Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 402: A Good Plan Is the Key to Victory

The skyship continued to rise above the massive forest below, with absolutely no one daring to interfere. Thalion stood at the railing, looking down at the colonies atop the massive leaves of the tree crowns. There were all kinds of bees. Some looked much like the ones from Earth, just the size of a cow. But others looked like a cross between a human and a bee—standing upright on two legs with two arms, wings sprouting from their backs, and a stinger, of course. It reminded Thalion a bit of the termite hive. The termites also had many variants, some barely resembling termites at all.What Thalion couldn’t really understand was why none of the bees were flying and why no one seemed to care that a skyship was passing above them. Yes, they all hid their auras, but the group still had those wooden laser guns that would definitely be a threat to anything below. Some bees looked up, but after a brief glance they simply turned around and minded their own business. Others were building structures on the leaves and the highest branches to stabilize them so more buildings could be added.

The buildings looked nothing like houses on Earth—they resembled yellow igloos made from a slimy substance. Each igloo had two or three holes that functioned as entrances and exits. In every hive there was one massive igloo in the center, by far the largest structure, with everything else built around it.

It didn’t look like the insects were wielding any weapons, even when they carried some sort of buckets or items to different stations. Thalion feared that they would remain calm until someone stole the grand treasure. There was no reason for the bees to act like this based on what he observed. They seemed quite peaceful, but this was the system and he now knew that this treasure hunt had been designed by Ratgul.

To be fair, he didn’t know much about the god besides the fact that Ratgul was a hunter. So for Thalion, it was entirely possible that some kind of doomsday protocol would activate the moment he pulled the grand treasure.

On the other hand, could a single treasure really be this important? Especially when looking at the massive forest below? Everything was so enormous that it became difficult to comprehend.

Thalion also had trouble gauging distances. This stage wasn’t curved like Earth, and when he saw something in the distance, it sometimes grew larger even though he didn’t feel like he was getting any closer. All sails were hoisted and the skyship was flying at full speed, but even after two hours they weren’t any closer.

By now, Thalion was certain it could easily take a full day until they reached the place. Maybe something was messing with space—but he was confident he would have noticed spatial manipulation thanks to his title.

The bigger problem was that his bloodslaves were starving, and he would need to part with some of the collected blood to keep their minds clear, or at least prevent the hunger from taking over.

Since Thalion didn’t really have anything to do on the skyship, he returned to empowering his essence, blood, and soul. He had a feeling that great danger lay ahead and he would need every ounce of strength to survive. With meditation it was hard to tell how much time had passed, but eventually Thalion was pulled out of it by a loud system notification—one that came with the sound of a blaring alarm.

Warning

Prince Vorathis of the Vorakai has greatly damaged the forest

Killing will reward an additional eighty thousand leaderboard points

This was interesting. Thalion guessed that the prince had done this on purpose—maybe to stop people from running when they spotted him or something like that. It could also be that he had pulled some treasure from the trees and was marked because of it. A funny way for trees to defend themselves, honestly. On Earth they grew thorns or developed poisons, but here they just issued bounties, Thalion thought, amused.

Hopefully he wouldn’t get a notification every time someone damaged a tree or stole a treasure.

There was an easy way to check whether the prince had found something valuable: by checking the leaderboard.

And indeed, the prince had risen to second position after receiving a boost of ten thousand leaderboard points. For Thalion, this was proof that a notification would appear the moment he took the grand treasure. The question was whether he should do it now or later. The longer he waited, the weaker his party would become and the higher the chances of someone else reaching this place.

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If he immediately stole the grand treasure, he might be hunted for the rest of the stage, which could easily end in death. There were millions and millions of bees on top of the canopies if Thalion counted each colony as one. If all of them started flying toward him, he would truly need to get creative. More importantly, the chances of his bloodslaves surviving were even lower. Also he really needed to talk to them about the upcoming stages.

The others also didn’t have much to do since the ship was flying pretty much on its own by now. Aris and Veylana joined Thalion in the middle of the deck for a short conversation. Both looked wretched and carried a haunted gaze. If Thalion ever wanted to create a large force of bloodslaves, he needed to evolve the curse a bit. At the moment it made them powerful but didn’t allow him to deactivate it when unnecessary. Thalion gave the two some of the blood the Sanguis Impera had been infusing with mana so they could think clearly again.

“Tell me everything you know about the next stages from here on out,” Thalion said, crossing his arms before his chest.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Aris who answered, but Veylana.

“Since this is the tree stage, the next one will be a fire stage. There, the grand treasure is hidden inside the biggest volcano, which should be located near the center of the map.”

“Hah, good to know. But how can you be so sure? I thought there were always three possible variants for each stage?” Thalion wondered aloud.

“Yes, there are many variants, but only a few paths and those paths never change. Otherwise you could end up in a water stage three times in a row, which would make the system event awkward. Ratgul wanted every treasure hunter to prove themselves in every type of environment… or at least be tested in many different areas,” she concluded.

For Thalion, all the testing stuff didn’t matter. The most important part was that he knew what the next stage was and where the treasure was located. It also made his bloodslaves far more valuable. Before taking the grand treasure of this stage, he should send at least one of them to a safe location just to be sure.

“Good. You know the best way to the treasure in that volcano? Also, how many stages are there in total, and what comes after?” Thalion asked, excitement evident in his voice. Turning the birdfolk had already been worth it.

“I cannot say for sure how many in total because we were only shown the ones we could choose as our hunting ground. As for the later stages, I don’t have any information. In the next stage you can reach the treasure inside the volcano in two different ways, but before I explain that, you need to know more about the layout. On the surface there are only mountains and volcanoes, everything constantly aflame. Up there you’ll find elementals and some kind of fire devils. Below the surface lies a fallen dwarven kingdom. Multiple tunnels connect their cities and treasures, but the greatest treasure is a fire crystal they are growing inside the volcano. If you have high fire resistance, you can enter from above. If you want to be safe, you go through the dwarven tunnels.”

Thalion had to admit: Veylana was a treasure trove of information. A dwarven kingdom sounded like a lot of loot—and with that, Thalion meant leaderboard points. The question was just what he should do. In theory, the grand treasure should dwarf everything else on the stage, but could his bloodslaves survive the intense heat on the surface?

Thalion could dive into the volcano alone without issue and he was confident they could endure the heat with their high recovery. No, the biggest threat was that fire elementals had no blood, and at such extreme temperatures his bloodslaves might burn through even more blood just to heal themselves. The danger of his slaves simply starving seemed too great on the surface, while below they should have enough to sustain themselves.

Since the surface was so brutal, there should also be many ways down—which meant there had to be plenty of blood inside the tunnels.

Speaking of treasure hunters, Thalion quickly checked the total number—something he had wanted to do at the end of the last stage. His eyes widened when he saw the last place. There weren’t even a million people in the treasure hunt anymore. Half of the trial takers had died or left in the last stage. To be fair, Thalion suspected many of them hadn’t carved through the flesh of the ugly poisonous beasts they killed to find the antidote. Now it was mostly the elite left in the trial. There might be a few weaklings too, since the last stage wasn’t that difficult once you found out the antidotes were hidden in the beasts’ flesh, but it was clear where this treasure hunt was going.

“Thanks for the information. I would say we take the tunnels. And since we’re at the top of this stage, we should move down fast after taking the grand treasure, so we can start in the dwarven tunnels?” Thalion suggested.

“Yes, that is a good idea, but I don’t think we have enough time to descend fast enough, especially with the constant blood we need,” Aris commented.

That was true. The blood consumption and the sheer size of this stage could become a problem. But in theory they could still descend inside the safe zone, so they should still be able to cover a good amount of distance. Another problem was that they couldn’t use the skyship to simply fly down, which meant they would lose far more blood than when standing on the ship.

“I still think it’s worth trying. The alternative looks far worse to me. Elementals are the bane of every blood cultivator. I can tell you that,” Thalion said after thinking it through. He was confident their best chances lay in the tunnels. And if push came to shove, he could always part with some of his stored blood.

“Good. Since we’ve sorted out the next stage, tell me about the following ones. I’m very curious,” Thalion said, a small smile playing around his lips.