Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 171: Eleventh Daughter (2)

Thalion hovered before the eleventh daughter in the sky. She was almost fully healed and radiated intense power.

"You are just a human. You can't win," the eleventh daughter said, her voice icy.

"Why would I run now? You're no match for me alone," Thalion announced boldly.

He wasn’t entirely sure he had enough time since many termites were already on their way. But If they were alone, he would kill her. Thalion was confident in his abilities, and he was stronger unless she had been holding back down in the cave. That possibility troubled him. Still, since he had the time, why not annoy her a bit? What was the worst that could happen? Maybe it would even lead to him getting more information about the disgustingly strong termite hive.

Unfortunately, she didn’t respond and simply attacked.

It seemed she had truly been holding back in the hive as her body erupted with new power. How was that possible? Thalion was a bit behind in levels, sure, but that shouldn't make such a difference. Was her recovery speed so high, or how was she still able to fight like this?

If her recovery speed was lower than his, that meant her resource pool must be over five times as large. That shouldn't be possible. He already had a Mythic-class and probably the best equipment in this tutorial. How could that thing be so much stronger than him?

Thalion used Telekinetic Dash and blood manipulation to keep his distance while attacking with jet streams of fire or red slashes. When she used those needle attacks, he countered with mana waves or a mana barrier. Most of the time, he simply evaded her, retreating in the direction of his base.

He primarily wanted to recover some mana in case more insects showed up and he had to flee again. If he went all out now and she got reinforcements, he might be trapped. Better to play it safe.

He was hit again by one of her mental attacks, which he couldn’t simply shrug off. The blow sent him staggering for a moment.

Luckily, those mental attacks didn’t seem cheap for her to use, and she wasn’t able to follow up with an attack immediately.

His skill with the sword and blood manipulation was just too good, allowing him to evade the much stronger termite. She even began using new spells, like the dark green mist or an energy beam which of course was dark green too.

All in all, it seemed the termite wasn’t slowing down at all. Still, she got reckless from time to time. Thalion exploited those openings, delivering deep cuts with his sword while stealing vitality, stamina, and mana from her.

He tried to build momentum with fierce attacks and spins, but she was just too strong and powerful.

This was beyond frustrating; it didn’t even look like she would run out of mana anytime soon. Thalion didn’t know what to do.

He had tried almost everything except the Blood Thorn. He had thought that he would be one of the strongest in the tutorial after everything he had accomplished, but it seemed his assessment had been wrong.

Now he just hoped that the vampires weren’t that strong or that Kael and the others hadn’t progressed that much.

There was simply no way he could defeat the eleventh daughter anytime soon. Even if he came close, she could always turn to mist and fly back to the hive.

The fight in the air had been good training, but at this point, there was nothing more he could do except wear her down. She was too fast, too strong, and had multiple methods of evading death.

The training aspect was over—staying would only risk his life.

What if the other daughters showed up?

Best to call it a day and prepare for the coming war with the undead on the fourth stage.

Thalion launched a quick combination of attacks while simultaneously using the vines of the Sanguine Thorn, but the disgustingly powerful bug evaded them with a few beats of her wings.

This gave him the opening he needed and Thalion turned into mist and shot back toward his base.

This time, the eleventh daughter didn’t follow.

After about a kilometer, he switched back to Eagly and peacefully glided the rest of the way toward his base.

He was truly confused by what he had just witnessed.

He had expected things to be difficult and hadn’t planned to kill as many termites, but that powerlevel was just ridiculous.

Thalion had worked very hard throughout the entire tutorial and had his fair share of lucky encounters.Yet he still hadn’t been able to kill a month-old insect?

What if the queen wasn’t one of those big egg-laying machines but was like her daughters?

They might even have a real problem if the hive came for his base.

His defenses were good, but eleven of those daughters, if that was all and an even more powerful queen?

He had no idea if they stood a chance.

Thalion sped up a bit.

It was probably best to prepare for everything.

He also needed to find a way to unlock more power, like that boosting skill.

In general, it involved circulating one's power faster, but figuring out how to do that without a skill would take time—time he really didn’t have at the moment.

Thalion still needed to place the walls and defenses he had purchased to prepare for the vampire threat. Everything had to be perfect by the time they arrived on the fourth stage.

He planned to provide more skyships to those who remained longer on this stage, as they would need to cover a lot of ground after the base was gone. The termites would undoubtedly dominate this stage, and any newcomers would stand no chance against them.

Should he inform the people in the base now?

Probably not. They needed to focus on preparing for the fourth stage and couldn’t afford to be distracted. He decided instead to ask Kaldrek to instruct the guards to stay vigilant since an attack might be imminent.

Thinking back, Thalion wondered how it was possible that the termites had found out about the outsiders first.

Okay, maybe it was just some crazy coincidence that they targeted the exact same outsider as the madman but he didn’t buy that theory at all. Some of the termites had been using spatial rings, which made him suspect they had forced some humans to buy scrolls and gather information for them.

That seemed the most likely explanation.

Unless... perhaps the termites had been blessed by a god who had guided them?

That was another realistic scenario and would partially explain their immense power.

Still, it was all just too much in Thalion's opinion.

If Kael and the others had progressed as far as those termites, he would be in big trouble.

For now, there was plenty to do.

The system shop would arrive soon, and he needed to place the walls he had purchased earlier. That task should be quick.

Initially, he had planned to invest in more defenses, but that would have to wait. He needed to be strong enough to defeat the other elite fighters to have a chance in the upcoming trial—or even just to survive when the others came hunting for him.

Instead of more defenses, he would invest in darkness crystals. However, this time he wouldn’t feed them to the elemental. He intended to attempt a fusion with the Umbral Predator, similar to what he had done with Eagly.

His concern was that the elemental in his body might feed on the crystal later.

His current plan was to add the elemental first, then introduce the crystal, hoping it would merge with the elemental’s core—or at least connect to it—so that the elemental wouldn’t dissolve it for cultivation.

This process would likely take time, as the elemental needed to grow stronger before such an attempt would be feasible.

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If everything went perfectly, the elemental would even passively enhance his body-tempering process, feeding on plants and improving his darkness affinity would be highly beneficial.

Thalion quickly placed the construction crystals and watched as the outer walls surrounding his base grew.

His inner wall stood around thirty meters tall, while the outer walls were around twenty meters. All in all, his base was a formidable bastion. One that should be difficult even for the termites to overcome.

Still, with so many strong elite fighters among the termites, they might actually have a high chance of breaching it.

The blood toll on them would be significant, though.

Thalion descended to his tower to continue his body-tempering. With such powerful foes, he couldn’t waste any time.

He immediately started consuming plants as the Umbral Predator and swallowed not just tiny pearls but one of the larger, shrunken-down crystals as Tidecaller Serpent.

The energy was instantly absorbed into his body, flowing through him and empowering every cell.

This was good.

He should have tried it earlier but had been hesitant to take the risk. Now, he had no choice.

The last time, the ocean had saved him from Kael and the others. If they were as strong as the eleventh daughter, he would be in serious trouble on the higher stages.

Thalion did as much body-tempering as possible on the gravity array while simultaneously working on his soul.

The system shop arrived not long after.

He immediately triggered the prompt and appeared before the voice of the system.

After a brief greeting, he purchased an additional chamber for his underground cultivation area, where he planned to test spells and blow things up.

The rest of his points went toward four powerful darkness crystals.

He still had some time before attempting the fusion. One of the alchemists had a formation that made it easier to change the affinity of objects, which Thalion planned to use to turn some of the large wind crystals into darkness crystals.

This formation wouldn't work if the target object’s power clearly exceeded that of the affinity sourc but the four darkness crystals should be strong enough to transform the larger wind crystals.

Maybe even the two giant crystals he had permanently borrowed from the Sky Turtle and the Hawk.

That was something he should get done after returning from the system shop.

But first, it was time for a brief moment of relaxation before everything went south.

Thalion shared what had happened in the termite hive with the voice of the system.

Okay, the voice probably already knew, but he had no one else to talk to here.

But the voice confirmed what he had already learned from the vine horses: the termites would also land at a random point on New Earth after the tutorial ended.

That was unsettling but clarifying.

On New Earth, he planned to stay as a protector for the base, allowing them to farm his blood and plants while he sought grand treasures. At least, that was the plan for now.

The cold beer was amazing—sometimes there really was nothing better in life than a cold beer. He needed it after the fight with the termites.

It wasn’t like he was wasting time. Okay, he could have worked on his soul or body here too, but sometimes you just needed to relax.

He asked the voice what else it did besides managing things in the tutorial, but it didn’t answer...

The next few hours passed quickly, and soon he reappeared in his basement, where he almost got crushed in his human form.

Well, the gravity array was still set on level eight, and he had switched back to his human form when he sat down to drink the beer.

He quickly turned off the formation.

It took roughly twenty seconds for all his bones to heal.

Back on his no-longer-broken feet, he placed the building crystal for the extra chamber and made his way to the alchemist. He had already released the last batch of air elementals so the darkness elemental would have something to feed on.

First, he visited Lucan and collected the last of the giant crystals he had shrunken down. He watched as the formation reduced a car-sized darkness crystal to the size of a fist.

They chatted for a bit about Lucan's current work and the progress of the other craftsmen.

It was nice to have a little talk with him.

Next on the list was a meeting with the alchemist.

Lucan had explained how the formation worked and told Thalion to just take the formation directly from them.

Giving a alchemist the crystals was too risky. They could easily steal his stuff, and in Lucan’s opinion, the four darkness crystals were definitely worth trying.

The alchemist, named Robert, was pretty pissed when Thalion demanded one of his best formations.

However, Robert reluctantly handed it over after Thalion promised to take his head instead if he wanted to keep the formation so badly.

Thalion couldn't deal with people like that anymore. He was about to face the strongest undead in the entire tutorial, and this guy was whining about giving up a formation he could easily rebuild.

Normally, Thalion would have rewarded him with some wind crystals, but Robert had been too annoying.

The whole city was on high alert.

The last hunters had returned, and in three hours, they would teleport to the next stage.

Back in his basement, Thalion used the city's control crystal to initiate the teleportation process.

A countdown began.

In half an hour, he could teleport everyone who had joined to the next stage. He had a six-hour window to trigger the teleportation manually. Otherwise, it would happen automatically when the time ran out.

Thalion set up the formation in the new chamber, even though it was meant for explosive experiments. He didn’t have any other free space at the moment and didn’t want to use one of the rooms in the tower above him.

The formation looked relatively simple: two large circles connected by various runes.

Thalion placed the giant wind crystal, which he had also shrunk down during his visit with Lucan, along with the four darkness crystals.

It would probably take longer than a day for the process to complete, but he was satisfied that it worked at all, considering the immense power of the wind crystal.

With the crystals in place, Thalion made his way to the council meeting.

It was definitely going to be one of the longer ones.

There wouldn’t be much time for discussions once they reached the higher stages.

Thalion walked through the streets, taking his time to admire his base—or rather, his city, as so many people were living there now.

Tension hung heavy in the air.

Almost no one was walking as relaxed as he was; most were sprinting from shop to shop, preparing for the coming war.

It was understandable.

Many of the blessed had warned that the vampires would be extremely difficult to deal with, as they had numerous unique advantages compared to humans.

Most people were scrambling to earn the last credits they needed to remain in the base if Thalion decided to teleport immediately to the next stage.

He understood their concerns and hoped the situation wouldn’t be too dire.

If they could stay for a week, everyone would have enough credits to teleport with them to the fifth stage.

As he entered the council chamber, he saw faces filled with worry and tension.

Their next decisions would be crucial for survival, and no one wanted to make a mistake