Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 231: Nathaniel (2)

Nathaniel instinctively recoiled as the creature’s aura flared—monstrous, suffocating, absolute. Even the moonlight above seemed to dim under its weight. But he would not back down. Around him, five colossal elementals loomed, their forms sculpted from ancient sands, each radiating power. Smaller elementals followed in their wake, drawn by his call. His own aura surged in response, the dark orange runes on his bandaged arm flaring to life as he invoked his curse magic. One touch would be enough. Even that abomination couldn’t endure it unchecked.

“Attack,” he commanded, his voice low and dangerous. Yet it carried, carried by power and purpose.

The elementals responded at once, their thunderous charge shaking the ground. Auras clashed in the clearing like colliding storms. But then, from the heart of the battlefield, where darkness pooled like ink, a pulse erupted. The monster’s power spiked again, casting everything else aside like ash in a gale. Black fire ignited the air, and darkness poured outward, swallowing light. Nathaniel’s vision wavered. The creature rose above the battlefield, lifted by a pillar of writhing shadows. Light bent around it unnaturally.

From the swirling dark, massive black spikes launched—seven meters long and barbed like monstrous harpoons. The flames wrapped around them as they tore through the air, targeting the elementals with lethal precision. Smaller elementals were impaled outright, skewered to the ground, their forms already darkening as the cursed flames devoured them. Their sandy bodies blackened around the impact points, dissolving as if infected.

As the creature floated nearly twenty meters in the air, launching death at every angle, Nathaniel acted. He swept his bandaged arm forward, summoning a stream of wind that shimmered orange as it passed over his cursed hand. If it reached the monster, it could mark the beginning of its end. But to his dismay, the wind simply dissolved as it touched the black inferno encircling the creature—his curse consumed before it could even reach.

Shock twisted his expression. No one had ever pushed him this far. And now, one of his deadliest techniques had been rendered meaningless. Rage surged through him, and he began to channel everything he had. His veins pulsed with molten orange, and a vortex of wind roared to life behind his back. Runes on his tunic blazed like dying stars, and his aura rose to match the monster’s.

Down below, the creature spun atop its pillar, launching spike after spike into the larger elementals. When a core was exposed, a tendril snapped forward like a serpent and tore it out, reducing the elemental to a crumbling husk. Nathaniel wasn’t sure what kind of magic was at play—but the result was clear: total annihilation.

He had no time left to hesitate.

With a flicker of movement, he vanished—his body carried by the wind. In a blur, he tore through the storm of black mist and fire, his aura forcing it aside like a blade through fog. He appeared beside the pillar and pressed his bandaged hand to its shadowed surface.

Orange runes flared and began crawling up the dark surface, eating into the pillar like rot. The corruption spread slowly, as expected, but it was working. Realizing the threat, the creature lashed out—black tendrils shooting toward Nathaniel with murderous intent. But his form dissolved into orange wind and reformed fifty meters away in an instant.

The monster’s tendrils whipped back, trying to claw away the spreading curse. But it was too late. The runes had taken root, and they were spreading too fast. Darkness peeled away from the pillar as the curse fed on its structure.

With a ground-shaking leap, the creature descended, landing before Nathaniel as the corrupted pillar crumbled behind it. Its domain flickered, destabilizing under the growing weight of the curse. And now, for the first time, Nathaniel saw something shift behind the violet eye—doubt?

This was his strongest technique, and the black pillar had held up remarkably well—until now. With the creature no longer feeding it power, the structure began to dissolve into swirling shadows. Nathaniel raised his arm, the bandages around it glowing fiercely, and a jetstream of orange wind erupted from the vortex behind him. It shot toward the monster, faster than his eye could follow.

In the blink of an eye, the creature reappeared at his flank—its speed unlike anything he had seen before. Wreathed in black energy, its claws slashed toward his neck. Nathaniel reacted without hesitation, dissolving into orange mist and reforming atop the shoulder of a towering elemental. Without wasting a second, he extended both hands. This time, four sand-spears imbued with glowing curse runes launched toward the beast, drawn from the elemental beneath him—material it could regenerate quickly.

The monster shot toward a nearby elemental and tore through its leg like it was nothing more than brittle glass. Nathaniel tried desperately to direct the construct, urging it to strike in sync with his attacks. But the creature anticipated every move. It danced beyond reach, always one step ahead. Meanwhile, his cursed wind attacks were thwarted—either dispersed by veils of black mist or intercepted by flickers of black flame, both strong enough to consume his magic entirely.

Debris filled the air—stone, sand, and smoke—as the monster ascended the body of an elemental. Then it stopped. With surgical precision, a tendril lashed out and tore the core from the giant’s shoulder. One of the titans fell. Only three remained—and one of them still carried Nathaniel.

“Damn it,” he muttered. He couldn’t land a hit. At this stage, the elementals were little more than obstacles. But they still had a purpose—they would wear the monster down before the final clash. He continued hurling cursed projectiles while the others fell, their cores ripped away by those nightmarish tendrils. It was grotesque—how the thing almost savored consuming them.

The moment had come.

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Nathaniel focused everything he had and transformed into orange mist, reappearing directly before the monster. He lunged, grabbing for its shoulder—the one missing an arm. His fingertips connected for a single heartbeat before a devastating kick sent him hurtling through the air. Bones shattered on impact as he crashed into the sand, pain exploding through him.

Through gritted teeth, he forced down a healing potion and vanished once more into mist, reappearing atop another elemental. Gasping from the pain, he raised his arm again.

“Cursed Sandstorm,” he hissed.

The vortex behind him surged. Sand whipped violently in every direction, glowing orange as his curse infused every grain. This was his final trump card—a storm that attacked both body and soul, a death sentence for anything caught within it. But it required proximity, and precise timing. He waited.

Below, the creature remained hunched where it had last struck him. It twitched, clearly in pain, as orange runes crawled across its form. Its once-overwhelming aura had dimmed. The cursed sandstorm gathered, swirling with apocalyptic force. At first, the monster didn’t realize what had happened. Then the black mist around its body exploded outward—only this time, it faltered. It couldn’t drive the storm back.

Nathaniel now had domain superiority.

His curse steadily gnawed at the dark magic, thinning it, weakening its hold. Even the black flames struggled to stay alight in the raging wind. Nathaniel laughed—ragged but triumphant—as he saw the monster falter. The glowing runes on its body had begun to fade, true, but so had its strength. It was on the brink.

In desperation, the creature launched a massive spike at him. Instead of dodging, Nathaniel directed the elemental beneath him to raise its arm and intercept. The spike tore partially through, but failed to strike him. He grinned, ready to finish it—until a shadow moved.

A black figure formed from the darkness behind the spear. It hovered silently, directly in front of him. Vaguely humanoid, the specter held a colossal obsidian sword raised above its head. Its entire body was covered in glowing orange runes—runes that did nothing to stop what came next.

Nathaniel’s eyes widened. “What—” was all he managed to whisper.

The blade came down.

And then, only darkness.

<--

An explosion tore through the valley as Thalion’s bloodline skill activated, ending Nathaniel's life in a flash of violence. The detonation shredded the elemental beneath him, leaving a gaping hole through its chest, while the mummy-like man was cleaved cleanly in two. Smoke and ash coiled in the aftermath as shards of scorched sand rained down around the cratered clearing.

Thalion, now back in his crippled Eclipsari form, moved swiftly. He reached into the still-smoldering remains of the elemental and retrieved its cracked core, feeding it immediately to his own shadow elemental. His mana reserves were down to forty percent, and his health hovered at eighty—steadily dropping. The curse, persistent and agonizing, gnawed away at his vitality despite his powerful regeneration. The orange-tinted affliction burned through him with relentless venom, and though his darkness element had begun to erode it, full resistance was still out of reach.

He stood motionless for several minutes, bathed in pale moonlight and surrounded by scorched earth, while the cursed energy slowly receded. The teleportation through Nathaniel’s sandstorm had only deepened the curse’s grip, nearly tipping the balance of the fight. Had it not been for his newly awakened bloodline skill, Thalion was certain Nathaniel would have emerged victorious. Never before had he been so pressured—his resources so depleted in a single battle. The sheer force of that cursed sandstorm, combined with the unnatural duration and intensity of the curse itself, left him stunned.

Looking back, his own decision to construct the black pillar and bombard the elementals had drained far more mana than expected. It had left him vulnerable—and he hadn’t anticipated Nathaniel to be holding back such devastating power. The fight had served as a grim reminder: never underestimate the undead elite. Each move must be calculated. Every weakness guarded.

And still, the curse remained a mystery. How had Nathaniel bound it to wind and sand so seamlessly? The mechanics eluded him entirely. But despite the toll, the night had been a resounding success. One of the elite undead had fallen, and several of their elementals were destroyed. His own darkness elemental had absorbed multiple cores and grown stronger—though frustratingly focused more on digestion than direct combat when it was most needed.

Still, it had all worked out. The elemental’s presence had masked his bloodline activation, allowing him to strike Nathaniel in a blind spot. Remaining in the same position while line of sight was blocked—that, Thalion thought, had been a foolish mistake.

He walked across the scorched battlefield toward a severed arm still faintly glowing with lingering power. The bandages were no longer burning with that furious orange flame, but a trace of heat shimmered in the air around them. Without touching it directly, Thalion slipped the arm into his spatial ring, followed shortly by the ring Nathaniel had worn. A quick glance through the storage revealed little of value—similar to the vampires he’d slain earlier. Most carried only a few blood crystals, and little else.

The elf at least had possessed a few treasures of real significance—items Thalion would make use of when the time was right. The equipment, however, he planned to pass on to Kaldrek. That man had to survive the coming war.

With a silent command, Thalion extinguished the last of the black flames and shifted back into eagly. Wings spread wide, he soared into the air as the last stars began to fade. Dawn crept over the horizon, and with it came urgency. Only a few hours remained until the next campaign would begin—a final war against the undead, the destruction of the remaining pillars, and an end to Ankhet’s reincarnation.