The city was in turmoil after the revelation that elves had been hiding in their midst. Thalion received updates from Kaldrek through the token while William kept ranting into his other ear about what he personally believed had actually happened.
"So Thalion it looks like we are lucky and the elves are going to attack tonight. They have gathered their forces and it was the infiltrators job to sabotage the defenses and bring down the shield right before the attack."
It was difficult to focus on Kaldrek while William constantly talked beside him.
"Like I told you Kevin those officers are all stupid. They cant even notice elves infiltrating the city. Didnt they see the faces and the long ears? Oh no now we need more guards but for what if nobody even bothers looking at the people entering the city. Why can't those elves just leave us alone altogether? The planet is massive after all. Seriously why us? Why cant they simply turn around and walk in the opposite direction? Is that really so difficult? I do it all the time. Big beast in the distance? Nope. I turn around and immediately forget it ever existed. But those elves cant do that. They see this impossibly strong human faction that just wants to have a good time and suddenly they decide to destroy it. Man Iam E grade and might live hundreds or even thousands of years but thanks to those elves I cant even enjoy life. No family. No peace. Nothing except this stupid leveling."
For Thalion all of this was becoming too much.
The only positive thing was that they were finally preparing to leave this damned place. With the next attack the elves would likely go all out and send most of their Chosen into battle. It also meant Ethan and the other human Chosen would appear to defend the city and Thalion really needed to make sure none of them discovered him.
"Yes that indeed sounds like a very difficult situation." Thalion replied to William, using the brief moment where the man paused to take one of those deep breaths that allowed him to begin another tirade about how horrible life was.
"What an understatement. This is hell. Sometimes I wonder whether I would be better off dead but then I remember I would actually need to die for that and honestly that doesnt sound appealing either and is it just me or was there movement behind those trees?" William suddenly stopped mid sentence while pointing toward a cluster of trees in the distance.
There weren't additional guards stationed on the walls because the humans didnt want the elves realizing their infiltrators had already been exposed. As dangerous as the upcoming confrontation would be it still heavily favored the humans. Almost all their resources had been concentrated here specifically to ensure this fortress would hold. There simply wasnt a better place to confront the elven Chosen.
Thalion looked toward the trees William pointed at but saw nothing. With his eye skills deactivated he was basically just like everyone else and couldnt perceive blood signatures while his blood sense didnt work at such great distances. Activating those abilities right now also would be extremely risky. Getting exposed before the attack began would be disastrous.
"I didnt see anything." Thalion answered honestly while keeping a closer eye on the trees.
"No I swear something was there and Iam going to sound the alarm..." William began but Thalion quickly interrupted him.
"Ey just wait until you are sure. There is like a full kilometer between the wall and the nearest trees so we will definitely notice them once they attack and with all the fighters already prepared inside the city thats more than enough time."
"Hugh fine this is just..."
A massive explosion interrupted William as something slammed violently against the shield on the opposite side of the city. Loud alarms instantly rang out and fighters poured from the city streets.
So far only Eric shone brightly like a beacon while the other Chosen still remained hidden.
"Oh great its on the other side so its none of our business." William smiled while lazily sitting down and dangling his feet over the edge of the wall. Almost all tension visibly disappeared from his shoulders.
Thalion figured this probably wasn't the right moment to mention that they were most likely completely surrounded by elves and that it was only a matter of time before this side also came under attack.
The first strike likely had merely been bait designed to create chaos while the infiltrators inside the city sabotaged the defenses. Since those infiltrators had already been discovered nothing would happen from within but the other elves outside couldnt possibly know that yet.
It probably wouldnt take much longer before the real attack started here as well.
Even from the far side of the city the sounds of battle and explosions already reached them while the defenses fully activated. Massive blasts of energy shot from the machines atop the towers and many fighters simply leaped over the walls to intercept the elves before they could approach too closely.
Kaldrek had explained that repairing the walls was extremely difficult once they were damaged and that it was simply better to fight outside while using the walls, archers, mages, healers and of course the dome-like shield itself as protection.
He had told Thalion a lot more but due to Williams constant rambling he hadnt listened to every single word and forgot some parts rather quickly.
William, now in a relatively cheerful mood, decided to enlighten him with another piece of knowledge.
"Did you know that there are twice as many elves as humans?"
"No. Also how would someone even know that?" Thalion responded while feeling rather confused about where this conversation was heading.
"Heard it yesterday and honestly it sounded logical. No matter the tutorial humans died like flies while elves almost never died at all. They are simply too strong, too fast, too smart..."
And just like that William launched into another endless rant about elves.
Thalion meanwhile focused more on the inferno erupting on the other side of the city.
Above it all Eric shone like a second sun while before him an ocean of flames erupted and slammed against the wall hard enough to make it tremble.
For a brief moment Thalion recognized Kaelirs features within the fire.
The fire elf had clearly evolved to D grade and from what Thalion saw now those D grades were far stronger than the ones from Lyrians trial. Even their opening attacks surpassed everything those trial D grades had unleashed.
The realization that he himself wouldnt evolve for quite some time was honestly rather horrible. He definitely would need to discover a few more cheat codes along the way.
On the positive side once he destroyed the systems mark and finally reached D grade playtime would be over for those Chosen. Then the true bloodline hunt would begin.
Finding a worthwhile bloodline in E grade was unlikely but there was no way those Chosen would reach C grade before he himself entered D grade. Every single level within D grade required more experience than the final levels of E grade and even those had already taken the Chosen days if not weeks to obtain.
The road toward D grade was painfully long especially while dealing with all the system nonsense.
On the positive side however this was also the point where Thalion truly would begin surpassing everyone else. Always receiving divine evolutions, possessing countless forms and being capable of stealing bloodlines. Once he fully stepped into his own potential those Chosen would become just another obstacle to crush like everyone else standing in his path.
Still watching this battle showed him exactly where he needed to go.
The elf suddenly launched a ten meter long spear of fire which after missing slammed directly into the blue dome shield and unleashed a gigantic wave of flames that briefly covered almost half the barrier before slowly fizzling out.
Thalion honestly hoped that this at least represented one of the stronger attacks because that spear alone contained roughly as much power as his wyverns breath attack.
Sure he could prolong the duration of the wyvern breath which made the comparison imperfect but it still remained frightening.
Maybe instead of constructing giant walls humanity should focus more on illusion arrays and simply avoid being discovered by the Chosen entirely? Thalion wondered while observing the battle between the D grades.
The top factions simply were too strong right now but on the positive side they constantly fought each other and New Earth itself remained enormous.
Thalion also wondered how things looked on the other planets scattered throughout the universe. Did they also possess this many Chosen? Were similar wars raging across their surfaces as well?
Probably.
Integrated Space wasnt really much different except there the sects mostly remained equal in strength and open warfare simply wasnt worth the cost. Yet every time someone advanced a grade or a new leader took over, boundaries inevitably were tested.
It didnt take long before the other elves also revealed their positions and attacked from every direction at once. Charged arrows and all sorts of magical attacks slammed into the dome shield which still held firm without even trembling.
"Gosh that surprised me." William shouted as an explosion erupted directly against the shield in front of them. "By the way what is your class?"
That was something Thalion absolutely did not want to answer truthfully.
None of his actual options were good. Swordsman would force him to jump over the wall and engage the elves directly while blood mage and fire mage carried obvious risks because of his curse and abilities. Giving the Chosen even the slightest hint about his curse and what it could do was the last thing Thalion wanted.
The curse was one of his greatest trump cards especially during prolonged battles and he definitely didnt want others developing counters against it already. Eventually it probably would happen but now was far too early.
So Thalion decided on a mix between two lies and half truths.
"Iam a fire mage and swordsman."
He had heard mixed classes existed even though in his own case the combination didnt really sound particularly practical.
"Seriously? Couldnt decide on one proper class ey? Thats stupid you know that right? Like ridiculously stupid. You should focus on one thing and make it absurdly powerful because everything else doesnt matter. But oh no Kevin here thinks he is something special."
William instantly launched into yet another rant while fighters rushed past them and several gave the two rather strange looks.
It should have been their job to at least fire a few spells at the elves before using the mana circles on the wall to recover their energy but so far William showed absolutely no signs of stopping his rant.
"Having two classes cuts your power in half. Where are you even putting your stat points? As a fighter you need strength, agility, endurance and maybe vitality. Yet as a mage all those stats are useless and only wisdom and intelligence matter. To be fair the whole stat system is also completely messed up but still you are lucky that you found this base so we could explain it to you. Of course there are those who are simply so powerful that none of this matters. Elves for example. Elves can have multiple classes at once and it doesn't bother them at all. Only because they are elves and nothing else. Oh and your strongest skill? Still weaker than ours. On top of all that elves are arrogant maniacs who enslave everything and everyone close to them. Believe me once you get captured by elves there is no escaping. No don't give me that look. There isn't even the slightest chance. Never happened before and never will happen. The only thing that could save you is if one of our Chosen finds you but Chosen dont care about normal people like us. I mean just look at the powers they unleash. What could a simple mage like me even do against something like that?"
William just kept ranting and ranting.
Meanwhile before them the human fighters charged the elves who had emerged from the forest and were now rushing toward the city themselves.
The earth suddenly tore itself apart as gigantic plants over eighty meters high erupted from the ground like buried serpents. Their mouths resembled enormous venus flytraps which swallowed entire chunks of earth together with unfortunate human fighters.
Standing atop one of those monstrous plants was an elf with glowing green eyes calmly directing the slaughter.
"Oh great we have the plant Chosen on our side of the city. What luck. It is literally the only elf my fire spells should actually work against. Well at least you would think that but Kevin you wont believe what I'am about to tell you. Those green plants are somehow completely resistant against fire. Sounds stupid right? I already tested it many times. Nice sneaky fireball from the side but it did absolutely nothing. Left a tiny burn mark and then just went out."
While William kept talking which honestly served as a rather convenient excuse not to join the battle, Thalion spotted another Chosen.
This one was an assassin wielding two frozen blades. The elf blinked between the human fighters so quickly that even those standing nearby often needed several seconds before realizing someone had already died beside them.
The speed and elegance with which the assassin moved truly was something rare to witness.
"Uhh look who we have here my archenemy. A stupid Chosen assassin on our side of the city. As if normal elven assassins weren't already strong enough. No lets just send the best of the best. Dont worry I will definitely hit him." William exclaimed after following Thalions gaze.
With an incredibly slow motion William hurled a fireball toward the assassin.
The attack naturally had absolutely no chance of hitting and the resulting explosion nearly blasted a few nearby humans instead.
"He dodged? What a surprise. Should I try again?"
"Maybe use a different spell? Dont you have something faster or with a larger explosion?" Thalion asked while secretly hoping the man wouldnt completely lose his mind.
"Great idea. I actually do have something faster but it doesn't work at this range. Thats the issue with us fire mages. The farther the spell travels the weaker it becomes. All the other mages have it so much easier. A stone doesnt lose power while falling toward an enemy but fire loses most of its impact over distance. Even if I fired something faster at the assassin it wouldnt deal damage even if it hit. Also the guy has some kind of ice blades or daggers. Don't really know what exactly. Anyway what I'am trying to say is that this isn't pokemon and fire doesn't automatically counter ice. The guy will just extinguish the flames and keep going. No what you actually need is..."
William got interrupted by a loud demanding female voice.
"Ey what are you two doing there?"
A woman carrying the unmistakable aura of a Chosen shouted at them.
Both William and Thalion were too surprised to answer immediately so she simply continued after giving them both a sharp look.
"You with the sword look decently powerful. Follow me. I'am going to empower you so we can slow those Chosen down until reinforcements arrive."
That of course was the exact opposite of what Thalion wanted.
Yet simply running away right now also definitely wasn't the correct decision.
"Please tell me you made contact with Athilrion." Thalion quickly sent to Kaldrek before jumping down from the wall.