“Anything the gods want besides congratulating me on my massive victory? Because I really need to get going,” Thalion said after observing Ricarda standing completely still with her eyes closed.
Her eyelids twitched from time to time, and she looked deeply uncomfortable in her own skin.
“No, nothing else. But there is news. Most elven gods have abandoned us. Beside my patron, only two other elven gods remained. This means the elven Chosen will likely unify against us.” Ricarda paused before continuing. “The system is also isolating E-, D-, and C-grade territories. Gods can no longer enter those regions, which apparently has never happened before. Those domains are usually considered weak and located near the outer edges of integrated space, but it is still causing concern.”
To Thalion, most of that didn’t matter much.
He already knew this era would be different from the Voice of the System itself.
Right now none of those changes affected him directly, which meant there was no reason to delay visiting his friends any longer.
They had to be ecstatic that he had already founded his own faction this early.
“Good. I’ll probably be gone for a few days, so good luck strengthening the base,” Thalion said, unsure whether he should leave any specific orders behind.
Sending Ricarda to secure the teleportation circles would probably be unwise.
Without her, the new faction barely had any real combat power at all.
Maybe Seraphina could help, but Thalion still had no clear idea how strong she truly was, especially if she was forced to fight on land.
“Wait… what? You’re leaving?” Ricarda’s head snapped upward the moment she realized what he had said. “Where are you going?”
“Doesn’t matter. Good luck until then,” Thalion replied with a mysterious grin before shifting into his wyvern form.
Three powerful wingbeats launched him into the air, and moments later he was already racing across the open ocean while accelerating faster and faster.
Thalion was always surprised by how absurdly fast the wyvern form truly was, especially during long-distance travel.
Even after an entire hour of flying, he still continued accelerating while beating his wings in a steady rhythm.
He desperately hoped the war hadn’t escalated too far and that his friends were still alive and well.
Otherwise making contact with them could become extremely difficult.
What if the base had come under attack?
What if they had already been teleported elsewhere to reinforce another battlefield?
One grim possibility after another crossed Thalion’s mind while he continued flying.
He also climbed higher and higher into the sky, making absolutely sure he wouldn’t get ambushed by flying beasts or anything lurking below in the ocean.
Thalion had no idea what the current state of the human faction was, and he didn’t want to waste even a single second unnecessarily.
The first time he had flown above the ocean, he constantly stopped at hunting grounds and never even approached this kind of speed.
Now, with his momentum continuously increasing, Thalion crossed the entire distance in less than two days before finally spotting the familiar coastline in the distance.
So far everything looked relatively normal.
He descended rapidly before shifting into the Sirokkar.
At the moment it was likely his fastest form on land while still offering exceptional stealth.
Maybe the Eclipsari could eventually surpass it, but Thalion wasn’t entirely certain.
He had also briefly considered transferring all the skills to the Eclipsari, though part of him still wanted to see what abilities the Sirokkar would gain after evolving into D-grade.
At least for now, he saw no reason to make changes.
As Thalion approached the human base, he quickly realized just how far behind he still was.
Massive walls towered over seventy meters high.
A gigantic dome-like shield covered the settlement, and Thalion immediately knew he had absolutely no hope of breaking through something like that anytime soon.
Defensive towers rose even higher than the walls themselves, loaded with all kinds of weaponry and fortifications.
It would take a very, very, very long time before his own faction could ever hope to possess a base like this.
There had to be entire mountains of crystals powering that shield alone.
It took Thalion a bit longer to find the exact spot where he had buried the token the last time he left the base.
Now hidden behind a large tree in his human form — because the Sirokkar couldn’t exactly hold a token — he finally activated it.
“Hello? Anyone there?” Thalion sent, unsure how to even start the conversation.
What if someone could listen in through the tokens?
Given how advanced the bases had become, that possibility no longer sounded absurd at all.
Luckily, all his worries about something happening to his friends — or some guard listening in — were immediately crushed when he received the answer.
“Hell yeah, Thalion!” Jack sent back instantly. “I was worried it would take forever to hear from you again. How have you been doing?”
Then another message followed almost immediately, one that clearly wasn’t intended for Thalion at all.
“Hey everyone, Thalion is back! Yes, yes, come over!”
Thalion blinked in confusion.
Was Jack speaking out loud while accidentally transmitting everything through the token?
Or was something else happening here?
“Jack, good to hear from you. Remember when we talked about how great it would be to have our own faction again like in the old days?” Thalion quickly sent back.
He wanted to get through this as fast as possible.
Who knew what could happen within just a few minutes?
They were still in the middle of a war after all.
“Eh… yes. He’s asking if I remember us talking about starting our own faction. Yeah, I know it was originally our idea. Maybe he got hit over the head or something.”
Thalion immediately decided he would not tell Jack that every single one of those comments was still getting transmitted.
“Then pack your things. It’s time we finally have our own faction,” Thalion sent while trying to keep things short.
The journey back would likely take several days, and it would be a complete waste if they shared every important detail through the token before even meeting up.
“He says he has his own faction and wants us to pack our stuff. Honestly? Lucky timing that the elves decided to attack this base first.”
A brief pause followed before Jack continued transmitting what sounded like a full discussion happening nearby.
“Lucan, I don’t know if Thalion has some safe transportation device for your bombs, so maybe focus on the chainsaws for now? Ah right, the big elf — I completely forgot. Yeah, I’ll tell him.”
Thalion’s relief vanished instantly the moment Athilirion was mentioned.
He had never been especially close to the elf, but leaving someone behind simply wasn’t an option.
The issue was that infiltrating an elven stronghold could become extremely dangerous depending on how advanced their defenses already were.
If they possessed something remotely comparable to Eric’s fortress, extracting Athilirion would be impossible.
And if the elves were attacking this base directly, then there was a good chance multiple elven Chosen were nearby as well.
Fighting one might still be manageable depending on how strong their D-grade evolutions truly were.
Still, actually killing one inside enemy territory sounded like a terrible idea.
At least if things went badly, Thalion remained very confident in his ability to escape once he reached the ocean.
“Sure. Then hurry up so we can get this done quickly. I assume you already have a way to contact Athilirion? Otherwise this could take forever.”
Internally Thalion desperately hoped there wouldn’t be complications and that they could simply send the elf a quick message to get out.
“Eh… well…” Jack hesitated awkwardly. “There are actually a few issues with that. The elves had a traitor recently, so now their commanders are closely monitoring all subordinates.”
A short pause followed before the real problem came.
“And apparently the elves possess some kind of device that lets them intercept telepathic communication through tokens whenever the token lacks an approved elven signature.”
“Yes, I just told him about Athilirion and the token issue. There’ll definitely be enough food for Vorlok. Thalion wouldn’t forget about that…”
Thalion’s thoughts spun wildly while listening to Jack ramble on.
This was horrible.
The stronghold was absolutely massive, which meant there had to be multiple Chosen in the area if the elves were seriously considering an assault or prolonged siege.
“I’ll tell him. Thalion, Maike said it might be best if you enter the base first. There are multiple elven Chosen nearby, and Ethan should currently be busy with his own stronghold.”
For Thalion, the situation was rapidly approaching worst-case-scenario territory.
“Like… how exactly am I supposed to get inside?” Thalion sent back with growing disbelief. “I have pretty unique equipment, golden skin, and glowing red eyes. Can’t we just wait outside and contact Athilirion from there?”
He sincerely hoped he wouldn’t need to enter Eric’s stronghold personally.
Especially after what had happened the last time.
Who knew how ridiculous Ethan’s tracking skill had become by now?
And honestly, how did they even imagine this would work?
Was Thalion supposed to casually pretend to be a guard and help defend the walls?
This had massive disaster written all over it.
“Evelyn will pick you up. She already prepared clothes for you, so getting inside will be easy. We can discuss the rest once you’re here.”
Thalion immediately got unpleasant flashbacks of the tutorial, back when he was escaping Kael, Sylas, and Kai.
The difference was that this situation had the potential to get even worse.
“Fine,” Thalion unwillingly sent back.
Jack must have noticed his hesitation because he immediately tried to reassure him — though it didn’t help in the slightest.
“Don’t worry, this’ll be fun. We probably only need to fight a few times before we establish a connection with Athilirion. Both sides are using devices to block telepathic communication during battles, but usually we get the connection after a few failed elven assaults trying to break the stronghold and kill everyone inside.”
A brief pause followed.
“I gotta say though… those D-grades are terrifying.”
That absolutely did not calm Thalion down.
“So while all of you fight, I’m supposed to stay hidden in some wooden shack or something? Is that the plan?” Thalion mainly asked just to distract himself a little.
This entire situation felt completely insane.
At least pointless small talk kept him from overthinking too much.
“It’s gonna be super smooth,” Jack confidently assured him. “We already prepared a guard uniform here just in case you ever came back. We’ll place you on the wall, and from there we simply fight the E-grade elves while the Chosen beat the living shit out of each other.”
Jack sounded disturbingly optimistic.
“Then we establish contact with Athilirion and leave at the right moment. He really can’t stay inside the elven faction much longer. He keeps claiming he used to be some super important person and that he’ll end up dead if the elves recognize him.”
Jack laughed lightly.
“Hah, funny what those elves worry about, right?”
“Jack… why hasn’t he simply fled already?” Thalion asked, increasingly disturbed by how casually all this information kept getting dropped on him.
“Oh, he can’t really. His group leader is insanely annoying and constantly keeps an eye on everyone. Plus Athilirion was stationed right in the middle of the important areas, so escaping alone probably wouldn’t have worked.”
Jack kept talking while Thalion’s headache worsened.
“We mainly need to create an opportunity for him, but that’s difficult. Though with your help it shouldn’t be a problem. Well… assuming the tokens work and we can determine his exact location. The last time he got injured, so maybe the next few attacks happen without him and—”
Thalion completely stopped listening.
His vision was already spinning.
This plan was utterly insane.
Him pretending to be a guard inside that gigantic fortress?
What exactly were the chances that this would not end in complete disaster?