Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 442: It’s Time For A Duel

The ninth stage was almost over, and while most were battling each other on the high seas, the former record holder of the leaderboard was doing something entirely different. With their ship destroyed, there was no way to make more leaderboard points.Thalion had continued to drop down while all the others were making millions of leaderboard points every day. Compared to the start of the stage, where they had slowly caught up and surpassed him, they now were light-years ahead.

The First Daughter had eighty million leaderboard points, with the human chosen right behind her. While the others had gained leaderboard points, Thalion had worked on a new sword and armor. To be honest, he hadn’t crafted it by himself, but after finding out how to destroy the golems, he had taken a sword that was roughly as long as he was tall.

The sword was a lot heavier than his last one, but it wasn’t heavy enough to slow him down at all. The size was something Thalion had seen as a bit of a problem, but with the passing days and a bit of practice, he got quite used to it. He actually liked it.

The problem was that he couldn’t engrave any runes or crystals into the sword. Thalion had hoped that he could have used another sword to carve runes into it, but it didn’t really work at all. Either it did nothing, or it broke one of the swords.

These had, of course, been other swords he had taken from the golems. The positive side was that the swords were slightly harder than the armor or bodies of the golems. This was how the crafting of his armor began.

It was a long process to build his new armor. It was also far from a complete armor set. Since the armor the golems were using was far too big for him, he had to break it down and then bind it together with runes. Those runes made this armor even possible.

He had found them after reading multiple dwarven scrolls he had gotten from the fire stage, which showed how desperate he had been at that point. Thalion had also hoped that he might get some extra leaderboard points, since indestructible armor should be quite high-priced. Sadly, the sword and half-finished armor weren’t worth much in the end.

Thalion bound the pieces together by what he understood as positive-negative runes that pulled each other together like a magnet. After days of work, his armor still had many holes, but vital parts were protected, which was important for Thalion. This armor also wouldn’t melt, and the black material was completely immune to any element Thalion could wield. It didn’t even get hot after being hit by Thalion’s flames for minutes at full power.

The only big drawback was that Thalion had no helmet. They were all far too big, and the tactic of breaking and reconstructing them as a smaller version didn’t work at all, and time was also running out.

Besides training with his new sword, abilities, and working on the armor, Thalion had done one other thing. Almost every day, he entered the water and dove downward to find the place where he could fit the tablet. He was certain that this tablet was ripped out of the island and that something must happen if he fitted it back in.

Most of the sailors were working on a new ship. They would be sent to New Earth after this stage was over, and they didn’t need a high placing. Simply being alive was enough. The ship they were currently building was far from as majestic as the last one, but according to Rid, it would do the job.

Now, on the island, they also didn’t have the problem of food supplies running out, which made the stage very relaxed for them—well, after they accepted that they wouldn’t find any other treasures.

There, of course, was one other person who had been creating trouble for Thalion the past days, which was the other trial taker in the crew. She didn’t want to leave the trial early, and for her, there was a relatively easy way to accomplish that, which was to kill Thalion.

She had tried to convince a few of the sailors to help her, but they weren’t keen on killing an F-grade. The rewards she offered for assisting her were also not worth the trouble. Killing each other was still forbidden by the captain’s rules.

Yet that must have changed on the last day of the stage. Thalion emerged after a full night of diving and searching for a place to put the tablet as a whole entourage of sailors were waiting for him.

“Thalion, the captain wants to see you,” the first mate said, motioning for Thalion to follow him. The mate was accompanied by ten other sailors who all looked at Thalion strangely. It also didn’t need a genius to know that something was going on. Still, there wasn’t much Thalion could do and he simply followed the sailors to the main camp they had set up.

There, everyone had built a big circle, with the captain and the water mage both standing in the middle and waiting for him. The captain addressed them with the same loud voice he had used on the ship.

“Good. Now that everyone is here, let’s have a quick talk. You all know about the no-killing rule, obviously.”

After a bit of thinking and arguing with the beautiful woman here,” at this point the captain laughed out loudly, which made it obvious what kind of argument the water mage had made.

“I came to the conclusion that I should give our two trial takers the opportunity to kill each other, since this is the only way they might ascend to the next stage, and it would be unfair of me to hold them back. Haha.”

Thalion’s mind raced. This wasn’t that bad. He had planned on murdering the water mage today anyway. There was no way those sailors would manage to kill him afterward. He wouldn’t be able to fight them, but running from them should be entirely possible. Yet a duel against the water mage could be very dangerous. A quick murder when she was sleeping or not paying attention would have been far more to his liking.

“It would also be a shame if we couldn’t watch them fight it out either. Now, before those killing machines are going to rip each other into pieces, let’s make some bets. Haha.”

This proclamation of the captain ended in a round of laughter and then in a lot of bets being placed. Thalion also noticed that most of the bets were placed on the water mage, with only a few sailors holding against her, likely only because of the big payout should Thalion win against all odds. Rid came by and clapped Thalion on the back.

“I believe you can do it. Also, don’t lose. I bet a lot of money on you, alright?” Then he was off joining his girlfriend, who waited with a full mug for him.

Thalion wasn’t too upset. This way, he could safely ascend to the final stage. There would have been safer ways, but it was how it was. This fight should be a lot easier compared to the assassin anyway. There, he had barely survived, while against the water mage, he gave himself relatively high chances of winning. His fire would be relatively useless, but thankfully, he had a few other forms that could be very effective.

After making their bets, the crowd distanced themselves from the combatants, and the captain started telling everyone his made-up rules.

“So, to make sure that everything is fair, here are the rules for the fight. First, no running and stay close to the circle, for god’s sake. I want a show. Also, when this mug hits the ground, you can start the fight.”

This was simple enough and led to another round of laughter. Now the water mage stepped forward. Her face was a mixture of full focus and hate. Well, Thalion likely wouldn’t have been in a good mood either if he had to fuck the captain to get that opportunity. It was also quite obvious that she wanted to kill him. They could have made a competition and the winner gets the other’s spatial amulet. That would have done the job too, but Thalion got the feeling the water mage disliked him quite a lot actually.

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“You think you even have the slightest chance of winning this?” she hissed after seeing Thalion’s almost casual expression. “I have been through so many life-and-death situations that I barely can count them anymore, and I can’t stand those people who just get everything handed to them. How about your snake form? Can you use it on land?”

Her tone was filled with venom, and Thalion would have liked to argue, but this was the wrong time for it. Instead, he stayed in character to work more on her mental stability.

“Well, and still you are handing yourself to me on a silver platter. You even slept with the captain to accomplish it. How generous of you.” Thalion kept his eyes locked with hers while he spoke, his tone filled with every bit of arrogance and superiority he could muster.

In the past days, he had also observed her equipment—not because he feared that she wore armor under that robe, but to make sure that she didn’t have any mental protection. So far, he hadn’t spotted a ring or amulet that would defend her against Crimson Gaze. She wore an amulet and a few rings, but they all were blue and didn’t have any intricate runes integrated on the surface, which normally were needed.

This meant that a good Crimson Gaze at the start would finish the fight. With growing levels, their attack power grew and grew, but almost no one also grew their defenses. Most F-grades would also be able to kill an E-grade if they managed to land a good hit. This only counted for humanoid species, since beasts often got a lot bigger when evolving, which often also resulted in better defenses.

If Thalion landed a good hit against the water mage, she was likely done for. On the other hand, Thalion knew through Rid and a few of the other sailors what she was capable of. If she managed to grab him with one of her water skills, his whole body would be squashed to a pulp. Thalion didn’t have high hopes that his high recovery would help him in the slightest.

For fighting the water mage, he already had a plan.

Originally, he wanted to assassinate her with the crippled eclipsari, but now, in an open fight, Eagly was the best choice. Should the opening with Crimson Gaze fail, he would fly up into the air and blast the water mage with lightning beams. She might be able to follow him, but he was confident that Eagly had the upper hand when it came to pure speed. Eagly was also too agile for any of her water skills to have a real chance of hitting him.

“You filthy—” she began, but didn’t get any further as the captain threw the mug to the ground and shouted with a loud voice.

“Let the fight BEGIN!”

Thalion activated Crimson Gaze the moment the mug left the captain’s hand. If some god had been observing him, he would have likely been sniped for cheating, but those sailors were partly drunk and weren’t paying enough attention to notice something like an early mental attack. For the water mage, who was still stuck in her tirade, the attack came out of nowhere. Even with her having no items that defended against mental attacks, she tanked it rather well.

Thalion followed up with a Bloodthorn the moment the mug hit the ground, but a wall of moving water conjured between them, which blocked the thorn. It wasn’t like hitting a metal shield, but the thorn lost all its speed while moving through the wall, plummeting to the ground after getting out on the other side.

There was no time to be lost, and Thalion shifted to Eagly and shot into the sky with two beats of his wings. Tempest Glide was already active for better maneuverability and higher speed.

The water mage before him roared with rage and summoned a river below her feet, one which she surfed upward the same way Thalion had used blood multiple times in the past. It was a very effective method and, compared to most other movement skills, very fast and mobile. But she wasn’t up against just any other fighter, and Eagly was a glass-cannon build for pure speed, maneuverability, and a lot of destructive capability with lightning beams.

Thalion didn’t hold back anything and immediately activated his two domain skills as well. It wasn’t good for the sailors below, but they were E-grades and could look out for themselves. The wind began to howl and rotated around Thalion as the air filled with electricity, and it didn’t take long until the first lightning bolt slammed down.

The storm made it much harder for the water mage to keep her speed. Water also wasn’t the best counter when it came to blocking lightning. In addition, the water mage probably had never fought someone using lightning skills before. Being connected to the water bubble she formed around herself while lightning bolt after lightning bolt hit the shield wasn’t that smart. Water wasn’t as good a conductor as metal would have been, but there are reasons you should get out of the water when a storm is coming.

Seeing her struggle this much with the lightning bolts from his domain reassured Thalion that he could win this fight without taking life-threatening risks. He had already been charging a lightning beam since he had shifted to Eagly and shot up into the sky. After flying a few hard maneuvers that made it difficult for the water mage to follow, he unleashed the lightning beam.

For the water mage, this attack came out of nowhere, and her aura firmly exploded outward as she pulled on all her power to muster a defense. A massive water bubble formed around her. The bubble was easily a meter thick and over seven meters wide in total. Inside was air so that the lightning wouldn’t hit her.

The lightning beam impacted the bubble with the force of a truck, with water spilling everywhere, but to Thalion’s surprise, it didn’t manage to break through. The defense of an E-grade was still too much for his lightning beam to overcome, even though lightning normally should work rather well against water cultivators. At least, it had until now, in his memory.

The bubble was damaged quite a bit, but it regenerated in mere seconds. The constant lightning bolts from his domain did very little to the big bubble—at least, Thalion couldn’t see any damage being done.

The lightning beam, while keeping all his domains active, had already cost him twenty percent of his mana, but Thalion wasn’t worried. If he dropped lower, he could also make a short pause to recover mana. As long as he kept infusing the domains with just enough mana to keep them going, he would regenerate his mana slowly.

On the other side, Thalion wasn’t sure if the same was true for the water mage. Such a dense water bubble looked like it was taking a lot of mana. From there on, Thalion fired lightning beams whenever he fully charged them and found a good angle to hit the shield, while the water mage released all kinds of water constructs at him. From small daggers to entire waves, everything was in the mix.

Still, her water skills weren’t fast enough to hit Eagly, which only meant that she was wasting mana at a far more rapid pace than normal. Up to this point, Thalion was very confident—

until the battlefield changed.

All of a sudden, she lit up with even more power, and the water bubble detonated in a massive shockwave that reminded Thalion of his tsunami breaker, just filled with easily five times the power output. His domain was ripped to pieces, and Thalion shifted to the crippled eclipsari at the last moment to tank the hit, because there was no way he could actually dodge or outrun this massive attack.

The bones in his arm shattered, and a few ribs cracked too as Thalion was fired up into the sky by the impact. Since the crippled eclipsari wasn’t good in open-air combat with no flying skill, he shifted to his human form.

The funny part about tanking a hit with the crippled eclipsari was that you could only break one arm. The other was gone anyway, which meant that his human form had one broken and one fully functioning arm. This tactic probably wouldn’t work if the damage was too great, but for this fight, it worked perfectly.

When it came to self-healing, his human form was right at the top. Not only was his vitality very high, but he could also use the vitality of the stored blood to heal himself faster than a healing potion.

Until now, there hadn’t been the need to really exploit that, since the power of the outsider had always healed him in no time. Yet in a fight against someone like this water mage, who could use skills like that water bubble, it was best to heal himself immediately.

The Sanguine Impera aligned his bones with the vines growing under his skin. The crack from everything snapping into place almost made Thalion whine, but he swallowed the pain and kept the poker face on.

Only now did he notice that the water mage was breathing quite heavily and looking upward. When their eyes met, Thalion hit her with another Crimson Gaze. This time, she wasn’t able to just tank it, and a good amount of her water bubble broke away.

Seeing her breathing heavily, hovering with her bubble shaking, her head, Thalion tried to finish it with Phalanx of the Blooded Templar. The red portal opened right above her, and Thalion fueled the skill with every bit of mana and blood he could pour into it on such short notice. Normally, blood wasn’t that good against water skills, but against a weakened shield with such power in the skill, it mattered very little.

The water mage also wasn’t fast enough to respond to the attack as the first lance shattered the barrier, missing her by an inch. The next lance that came down hit her right in the face, firing her downward.

Thalion stopped the skill immediately after he got the kill notification and used mist form to catch up with her body and put it into her spatial amulet with everything she had on her.

Checking his leaderboard points, he managed to pass the ten million threshold for the next stage, if just barely. Now there was one day left to find the spot for the stupid tablet to hopefully earn a few more credits.

Then it was time for the endgame.