Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 400: Preparing for the Next Stage

Thalion had a very good time looting the warehouse. This time there were even more antidotes. Only a few fighters had been sent to stop him, while most of the army focused on the turned E-grades. It didn’t even take a second for Thalion to kill the seven fighters that had come for him.Outside the warhouse, explosions echoed and the windows rattled with every shockwave released by crashing spells or powerful blows. Thalion rushed through the massive warehouse and stored everything— even the shelves. Then it was time to head to the offering shrine in the outpost’s tower.

So far, everything had gone extremely well. Both piles should have contained more than a hundred antidotes, which meant he would have around two million leaderboard points by the end of the stage. At the moment, the top contenders were around fifty thousand leaderboard points. Thalion wondered if the others had managed to locate the floating rocks outside the dense poisonous mist too. If not, he definitely had a massive advantage.

He found it comical how much he had stressed himself in the earlier stages. If he really ended up with two million leaderboard points, his previous struggles would have been completely unnecessary. Thalion also wondered what the grand treasure of this stage was. Maybe a powerful item in the main city of the sect? And how many points would the next stage’s grand treasure grant? In theory it had to be even more than this one—so it might be worth millions as well.

Now Thalion had to speed up: loot the rest of the outpost, kill the army, find a good safe zone, repair his soul, and prepare for the next stage. He wanted to find the grand treasure quickly. It was entirely possible that one of the big shots had also found the outpost and collected a good amount of antidotes. They might have even gone for the larger cities if they spotted them.

This time, the offering chamber high up in the tower was empty, and Thalion could freely collect everything. He stole the golden statue of Ratgul again, and when everything of value was safely stored in his spatial amulet, he blasted a hole in the wall and shot out to help the others fight the army.

The heart of the Sanguine Archon beat faster and faster, stirring the bloodlust of the Sanguis Impera—and Thalion. He was ready to rip the army to pieces and gather more blood, but then he stopped, looking up.

He had assumed that Aris, Rakati, and the new recruits were barely holding on. Instead, two skyships were destroyed and maybe four fighters were still alive—each of them mortally wounded and in the grasp of one of his bloodslaves.

Thalion blinked, then checked his surroundings again with his bloodsense to confirm nothing remained alive. This time he felt a few living pulses on the last remaining skyship. Rakati stood on the railing, chewing on one of the birdfolk.

The skyship was still in the air, but that didn’t mean it was in good shape. Two of the three masts were broken and flames licked across the deck. They wouldn’t be able to keep using this ship. It didn’t have the repair enchantments like the ones in the tutorial, so it was as good as lost.

His five bloodslaves shot across the battlefield searching for survivors or anyone with enough blood left in their bodies. With their bloodstained forms, dark feathers or scales, and glowing red lines, they all looked like hungry demons. Hopefully, this amount of blood would keep them fed until the next stage. With everyone dead in the outpost, they could return to the skyship and head toward the first safe zone.

“FOLLOW ME!” Thalion shouted, fueling his voice with mana so every single bloodslave heard him clearly. Then he activated Mistform and shot toward his skyship, his bloodslaves right on his tail.

They landed on the deck near the mainmast, and Thalion had to admit—he had assembled quite a party.

There was, of course, Aris and Rakati, along with the three newly turned. First was the sister of the sect leader. Her body had probably undergone the biggest transformation. She now had the typical sunken eyes glowing like embers, and her feathers had turned dark with crimson cracks. Thin, dark-red thorns had emerged between her feathers along her spine, giving her an even more wretched appearance. Her staff—some kind of leg with feathers sprouting from it—had transformed in the same way.

The other two newcomers were both Raskari. They had undergone similar changes to Rakati. Muscular, but far less so than him—both were built more for speed than raw power.

“I think a quick round of introductions is in order. But first, set the sails,” Thalion said, motioning toward the lines hanging down from the masts.

They immediately got to work, and in no time they were on their way. From now on, they would also slowly ascend. The reason was simple: they didn’t need to enter the poisonous mist. The zone of nothingness moved only along a single axis. That had been especially obvious during the water stage. The theory was that high up in the sky it wouldn’t matter if someone else entered the same safe zone—not even a Chosen. The green mist should cover them.

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Thalion planned to continue rising as well, because the higher he was in this zone, the higher he would appear in the next. And there he would need to reach the top of the trees to get the grand treasure of the next stage. But first he wanted to learn a bit more about the coming stages, his new bloodslaves, and their abilities. Maybe they could even find a way to reduce their passive blood consumption when they weren’t doing anything.

“I am called Veylana. I’m a summoning mage. With all the changes from the Curse of the Blooded Templar, many of my skills shifted, and I still haven’t had the chance to test them all,” Veylana said in a relatively calm voice.

The part about not knowing her skills was a bit disappointing because Thalion had questions.

Next were the two new Raskari, who turned out to be brothers.

“This is Rathan, and I am Varthan. We both have a hunter class. For us, the skills didn’t change that drastically, so we can fight at pretty much full strength,” Rathan introduced them.

Thalion didn’t bother telling them his name. What if one of them ran off? Better if no one knew who had caused the zombie apocalypse, should it occur. With that short intermission, the introduction round was over. They already seemed to know Aris and Rakati anyway, which meant Thalion could move to the next important point.

“So, we need to talk about your blood consumption. Why are you wasting so much blood just by standing around?”

Maybe it was something easy to fix—perhaps teaching them basic blood control would be enough?

“I have a new passive skill called the . It constantly consumes blood to raise all stats and lets our bodies endure far more than should normally be possible,” Varthan said, his deep Razkari voice rumbling.

Thalion perked up at that. So his bloodslaves were burning themselves out constantly. It would force them to collect more and more blood if they didn’t want to be consumed by their own bodies. What intrigued Thalion most was the name. He had expected something related to the Blooded Templar.

Instead, the skill bore the name of his bloodline.

His bloodline had been part of the cocktail when he created the curse, but he hadn’t expected it to be active—or outright named—in the abilities of the turned. He hadn’t even consciously infused his bloodline into the curse, but since it flowed through his blood, it was only natural that it became a major component of the curse as well. And if the bloodline was part of the curse, then upgrading his bloodline should also upgrade the Curse of the Blooded Templar.

The sad part was that there was simply no way to help his bloodslaves conserve their blood—and thus their energy. It would be enough until the end of the stage, but it could become a serious problem in the next one.

“Interesting. Then prepare yourselves for the next stage. We’ll also change our course and fly upward as fast as this ship allows. The closer we get to the grand treasure of the next stage, the sooner you can start hunting.”

This settled the matter, and they moved to steer the skyship while Thalion sat down to meditate. He needed to repair his soul and strengthen it a bit. In the meantime, the Sanguis Impera continued empowering their stored blood. If his bloodslaves grew hungry earlier than expected, at least he had a little snack ready to keep them controlled. Otherwise their hunger could take over, which could lead to all kinds of problems. The higher the quality of the blood, the longer it would keep the hunger at bay.

After a few hours, Thalion had to use an antidote—but this would be his last one. The sky was already darkening, and they could see the zone of nothingness in the distance. If Thalion was extremely unlucky, his bloodslaves might not be able to move into the next stage with him due to the agreement with Ratgul. But Thalion was willing to risk their lives.

After fixing his soul and spending some time on his essence blood, he checked his spatial amulet and the many items inside it. He hoped to find a map for the safe zones, but it didn’t seem like he had one for this stage. It wasn’t a big problem—the zone of nothingness moved far slower than their skyship. At its current speed, they could easily continue flying upward without risk.

With this many meters gained in height, it would be crazy if he didn’t come out close to the grand treasure. As the hours passed, the zone began to speed up until it finally reached them as well. Waiting for the safe zone was a bit sketchy, since they needed to stop immediately—or make a sharp turn—the moment the zone halted behind them.

From his vantage point, Thalion had already spotted several safe zones in the annihilated area. In general, he had to admit they were all a bit closer to one another than last time. Thalion hoped they were high enough in the air that no one would notice them.

After they managed to stop inside a safe zone, they continued slowly drifting upward, much like a submarine. Flying upward in curves could have been life-threatening, and even though it would have been much faster than their current pace, Thalion didn’t want to risk losing the skyship.

With the ship safely inside the safe zone, Thalion checked the leaderboard positions. He wanted to see the stats—and how insane the spike would be once the antidotes were counted.

1. First Daugther of the Hive - 63, 780 Points

2. Prince Vorathis of the Vorakai - 58,410 Points

3. Zargaz Chosen of Tenebrice - 57,350 Points

4. Eric Chosen of Solarion - 56,430 Points

5. Maeve Chosen of Morgana - 55,420 Points

6. Second Daughter of the Hive - 54,380 Points

7. Urgol Chosen of Ghol'Var - 54,260 Points

8. Ethan Chosen of Aeta - 53,360 Points

9. Felix Chosen of Eryndor - 52,170 Points

10. Meyra Chosen of Eshara - 51,560 Points

Thalion had to take it back—it was absolutely crazy how close the competition actually was. There were only a few points separating the very top of the leaderboard. Even after the top ten, the pattern continued, with only a few hundred points between each participant.

In terms of names, not much had changed. The top contenders remained the same, with only some shuffling in the lower spots of the top ten. If he wasn’t mistaken, Meyra should be the orc shaman.

Now he only needed to wait for the end of the stage and the beginning of the next one.

Thalion looked around, and everyone stared back at him with hungry gazes and ember-glowing eyes. Back on Earth, he probably would have been terrified—but here, he was the scariest of them all.