Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 356: Training, Murder, and Minor Inconveniences

The days in this system event seemed incredibly long—so long that Thalion almost thought there was no night at all.He had improved his control, fixed his soul, and spent some time in his Tidecaller Serpent form, trying to better redirect the energy of the crystal. So far, his situation had stabilized, and he felt confident enough to handle serious combat should it become necessary.

To Thalion, it felt like only a day had passed, but during meditation, time moved faster—it could easily have been two or three. Now, it seemed the sun was slowly lowering itself. The night would likely be similar to the first days in the tutorial, only this time Thalion should be strong enough to fight anyone who dared attack him.

Maybe it would be good to kill some of the hunters if he spotted them. Okay, probably not this night—he had too much to do at the moment—but the next one, perhaps he could try a few things.

Next on his agenda were Blood Control and practice with the Crimson Eidolon. Thalion had tried to partially form the blood spike skill, but it was impossible with his current control. He needed to improve—a lot. His blood control wasn’t bad compared to his other skills, but for what he wanted to accomplish, it wasn’t nearly good enough.

To start, he formed two bloody rivers and let them flow in opposite directions around him. Making one of the rivers spiral while the other curved through the air around him was already close to his limit. Now he needed to control a third one.

Letting one stream repeat a simple motion was easy, but that wasn’t what Thalion was doing. He constantly guided the movement of every river, and that was incredibly difficult. Closing his eyes, he focused entirely on moving the three rivers at once.

Since arriving here, he had already gained a massive power-up just from having his essence blood purified. Some of that work he had done himself after fixing his soul body, but much of it had been handled by the Sanguis Impera. They both possessed their own essence blood, but that didn’t stop the plant from reaching over and helping him.

The Sanguis Impera clearly believed he was far behind in purifying his blood. Even now, it was constantly amplifying the process, leaving Thalion drenched in sweat as the imperfections were expelled from his body. From time to time, he let the flames lick across his skin to vaporize the impurities—a simple task, since he couldn’t burn at all thanks to his divine skill.

The sun’s light had only just begun to dim, but the mood in the jungle shifted instantly. The birds that had been chirping from time to time went silent, and an early, unsettling quiet spread through the forest.

Thalion still felt safe. He had his blood sense, which meant he could tell when someone was approaching, and if an archer tried to snipe him, his title would react instantly. For now, everything was fine, and he continued his work for the next several hours.

Thalion made great progress, to the point where he could control a fourth stream of blood moving around him.

He was pulled from his concentration by the sound of screams and shouts nearby. It didn’t take long before he could feel their energy. It was a group of orcs chasing a small party of humans.

The seven humans looked wretched, likely the last survivors of a much larger group, judging by their horrified faces. That they still hadn’t used their amulets to escape was surprising. Yes, it took a few minutes to activate, but there was no way they’d get away otherwise.

Fifteen orcs were chasing them. Massive brutes, all of them. Only four had slightly less muscle, and those were the females. Two were archers, and the other two were likely healers or shamans. One could have been a mage, but Thalion couldn’t tell for sure because she was mostly running and laughing.

One of the humans was still F-grade. She looked like a teenage girl but had the white hair of an old woman and wrinkles across her face. The others were E-grade. No heavy warriors were left, and everyone still alive relied on movement skills to keep their distance, dodging arrows and wooden clubs thrown their way.

It was a bit annoying. He could just let them try to escape on their own, but their chances were slim.

Ah, he wanted to train with the Crimson Eidolon anyway. So why not save a few more humans while he was at it? If they were already running from such weak orcs, they wouldn’t survive this system event for long. Not if the entrance payment hadn’t been some kind of bug.

Thalion informed the Sanguis Impera to take care of the body and activated Crimson Eidolon.

The red specter looked far more dangerous than the last time he had used the skill. The empowered bloodline really was something else. The spectral form was slimmer now, but every particle of dark red mana radiated raw power. It also looked much better, in Thalion’s opinion, since its outline no longer flickered like unstable fire.

Thalion kept his aura hidden and let his consciousness slip into the Crimson Eidolon.

In his opinion, the Sanguis Impera overreacted just a little when it sent a vine into the massive tree trunk, corrupting the whole thing as it grew through it.

Thalion stopped for a moment and circled around the tree on his way down.

Was this the Sanguis Impera growing through the tree, or was the curse also affecting plants?

It couldn’t be—that would be too powerful, right? That question could wait until later. He should hurry up and save those poor humans.

With his crimson eyes, he could clearly see where the orcs and humans had gone, and he shot after them. It was impressive how he moved almost as fast as Eagly, but without any wind resisting or pushing him back. It was also convenient that he could fly straight through the trees.

He also passed through the two shamans with outstretched blood claws, bisecting them with loud cries. They weren’t dead, but both were too busy fighting the curse, screaming in agony.

Thalion then tried to kill the two archers in one go, just like he had with the shamans. Unfortunately, they were standing a bit to the right, and when he redirected his course, he overshot—his claws only managed to slice through the neck of one archer with his left hand. The head wasn’t fully severed either with a few strings of flesh still held it in place, while blood gushed out like a geyser.

“What! An attacker!” the orc leader shouted loudly as he turned around, only to lock eyes with Thalion, which was a grave mistake.

Crimson Gaze completely ravaged the orc’s soul body, and he stumbled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

The other orcs reacted quickly and charged at the crimson eidolon, which hovered four meters above the ground. They carried all sorts of weapons: two axes, some clubs, a hammer, and even a staff. Each one glowed with the energy of a melee skill—some green, others red or brown. It almost looked like a rainbow was attacking him.

Thalion also noticed the humans, who had stopped running to watch what was happening. Not very smart. That meant he needed to be careful—not to hit them if he used his Screech, and he didn’t want to reveal his curse either. That wasn’t easy. He had to kill the orcs in one go, or at least avoid using any fire skills that wouldn’t finish them off immediately.

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

He wanted some training anyway, so why not stick with Blood Claws and Crimson Gaze?

Thalion dove down toward the orcs, but his movement was too fast. He flew straight past them and disappeared underground.

He slowly moved toward the still-living, bisected shamans and, on his way out of the ground, absorbed their blood before slashing out at the orcs who hadn’t noticed him. From each claw, five sharp, burning arcs shot outward at them.

The attack was much stronger than expected. The orcs were flung like ragdolls through the jungle. The buff from his bloodline alone was massive and Thalion had amplified it even further with the blood he’d absorbed from the shamans. The attack was so powerful that only two orcs survived it—one wielding a massive battle axe, the other a huge hammer.

Both looked shocked by what had happened to their comrades, but their rage didn’t fade. The one with the hammer charged forward, leaping at Thalion and swinging down.

Thalion tried to dodge to the right, which ended with him flying through a tree to the left, dodging far too much. Reacting to attacks was simply difficult; his bloodline made every movement of the skill absurdly fast.

At least he didn’t get hit. Flying through trees didn’t bother him, but the fact that he couldn’t counterattack and hadn’t intended to fly that far in the first place—was irritating.

He decided not to experiment any further and used his Blood Claws again. This time, the orcs didn’t even try to block the attack, dodging instead. After what had happened to their comrades, they clearly didn’t want to test their luck.

Thalion didn’t waste a second and dove after them, shooting just centimeters above the ground. His claws ripped through the earth wherever they touched. It seemed that the Blood Claw skill could pass through solid matter, just like the rest of his body.

He could really use a telekinetic skill like Jack’s—that would make things so much easier. Maybe he could try something similar using his Mana Wave in the future. Since he was already practicing control, it might be worth a try.

At the moment, however, Thalion didn’t want to use Mana Wave. With his bloodline, there would be a fire component to it and that could infect something nearby with the curse, which might end disastrously.

Besides, it was good practice to fight without just blasting the orcs apart with powerful abilities. There was still plenty of blood in the surroundings he could use to empower his attacks.

The orc with the hammer waited until Thalion was in range and then slammed his glowing weapon down. Thalion traded blows with it, completely destroying his own form, but the orc lost one arm and suffered five deep cuts across his chest, some even slicing into bone.

It took a moment for Thalion to fully restore the Crimson Eidolon.

Well, so much for training. He had just bluntly flown straight into the attack. What had he been thinking?

The orc was now twitching on the ground as he tried to fight the curse. Thalion ended that struggle by draining all his blood with Blood Harvest. He didn’t just drain that orc, but all the corpses nearby as well.

The entire time, Thalion had a hard time putting out the fires in the surroundings. He hoped that no one had noticed. He really needed to practice a lot more control so that it would come naturally.

The last orc saw Thalion reforming after being completely destroyed and decided to run for his life. The orc was quite unlucky—without an escape token, it was impossible to flee from Thalion. He simply flew after him, easily passing through the trees while the orc had to sprint around them.

When Thalion was in range, he stretched out a hand and made a grasping motion, activating Blood Harvest. The orc offered little resistance as his blood was ripped from his body, leaving behind an empty husk.

On the way back, Thalion quickly checked if there were any fires still burning or if anything had been affected by the curse, but that didn’t seem to be the case. So far, everything had gone pretty well. All orcs were dead. He hadn’t accidentally started a blood-zombie apocalypse, and the weak humans were saved.

They would likely be killed by the next enemy they ran into, but that wasn’t Thalion’s business. He was not their babysitter and if he didn’t power up fast enough, he’d die in this system event for sure.

Thalion was about to disperse the Crimson Eidolon and return his awareness to his body when one of the weaklings turned around and addressed him.

“Thank you for saving us. That’s quite the awesome skill you have.”

It was the F-grade woman. The others hadn’t run for their lives either and were standing right behind her, looking at Thalion with a spark in their eyes—a spark he really didn’t like. It was clear what they were after.

For some reason, they must have known he was human, or at least not a monster and now they thought he would look out for them. At the very least, they wanted to join his party. That was what Thalion suspected, so he kept his tone neutral, not wanting to encourage them further. He had always had a problem saying no.

“Why are you not running?” Thalion asked, trying to sound evil or threatening. Releasing his aura wasn’t an option, since that would set everything around him on fire.

“Because you’re human and you didn’t kill us?” the woman said in a sheepish tone.

Thalion’s eyes narrowed. Sometimes he really regretted not being a bit more evil and just killing people outright. This would only end with him having more problems to deal with.

It was also annoying that they could tell he was human. Okay, it was just a skill, but that made it even stranger that identification worked. What was interesting, though, was that she was F-grade.

Thalion had gained a lot of additional years from the ant queens and had barely managed to pay the entrance fee. How had she managed to get extra years? When he took too long to answer, she continued to plead.

“Please, we need any help we can get. We’ll do anything if you let us join your party.”

Yep, this was getting more and more annoying by the second. He could understand their reasoning, and if his life wasn’t on the line, he might have helped them for a while. But now he couldn’t waste time on weaklings.

It was their fault for entering the system event without the strength to fight their own battles. Even if he wasn’t in immediate danger of dying, there was a fight to the death against a chosen one on the horizon.

He had seen Eric’s power and the other chosen were likely just as strong. Thalion needed to grow stronger quickly, or there would be no chance at all of reaching a divine class.

He also didn’t want them around while training; they’d learn at least part of his skills and abilities, and that was something Thalion needed to avoid.

Yet before he could send the group away, a system notification appeared on his status screen:

The night has arrived.

The stage will shrink more and more, only the safe zones will remain untouched.

Find those zones if you want to live through the night.

Ah, well. That was something. Could he really send them away right now, when he had to move out anyway?