Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 168: One last battle before the fourth stage

The council meeting took quite a while. The most important part focused on their defense against the undead. The craftsmen had developed a liquid that burned like hellfire when ignited, which could be used to keep the undead away from the walls.

For now, the walls were equipped with both magical circles and defensive mechanisms. They also had a fleet of skyships hovering above the city, capable of raining devastating attacks on any invaders.

The more intriguing part was predicting which tactics the undead would use to breach the city's defenses. The undead had many options. The most likely involved wall-breakers capable of tearing through the shield, allowing the undead to breach a section of the wall.

Other possibilities included bombardments or similar attacks. If they managed to kill Thalion, the city's protective shield would disappear until a new city lord activated it. This was why most of the council insisted that Thalion should not leave the base.

Thalion, however, didn’t care much for their opinions. He craved the blood of those vampires, and with his title and the power from the Outsider, he was arguably one of the safest people in the entire base.

Everything was eventually settled, and Thalion looked forward to spending a day farming by the ocean. He had agreed to purchase two additional walls designed specifically to block wall-breakers. Now the undead would need three wall-breakers to breach the city's defenses, which, from Thalion's perspective, would be extremely difficult given the abundance of magic circles and defenders.

If the undead brought an army of thousands, they might stand a chance, but Thalion wasn't overly concerned. The city clearly had the advantage, and any undead that approached would be blasted from multiple angles.

He assured the council that he would buy additional defenses, more walls, and, of course, some darkness crystals for his dear elemental.

The rest of the meeting primarily involved organizing the fighters and determining where to position the strongest combatants. The council members were not happy when Thalion jokingly declared he would chase the vampires down until none remained.

An hour later, Thalion left the meeting and headed straight for the portal leading to the skyship above the ocean. He had already wasted precious daylight and needed to make the most of it. There were plenty of fish waiting for him, and he didn't want to waste a single minute.

However, before he could dive into the ocean, the system shop activated. Thalion appeared before the voice moments later.

He went completely overboard, purchasing six new walls to place in front of the main wall. Now the undead would have significant trouble entering, he thought with a grin.

Next, he bought two massive darkness crystals, which were outrageously expensive at nearly two million credits, but he would do anything for his little elemental.

Then came four beers, a massage chair, and cool-looking sunglasses for two thousand credits. Ah, yes—he was ready to relax until the voice kicked him out.

At some point, Thalion even invited the voice for a beer, though since it was just a statue that couldn't move, it was probably a bit unfair.

Oh, how he loved moments like this—nothing was better than a cold beer and silence. He decided to buy a bowl of peanuts for two hundred credits as well. Life was great, and he would dearly miss the system shop after the tutorial. Once the tutorial was over, he wouldn't have the chance to escape reality and do as he pleased for a few hours inside the system shop.

Time in the system shop passed way too quickly in his opinion, and he reappeared back on the skyship, immediately diving into the ocean to start farming.

The next day passed quickly as he focused entirely on leveling and cultivation. His darkness elemental was also growing stronger by the day as Thalion continued to free captured air elementals.

After finishing with the other elementals, the darkness elemental began feeding on the darkness crystal, which greatly elevated its power. Thalion suspected that the elemental's rarity had spiked drastically based on the sheer power it emitted.

The only unsettling development was the loss of a few hunting parties, likely due to the termites. However, as long as the termites didn't attack directly, Thalion saw no reason to engage them just yet.

He planned a small expedition the day before teleportation to the next stage. There was no reason to risk anything now that they had made so much progress. He would simply check for some useful skills and then be on his way.

Two days before the teleportation, Thalion halted his hunting trips. He had gained four levels, bringing him to level seventy-three.

Once again, he distributed his free points as before: half to agility and half to wisdom for his human form, and pure agility for his umbral predator form.

His strength had spiked significantly due to the level-ups. This progress wouldn't have been possible without the abundance of E-grade beasts in the ocean and the absolutely ridiculous power of the Tidecaller Serpent.

His progress with his spirit body was also absolutely insane.

The title greatly aided Thalion in controlling the energies, making him quicker than ever before. His soul was easily five times stronger than it had been when he first started creating spirit veins.

Today was the day he would feed the Sanguine Thorn all the blood in his pond. Thalion gazed down at the red surface of the blood, which had its own potent aura—not weak in the slightest. In fact, Thalion had never seen blood this powerful before, except for his own essence blood.

The thorn's desire to consume all the blood burned like a hot flame in his mind, and this time, Thalion let it proceed. Multiple vines shot out and sank into the blood pond. Thalion could feel hundreds of liters being carried to the Sanguine Thorn, which began to burn like a miniature sun beneath his heart.

It didn't take long before the Sanguine Thorn had to stop as it grew. Growth, in this case, didn’t mean it became larger but more condensed and far more powerful.

At this point, Thalion could barely tell that any blood was missing, even though the pond was no longer full. The Sanguine Thorn radiated immense power—not just from the core beneath his heart but from every vine that had grown throughout his body.

The pain became so intense that even Thalion sank to his knees. But this wasn’t the only upgrade to the Sanguine Thorn. In fact, it underwent eleven stages of improvement before the blood pond was empty.

The enhancement far exceeded Thalion’s expectations. Another unexpected event occurred. A soft maybe feminine voice whispered in his mind: "More."

Then there was silence.

"Hello?" Thalion thought back, but it seemed that was all for now. The bloodlust and desire the Sanguine Thron had unleashed with that one word was on an enterly new level and even shocked Thalion.

The power-ups of the Sanguine Thorn were far from normal. The power coursing through the vines had reached a completely different stage. The skills bound to the Sanguine Thorn had dramatically increased in rarity. Blood Thorn had risen to legendary, while the Vine of the Sanguine Thorn had reached the mythical tier.

This wasn't surprising, considering the sheer power now flowing through his veins and body. The Sanguine Thorn provided more than just skills—it allowed Thalion to stay awake throughout the night and significantly enhanced his healing and speed. All these effects had increased substantially.

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Perhaps he would even get a reaction from the Sanguine Thorn when they faced their first vampire. Previously, he had doubts about how strong he would be against a vampire. Now, there was no doubt. He would tear them apart without mercy and let the Sanguine Thorn feast on their blood.

A significant amount of time had passed while Thalion upgraded the Sanguine Thorn. He had to pause at one point to manage the pain, and the Sanguine Thorn also needed time to absorb the blood for the upgrades.

There wasn’t much time left until their ascension, and Thalion had to prepare for an attack on the termites. He had considered bringing Kaldrek along, but after encountering the murder pixies, he wasn’t sure that it was still a good idea.

It was probably best to visit the termites alone and search for some valuable skills. He still had the form of the giant termite, which would aid in infiltration.

This would be his final act in this stage of the tutorial. However, before that, he had more cultivation to complete.

He consumed some vitality plants to boost his permanent health and stood on the gravity array as an Umbral Predator to push his strength to insane levels.

After five hours on the gravity array, his strength had risen by thirty points, a staggering increase.

Of course, it was incredibly painful, as his bones were repeatedly crushed, but at least it was effective.

Thalion had a strong feeling that he would need this power soon when he invaded the termite hive.

The termites had grown incredibly fast, which was great for acquiring new skills but concerning because they might swarm new earth in the future.

Thalion doubted he had a chance to kill the queen. The murder pixies’ auras were something else entirely, and the other dark termites were nearly as fast and strong as the Umbral Predator.

He had hoped to merge with the darkness elemental before invading the termite hive, but it didn’t seem possible.

The darkness elemental was still speed-running through its levels, consuming air elementals and the two diamond-shaped crystals. So far, it had consumed about a quarter of the first crystal, and the results were already noticeable.

The speed at which the elemental consumed the crystal seemed to increase with every level gained, and Thalion planned to buy it another crystal during the next system shop visit.

The last time he invaded the termites, he used it as training and experimentation. This time, there was no room for a casual approach. He had to eliminate the termites as quickly as possible.

Failure was not an option. The termites had undoubtedly developed some powerful specimens.

Thalion planned to use the form of the giant termite to get close and enter the initial tunnels, but he wouldn’t even attempt to invade the queen’s chambers.

The last time, he had stood no chance against her guards, and he feared that the power gap had only widened since then.

He also didn’t know if the murder pixies and the Umbrachon were the only new creations the queen had unleashed.

Finding out that there were even stronger versions when entering the queen's chamber could mean death. Attempting to escape from the entire hive starting at the queen’s chamber was something even Thalion probably couldn't pull off. At the very least, he had no desire to find out for himself.

Over the past week, he had considered spending time training Kaldrek and taking him on the hunting trip to the termite hive, but as things stood now, it would only put Kaldrek's life at risk. Thalion wasn’t even sure if he could still kill the termites as easily as last time, and during an escape, he couldn’t afford distractions.

Kaldrek was undoubtedly a strong fighter, but unlike Thalion, he didn't have access to nearly endless resources and would likely tire quickly. No, this was something Thalion had to handle alone.

He stepped off the gravity array after gaining another twenty-five points of strength. The sun was about to rise. This was the day they would leave for the fourth stage, where the war against the vampires would begin.

The plan was to stay on the fourth stage for a week to test their defenses against the undead and then move on to the final stage, where the true war would commence.

After a week, the special quest would begin, placing even more pressure on their shoulders since nobody knew when the tutorial would conclude. The special quest was bound to bring countless new problems.

First, they had to locate the catacombs, which might be very difficult depending on their position on the fifth stage. Thalion hoped Amalia would be able to extract the information from a vampire, assuming they managed to capture one.

He wondered what kinds of classes vampires had. There had to be a wide variety since blood offered so many possibilities. Thalion was intrigued to discover which class was the strongest—a warrior, blood mage, or perhaps some other class he couldn’t even imagine.

The only class he doubted would be strong was a healer. Probably every blood-related class could heal themselves using their own blood. Even Thalion had been able to do that before visiting the Golden Palace. Now, it had become second nature.

Healing, controlling blood, and manipulating it outside his own body were all abilities he had mastered, though they didn’t appear on his status screen, which was a bit strange. But hey, what did he know?

Thinking about blood, it had been quite some time since he last refined his essence blood. Maybe he would do that after the fight with the termites, right before they teleported to the next stage.

His blood, in general, was extremely powerful due to his tempering and the influence of the Sanguine Thorn, which also empowered it.

It was a bit disappointing that he couldn't complete all his body tempering simultaneously, but he hoped he would have more time for it in the future. Perhaps he could use one of the other realities for soul cultivation, but such a ritual was far from simple.

He wouldn’t be able to perform such a time-stop ritual anytime soon, as it could have many negative side effects. According to the information pushed into his head, he wouldn’t be able to attempt it again for about fifty years.

That sounded like a long time, but at E-grade, his lifespan would surpass a thousand years, which meant many time-stops ahead.

This was also part of his plan: to fully focus on his multiple bodies while training his soul during visits to other realities. The longer the visit, the longer the cooldown period before he could use the ritual again.

So far, he hadn't sifted through all the information and didn’t yet know which plane of existence he would travel to next. That was a problem for future Thalion.

He was confident he would find a way when the time was right. Until then, there was plenty to do.

There were vampires to slay, pillars to destroy, and the target from the special quest to kill.

But before all that, he had one last task: to pay his favorite termite hive a visit.

As he exited his base and flew toward the hive, he gave Kaldrek and the council a few orders:

They were to prepare everything for teleportation and get ready for war in case the termites followed him all the way back to the base.

The next few hours would reveal just how strong the termites had become.