Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 228: Sand Elementals

The plans were finalized, and the elves had been informed that the march would begin at dawn. Naturally, they weren’t told the entire truth—specifically, that Thalion’s faction intended to wait out the others’ assaults before making their move. But he doubted the elves had shared their full intentions either. Officially, all forces were to strike just before nightfall, and the elves would signal the attack. They carried a token—an enchanted shard that would cease glowing once crushed. That was to be the cue: one group engaging the undead.

Thalion doubted it would unfold so cleanly. At the very least, he planned to use Jim’s light array to test the Black Fortress’s magical defenses from a safe distance. For now, however, everyone was preparing for the coming battle. Thalion had returned to his chambers, eager to test his new abilities and see how his bloodline would interact with his various forms.

He started with the Crippled Eclipsari and Eagly. In his eagle form the bloodline had little effect—until he activated his domain skill. Then, the air ignited. Azure flames, crackling with threads of lightning, flared to life, dancing along his feathers and trailing behind his wings. While not a divine-class enhancement, it was a significant boost in both visual presence and power. In the Eclipsari form, the transformation was more dramatic. The flames turned black and emitted no heat—only a cold, devouring hunger. And through his divine passive skill, he discovered he could ignite the entire domain in shadowflames, enhancing damage for all within it.

Excited by the results, Thalion shifted to his final form: the Tidecaller Serpent. Upon transforming, he immediately devoured two additional water crystals to amplify the serpent’s power over time. He let his aura surge and waited. Then he saw it—a flickering blue flame, calmly swirling in the center of his aquatic chamber, drifting contentedly with the water’s currents. Thalion let out a laugh. Well, that answers that. Testing complete.

But the bloodline wasn’t his only new toy. He activated Emberform—and his body erupted into pure azure fire. The sensation was exhilarating. Mana coursed through him at a tremendous rate, and in an instant, he reappeared ten meters from his original location. The speed was phenomenal—especially for a form like the Tidecaller, which lacked a movement skill. That alone made the skill invaluable. He decided against forming weapons in his chamber; too much risk of damaging the environment. No, for that, he had other plans—plans involving sand elementals.

Night had fallen by the time Thalion emerged from the tower. The city glowed with hundreds of lights. People bustled in the streets, preparing supplies, discussing strategies, and forming teams for tomorrow’s assault. Many were newcomers, recently arrived in the fifth stage. Thalion took a deep breath of the cold night air and felt it fill his lungs. Then, without a word, he transformed into Eagly and soared into the sky.

Beneath him, his city shrank into a scattering of firefly lights. With one final glance back, he banked toward the desert and the Black Fortress. Within five wingbeats, he had reached cruising speed, gliding swiftly over tundra and forest. An hour later, the black fortress came into view. A grim shape etched into the horizon. He climbed higher to avoid detection. From that height, his sharp perception allowed him to see guards patrolling the towering walls and thousands of undead shambling in the blackened fields.

Then he saw it—his first sand elemental.

Even from high above, the creature was massive. Towering over ten meters tall, it loomed near the fortress, a behemoth of compacted sand and stone. Still too close to the stronghold for comfort. Thalion continued, flying another seven kilometers before descending in slow circles, scanning the terrain to ensure he hadn’t missed anything. This far out, he was safe from reinforcements. He doubted the elementals were linked to any alert system, nor did he expect them to be particularly intelligent.

He landed silently on the cold sand, shifting into the Crippled Eclipsari. The missing arm remained a nuisance, but he'd learned to compensate. The surrounding darkness bent around him, obedient to his will, even without releasing his aura. Then he vanished into the shadows.

His first target was trudging across a dune ridge, its footsteps shaking loose sand down the slopes. Thalion waited, crouched, until the creature dipped into the valley below—just in case a stray undead happened to be flying nearby. The sand elemental was level 90 and looked more like a living boulder than a man. Its body was built like a colossus, compact and muscular, with every part seemingly hewn from hardened desert rock.

Thalion’s lips curled into a grin. Let the hunt begin.

It wasn’t one of the stronger elementals roaming the desert—Thalion had already spotted several larger and more intimidating forms prowling in the distance. Among elementals, size often directly equated to strength; the larger they grew, the more raw power they wielded. Still, this one made for an ideal warm-up. With that thought, Thalion began drawing the shadows to him, cloaking his presence in an oppressive veil of darkness.

Oblivious to the hunter approaching, the elemental lumbered on. Thalion struck without hesitation, channeling energy into an empowered Shadowclaw. The blast ripped open the creature’s chest, sending chunks of compressed sand flying—but it didn’t collapse. Instead, it bellowed in rage, the sound vibrating through the dunes. As the earth trembled beneath his feet, a jet of sand surged from the desert floor and filled the gaping wound, reconstructing the damage almost instantly.

So much for a quick kill.

He had hoped its core would be in the same position as the last one he’d encountered in the arena—buried just beneath the sternum. That memory dated back to before he’d reached the Golden Palace. Clearly, this one was built differently. Now aware of Thalion’s presence, the elemental retaliated.

With a sweep of its arm, spears of sand erupted from the ground, forcing Thalion to leap backward. A swirling sandstorm formed around the elemental, obscuring its shape. Using the chaos to his advantage, Thalion activated his bloodline skill. His form dissolved into dark flames and surged forward, a black mist twisting toward the elemental like a hunting wraith. He reformed mid-air, conjuring a blade of darkness in his hand.

The sword cut through the storm with ease, slicing the winds apart as if they were mist. Then it came down in a single, decisive arc—cleaving through the elemental from crown to base. Upon contact, the blade detonated, tearing the creature into pieces. A thunderous shockwave followed, blasting sand across the landscape in every direction. The elemental had no time to react—its form disintegrated into a thousand fragments, and the dunes trembled with the aftermath.

Thalion dismissed Emberform and returned to the shape of the Crippled Eclipsari. His heart was still pounding. That strike created with the bloodline skill was devastating. It might have been his most powerful attack yet. The fact that it had obliterated the core meant he couldn’t harvest it, which was unfortunate, but unavoidable. He hadn’t expected the explosion to be that absolute.

He also made a mental note: this skill, potent as it was, came at a cost. It wasn’t something he should use lightly. The mana drain was immense, and the risk of alerting distant enemies—though low—was not worth tempting. His first strike had also been hasty. If he’d simply used the Abyssal Devourer’s tendrils from the start, he could’ve harvested the core intact. Lesson learned. There would be other targets.

Still, the encounter had proven invaluable. Now he knew the full extent of his bloodline’s offensive capability—and the price it demanded. The longer he maintained the form, the faster his mana would bleed away. Fortunately, he’d already replenished most of it. With that, he vaulted over the dunes, scanning for his next quarry.

The next elemental was smaller—only five meters tall. A perfect subject for experimentation.

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Thalion tossed a nearby stone to draw its attention. The creature whirled with surprising speed, its sandy form rippling with agitation. It charged rather than cast, fists swinging like wrecking balls. A faint whirlwind spun around it, but it refrained from launching spikes or ranged attacks. It relied solely on brute force.

Thalion was unimpressed.

With Eclipsari’s Intuition active, the elemental’s movements were sluggish in his perception. He weaved between the punches effortlessly, each dodge bringing him closer to understanding the creature’s structure. Then he felt it—just above the left leg—a dense knot of power. The core.

Disappointing. No ranged capabilities, no defensive skills—just raw, clumsy aggression. This fight was over.

Ducking beneath a sweeping strike, Thalion slashed through the elemental’s midsection with Shadowclaw, then reached into the exposed cavity to retrieve the sandstone core, etched with faint runes. From his body, black tendrils lashed out, dissolving the core before it could draw nearby sand to reform itself. The moment the stone cracked, the elemental’s body disintegrated, the sand cascading to the earth like snowflakes on a frigid night.

Within him, the darkness elemental purred with satisfaction, its essence enriched by the absorbed power. A subtle pulse of energy spread through Thalion’s limbs. "Tasty one, wasn’t it?" he mused with a wry grin. Then he was off again.

The next creature he encountered was a true behemoth—Level 98 and standing over sixteen meters tall. Even idle, it stirred the sand around it in a slow orbit. A passive domain, perhaps? The thought sparked a question: Could he steal the elemental skills? According to his class he could take the form of blood elementals but would he be able to take the form of a sandelemental too? If so, this one could yield a powerful addition to his arsenal.

He moved cautiously, watching the titan from a distance. With his aura completely suppressed, not a single spark betrayed him. Still, he remained low, hoping to glimpse the location of the creature’s core and end the battle before it could begin.

But this elemental was different.

Without warning, its torso twisted around to face him—though its legs remained firmly pointed in the opposite direction. It didn’t turn like a man, but like a thing not bound by the rules of bone and muscle.

Somehow, despite every precaution, it had sensed him.

And it was ready to fight.

Before the elemental could retaliate or begin channeling a spell, Thalion struck. Darkness exploded outward from his body like a violent tide, thickening the air with raw energy. The first shadow lashed out from behind the elemental, its form condensed into a tendril shaped like a blade. It carved cleanly through the giant’s torso—but the creature didn’t even flinch. As the blade emerged from its other side, the wound filled instantly with compacted sand, sealing over as though it had never been there.

Something shifted. The elemental adjusted its stance, its knees rotating until they aligned correctly beneath it, suggesting it had finally noticed that something was wrong. Then, it attacked.

It raised its left arm for a wide hook, but as the swing came down, the hand elongated, morphing into a curved blade aimed directly at Thalion’s head. Thalion blurred, vanishing from the strike zone in a flicker of motion, reappearing to the side. As he moved, he cast Umbral Miasma, thickening the air around him with smoldering darkness. Seizing control of the shadows, he shaped a spike and hurled it at the elemental.

The creature missed its mark completely, staggering forward—and for a brief moment, it seemed as though it might collapse. But instead, its form partially unraveled, disassembling before rapidly rebuilding itself in a standing posture.

That’s going to be a problem, Thalion thought grimly.

There was simply too much mass to strike effectively, and aside from his bloodline skill, he lacked anything truly devastating enough to take the beast down quickly. The elemental wasn’t finished. More sand gathered from the surroundings, swelling its frame until it loomed even larger, the dunes bending toward it like supplicants. From its grainy skin, sand spears launched outward—eerily reminiscent of Thalion’s own darkness spikes.

This fight was going to be a test of endurance.

The Umbral Miasma around him burned with increasing intensity as Thalion poured energy into it. He had a passing thought—Wasn’t that how they beat the Sandman in those old Spider-Man stories? Turn the sand into glass with heat? But disappointment followed quickly. His black flames didn’t produce heat. Instead they simply corrupted the sand into darkness. It mirrored the effect of the miasma, but had no unique advantage against a sand elemental. And worse, the creature could always draw more sand from the desert to rebuild itself. Even if his flames had worked, the desert was too vast to scorch.

That left only one solution: overwhelm the creature. Attack it faster than it could regenerate.

Pushing his body to its limit, Thalion surged forward. He noticed something strange—the black flames he’d conjured around himself seemed to empower his Eclipsari form, just as the crimson flames had enhanced his human body. He became a blur of motion, his form weaving between devastating attacks—boulders falling like meteors, punches powerful enough to shatter stone, spears of sand, and gales strong enough to flay flesh from bone.

He dashed behind the elemental’s legs, slashing with Shadowclaw to destabilize it, and launched a barrage of spikes—each over seven meters long—toward its head and shoulders. The sandstorm surrounding the beast raged with blinding fury, but within Thalion’s aura, it broke apart into curling black mist. He reshaped it into shadow tendrils, using them to strike at the elemental from all angles.

His blade-arm cut cleanly through the legs, severing them without resistance. The spikes pierced the elemental’s body, though some became embedded, the sand around them turning pitch black. Thalion couldn’t yet gauge the full effect, but it clearly agitated the creature.

As the battle dragged on, Thalion narrowed down the possible locations of the elemental’s core. After ten grueling minutes of combat, he’d ruled out the legs, arms, left shoulder, and large portions of the torso. But the creature was simply massive—it was like trying to kill a fortress. One part remained untouched: the head.

Everything else about the elemental had twisted and transformed—but the head had remained rigid. That was tellin

He scowled. Of course it would be in the head.

He could use his bloodline skill to teleport straight to its head, but Thalion didn’t want to rely too heavily on that power. The black flames were doing their part, forcing the elemental to expend enormous amounts of sand just to maintain form. It was time to test his theory.

Two enormous shadow tendrils erupted from the darkness behind him, writhing upward like serpents. They wrapped around the elemental’s legs first, then its torso, slithering toward the head. At first, the creature seemed indifferent—but then, sensing danger, it raised a hand to swat them away.

Too late.

The tendrils reached its neck and hardened into twin blades, shearing through it in a single fluid motion. The moment the head detached, the elemental’s movements dulled, as though it had suddenly grown drunk or dazed. Its massive body teetered in place.

Thalion was already airborne.

He landed on its crumbling arm and launched himself again, this time directly in front of the falling head. Tendrils erupted from his chest, shredding the head into fragments. Within the swirling debris, he seized the core.

It was colossal—where the previous elemental’s core had been the size of a clenched fist, this one radiated power, nearly thirty centimeters in diameter. As his tendrils began devouring it, a glint of something else caught his eye. Just behind the core, a small broken token tumbled from the remains and hit the sand with a muted thud.