Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 454: Fight to the Death

Deep below the chaos on the surface, Thalion faced a foe he had kinda forgotten. The prince looked like the last time, only that his aura had grown by quite a margin. The clothes looked a bit like a dark medieval suit with a few ornaments, and Thalion guessed that he had picked it up in one of the stages.His eyes were fixed on Thalion, and a malicious grin was spreading on his face. One that Thalion didn’t like at all.

His aura was so strong that even the aggressive reptiles attacked immediately.

“Look who we have here. This is how you got this many points. You infiltrated the base. Just how weak are you that you need to rely on such tactics?” the prince teased him.

“I have to say that you surprised me. I thought you were a snake, but my nose has never failed me. So what are you?”

Thalion, of course, had no intention of giving out free information. The issue was that he had no idea what tactic he should use now. Instantly start the fight or try to play for time in hopes that someone else would find their way down here.

There was just one problem. Thalion was the one with by far the most leaderboard points. If some party came here, who would they attack first? The invulnerable prince who was basically unkillable if not hit by a massive strike—or the much weaker F-grade who was worth three times the leaderboard points?

Yeah, it probably wasn’t looking good for Thalion.

No, this was a life-and-death battle and no way to run.

He had just wanted to say something to buy himself a few more seconds to think about how he wanted to fight when Saranya spoke to him.

“Let the beasts charge him. He will evade or kill one before dashing forward incredibly fast. When you are already ready with a quick stab turning into a side slash in combination with a spiral, you might be able to injure him.”

Well, that was welcome advice. Even if he had no idea whether it would work, he would definitely give it a try.

He would have to fight in human form anyway. Saranya was the only weapon he had that could actually harm the prince, and shifting forms could lead to the big reptiles attacking him too.

“I thought you would manage to get more points,” Thalion stated before launching a lightning-quick Blood Thorn at the prince.

This shook the reptiles out of their stasis, and a moment later roars filled the corridor as all five who were left after the former fight threw themselves forward.

Thalion simply couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to make the prince a bit angry. In such fights, it was always good when the other side desperately wanted to respond but couldn’t.

The prince dodged the first reptile and touched the second one on the right elbow, and the beast immediately fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Next thing Thalion knew, the prince was before him, stretching his hand out for his throat.

Good that he had already been ready and was stabbing forward.

Saranya pierced through the prince’s chest right under his heart. With a quick turn, Thalion moved the sword through the torso and out on the right side. The prince’s flesh had quite the resistance, and only by using every ounce of power did he manage to dodge the grasping hand.

Thalion would have liked to use Saranya’s ability to blow the prince into pieces, but by that time the prince would have been able to touch him—and that would have been his end.

The prince winced and spit a mouthful of blood on the floor, standing still for a moment.

Blood in the air and seeing someone this injured, the reptiles were on the prince in moments. Claws slashing and teeth biting. Even the one reptile the prince had touched was back on its feet and on the hunt, now more angry than before.

“Now jump up and—” Saranya directed, but Thalion was already on the move.

He was far from a simple swordsman and had a lot more tools he could use.

Telekinetic Dash catapulted him upwards while crimson vines shot out around him when he activated Crimson Garden. The reptiles wouldn’t hold on much longer, and he wanted something assisting him.

The prince was surpassing him in speed by quite a bit. If he hadn’t let the Heart of the Sanguine Archon charge up, dodging would have been difficult.

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Below, Thalion saw how the prince grabbed the massive head of one of the reptiles, breaking it with a twist. It didn’t look like he had immobilized the creature, and the sheer force that must have been necessary to overpower such pure strength was mind-boggling. The prince probably didn’t even need the immobilization trick.

In the meantime, one reptile was biting down on his head, which sounded like a metal trap closing, while another bit into his leg.

The next thing Thalion saw was the prince spinning around, simply throwing the reptiles off him while shattering the chest of another one with a kick.

Thalion also wasn’t just standing in the air waiting for the prince to kill the reptiles. He just tried to avoid killing them himself. Now that the prince was free, Thalion unleashed Saranya’s active ability.

A deep rift was cut into the floor, and the detonation threw the prince and a few reptiles to the side.

The prince had managed to speed up even further, even with such an injury. The deep cut was healing very slowly, which gave Thalion another idea. Maybe the prince had tough skin—but how did it stand with his blood control?

“COWARD!” the prince shouted after breaking the body of another reptile, looking directly at him.

Thalion took the moment and activated Crimson Gaze—and hell yeah, did the mask power it up. Thalion had no idea how it worked, with it having no crystal or any other obvious power source.

It didn’t look like the prince had a charm against mental protection, but his mental defense had to be decent, as he only stumbled back.

Thalion didn’t give him any time and used Sacrament of the Blooded Templar.

Thalion’s mind was filled with so much desire and determination that he didn’t even realize he spoke out two words.

“My blood.”

It was like a jolt went through the prince’s body, almost as if someone had tugged on a string attached to his chest.

The Sanguis Impera was also all in on the job and assisted Thalion with everything it had.

Blood spilled out from the wound in the prince’s chest when he stumbled forward. To Thalion, it felt like the air around him was vibrating as he concentrated everything on the prince, who now had to grit his teeth but nonetheless stood up again.

“Not bad. So I can use my two new E-grade skills,” the prince grunted before shouting a single word enchanted with an amount of mana Thalion hadn’t experienced before.

“Shockwave.”

A moment later, a wave tore out from the prince, killing all surviving reptiles except one and stopping Thalion’s attempt to drain him of blood.

So far, Thalion had barely gotten a liter of blood, and now he had to watch as the prince’s body erupted with power as he activated what undoubtedly looked like a boosting skill. The mana was vibrating around the prince from his aura alone, making him look like he was going Super Saiyan.

Yet the prince wasn’t the only one powering up.

The one remaining reptile was in an all-out rage, its mouth wide open, drawing on all the blood in the area, consuming the blood of all the other reptiles. With every drop it consumed, its aura grew as it powered up further and further, blood swirling around it.

The prince was quite unbothered and just looked at the beast with curiosity while using that weird speech skill again.

“Heal.”

Of course the guy can insta-heal himself, Thalion contemplated, observing how the wound he had inflicted basically snapped shut like it had never been there.

The reptile let out an enraged roar, and with it five one-meter orbs appeared around its now massive body. Every orb was throbbing with power, and in the next moment from each one shot a red beam, making the whole area vibrate from the power output.

At first, the beams crashed into random spots in the wall, but with another roar they all moved toward the prince, standing there in the middle with a weird-looking smile on his face.

“Barrier.”

With that word from the prince, a translucent barrier, thin as Thalion’s nails, appeared before him.

At least he can’t simply say die, Thalion thought, observing what was currently happening.

Hopefully, he would also get some skill upgrades, because so far leveling hadn’t really rewarded him with that many skills.

The first beam hit the barrier, which did absolutely nothing except obscure the prince. Then the others moved in and all focused on the same spot as the reptile roared even louder, likely putting everything into that attack.

The air was howling and shrieking from the beams for several seconds before it subsided, revealing a barrier with a large crack going from the top right corner to the left edge.

The prince was still smiling, unfazed, while the reptile slumped to the ground, too exhausted to even look up.

Thalion hadn’t stood by either and was already mid-swing, unleashing another slash downward.

The barrier shattered like glass, and the prince—too power-drunk and an instant too slow to dodge the attack—lost his left arm along with half his shoulder, which should be extremely painful.

“This sword gets quite annoying, but it will taste amazing,” the prince growled from below.

“Gravitation up. Waterwave. Heal.”

Thalion could barely follow what was happening before he was already nailed to the ground, barely able to stand upright, as a wave of water as tall as the whole corridor rushed toward him.

As a former surfer, he knew that such waves could get quite dangerous. If you took into account the speed at which the wave was moving and how much water was in it, this wasn’t looking good for Thalion.

Even worse—water was the natural enemy of most blood cultivators, and it also seemed that the Sanguis Impera wasn’t liking it one bit.

Through the wave, Thalion saw how the prince simply put his lost arm back where it had been cut off, only for it to grow together in under a second.

Thalion released a fully charged mana wave that was so strong he felt a bolt of pain move through his body as he cast it. He had hoped to get rid of the gravitation, but it seemed the gravitation worked differently, and you couldn’t simply dispel it.

It did weaken the water wave a little bit—but not nearly enough.

Vines wrapped around Thalion’s body as extra protection as he was caught in the wave and flung backward by the force.

The reptile was utterly crushed under the wave.

Multiple bones broke in Thalion’s body when he hit the gate, and under the pressure, the whole massive thing swung open, washing Thalion into the king’s chamber.