(Book 2 Complete!) Tales of the Endless Empire [LitRPG Apocalypse]

"I think these will make the blood explode, while the others give it more stability, which is very important so more power can be funneled into it. That's what I believe these runes are doing. The only negative thing is that you won't be able to reform the blood once it's hardened through the whole process," Lucan exclaimed with gleaming eyes.

They had been working for over half a day, and much had happened. The first major news was that the palace had finally been found. It was far out in the desert, but a massive skyship equipped with a portal was already on its way, accompanied by a fleet of smaller vessels for protection just in case. Once the ship was in position, the offensive would begin. Thalion wouldn't join unless there was massive resistance, he planned to arrive at the palace shortly before the grand treasure spawned. That one, he would claim for himself. No one dared to argue. He needed every bit of power if he wanted a chance to compete against E-grade chosen in the upcoming system events.

The palace's discovery wasn't the only development. Evelyn, after another day of torture, had finally killed the Blood Witch. Thalion had placed the black pillar in the entrance hall of his tower, where orcs were now being shocked to death. The pillar's aura had grown so strong that mages couldn't electrocute the prisoners for long anymore and after a maximum of an hour, they had to retreat. Thalion had also ordered that the orcs be kept close so they could already be filled with fear and despair about what awaited them, which should make the pillar even more effective.

It seemed that for the pillar, it was irrelevant whether you were trapped inside, being close enough and in despair was enough for it to feed on and empower itself. A terrifying artifact… and something that should probably have made Thalion cautious about fusing it into his own body. But for him, it was the opposite. He couldn't wait to merge with the pillar and empower the crippled Eclipsari even further. The fear effect would be invaluable. The fusion would be hellishly painful, and it might be tricky with the elemental, but he still had two more system shops to consult for advice.

What he and Lucan had accomplished so far was solid work, and the time spent crafting had been a good distraction from what happened to his first party. He had already drawn designs for his sword and armor. Both he and Lucan fully understood how the hardening and blood-empowerment runes worked. Now they wanted to add an additional feature, one that could be activated and deactivated at will, that would detonate the blood.

This was important because there would be vampires on New Earth, and throwing normal blood-based skills at them would only empower them. The detonation would consume all the energy stored in the blood, making even the lingering mist useless for vampires. He wanted the enchantment on both his armor and sword. For the sword, he was nearly done creating a ring that could recall it to his hand if he ever threw it. He was also integrating the ability to control the sword remotely so he could wield skills with both hands while the sword fought independently. If kept hidden, this could be a game-changer in a prolonged battle against an opponent who pushed him to his limits.

They had already tested the explosive runes on a few low-quality armors, because Thalion didn't want to ruin the entire design, or blow himself up, by integrating unstable runes too early. A major bonus was that he finally had a use for the blood crystals he'd collected from the vampires he'd slain and from the raid on the final base.

"Yes, I think you're right. I'll go upstairs and start fusing the blood crystals so we can test them with the armor. Could you try the explosive runes on the test armors and swords?" Thalion asked, fully in crafting mode.

"Yeah, that sounds great. I'll tell you when I'm ready," Lucan nodded, clearly excited about finding a new way to blow things up.

Thalion quickly moved upstairs to begin his work. It would cost a lot of essence blood, but it would be worth it. He currently had twenty-six blood crystals of varying quality and size, and he planned to fuse them into three. He had already adjusted his armor for this, convinced that three extremely powerful crystals would be better than five smaller ones.

The downside was that the process would take at least half a day, which in the grand scheme, was still fast for what he was accomplishing, but it was still precious time, and there were many things to handle before the tutorial ended. He wasn't worried about the likely upcoming fight with the female elf. If she challenged him before his armor was finished, he would simply use the crippled Eclipsari. Thalion was confident in his power and doubted she could defeat him. It would certainly be a hard fight, and he might need to dodge around at first, but in his mind, losing wasn't an option.

<--

Jack and Josh were having a great time hunting. They already knew the scouts had found the palace, but they planned to leave the first treasures for the weaker ones. There would almost certainly be a few beasts inside, nothing in the System came for free. Jack and Josh intended to join the palace raid in a few days, when getting to the treasures would be harder, or of course, if vampires or elves started interfering.

Until then, they hunted the stronger beasts that had moved away from the desert, and in the meantime picked up low-level survivors, bringing them along if they wanted to join. They had begun their trip shortly after the orc attack and now had over thirty-two humans following them. This made everything a lot more difficult, but it was better than leaving people behind.

They had even turned it into a game of who could find the most humans and convince them to join their base. The first anomaly that put Josh in the lead was an orc who wanted to join them. They had never seen a low-level orc before, but saw no harm in letting him in. Kargul, one of their friends, was an orc too. The problem was that Jack now insisted only humans counted, while Josh argued that they had talked about adding new members and helping anyone they could.

The other humans and even the orc, watched in confusion as these two super-powerful humans, each strong enough to kill them all with ease, debated such trivial matters while their lives were on the line. They were currently deep in a jungle where any good ambush could mean death.

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It was hard for Jack and Josh to teach the group not to panic every time an ambush happened, and to trust that everything was safe as long as the two of them were nearby. The problem was, both of them tended to wait until the last second before stepping in, which didn't help build confidence.

They had fought multiple powerful horrors: three massive black spiders, a long snake, a huge male lion, two gorillas, a wasp hive, and a green mantis that almost managed to snatch one of the weaker survivors. These were only the beasts with high rarity, all around level eighty-five.

"Young man, do you really think we should go deeper into this dangerous jungle? Can't we turn back and go to the base you told us about?" an old granny asked in a pleading tone.

"Maybe we should call it a day and get a flying vessel to take them back," Josh said, glancing at Jack.

"Yeah, probably best. We'll pause here until the ship arrives, then go deeper into the jungle. I want to find stronger beasts," Jack agreed, which didn't happen often.

A relieved sigh swept through the group as they sat down to rest their sore muscles. Jack and Josh had been moving quite fast, and some were already struggling to keep up. A few even went over to thank the granny for speaking up.

But just as everyone began to relax, an arrow came out of nowhere, burying itself in the leg of one of the seated men. Josh and Jack immediately jumped to their feet, scanning the trees, only to spot a large elven scouting party of twenty, spread across wide branches more than ten meters above the ground. All had their bows drawn, ready to kill most of the weaker humans.

"You are now our hostages! And you, the two humans known as Jack and Josh, if you don't surrender to us, we'll start killing, beginning with the pathetic weaklings here," an elven ranger announced in an arrogant tone, typical for elves.

"Wait, why are you even talking? You're not the leader. He is, right?" Jack asked, sounding more puzzled than concerned, pointing at a massive figure in heavy metal armor, carrying a broadsword, who clearly didn't fit in with the rest.

"Elaria now represents the elves in this tutorial. Put your spatial rings on the ground, and get on your knees," the elf from before sneered.

Josh and Jack both noticed how much it pained the former leader of the elves, Althirion, to hear the elf in front of him speak.

"Why on my knees? I can still do all my abilities when I'm on my knees," Jack asked in a confused tone, displaying the typical brand of craziness that made Josh fight hard not to sigh out loud.

"What! Then lie down on your belly with your hands behind your back. Now!" the elf shouted back, growing angry.

"See, that's way better. But you know what? There's still an even better way. Do you want to know which one?" Jack called out, sounding as if he were seriously considering the most practical position to be in when taken hostage in this new world. Josh was starting to think this might not be a tactic at all, maybe Jack was genuinely pondering it.

"If you're not on the ground in five seconds, we'll start killing the weaker ones!" the elf yelled, his face turning red.

"But don't you understand you've already lost this conversation? You came here to take hostages. But if you shoot another arrow at one of our fellow humans, we'll fight to the death and kill multiple elves, if not all of you, depending on how fast you can run. I often lose track of where I'm going in my beast form, if I'm honest. So what I'm trying to say is, you're easy to read. I'm guessing your new leader won't be too happy if you don't bring anyone back alive. And I also don't think Thalion will launch a rescue mission and attack the elves outright for a few low-level humans, risking the lives of hundreds," Jack explained, like he was delivering his grand finale.

The elf now looked confused, unable to respond immediately, so Josh seized the chance to speak.

"By the way, how exactly did the leadership change happen, Althirion? You don't seem too happy about it," Josh teased the broad-shouldered elf. Jack shot him a look, as if to say he was an idiot.

"It was actually a nice talk," Jack continued before Althirion could say something, "but since you don't look like you're going to let us go… let's kill each other." His tone was almost cheerful as he unleashed a telekinetic blast at four elves perched high in the trees.

The elf who had been speaking before was so surprised, he only managed to get out, "Whhaaat..." before Jack's attack slammed him into the massive tree branch behind him. Wood splintered and cracked as several branches shattered from the force of Jack's opening strike.

The other elves were just as shocked that Jack had outright declared he was going to attack and then actually followed through. They had probably thought it was a joke. Josh, however, was used to Jack's brand of madness, or genius, depending on how you saw it and joined the fight without hesitation.

He transformed into his beast form, activating his boosting skill to cut down the elves as fast as possible. Josh had honed his skills against many powerful enemies, and these elves were definitely on the weaker side. The only strong one was Althirion, but he stood back, doing nothing to help his own kind. Elves who were now dying like flies as Jack and Josh rampaged through them.

In their panic, the elves completely forgot about killing the weaker humans and focused entirely on Jack and Josh. In short, only elves died and quickly. The leader who had spoken first could no longer stand, and could only watch as his comrades fell.

After a few moments, the elf decided he didn't want to die here. He would leave and inform Elaria of what had happened. An escape token appeared in his hand but before he could activate it, a hand in a metal gauntlet seized his arm and squeezed, breaking the bones in his hand.

"Ahhh! You traitor!" the elf screamed, just before Althirion smashed his skull with a single blow.