Thalion heard about Maike's encounter with the murder pixies. It worried him, but not enough to stop him from jumping through the portal leading to the skyships hovering near the mountains. He had a base full of fighters—they should be able to keep everyone safe. If not, they’d have a big problem when entering the next stage. He expected the vampires to be stronger than the murder pixies, and who knew what else the undead had prepared.
Anyway, that was a struggle for the future. Right now, it was ti for absolute carnage.
All the lanterns had been distributed to the crew mbers, and Lucan had even designed an additional container for air elentals. The container was supposed to hold fifty elentals once the lamps were full. This was perfect, and Thalion, in his wisdom, had urged him to build a few more. With the open portal, he should be able to finish his hunt before both the container and the lamps were filled with air elentals.
Thalion considered pausing to bring so of the elentals to the darkness elental for faster growth. That sounded like the best plan, he thought.
The skyship he appeared on was one of the large ones he had first purchased. It was stationed just outside the wind crystals’ area, while two smaller ships were already busy hunting for crystals. Hundreds had been fard already, and now, with the portal active, the influx of new fighters would only increase that number. Thankfully, the wind crystals seed almost endless, giving them plenty of work to do until the Ascension.
Before too many people noticed him, Thalion shifted into his eagle form and shot toward the wind crystals with three powerful beats of his wings. He also activated Tempest Glide to speed up further—it was ti for a killing spree. Maybe he’d find a special opponent to do so testing, but he doubted any of the beasts here could block his lightning beam.
Maybe he should practice his talon and beak attacks more, Thalion thought as he entered the area of the floating wind crystals. They glowed softly with white light, and in the distance, the sun was beginning to rise. Yes, testing his lee abilities would probably be the best option for now. It would also help avoid drawing too much attention from nearby beasts.
His first target was a worm guarding one of the smaller crystals. These beasts tended to be fast flyers and simply swallowed their prey whole. For Thalion, it was the perfect target to test his claws. Other beasts would die too quickly, leaving no useful data on how powerful his attacks really were.
The worm noticed him and lunged with incredible speed. Thalion had fought such worms before, so he smoothly leaned to the right, dodging the attack with ease. He was far faster than during their previous encounters, and evading the worm—even at close range—was effortless. He could feel the wind flowing around his body and wings, responding to his every movent.
The worm, however, had anticipated only a simple sidestep, leaving it slightly delayed in turning around. By the ti it managed to face him again, Thalion’s crystalline talons had already ripped through half its tail.
He had activated the skill at its normal level without overloading it with the crystal. In the future, he might not always be able to empower every attack, so he wanted to test how effective it was without the extra infusion of power. The worm’s hide was tough, but his claws sliced through it like butter.
This was promising. Next, it was ti to test his beak attack.
The worm writhed in pain, its movents widening the gash on its body with every twitch. Thalion took advantage of this mont to perform a flyby attack, biting into the worm’s midsection. The attack worked perfectly; even the worm’s hide didn’t stop his beak. He imdiately spat out the worm’s flesh in disgust—there was no way he was swallowing that.
So far, the experint was a success. Now, he wanted to see if the worm could withstand an uncharged lightning beam.
It couldn’t.
The first blast of the lightning beam tore the worm in half. Its pieces plumted, twitching violently as electricity coursed through them.
Thalion looked at the dead worm with disappointnt. He had hoped it would survive the first blast. Perhaps its hide wasn’t as strong as he’d initially thought. He needed a better-defended target to test his skills further.
Hmm… Where were those turtles again? Thalion thought as he flew toward the next crystal with incredible speed. He didn’t even bother collecting the smaller crystals—they already had more than enough. He’d only grab the larger ones, but even those were of little interest at the mont.
Not spotting the turtles or anything with similar defenses nearby, Thalion resorted to slaughtering everything in his path as he flew deeper into the seemingly endless field of crystals. First, he annihilated a weak swarm of pigeons, then so ravens, and so on.
The deeper he went, the more insects he encountered among the crystals. From giant dragonflies to massive fruit flies the size of small cars, they all sward the area. The fruit flies were particularly unsettling, using their long proboscises swallowed any beast that ca too close hole.
For Thalion, it was just another opportunity to hone his skills as the carnage continued.
It turned out that insect bodies didn’t resist his lightning beam at all, which was to be expected. The swarms of wasps and hornets that circled around so of the crystals were difficult to deal with without his domain skills. While the lightning beam killed everything it hit, the insects always attacked from multiple sides. Thalion mostly ignored them, but occasionally fired a lightning beam at them to gain so experience.
Nothing on his level could resist his power or put up a fight worth ntioning, so Thalion decided to clear so of the crystals higher up. These crystals were still not large enough for Thalion to bother picking up, but the beasts around them were a bit stronger. He still refrained from using his domain skill, ensuring that not every beast would imdiately flee upon seeing him approach. Hiding his aura was still highly effective; most beasts couldn’t gauge his true strength, and so even saw him as an easy target and attacked.
This was perfect, as it allowed him to test different maneuvers and their efficiency. Most of the ti, his tactics involved a variety of sharp turns combined with rolls while charging a lightning beam. So far, most of these maneuvers had worked quite well. The best one involved taking a sharp turn to either side, then flying in a wider arc. The mont his pursuer adjusted to the wider arc, he would make another sharp turn, which left him free to fire at his target.
When birds fired their feathers at him, most missed due to his sharp turns. This, however, annoyed him slightly. None of the birds had any particularly useful skills. It wasn’t surprising—his current skills were all exceptional and of high quality.
Perhaps the gust beak or talon attack wasn’t particularly powerful, but maybe he could find sothing interesting to fuse them with. It was also understandable that pigeons didn’t have great talon skills. They did have a feather-shooting skill, but Thalion wasn’t interested in that. The mont both his domains were active, those feathers wouldn’t even co close to hitting him.
He was still at a relatively low level, which likely explained why the beasts didn’t possess worthwhile skills. After killing a few more flying beasts, it was ti to enter the higher layers with the more powerful E-grade beasts. While they wouldn’t compare to the ones roaming the oceans, Thalion doubted he would struggle to defeat them in battle. Still, that didn’t an they wouldn’t have intriguing skills to offer.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
With a few beats of his wings, he ascended to the second-highest layer, where only the massive crystals and the strongest beasts resided a few hundred ters above him. Looking down, he noticed the two ships gathering crystals and air elentals alike.
Air elentals were far rarer now compared to the first ti he had discovered this place after gaining Eagly’s form. This was likely because they had no ans of attack or defense, making them easy prey for any flying beast.
The elentals were also drawn to the wind crystals like moths to light, which likely contributed to their short lifespans. The strongest elental he had spotted was around level thirty-eight. However, he only saw it briefly, as it was instantly killed by two small hawks that repeatedly dove through it with glowing claws and beaks. The hawks were slightly higher in level, and Thalion didn’t see the elental managing to deal any damage before its demise.
One thing he did notice was that it took the hawks quite a while to kill the elental, as it kept reforming itself over and over again. Elentals always had a core that allowed them to form their bodies, which also served as their power source. If the core was destroyed, the elental would die. According to the books in the Golden Palace, this could sotis be difficult—especially if the elental was massive, spanning the size of multiple cities.
Air elentals, being semi-transparent, made it hard to spot their core. The hawks likely missed it several tis before finally destroying it. This semi-transparent quality was also why darkness and light elentals were notoriously difficult to defeat. Their cores were nearly impossible to locate, making it extrely hard to destroy them.
For Thalion, this wouldn’t make much difference. He intended to bond with the darkness elental and link its core to his body. According to the books, this bond would permanently connect the elental to him, ensuring it couldn’t die as long as Thalion lived. If the elental’s core were destroyed. After the bond such a loss would weaken it temporarily, but it wouldn’t perish—it would simply take ti for the core to regenerate.
This bond could even allow the elental to possess two cores: one primary and one backup. While it was unlikely the elental could draw power from both simultaneously, the backup would ensure it could keep fighting if sothing happened to the first.
At least, that was the theory Thalion had read about in the Golden Palace. He wondered if integrating a darkness crystal into the Umbral Predator’s body would empower his attacks and provide a constant source of energy to feed the elental.
He definitely needed to purchase so items at the next system shop. Darkness crystals were at the very top of his list—twice, Thalion noted with amusent. Hopefully, he wouldn’t forget about it. Enough thinking, though. He needed to earn so experience points and, with so luck, acquire a few impressive skills.
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