Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 382: Integrated Space

That another one who had absolutely nothing to do with him was now also hunting him didn’t faze Thalion in the slightest. One more prince among all the elves, vampires, and humans coming for him didn’t make much of a difference. Thalion even thought that the prince’s bloodline would suit him better — or rather, it would suit the crippled Eclipsari better. Instead of the dark green smoke, it could be something like his own umbral miasma, made from darkness.He still wasn’t sure how the prince had managed to destroy Eric’s armor so easily. The fact that a single touch had been enough to completely stun and immobilize someone like Eric was far too strong in Thalion’s opinion.

He had a bit too much time to think about what had just happened. At the moment, he was darting through the water at full speed, desperately hoping to find another reef with one of those crystals. Since helping Eric, he had gathered three more crystals, but that was nothing compared to the hours that had passed. Now the stage was almost over, and he only had a few hours left until nightfall. He really hoped to find at least one more reef to make the best out of this stage.

After killing other trial-takers and various marine creatures, Thalion was sitting at roughly twelve thousand points, which put him at the hundred-and-first position on the leaderboard. At the end of the stage, he would get another four thousand points from his crystals, which would place him roughly within the top fifty — depending on how many crystals the others had gathered. Right now, he just hoped to find another reef and that the next stage wouldn’t be disadvantageous for him. If it was something similar to this one, he’d be very, very happy.

He had already found a map showing a few nearby safe zones, so he could take his time searching for a reef. So far, he hadn’t found a single skill usable in any of his forms. A speed boost for the Tidecaller Serpent would’ve been great, but as things stood, it didn’t seem likely. It was as if the beasts in this system event either had no usable skills or were highly resistant to having them stolen, if that was even possible. It made little sense to Thalion, but who knew what the trial makers were thinking.

This system event was pretty wild, in his opinion. Making an entire ocean as a stage but filling it with almost no loot? Ridiculous. Even the five hours of oxygen granted by the crystals meant little. That was why Thalion had assumed there would be plenty of reefs — but it turned out there were barely any at all.

As the timer ticked down and the water grew darker, Thalion continued searching the perimeter while refining his water control. He had created his own current that gave him an extra boost in speed — pretty cool, if he had to say so himself. If only he had such powers back on Earth… that would have been a fun time.

Hours passed, and Thalion still hadn’t found another reef. Eventually, he gave up and headed toward the nearest safe zone. He wanted to have enough time to reach another one if a Chosen happened to occupy the first. Thalion wasn’t ready for another battle. Underwater, most of his forms were useless, and he didn’t trust the Tidecaller Serpent’s current skill set in a serious fight. He could easily kill anything below a Chosen, but against one of them — even underwater — he stood no chance. Unless they wielded opposing elements like fire, he had little hope.

He remembered the fight between Eric and the prince. Neither had even a hint of water affinity, yet both had fought with incredible power. If Thalion hadn’t kept his distance from the prince, he doubted he would’ve been fast enough to escape that monster.

It got darker and darker until Thalion finally abandoned the search and approached the safe zone. The zone appeared as a red cylinder extending endlessly up and down through the water. Thalion settled inside and continued forming spirit veins.

Improving his water control wouldn’t help much in the coming stages, but strengthening his soul would be useful in general. With luck, it would help him resist the corrupting energy of the crystals better. Thalion also wondered how his spirit could still be twisted even when he wasn’t using his Tidecaller Serpent form. Maybe the different forms existed in separate spiritual spaces that continued to digest energy even while he was in another shape. Perhaps part of his soul remained anchored to each form? In the end, Thalion had no real idea how it worked — only that the crystals twisted his soul, and a stronger one might be able to resist that effect.

In meditation, it felt like the night passed in an instant. The four crystals vanished from his amulet, and he received four thousand leaderboard points in exchange, putting him exactly at 16,420 points and in 79th place.

It seemed most others had a much harder time with this stage. Thalion waited with quiet expectation for what the next one would bring.

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Normally, when one’s Chosen was inside a system trial, gods couldn’t watch or help them at all — which always made it the most dangerous time. During these trials, a Chosen could be killed without their faction having to fear divine retaliation, as long as no survivors were left. This, of course, put most gods who had invested in their Chosen and Blessed in the new universe on edge — but that wasn’t the only thing troubling them.

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Solarion sat on his throne of white crystal and stared into the distance with his vision skill. Rays of explosions and armies of gods warring against each other stretched across his sight.

Solarion thought, perplexed, as he observed the all-out war raging throughout the multiverse.

When the tutorial had first begun, there had only been tension between a few living gods and the undead gods of the Eternal Dominion, but that had died down quickly with the death of Ankhet during the tutorial. Solarion had thought that was the end of it, but oh, how wrong he had been.

It had all started with the strongest vampire, Tenebrice, suffering the backlash of his life, which led most of the other vampire gods to rebel against him. Tenebrice still had a few loyal followers clinging to him, but the situation didn’t look good. Still, that wasn’t even the main conflict — that war hadn’t fully erupted yet. Both sides were preparing, waiting for the right moment to strike.

The one who hadn’t waited a second was the Spider Queen, which surprised Solarion greatly. In all the time he had existed as a god, she had never acted quickly or recklessly. She had always been patient, plotting, and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. That patience had allowed her to kill far stronger gods who had underestimated her.

But now she had launched a direct attack on the Blood Witch, Morgana.

At the moment, the Spider Queen had laid a relatively weak layer of her web around Morgana’s domain, but it wouldn’t take long for the true fight to begin and, to be fair, Solarion didn’t have much hope for the Blood Witch. The best outcome for her would be forcing the Spider Queen to retreat. Both were feared and hated in equal measure. It was like watching two plagues clash and some gods simply couldn’t get enough of it.

Multiple factions were taking advantage of the chaos and attacking the Spider Queen’s web along with her daughters. The web was so massive that it couldn’t be destroyed entirely, but its outer edges were being rapidly torn apart. The daughters were powerful but didn’t seem to be fighting back much. Solarion suspected it was all part of a bigger plan, as some of those daughters were incredibly old and packed a serious punch — or bite, in their case.

That the Spider Queen had attacked at all was one thing, but that other factions tried to exploit it and then got attacked themselves with their strongest gods caught in the web — turned everything into a cycle of revenge and escalating conflict. Before long, it had turned into an all-out war between multiple factions.

Solarion’s position was safe for now, but he couldn’t help worrying about the orcs and elves. Their top gods were clearly preparing for full-scale war, just waiting for the right opportunity. Even the other insect hives were moving their armies toward the web. No faction hated the Spider Queen more than the other insectoids — they were her favorite prey, after all.

There was even a faction of rival spiders hoping to claim the web for themselves. One way or another, the web of the Spider Queen would soon be swarming with enemies. She couldn’t take much longer to kill Morgana — otherwise, she might find herself in real trouble.

This new universe truly was something special. The fact that one of the system events even cost was unheard of.

Even the Eclipsari had turned their gaze toward the new universe, which was totally uncharacteristic of them. They had never shown interest in it before — nor in any mortals besides their own kind and the ones they threw into their twisted mistic-realms far beyond mortal reach. Those who completed such missions were allowed to live. It reduced their numbers drastically, leaving only a handful of Eclipsari gods — each one terrifyingly powerful.

Most of the time, they handpicked powerful gods to hunt, usually killing them. Otherwise, they hunted monsters born from the void or launched crusades against gods who accepted weakness or used the weak to grow stronger. To them, such acts were pathetic, and they often went into bloodrage, destroying entire systems filled with planets and life in the process.

Having such a force set its eyes on the tutorial was unsettling, even for Solarion. He was curious which poor soul had drawn their attention. From time to time, a god would find a sample of Eclipsari DNA and try to empower one of their descendants with it — but that always ended the same way: the god was killed, and the descendant thrown into a trial, never to be seen again.

The Eclipsari didn’t understand humor when it came to such matters. That was also the only time they ever worked together, when dealing with such a case. The other reason they would cooperate was to allow one of their kind to fight a one-on-one battle with a powerful god while ensuring no faction interfered.

In such duels, not all Eclipsari joined forces, that only happened when creating a new Eclipsari, or something close to one, through DNA experiments.

If Solarion had to guess, he would say that some god had sent a descendant into the newly integrated universe after merging them with Eclipsari DNA. The true Eclipsari were far too powerful to interact with the universe directly for now, and by the time they could, their DNA might already have changed through countless evolutions. Maybe not a bad plan, but Solarion wouldn’t be surprised if the Eclipsari found a way regardless.

They were definitely among the strongest gods, and if they ever truly united, very little could stop them. In that case, they would make no exceptions — no price would be too high. Their honor and inflexible rules simply didn’t allow otherwise.

One way or another, Solarion was very curious to see how this would all turn out. Maybe he should start forming a few alliances himself, because on Eric’s planet, there would soon be all-out war. And there were far more Chosen than he had initially thought.