign had been a fool to fight Xavier Collins. She didn’t care if the man had some claim to ruling this sector after defeating him, either. The second she’d seen that memory, she’d known she would do everything in her power to get revenge on the bastard.

Even if it meant her death, and the deaths of everyone she led through the portal.

She would see this man dead for ruining her sector.

When the portal crackled into life, she was the first one through it. Her staff was already glowing more fiercely than it ever had.

Liaha was a Star Mage.

She pulled power from the very stars out there in the vast darkness of space. When she was first developing her powers, all the way back when she was F Grade, she needed to be able to see the sun to use them. After a while, she could pull power directly from the nearest sun even if it wasn’t within view. As her powers continued to grow, she had the ability to pull power from multiple suns.

When she’d reached B Grade, she’d gained something she considered her final gambit. A spell so strong that it would kill her if she ever actually used it. A spell that she never wanted to use, but Sovereign Rewke Fouran had instructed her she needed to gain—it was he who had influenced her development over the years; it was he who’d made her so powerful in the first place.

Even if she hadn’t been contracted to obey his orders, she would have done it. She would have done anything for him.

I would still do anything for you, Rewke.

Liaha pulled on the power from as many suns as she could—the power of a thousand suns—by casting her last resort spell, Combined Supernova. The stars she pulled the power from were ones without planets orbiting them. She’d gone out into the depths of space and located them herself, ensuring that if she ever needed to use them no one would be harmed, because if she used the power from those suns in this spell they would burn out completely.

The kind of power she wielded from this spell was akin to the power an A Grade could wield, and because of that it was far too powerful for her to survive its use.

A portal came into being inside her—a portal that led to each and every one of those suns. A thousand threads of light surged through that portal, connecting directly to her energy channels, allowing her to direct the power of those suns toward her enemy.

Toward Xavier Collins.

She breathed as hard as she ever had. Her fingers weren’t merely tensed around her staff, they were frozen in what soon would be a death grip. Every muscle in her entire body was tensed to the point of seizing up. Her heart pounded in her chest.

Every thought in her mind screamed of revenge.

The instant the portal opened she plunged straight through it. She knew that at any moment the enemy could stop enveloping the world inside his time dilation field, but she could also tell that this Xavier Collins shared something with the late sovereign: an arrogance that wouldn’t allow him to do such a thing.

She was going to use that arrogance to dig his grave.

Liaha was the first through the portal. The dragonkin was waiting for her. He looked at her with a vaguely bored expression, then a single eyebrow rose and he cocked his head to the side in a small smile.

Impressive.

The voice sounded straight in her mind, and she recognised it as the same voice that had been speaking to her entire planet.

How the hell did he do that? she briefly wondered. No matter.

Liaha unleashed her spell, ready to burn that smile off Xavier Collins’s face. She thrust her staff forward, pulling on more power than she’d ever known she would wield. This would be enough to destroy him. She was sure of it.

And if she was wrong? If it didn’t kill him? Well, it would weaken him enough so that the rest of her army was able to do the rest. Even if none of them survived when all was said and done, she trusted that they would finish the job.

The power of a thousand suns was in her hands—

Except, when she thrust her staff forward, nothing happened. Energy didn’t pulse through her channels. Fire didn’t burn outward from her crystal-topped staff.

The portal inside her was… closed.

Her army were at her back, coming through the portal behind her almost just as fast. The portal was massive, large enough to admit thousands of people at once, and those thousands made way for thousands more that came through behind them. All around her, the most powerful Denizens from the capital of the Orin sector thrust their weapons and cast their spells.

All around her the same thing was happening. Spells weren’t materialising. Attacks were falling flat. Arrows launched from archers were disappearing from the air as though they’d never been there to begin with. Masters of melee weapons teleported close or surged through the air, barraging the enemy with physical attacks, and their weapons clearly struck.

But they didn’t produce any damage, and the melee fighters clearly weren’t having luck casting their spells either.

The panic inside Liaha was growing. How could her spell have failed? She tried to cast it again, but she couldn’t. It was stuck in cooldown. Even if she wasn’t inside a time dilation field she wouldn’t have been able to cast it. A spell like that takes months to go through its cooldown, not that she’d expected to survive its use anyway.

She tried to cast her other spells. They sparked and then fell away.

Nothing was working.

She maneuvered through space—at least that spell was working—and propelled herself toward Xavier Collins, trying to get close enough to bash him with her staff, but he was already surrounded by far more competent melee attackers who were doing exactly that but having absolutely no success.

She halted herself midway toward the man.

Out of everything she’d thought might happen when she’d launched this attack, this wasn’t it. She looked around, feeling stunned, waiting for the hammer to drop. The army’s main Communication Channel was aflame with pleas for direction. Pleas for help. Pleas to her. She’d been leading armies for millennia and yet for the first time that she could remember she had no idea what to do, no idea what to say.

She wasn’t the only one just hovering there in space, stunned by what was happening, trying and failing to cast more spells, watching as the melee fighters hacked away at Xavier without dealing any damage. Thousands of her soldiers were just staring in shock at the spectacle, confused, wondering what to do.

This can’t be real. Can’t be happening.

A wave of energy pulsed from the dragonkin who’d killed Sovereign Rewke Fouran.

This is it. This is our death.

Except no one died. The melee fighters that surrounded Xavier Collins were pushed back. But they weren’t shoved. They simply floated gently backward as though by a soft, guiding hand. Some of them stopped swinging their weapons. Others, with uncontrolled rage alight on their faces, kept swinging, their attacks even more ineffectual than before as all they hit was the vacuum of space. Concern did not wrinkle his forehead. Worry did not radiate from his eyes.

He seemed almost bored.

The dragonkin flapped his wings idly and looked around at the soldiers who’d come to kill him.

He has to make an example of us. Anything else would make him seem weak. I’ve sent these people to their deaths for nothing.

Xavier Collins smiled. It wasn’t a sinister smile. In fact, there was warmth in it, even a hint of wistfulness. He looked like a father staring down at his children who were in the middle of playfighting.

There wasn’t any malice in his eyes as his voice sounded in her mind—and, he imagined, in the minds of everyone back on the planet.

No matter how much you try, you cannot harm me. I am beyond your powers. He tilted his head up, the smile slipping away. Another invader would kill the lot of you for what you have just done. Perhaps you think I’m about to do such a thing. But I am not. None of you deserve to lose your lives for acting to protect your world, for I truly believe each of you thinks that is what you’re doing.

Liaha seethed. Her whole body shook with rage at the man’s words. She screamed a reply but of course her own words fell into the silence of space. She couldn’t say anything, not out here, and she didn’t have a Communication Stone connecting the two of them.

Xavier’s gaze turned to her, and he tilted his head to one side, staring intently. You have something to say?

Liaha opened her mouth, Your gods damned right I have something to say!

Every soldier hovering in space around her turned their heads and gazed at her with wide eyes, as though they’d actually heard her speak.

I am broadcasting your words to every citizen of your planet as we speak. This conversation will be public, not hidden from anyone.

Gods, the arrogance of that man.

You dare to think you could be a better leader of our planet, our sector, than the Great Rewke Fouran? You dare to take his place?

Rewke Fouran was not as great as you think. He was disloyal to his own. He would have traded one of his loyal subjects to me in exchange for taking another sector for him and ruling it under his leadership.

What looked to be a memory of a conversation between Xavier, Sovereign Rewke Fouran, and a third man General Liaha Gadrin recognised to be Palini Damascus, a high-ranking Denizen in Orin’s government, was projected for all to see. Liaha watched it, even though she didn’t want to. Even though she didn’t care.

But as she did watch it, concern marred her mind.

You lie. That memory can’t be real—the sovereign wouldn’t betray his own.

Xavier held up his hand, producing an orb of light which hovered through space toward her. Liaha recognised it for what it was. A memory. This is System-confirmed to be untampered with. The original memory, straight from my mind.

Liaha took the memory in hand and accessed it. She was aware that everyone on her entire planet was watching this spectacle play out, and even if she could do nothing to defeat this man in a fight, she wasn’t about to give in. She needed her people to see that he wasn’t worthy of being their leader… even if that didn’t stop him from taking charge.

Because this wasn’t right.

Except, the memory was real. A true one. System-confirmed. The sovereign, casually as ever, was ready to hand over one of his citizens—one of his valued leadership—even though the man had committed no crime. Rewke, who had always been devoted to his people. Rewke, who wouldn’t betray even the lowliest citizen in the entirety of the Orin sector.

And yet… all of that was a lie?

For the first time in thousands of years, doubts about the man she’d chosen to follow so long ago crept into her mind, doubts about a man who no longer even lived—though he did survive, as his soul was out there somewhere. She’d had the dream of finding it, of restoring him somehow into another body. She’d found information through the System Shop from Information Brokers all the way from the inner sectors saying that such a thing would be possible…

The sovereign must have had his reasons. Even if this memory is true, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t lying to you. Perhaps it was a ploy of some sort…

She didn’t believe the words even as she communicated them.

It wasn’t, but even if it was it doesn’t matter. Even if your sovereign were still alive and the most benevolent leader to have ever existed, I would extend my rule to your planet and every other planet in the sector. That is not in question.

Then why bother showing me any of this?

Because I need your cooperation. Tell me, did you see the memory I sent to the rest of your people? Did you watch the projection of the Interdimensional Dragon? Were you listening when I spoke of the threat to the universe? We do not need to be at odds, General Liaha Gadrin.

Liaha’s eyes widened. How did you know my name?

Xavier smiled. You are not the only person I am speaking to. He looked around pointedly at the soldiers hovering in space. Some of them looked a lot less fearful than they had mere moments ago. Others even seemed… at ease.

Liaha shut her eyes.

Everything inside her was telling her she shouldn’t listen to this man, but she hadn’t gotten as far as she had by not stopping to think. She’d heard what the man had been saying, seen glimpses of the projection of the so-called threat to the universe he’d mentioned. It had all sounded like ridiculous lies to her.

Another memory orb floated through space toward her.

She took it in her hands and accessed it with some reluctance. She found herself inside the body of a being who felt more powerful than she’d ever thought it was possible to feel—a being thousands of times more powerful than Sovereign Rewke Fouran had ever been.

And that being was nothing in comparison to the dragon it watched tear through from the void into a universe.

The fear she felt at witnessing this was like nothing she’d ever experienced.

Finally, she was ready to listen.