Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 401: Guess Who’s First on the Leaderboard

A high-pitched scream of rage tore through the tall trees of stage five. The trees were so enormous that you couldn’t see the sky nor the ground. On one of the massive branches, a party of elves appeared—one female with long silver hair and a storm whipping up around her.“HOW CAN THIS HUMAN BE IN THE TOP POSITION?! OVER TWO MILLION POOOIIINTSSS!” Liraeth screamed at the top of her lungs.

Her elven party stood around her like they’d been ordered and never picked up, watching their leader meltdown.

“We were tasked with locating and capturing this human, to find out who his patron is… but now EVERYONE WILL BE TRYING TO KILL HIM!”

Liraeth was outraged and flung several wind blades while swinging her arms wildly, slicing off a few of the smaller branches nearby. She was as red as a tomato as she continued shouting at her party.

“WE FAILED TO CATCH THAT SCUM ON THE NEW PLANET AND NOW HE’LL BE KILLED FOR LEADERBOARD POINTS BY SOME RANDOM CHOSEN! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW, HUH?!”

The elves exchanged helpless looks, none of them having the slightest idea what to say. Liraeth swept her gaze across each of them until a relatively short, broad-built elf finally tried to advise the enraged Chosen.

“Ah, maybe we should meet up with the other Chosen elves and start a wide search during the treasure hunt?” he suggested, voice calm and careful.

But as he spoke, Liraeth’s lips began to quiver and her fingers twitched. When she answered, it was like a dam breaking.

“YEAH, LET’S GO MEET WITH THE OTHER ELVES. LITTLE QUESTION FOR OUR SLOW THINKER HERE—DO YOU SEE ANY OTHER ELVES ANYWHERE AROUND? ALSO, DO I—AND MY PATRON—LOOK LIKE WE WANT TO SHARE THE REWARD?”

With every word, the already-small elf seemed to shrink further, taking several cautious steps back from the furious Chosen, who now looked more like a demon than an elf. Under pressure, he tried to say something to recover from his mistake, but one of his friends grabbed him and stopped him—probably saving his life.

“No. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself. Everyone spread out and use your notification tokens—once if you’re in trouble, twice if you find the human.” She ordered the group while slowly calming herself with deep, controlled breaths.

All that progress vanished the moment she saw her party still standing there in stunned silence.

“MOVE!”

“Eh, should we form small groups or really go alone because...” the small elf from before began, but his colleague intervened and simply shoved him off the branch before he could say anything worse. The rest of the elves disappeared within seconds, each activating their movement skills to escape as fast as possible, leaving a still-enraged Chosen behind.

With the underlings gone, she had no target for her rage and began pacing in circles, trying to find a way out of this humiliating position.

She refused to share the honor of finding this human with anyone. Her Patron had been very clear about what should happen, and who should deliver the name of the one who had blessed the human. The ideal scenario was keeping him prisoner until the system fully opened—as a little gift.

Her Patron had been so delighted when they first located the human. But now? He could be anywhere, and Liraeth didn’t have the slightest clue.

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“Only because I listened to that stupid old fool…” she cursed through clenched teeth, still pacing. Not only were her chances of catching the human dropping fast—no, now he was also ABOVE her on the leaderboard. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the human managed to finish the treasure hunt first.

<--

“Yes, first place! I’m telling you, team—if this continues, you might even make it to the next stage,” Thalion said enthusiastically as he checked the leaderboard positions after entering the new stage. His five bloodslaves did not share his good mood. Every single one of them was running dangerously low on blood, and they needed to find a target fast.

Thalion, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was sitting a full two million points above everyone else in the competition. Not only that—he had also arrived in the massive forest Aris had described, which meant a grand treasure was waiting to be unearthed.

They had spawned fairly high in the stage and could already see the faint end of the treetops above them. Beneath Thalion stretched endless branches and massive green leaves. It would still take hours to breach the canopy—and after that, they would need to locate the highest tree to claim the treasure. But before all of that, Thalion needed to check the stage announcement and the special rules.

Welcome to Stage Five

In this stage, as in all previous ones, we have a new rule that applies only here

Anyone who injures a tree will be marked with a bounty

The greater the damage to the forest, the higher the bounty

The bounty remains until the end of the treasure hunt

Good luck

Well, that was a nice rule. No matter how much Thalion damaged the trees, it wouldn’t change anything. He was already first on the leaderboard. Everyone wanted him dead anyway, and an additional bounty wouldn’t make the slightest difference. If anything, it gave him a new advantage. He couldn’t care less if he destroyed a tree or not.

“Good. Everything’s sorted. We can fly up at full speed. Let’s get the grand treasure,” Thalion commanded in a good mood, watching his bloodslaves hoist the sails and steer the ship. Thalion settled on the front railing as the ship tilted upward and accelerated dramatically. Air howled around him, and he had to hold on to avoid being blown off the deck.

It was nice having people around to steer the ship and help in the upcoming fight, because Thalion highly doubted the grand treasure would just let him pluck it without resistance. There had to be some sort of protectors, right?

It took much longer than he expected, and only after hours upon hours of flying did they finally pierce through the tree crowns into open sky. In the meantime, Thalion had observed the thick branches and wide trunks.

There wasn’t nearly as much life between them as he had expected from a forest of this magnitude. Sure, a few beasts crawled along the branches, but nowhere near what he imagined. He had thought the higher they ascended, the more powerful beasts they would encounter, fighting over high-rarity treasures.

Instead, it was surprisingly peaceful. No major powerhouses in sight.

But once they broke through the canopy, everything changed.

Whole insect colonies covered the upper side of the tree crowns. Thalion would have guessed they were some sort of giant bees or wasps, but he wasn’t sure—and he didn’t want to identify them yet. At the moment, it seemed like they hadn’t noticed the fast-rising skyship, and Thalion wanted to keep it that way.

If necessary, they could stop and harvest some blood for his bloodslaves. These insects didn’t have blood like humans, but Thalion could still see fluid flowing through them with his bloodvision—and it was quite potent. He wasn’t the only one who noticed. Aris had red saliva constantly dripping from his beak as he stared at the colonies below.

The main reason Thalion didn’t want to stop was the massive yellow flower in the distance. It was barely visible on the horizon, yet a single flower petal seemed to be several kilometers wide. There was no doubt in Thalion’s mind that whatever lay inside that flower had to be the grand treasure. From his position, he couldn’t see inside, unfortunately.

Instead, he studied the treetop situation. On almost every treetop, an insect colony thrived—each with thousands upon thousands of members. That was also why Thalion wanted to avoid fighting them for now. If they all swarmed, it would be game over. In a world like this, they definitely had methods of defense.

Better to yoink the grand treasure first and commit mass murder later.

Happy with his plan, Thalion leaned forward and let the strong wind brush through his white hair while warm rays of sunlight caressed his skin. He already liked this stage far more than the last one.