Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 372: Kaelir vs Thalion (5)

An inferno like Thalion had never seen before erupted around Kaelir, swallowing every single elf. On one hand, it was good — this way, the Chosen wouldn’t have a sample of the curse. On the bad side, if things kept going like this, Thalion would have to use his escape token. The inferno was growing in power and ferocity while Kaelir rose into the air.“Now you will witness the true power of a Chosen!” Kaelir shouted, stretching out his arms as if he was about to hug the world. His voice was empowered by even more mana than before.

It was interesting that no one had joined in on the fight. Most probably ran for their lives after witnessing Kaelir’s powerful aura. Still, was there no Chosen in the area who might be interested in bringing another Chosen down?

Maybe it wasn’t worth it at the start of the system event. It was a massive risk, and the Chosen didn’t even have that many points yet. Killing one later would be much better. Maybe that was why no one was coming — or maybe someone was already there, waiting.

Not that it would be Thalion’s problem. For him, it was time for another shapeshift. He needed more speed to avoid the next attacks. Thalion also hoped his armor would repair itself while he was in the form of the crippled Eclipsari. Another reason for choosing this form was his Intuition skill, which allowed him to read his opponent.

Kaelir was relentless and even put away his two staves to go full murder on Thalion with his flaming fists. Thalion only noticed now that from the dense fire, an armor had formed around Kaelir. He had no desire to interact too much with this Chosen right now and used his tendrils to fling himself toward the palace gate. If there was a dungeon inside, like in the others, he would simply rush down, take the treasury, and exit through the portal.

Kaelir was on a timer with his obvious boosting skill. Once that boost ran out, he would be weakened, and Thalion would be able to kill him. For now, he just needed to stay alive and a bit of distraction. The monster inside the palace would hopefully provide exactly that.

Thalion hurled himself through the massive gate, using all his strength to almost fly through without slowing down, the Chosen right on his heels. The inside of this palace was totally different from the last one. Instead of golden furniture and a minotaur, this hall was full of paintings on the walls and a floating jellyfish hovering in the middle.

The jellyfish got the shock of its life when, behind Thalion, the enraged Kaelir entered — the inferno around Kaelir setting all the paintings on fire.

“COWARD! COME BACK HERE!” Kaelir roared, his voice echoing through the massive chamber.

Instead of turning around, Thalion fired a few shadow spikes back at the Chosen to slow him down. Kaelir was so angry he didn’t even think about dodging — something Thalion had predicted. He fired only two spikes but empowered them as much as he could. Kaelir simply punched and rammed through them.

Meanwhile, Thalion ripped the jellyfish into pieces, placing the remains of its body into his spatial ring. He flung himself to the side to dodge a fire beam, using his tendrils for extra speed. In the process, he even managed to grab three more paintings for leaderboard points before catapulting himself straight into the portal.

Kaelir followed right behind, but with his aura blazing, he was unable to collect the portraits anyway.

The cave Thalion appeared in was completely different from the last one. Instead of a beast horde, there were three tunnels to choose from.

“Fuck! Was this some kind of labyrinth?” Thalion thought, panic creeping in. There was no portal back to the throne room. Now he had to make it through the entire thing with an angry Chosen chasing him.

There was some kind of riddle written on the wall above each door. Thalion had no time to read and just flung himself into the rightmost one, hoping for the best. The corridor was much taller than the doorway — good, since he needed room to dodge. The whole corridor was filled with traps that triggered when you passed a certain point or stepped on the right trigger.

The traps weren’t made to hit someone moving as fast as Thalion, which meant that the Chosen elf got hit by every single one Thalion triggered in his haste. It was like walking through a forest where the person ahead lets go of the branches and the one behind gets smacked by every twig.

In this case, it were falling boulders, trapdoors, spears, flaming arrows, and even poison gas. Kaelir was so enraged he didn’t dodge; he just punched or ran straight through the traps, his gaze locked entirely on Thalion’s back.

Thalion didn’t even notice. He was too focused on not losing speed — until he shot out into another massive cave filled with spiders.

You have chosen wrong

Defeat all beasts in the cave to move on

Thalion swore after reading that system notification. There were at least a hundred spiders, each over three meters tall, and the whole cave was filled with webs. He also spotted two four-meter-tall stone pillars at the back of the cave, which likely marked the exit once all the spiders were dead.

Thalion had no time to waste — Kaelir was always close behind him. Whether the Chosen had read the notification or not couldn’t be told, but Thalion decided to use him to his advantage. He flung himself into the middle of the room, tearing through countless strands of web. His skin was releasing dark mist, which was very effective against the webs, instantly dissolving them on contact.

Kaelir ran right behind him, burning everything within five meters to ash. For the Chosen, it didn’t make much of a difference whether a three-meter spider was in the way or not — spider and web alike were incinerated.

Thalion used his tendrils to launch himself through the chamber while breathing out Umbral Miasma and firing spikes and shadows in every direction. He wanted to get the experience and leaderboard points from killing the spiders. Additionally, he preferred not to be stuck in the cave with the Chosen for too long.

Thalion wasn’t the only one overwhelmed by the situation. The spiders, initially frightened by the display of power, quickly realized it was kill or be killed — and their fear turned to rage. It was annoying for Thalion since, until a moment ago, their fear had made them easier to detect, revealing their exact positions.

Fortunately, he still had his title, his Intuition skill, and tough enough skin that the spiders couldn’t pierce with their fangs. The creatures simply threw themselves at Kaelir and Thalion, which even slowed the Chosen down.

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So the massacre continued — spiders dying in darkness or in bright red flames that flashed through the cave. Kaelir blasted out waves of fire that killed multiple spiders at once, leaving nothing behind but ash as he tried to hit Thalion. Thalion, on the other hand, didn’t stay still for even a second, constantly catapulting himself through the chamber.

It didn’t take long until all the spiders were dead, and the portal came to life right behind him. Thalion had already positioned himself nearby and killed the last spider — one hiding fearfully in the upper right corner of the cave — with a well-aimed spike.

Kaelir howled in rage as Thalion leapt through the portal, narrowly dodging another jet stream of fire.

Luckily, that seemed to be it for the cave. Thalion emerged in the treasure chamber, using the few seconds he was ahead of the Chosen to place all three golden chests into his amulet before jumping through the last portal that would take him outside.

He heard a loud curse behind him as Kaelir finally arrived in the treasury, only to see Thalion already vanishing.

Like last time, Thalion spawned a bit behind the palace. The air was peaceful here — no flames, no chaos — only his light-bending aura, which disappeared as he shifted forms. Where the crippled Eclipsari had stood, a proud gray eagle now shot into the sky, electricity dancing over its feathers.

Thalion had activated Skydive and Tempest Glide to move as quickly as possible back up the mountain. Kaelir had burned his own people, but their items and spatial amulets were still up for grabs.

Two seconds after Thalion took to the air, an inferno burst into the same spot. It took only a moment before Kaelir noticed the direction Thalion had gone, and with an enraged roar, he turned into a jet stream of fire, streaking up the mountain in pursuit of the gray eagle.

Thalion didn’t have high hopes of winning this battle and began to wonder when the Chosen would finally run out of mana. So far, Kaelir hadn’t shown even the slightest sign of weakness.

In the courtyard, Thalion shifted back into his human form and used the vines of the Sanguis Impera to gather as many armors, bows, staves, weapons, and spatial amulets as he could. He didn’t have much time as a certain Chosen appeared ten meters above him.

“This is it, Thalion. Now you will know pain!” Kaelir roared, stretching out both hands as fire suddenly surrounded them in a swirling, bubble-like vortex.

A powerful shield surrounded Kaelir — so strong that Thalion knew he could only hope to break it with his bloodline skill. This must have been his trump card.

It was time for Thalion to leave. He took out his escape token, but then noticed the wide, malevolent grin on the elf’s face and the red crystal in his hand.

Thalion clenched his fist, pretending to crush the token, while in reality, he slipped it back into his spatial amulet.

"Haha! No escape for you. Don’t you think I was prepared?" Kaelir cackled as he crushed the red crystal and red energy erupted from it, sealing the surroundings. Now Thalion stood in a blazing inferno and a red cube blocked his escape token. On the positive side, the red cube sealing space was already weakening. On the negative, he probably didn’t have much time as the Chosen stretched out both his hands, each holding a staff again, forming a brilliant, incredibly powerful red flame in front of him. There was no running or dodging anymore. He needed to endure this attack somehow and then activate the escape token.

"I thought your patron needed me alive?" Thalion shouted upward, hoping it would buy him the extra seconds he desperately needed.

"Oh, don’t you worry. With your high fire resistance it will be easy to stop right before you die," Kaelir sneered. Thalion could feel that the elf wasn’t really considering sparing him or leaving him alive.

He didn’t have time to muse over the elf’s reasoning and simply went all out. Thalion had considered activating his bloodline skill to match the Chosen’s power, but if it failed he would be out of resources — likely too slow to activate the escape token. If he survived, he’d rather use the bloodline skill to heal himself than gamble his life right here. The Chosen must be very resistant to fire, and Thalion’s bloodline skill was sadly fire-based only. This was why he refrained from using it and instead created three powerful barriers before him while a jungle started to bloom around him. Vines over vines spiraled up, constructing a living barrier against the incoming fire.

Then Kaelir unleashed his skill, which could only be described as a dragon’s breath. A wide, incredible stream of fire roared toward Thalion. Normally fire wasn’t that good at breaking things outright — well, not with this attack. It shattered the mana barriers in an instant until it crashed into the vines of the Sanguis Impera. Thalion and the Sanguis Impera didn’t hesitate and reinforced the vines with as much blood and, ironically, Thalion’s bloodline flames to make them as sturdy as possible. Thalion even went further and drenched himself and the vines in hundreds of liters of the blood he had gathered since the beginning of the tutorial. Vines were burned away and blood vaporized as the Chosen’s attacks burned through his defenses. At least it was a lot slower now, but it was still far too fast. The red cube wasn’t even halfway gone while Thalion’s barriers were ripped apart far too quickly.

Panic started to settle in as Thalion summoned more blood from the Sanguis Impera’s space. He couldn’t be picky. In addition, he took out the blade of the Blooded Templar and began to charge a massive manaslash. The flames burned through the vines which, even with their high fire resistance, only slowed them down a bit. The air was already so hot that Thalion could not breathe. When the fire burned through all the vines, Thalion panicked and unleashed all the gathered blood, holding back only his essence blood. You would think that fire would have a hard time burning through a liquid — but not these flames. They burned through the torrent of blood even faster than through the vines. Thalion tried everything and even pushed the blood forward to hopefully slow the flames a tiny bit.

With no other option left, Thalion unleashed his empowered swing. The blade of the Blooded Templar vibrated from all the energy channeled through it as Thalion swung forward. The manaslash was powerful enough to hold the advance of the flames for a second and then they were on him. Pain exploded in his vision as Thalion held his arms before him to defend against the blaze. He managed to endure it only for a few seconds until he began to roar as his skin burned away and even his armor began to melt. The pain might have been the worst Thalion had experienced so far, but he clung to life. He wouldn’t give up. His screams died in his throat as he could not breathe in the inferno, which didn’t mean the agony stopped. Thalion focused only on the red cube that was slowly fading.

His only hope was that Kaelir wouldn’t kill him because that would mean disobeying his patron’s orders. This hope faded rather quickly as his partly molten armor plates sank into his skin — but then, all of a sudden, the flames were gone and Thalion could breathe again. At that moment it didn’t change much; Thalion was too shocked by the pain to remember to inhale. The only thought he had was relief when the red cube finally dispersed.

"You really thought you could defeat me? Stupid human. I am the Chosen of Pyarel. My bloodline allows me to cast flames barely without any mana cost and that is not even the best advantage it grants. Even when all the running was annoying, I have to thank you, human. Thanks to you I will be handed far more advantages, and my patron will also be rewarded. So, to honor the benefits you will bring, I give you one last chance. Tell me who your patron is and I won’t burn you over and over until you tell me everything I want. The pain you are feeling now is nothing," Kaelir arrogantly announced, landing right before Thalion, who was lying on the ground in an embryonic position.

The talk was welcome: it bought Thalion the extra time he needed. The Chosen must have the misconception that Thalion couldn’t activate an escape token anymore. It might be an effect of the red barrier that gave one a huge timer when blocking an escape token. But the red barrier was fully gone by now and he summoned the escape token in his hand, crushing it immediately.

Kaelir hadn’t noticed anything while he was still lamenting.

"Ah... what an annoying fight. And now all my elfs are also gone. To place on the top might be impossible. Huh!!"

He stopped his constant rambling when he saw how Thalion who had just lied at his feet vanished into thin air, leaving behind the dust of a crushed escape token.

"THALION!!! I WILL FIND YOU AND THEN THERE WILL BE NO MERCY!" Kaelir shouted at the sky while fire exploded from him like a tidal wave.