Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 175: Undead!!!

The Venmorax was a tough nut to crack.

Thalion circled above it, blasting it with charged lightning beams. He pushed himself so far that the buildup of electricity even injured him but thanks to his insane recovery ability, his wounds healed almost instantly.

Still, even those ridiculously powerful lightning beams weren’t enough to slay the Venmorax. Worse, the beast even counterattacked with its acid breath.

Thalion was pretty sure the acid was what protected the dinosaur from his electricity. On Earth, it should have been the opposite. Water-based liquids should have conducted electricity. But here? The acid seemed to annihilate it.

He had already wasted several attacks trying to strike the acid breath, hoping to create an opening for the electricity to enter the dinosaur’s body and wreak havoc from the inside. Sadly, that hadn’t worked. Most of his attacks had been useless.

Currently, Thalion was experimenting with charging his wind blades to their absolute limit, hoping to create a wound big enough for his lightning beams to pierce through. The charged wind blades could cut the Venmorax—but not deeply enough. And even when they did leave a mark, acid instantly flooded over the wound, preventing it from becoming a real weak spot.

As things stood, the Venmorax was sentenced to death by a thousand cuts.

The wind blades were effective—far more than his lightning attacks, which were completely countered by the acid. At some point, the Venmorax started running. Thalion, who was a lot faster than his target, immediately caught up.

Now, he focused on aiming for the eyes, hoping to blind the beast. But the Venmorax kept thrashing its head around, making it nearly impossible to land a precise hit. After half an hour, the dinosaur was visibly exhausted.

It had stopped attacking altogether and was now stumbling toward one of the taller trees. It wouldn’t last much longer. But just as Thalion prepared to finish the hunt, a message interrupted him.

They had found the undead.

<--

"Lord Sirva, we have found a giant human base," one of the lesser vampires informed Sirva.

Sirva was one of the stronger vampires left on the fourth stage, overseeing the undead forces.

So far, they had attacked four human bases—though three had managed to escape before being completely destroyed. Every time something like that happened, they sent a vampire to the fifth stage to report to their leaders. Aside from that, they had been working relentlessly to raise more undead.

The best tool for this?

The curse of the Blood Witch, Cathrin. Her undead beasts hunted, and the vampires merely assisted. It didn’t take long for weakened creatures to turn—and once turned, they spread the plague even further.

The only real downside was the sheer size of the fourth stage. They couldn’t possibly oversee everything.

So far, they had only found one end of the stage—a black shield that no one could see through or break. When viewed from a distance, an illusion covered it, making it appear as nothing more than a thick, gray mist.

To track down newly arrived humans quickly, they had deployed multiple scouts and positioned them high in the sky. They had also marked some of the undead beasts with special items—items that would send a signal when the marked creature was killed.

However, those items were single-use and expensive in the system shop.

They didn’t have many and while useful, they also triggered a lot of false alarms.

It was annoying to find out that the killer was just another beast instead of a human. To avoid wasting resources, they only tagged the strongest beasts in their undead horde. Unfortunately, the fourth stage was crawling with powerhouses—so even their marked beasts were regularly slaughtered.

It was almost amusing. Humans had always seen them as undead abominations, yet in the end, undeath was just another bodily condition. They still had souls, just like any other being—only their bodies ran on a different kind of fuel.

The stronger undead—or even zombies—eventually had their hearts start beating again, pumping black blood through their veins. The undead gods had invested heavily in this tutorial, granting them knowledge about what to expect in a normal tutorial.

They could not fail the special quest. Of course, that responsibility ultimately lay in the hands of the true powerhouses on the fifth stage. Sirva wouldn’t dare think about fighting one of them.

They were... different and just so much stronger. He often wondered—was it purely because of the blessing? Or had they always been this powerful, with the blessing acting as little more than the finishing touch? It didn’t matter.

His job was clear—hunt down and kill the humans who had arrived on the fourth stage.

"Where is this new base? And how many undead do we need to break through its defenses, Rika?" Sirva asked his messenger.

So far, the humans hadn’t put up much of a resistance, and he didn’t want to waste too many undead on them. After all, every loss weakened their observation radius.

"I think we will need all of them," Rika replied seriously.

"This is by far the largest and strongest base we’ve encountered."

"All the undead?!" Sirva’s voice rose in outrage.

"How many humans are in this base?"

"We couldn’t get close enough—scouting vessels were patrolling all over the sky. We tried to catch one, but they were too fast and escaped before we could reach them."

"The base might house over ten thousand people."

Sirva stiffened.

"Ten thousand? How is that even possible?"

The largest base they had previously encountered had barely reached five thousand. And even that was extraordinary. How had this many humans gathered in one place?

Every known base was under the control of powerful blessed, with the leader of the largest base being by far the strongest.

Even so, they had forced them to teleport to a higher stage—vampires had too many advantages, and their preparations had been meticulous. So far, they had only lost thirty-four vampires in battle. A trivial cost compared to the sheer number of humans they had slaughtered.

But a base this massive could only mean one thing. This base would likely house one of the strongest enemies in the battle for the special quest. Especially if the elves continued their neutral stance.

It also meant one other thing. A lot of blood. If they managed to breach the base’s defenses with their innumerable wall-breakers. The humans would be done for.

"Yes, it is truly remarkable," Rika agreed after a long silence.

"And it will house the strongest fighters we’ve encountered so far."

Sirva exhaled slowly.

"I’ll send the command to the undead. It will take some time for them to assemble."

As he spoke, hunger crept into his voice by the thought of ten thousand humans and all that blood.

It would be enough to push his body tempering to an entirely new level and enough to secure a powerful evolution.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

<--

The wind brushed through his feathers as Thalion shot back toward his base. The scouts had already encountered the vampires—a lot sooner than he had expected. How long had they been here? An hour, maybe two, at most three? This was truly extraordinary. Either they were very unlucky, or they might be in trouble, as the undead seemed to be everywhere. But then, why hadn’t they found any undead beasts? No, that couldn't be it. The vampires had probably set up a wide net of scouts to search for humans.

He had been a bit too far from the base, so the message had arrived late. As he got closer, more and more messages came in. It seemed that the scouts who had first encountered the vampires had even managed to evade them, which meant they weren’t that powerful. If they were anywhere near the strength of the Eleventh Daughter, the scouts would never have escaped.

Another message informed him that Maike was now monitoring the undead army's movements. They had already spotted activity in the distance, which was excellent. She described how masses of undead were forming, but she couldn’t get too close because vampires were hiding in the jungle. That was exactly where Thalion was headed.

It looked like the undead would try to break open his base soon, relying on sheer numbers. Until then, he would see how many vampires he could slay.

He landed at the edge of the forest where the vampires had been spotted. None of the scouts dared to fly over it after the vampires had attacked them, so they were now trying to fly as high as possible to gather information from above.

Thalion shifted into his Umbral Predator form and shot into the jungle. The shadows grew longer and darker around him as the sunlight dimmed. He sped up, and it didn’t take long before he found his first undead. It wasn’t a vampire, but a beast—a zombified version of the original. At first, he thought it was one of the beasts with the red mist, as the Sanguine Thorn had always loved to devour their blood and the mist. Sadly it was not.

It looked like some kind of wolf, but Thalion tore it apart in an instant. As he devoured the beast with tendrils of darkness, he reconsidered his approach. Was it even wise to kill the vampires here in the jungle? They wanted the undead to attack the base—it was the perfect training opportunity, and a good way to test their defenses. If he slaughtered the vampires now, they might abandon their assault and switch to another strategy or just leave the fourth stage. No that couldn't be allowed.

Making up his mind, Thalion shifted back into his human form. Just because it was his strongest form didn’t mean he had to reveal his true power. Why not bait the vampires instead? He had the perfect tools for it: his blood and his sword.

The trick would be hiding the Sanguine Thorn, if that was even possible. The vampires shouldn't be able to sense the true power of his Essence Blood while he suppressed his aura.

What would be the perfect bait?

Thalion was already sensing something approaching with his title, but it wasn’t too dangerous. Maybe… acting like an arrogant, overconfident Blessed with powerful equipment?

Yes, that would be perfect. If he managed to bait the vampires they could really test the defenses and the sanguine thorn might get its meal.

Two vampires entered the clearing where Thalion was currently playing his role, boasting about his power after slaying yet another mighty beast.

"And the Enlightened Warrior strikes again! No foul beast can defeat me!" Thalion proclaimed, dramatically kicking away the corpse of the Gliderfang Lion he had gathered while fighting the dino earlier. Since he had already feasted on the wolf, he needed to use another beast for the act.

"Oh, a mighty warrior indeed," the stronger vampire laughed.

Thalion, of course, had already sensed them standing above him, but he reacted as if caught off guard. He jumped back, looking up with feigned surprise.

"Ha! You foul creatures shall be my next prey! Nothing will stand in my way to glory! I sentence you to death—you may speak your last words, abominations!" Thalion shouted, puffing out his chest and holding his chin as high as possible, mimicking how he imagined a nobleman would act.

"Are you the leader of the bloodbags that arrived on this stage?" the vampire chuckled, barely holding back laughter.

"Of course! I am the great Thalion, leader of the holy army that will erase you undead abominations from existence!" Thalion proclaimed, barely able to restrain the bloodlust of the Sanguine Thorn.

The sanguine thorn had sensed the vampires' blood and wanted to feast. Thalion had to put real effort into suppressing it while delivering his grand speech. Since the Thorn was partly awake, he tried to mentally explain that if it held back now, the feast later would be much greater. It somewhat understood, reluctantly restraining its hunger, allowing Thalion to continue.

"The time for words is over! My legendary sword, forged with my own blood, shall end your unholy lives! Feel honored, for not many have witnessed its power!"

That was enough to trigger the stronger vampire. It shot toward Thalion after motioning for the weaker one to stay back. Its eyes gleamed with greed at the sight of the Blooded Templar’s sword.

Thalion wasn’t using the sword’s powers yet, and he didn’t want to—not yet. Right now, it just had to look like a slightly stronger-than-average legendary weapon.

As the vampire got close, Thalion unleashed a mana wave to blast it backward, buying himself a bit more time. The vampire reacted quickly, jumping off the wave and landing smoothly.

In that brief moment, Thalion summoned some blood the Sanguine Thorn had collected. He wanted to test how it felt to fight another blood mage using blood.

The blood he summoned was powerful, but it was only a weak shadow of his Essence Blood.

"You’re trying to fight me with blood?" The vampire let out a loud, mocking laugh.

Thalion shaped the blood into a spear and flung it at the vampire with a mental command. The moment the spear neared, he felt the vampire's presence press against his control of the blood.

It was far weaker than he had expected. Even without the Sanguine Thorn’s assistance, he could have ripped through it.

He put up a brief struggle before deliberately letting the vampire take control of the blood—something that infuriated the Sanguine Thorn. Thalion quickly tried to calm it down, filling its mind with visions of it consuming multiple vampires.

"You foul creature! Give me back my blood immediately, or there will be consequences!" Thalion shouted in feigned anger as the Sanguine Thorn settled.

The vampire merely grinned—and swallowed the blood in one gulp.

"How dare you feast on my blood?! Now, I will show you my true power!" Thalion bellowed, summoning more blood.

This time, he infused it with a little more mana, watching as the vampire’s eyes flashed with even more hunger.

Oh yes.

He would bait this vampire like no one had ever been baited before.

Thalion laughed internally as he launched another blood spear at the vampire.