Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 403: A day without fresh enemies wanting me dead feels completely wasted

“After the volcano stage, the design will change drastically. Currently, you only need to hunt beasts, find treasures, and stay alive. In the coming stages there will be civilizations you need to integrate yourself into. Their sects, like the one my brother belonged to, will compete for the same prize. For example, the seventh stage is a kingdom in the sky, scattered across many islands. They are powerful, and the king should be at D-grade. There are many ways to play those stages. You could try to fight the kingdom, which is pretty useless in my opinion, or you join them and apply for a job. There will be hunts, wars, arena fights, and so on—a lot of ways for you trialtakers to rise in rank. In that stage, the biggest treasure is a crystal in the king’s treasury... Oh no, I was wrong. That wasn’t the seventh but the eighth stage. After fire we have an ice stage, where the grand treasure is an ice crystal guarded by a colony of yetis. But after that, it continues with the civilization stages, and after those come the final stages, which I don’t know anything about...”Veylana was talking like a waterfall. The blood loss was showing, and she would need another infusion soon. It seemed she consumed far more blood than the others, which was why her condition was by far the worst.

“Good. Then tell me about the other stages in detail and the grand treasure. I want to enter the final stage with a good head start,” Thalion nodded, already plotting for the upcoming phases. This stuff with civilizations and kingdoms was extremely annoying. He much preferred when life was simple. It also meant he would have to kill the bloodslaves in the ice stage or find a way to hide their true nature. Otherwise the kingdom would never let him join.

“For the sky kingdoms I can’t say much more besides that if you want to get the grand item, you must break into the treasury of the king. Since he’s early D-grade, you won’t survive if he catches you. About the other stages I can say a bit more. The one after the sky kingdom will be a massive treasure hunt. Six huge kingdoms, all located on different islands, constantly send out ships to find the great treasure. You trialtakers will have to join the army of whichever kingdom you spawn closest to and gather as many treasures as you can. But be careful. The water is manipulated so you can’t hold your breath for too long. It doesn’t affect marine life, but we can’t enter the water anymore. After a minute underwater, we pass out from lack of oxygen. The grand treasure in that stage is a vial with a brown substance inside. Whoever drinks it will gain skin as hard as tempered steel. Such treasures are extremely rare and normally kept only for the chosen of gods. To be clear, I’m referring to the chosen in integrated space. Here, it will take some time before items can be sent.”

Veylana struggled more and more to get her words out, her sunken eyes glowing like embers while they darted around unfocused. She definitely needed blood. Before Thalion could give her more, a loud voice carried over from the bow of the skyship. It was Rakati, and he sounded excited.

“We’re there! Look—that is the grand treasure of the stage!”

This instantly sparked Thalion’s interest, and he shot forward with Telekinetic Dash. He leaned over the railing, looking down at the massive flower they had been flying toward for hours.

Inside the flower was a gigantic colony of bees, and in the center grew a small red blossom. From this height it was hard to see, but through his title and the aura the thing radiated, it was clear what it was. Not only had Thalion noticed it, but the Sanguis Impera as well, sending waves of desire through his body. This confused him slightly, because he couldn’t sense any blood inside the plant.

Maybe it was something connected to plants, and they gained stats from devouring one another? Thalion wasn’t sure, but the Sanguis Impera couldn’t have this one. At least not now. This flower held incredible power and was clearly treated like a god by the bees. Some were even bowing before it.

Normally Thalion wouldn’t have worried about the Sanguis Impera evolving. Usually, a power-up was a good thing. But getting knocked out during this stage certainly couldn’t be healthy.

The next issue was that Thalion didn’t want to give up any leaderboard points. In the end, everything depended on how far ahead he would be at the end of this stage and how many points the flower would grant.

There was no hurry consuming the flower. A power-up like that would likely not matter in the next two stages. For the stages that came afterward, he wasn’t so sure. A war between factions, D-grades, and murderous chosen—he definitely wanted to be as strong as possible.

If Thalion was forced to walk among normal folk inside the kingdom, he might have real trouble hiding from other trialtakers. He could already see all kinds of problems coming his way. But those were troubles for another day. For now, he needed to figure out the best way to get the flower… actually, it wasn’t the flower giving off this incredible power. Yes, the flower had a strong aura, but the real source was the tiny golden seed at its center. Thalion shifted into Eagly for a second just to confirm—and yes, it was definitely the golden seed that was the real deal.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Now the question was how to get down there. The bees still weren’t interfering, which was starting to get on Thalion’s nerves. Some looked up, but that was it—as if a skyship couldn’t possibly be a threat. Thalion even began to wonder if some of them were blind with how little they reacted when facing his direction. Since there was no resistance, he should probably just dive down alone, grab the seed, and run for his life. Even if they weren’t paying attention now, Thalion was very confident that would change the moment he took the seed.

“Okay, we do it like this: you disembark now. Start the descent and feast as much as you like. I’ll follow when I have the golden seed and the flower. By then we’ll likely need to speed up, because I doubt those insects will just let me take the seed,” Thalion said, still unsure if this was the right course of action.

His bloodslaves didn’t doubt him for a second and simply nodded along. With their strong blood and the red mist they released with each breath—or just by standing—Thalion would have no trouble locating them.

Without another question they all leaped over the railing and began their descent, aiming to slip between two massive leaves. Thalion tried to remember their position while he continued flying the skyship closer and closer to the center of the flower. The others would have half an hour to feed before he needed to regroup with them. That was more than enough time—Thalion would simply be fast.

The hives got quite large the closer they were to the seed, and Thalion contemplated the best escape route. He would likely just shift into Eagly and fly at full speed. Everything else seemed unwise.

Once he was directly above the grand treasure of this stage, Thalion stopped the skyship and did something he had wanted to test ever since he first boarded it.

Thalion’s eyes lit up when the entire skyship simply vanished into his spatial amulet. Funny that you could do that when no living beings were on board. Maybe it had something to do with him flying the ship for a while, but he doubted it. Whatever the reason, everything was ready, and there was no point delaying any longer.

Thalion let himself fall.

Before the system, he would have absolutely freaked out about falling from such a height. Now it was nothing special, and he even enjoyed accelerating faster and faster, the rising pressure in his belly making the drop exhilarating. When he got close enough, he activated Mistform just to ensure nothing would stop him. He deactivated the skill a bit above the flower to avoid crashing through the leaf by accident.

On his right hand Bloodclaw was already active, and with one swift motion he cut off the small flower with the golden seed inside it.

The moment he did, all hell broke loose.

Strangely enough, the first thing that hit him wasn’t an attack from the bees—though all of them suddenly released a dense killing intent. No, the first thing that struck was a system notification.

Warning

Thalion destroyed the future of this forest, leaving it to rot and die

Killing will reward an additional five million leaderboard points

Thalion thought as he placed the flower with the seed into his spatial ring before fluidly shifting into Eagly and activating Skydive and Tempest Glide to shoot back into the sky.

The bees all seemed to change color at once as their chitin armor paled and then blackened. Every single one turned its eyes toward him in unison while their auras flared upward. Thalion was momentarily confused by the drastic changes in their bodies and the way they all stared at him. It shouldn’t be possible for every bee to instantly know what had happened. Thalion had anticipated a chase, but he had hoped it would take them a moment to spread the information. The fact that bee reacted instantly was… weird.

That was until he noticed the petals of the colossal flower—where the hive was built—darkening in the same tone as the bees. And it wasn’t only the flower. The whole tree was turning black. And not just this tree, but every tree he could see from his vantage point.

Realization hit him like a hammer.

He had been thinking about these bees for a while now—not just the bees, but the entire environment. Normally, countless kinds of insects lived on trees, but here that wasn’t the case. Back on Earth, plants had multiple methods of defending themselves: poisonous leaves, foul tastes, or sweet nectar to lure ants and other insects that would kill off parasites.

The trees in this stage must have taken that a step further—and outright mind-controlled the insects. Or at least the bees. That would also explain why the bees hadn’t reacted to him earlier when the skyship approached the flower.

A deep, thunderous buzzing erupted from all around Thalion, and he redoubled his efforts to reach the end of the massive flower’s petals. It seemed the trees needed a brief moment to react, but now every single bee was taking flight—rushing straight toward him.

Thalion activated all his domain skills at once just to stay ahead. Insects were notoriously weak to lightning, which gave him a slight edge. There was no chance of winning anything here. His only goal was to reach the edge of the leaf and dive down as fast as possible.

The bees had no strategy or coordination. They simply chased—an ocean of black and gold wings behind him. Thalion had to fire Lightning Beam several times to kill bees lunging at him from the edges of the petals. But overall, he managed to reach the end of the gigantic plant in mere minutes. With a sharp twist, he changed direction and dove downward, following the trail of red mist left by his bloodslaves—while the furious buzzing of millions of bees thundered behind him.