Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 474: Unleash the Wyvern

While swimming toward the mountains, Thalion had done some more serious hunting, which had brought him to level eighty-eight. Killing the skarn back when he saved the boat had already pushed him to level eighty-four, but since then, the experience requirements had risen further and further, drastically slowing his leveling speed.The number of beasts he had killed would have otherwise been enough to reach level ninety-two easily. Instead, he was only halfway through level eighty-eight.

It wasn’t bad, and E-grade was still a long road, with almost a hundred levels to go before reaching D-grade. The Chosen, of course, had the advantage that experience gain in system events had been higher compared to what Thalion was doing right now.

Good thing he could join plenty of system events in the future without worrying about his lifespan running out.

After all the testing, hunting, and traveling, Thalion felt confident that it was time to unleash his next form.

Along the way, he had helped a few fishers and water mages, who brought him up to speed on the situation on land—at least as far as they knew. So far, everything seemed relatively calm, with only the elves starting to hunt other races to use them as laborers for simple tasks.

Eric didn’t seem to have similar plans, and many of the fishers were currently trading goods with his faction.

As for other factions, they hadn’t seen any, which wasn’t surprising given the enormous size of the new world.

The other thing they kept hearing about were the powerful beasts killing weaker hunting parties almost daily. The human faction was struggling to keep its members alive once they ventured deeper into the forest—which they eventually had to do in order to gain levels.

It almost seemed like those beasts were waiting for exactly that.

It reminded Thalion of how great white sharks hunted seals off the coast of Mexico. The sharks would hide in deep water, waiting for seals to swim out into open waters to hunt fish. Here, however, the beasts seemed to go even further—leaving weaker creatures alive as bait to lure in the more valuable humans.

One of the fisher mentioned that humans believed these beasts gained extra experience from killing them, which would explain their high levels—some already nearing D-grade.

It had become a true struggle for the elite, especially after their numbers had already been reduced by the system event. Now they had to deal with these beasts before they could evolve further.

Thalion would have liked to help—but it probably wasn’t a good idea. He would rather pay his friends a quick visit and leave before Eric started to panic. More importantly, Thalion wanted to test his new forms, and doing that while an angry Chosen might come after him for what had happened during the system event wasn’t exactly ideal.

At the moment, Thalion was still far from Eric’s domain. If his sense of direction wasn’t off, he should reach the mountains soon.

Because the next form he wanted to spend time in was, of course, the Heavenrend Wyvern of the Rime Tempest.

There was a lot he needed to test.

Luckily, he had already used his poison wyvern back in Ratgul’s domain to get used to a large form and how to fight with it. This time, it was more about the finer details—how to catch prey mid-flight, how to win aerial battles, and so on.

Even though Thalion already had some experience, he still needed to test his new skills and understand the limits of this form.

In the brief moment he had taken on the Heavenrend Wyvern of the Rime Tempest, the ocean beneath him had frozen—without him even using a skill, while his aura had still been mostly contained.

What this creature could do with full power—that was something Thalion wanted to find out next.

As his long dorsal fin cut through the surface of the water, Thalion shapeshifted, his massive wyvern form rising into the air. Three beats of his enormous wings nearly catapulted him into the sky.

After reaching a height of one kilometer, he turned toward the land stretching out before him. It didn’t take long until he spotted the towering mountains at the edge of the horizon.

He had been slightly off course—but it didn’t matter.

This form was built for speed, and so far, nothing was faster than flying.

There was, of course, teleportation and movement skills, but those usually couldn’t be sustained over long distances. Maybe if he used Scarlet Maelstrom at full power with short breaks in between, he could be faster—but flying felt far smoother.

And right now, he was still accelerating.

With every beat of his wings, his speed increased—something that felt completely surreal, as if the air itself offered no resistance.

Much like his new water form, the wyvern carved through the air as if it were open space. Ratgul had already predicted that something like this would happen, and he had said it would also depend on the environment. The more mana filled the air and the stronger the winds became, the more his flight would be affected.

The same applied to all his other affinities. He could only counter this by strengthening his body tempering, which in E-grade should now be much easier. In E-grade, you could simply withstand far more compared to F-grade.

Still, Thalion was already so advanced that he would need a powerful elemental treasure if he wanted to make meaningful progress instead of wasting time.

For now, getting used to his new forms and leveling up were clearly the priority.

So he enjoyed the flight, slowly accelerating with every beat of his wings while observing the world below. He didn’t have a specific skill for enhanced eyesight, but much like an eagle, the wyvern had no trouble seeing every detail from that height.

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There wasn’t much to scout anyway, with the towering trees and thick canopy covering most of the land. Still, from time to time, Thalion spotted small settlements built in man-made clearings.

For now, he kept his aura fully contained to avoid being noticed. There was no reason to give the humans below a heart attack.

He began to wonder whether they had already joined Eric’s faction or were still completely on their own since the tutorial ended.

Even at his speed, it took him over fifteen hours of flight to reach the mountains.

There were mainly two reasons Thalion wanted to come here. This was one of the places where aerial predators gathered—many of them likely possessing a strong ice affinity.

So far, he had already spotted several powerful beasts. It reminded him a bit of the third tutorial stage—just without the floating crystals this time. Most of them seemed to linger here due to the higher mana density before descending into the forest below to hunt.

At the highest altitude, a griffin and an eagle dominated the skies. Both were roughly the same size as Thalion’s wyvern form, which would make this an interesting fight.

They hadn’t reached D-grade yet and didn’t appear to be particularly high variants, judging by their auras. Beasts rarely hid their power.

As the sun slowly began to rise behind the mountains, Thalion adjusted his trajectory and flew upward—directly toward the two apex predators.

If this wasn’t a good test for his new form, then he didn’t know what was.

He released a challenging roar that shook the surroundings and triggered several avalanches on the massive mountain beneath him. In total, there were seven peaks, with the one below him being the tallest, rising several kilometers into the sky.

Thalion slowed slightly as he ascended toward the eagle and the griffin. Every other beast immediately dove out of the way, unwilling to get caught in what was about to unfold.

As he climbed higher, Thalion unleashed his aura while slowly invoking the Dominion of the Heavenrend Wyvern.

From his aura alone, the air turned ice-cold around him, while lightning bolts erupted intermittently. They only stretched a few meters before fading—but that didn’t mean they were weak.

One unlucky hawk-like creature with two sets of wings was struck by a bolt, instantly exploding into a storm of feathers, with the rest falling to the ground as frozen debris.

Now the griffin and the eagle took him seriously.

Both seemed to possess a strong light affinity, judging by their pale, almost white feathers. Their auras expanded outward as they appeared to reach some kind of unspoken agreement, both slowly turning toward Thalion.

It seemed Thalion had been wrong about the eagle’s affinity.

The creature opened its beak and unleashed a powerful lightning beam straight at him.

As an eagle, this would have been an attack he wouldn’t even consider flying through head-on. The beam was also far stronger than anything Thalion could have produced back in F-grade.

But now, he was a wyvern.

Instead of dodging, he accelerated—and flew straight into the lightning.

The pressure pushing him down felt like someone had dropped a truck on his head. His muscles strained, but now his nearly eight thousand points in strength truly showed their worth. His body endured, forcing its way forward.

Aside from slowing him down as the lightning intensified around him, nothing happened—which clearly irritated the eagle above.

Feeling great after that, Thalion let out another roar and began channeling his domain skill in earnest.

The air around him started to twist and howl as it accelerated. The temperature dropped rapidly, and the atmosphere became charged with electricity. Massive bolts of lightning—each over fifty meters long—began to crash through the sky.

And this was only the beginning.

Thunder roared all around him as Thalion surged upward. The air itself began to hum as he activated his breath attack.

The eagle was already pulling into a sharp turn, trying to create distance, while the griffin still seemed uncertain—and not the least bit afraid.

The other birds that weren’t fast enough to escape were caught in Thalion’s domain. The combination of lightning and freezing cold killed every single one within moments. Most of them probably had a very low health pool, and if you weren’t adapted to a certain type of attack, it could be over for you very quickly.

The air around Thalion’s form began to vibrate violently as he unleashed what looked like a concentrated beam of energy in the color of his scales. This beam was much faster than his previous lightning attack, and the power it carried was far from ordinary.

The massive eagle managed to make a sharp turn, but the edges of its wings were still hit—more than enough to blow the entire creature apart. Frozen feathers and chunks of flesh rained down to the ground.

The griffin used the moment Thalion had been occupied and launched itself straight at him. Given Thalion’s speed and domain, it had likely realized that running wasn’t an option and committed to an all-out attack instead. Its body began to glow white as it pulled in its wings and dove toward Thalion.

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Rupert had been hunting near the mountains ever since they arrived there after surviving the tutorial. They had been placed in a tutorial with an elven king who enslaved all other races. That Rupert and his small group had managed to escape could only be explained by sheer luck.

Hunting in the forest while avoiding attention had become second nature to them. They had also skipped the system event—fifteen hundred years was way too much in their opinion. On top of that, they knew the big players would be there, and they understood their place.

Right now, they had already gained more than they had ever dreamed of. As E-grade beings, they would live for thousands of years—a massive increase compared to the average sixty years back on Earth. If they continued like this, they could reach D-grade in a few months or years, extending their lifespan even further.

At the moment, they had a preferred target: a large carnivorous rabbit that multiplied faster than any insect hive they had seen so far. These rabbits were also the preferred prey of the flying predators in the mountains, which meant they had to be extremely careful around the eagle and the griffin. Either of them could easily go after Rupert or one of his teammates.

That night, it was Rupert’s turn to keep watch. He was lazily sitting in a tree, observing the mountains and the flying beasts—their main threat.

Then, suddenly, a shadow passed over him just as the sun rose behind the peaks.

Looking up in confusion, he spotted a massive scaled creature that easily matched the size of the eagle and the griffin. The roar it unleashed shook the mountains and nearly threw Rupert out of his makeshift nest of leaves.

The creatures circling the mountains didn’t hesitate for even a second—they immediately scattered, making way for the newcomer.

Even though this beast had only recently evolved, it was clearly one of the strongest Rupert had ever seen—possibly even strong enough to rival the eagle and the griffin.

Moments later, the eagle was instantly obliterated by an attack Rupert couldn’t even comprehend. This time, he had to move quickly to avoid being crushed by a frozen chunk of flesh weighing over a hundred kilos.

He had no idea what that wyvern even was. It controlled lightning, wind, and freezing cold—all at once. He had never seen anything like it.

The fact that beasts could align themselves with an affinity had always seemed unfair to him and his group. Why couldn’t humans do something like that? At least they could rely on weapons and armor.

After dodging the frozen rain of body parts, Rupert saw the griffin collide with the wyvern midair, producing a deafening, sky-shattering crack.

Yet neither of the massive bodies seemed to break. They clawed and bit at each other as they fell from the sky.

It was impossible to tell who would win at first, but Rupert could see the wyvern’s powerful muscles shifting beneath its scales as it tore chunks of flesh from its opponent.

After falling for about a hundred meters, it became clear who had the upper hand.

The wyvern barely showed any injuries Rupert could notice, while the griffin had already lost one wing and shrieked in agony each time the wyvern tore into it—ripping out massive chunks of flesh with every bite.

Another hundred meters later, the wyvern disengaged. The griffin continued to fall, its body spasming uncontrollably before crashing into the mountains below—clearly dead.

The wyvern seemed satisfied with the outcome and shot off into the distance with a few powerful wingbeats.

It took Rupert a moment before he could move again. Then he quickly made his way back to camp.

It was time for them to leave.

If this had become the wyvern’s hunting ground, they wanted no part of it.