Pain was raging through Thalion's body as he desperately searched for a way out of a situation that had completely spiraled out of control.
The dark lightning flashing across his body vaporized portions of skin and flesh.
With all the energies running wild inside him, his healing was no longer enough and he only had seconds left to do something.
The elemental desperately tried to contain the energies by reinforcing its core but it was no use.
On the positive side, what they had done with the pyramid was working perfectly.
Perhaps a little too perfectly.
The souls were completely trapped.
At first Thalion tried venting the excess energy by unleashing skills in every direction. Blasts tore through rooftops and shredded parts of the surrounding walls.
Sadly, it did nothing to improve his situation.
Growing desperate, Thalion began adding body parts of the Echovore to the Eclipsari.
Black tendrils erupted from his back while vaporized flesh was replaced by the translucent black essence of the Echovore.
Thalion figured that as long as he kept adding body parts it would buy him more time.
Once the situation was under control, he could always switch everything back.
The Echovore's flesh proved far more resilient and didn't disintegrate nearly as quickly as the Eclipsari's original body.
He even went a step further and integrated the two octopus skills he had acquired, dramatically increasing the durability of the tendrils growing from his back.
He would remove them the moment he survived this ordeal but right now it was simply the best option available.
The more Echovore flesh he added, gradually sacrificing the form entirely, the more stable the situation became.
The elemental adapted as well.
It began integrating the Echovore's flesh into the outer layers of its core, making it significantly more resistant to the overwhelming power released by the souls.
That was the true game changer.
Far less energy now rampaged through his body and slowly Thalion's condition began to improve.
His body even started healing again.
The Echovore itself was gone.
At some point the form had simply disappeared after he transferred a certain amount of flesh and tendrils to the Eclipsari.
Honestly, that was a shame.
Thalion had really wanted to keep the form for future evolutions.
The skills it might have produced at divine rarity would probably have been incredible.
Slowly he regained control of his breathing and finally began to calm down.
A few sparks of black lightning still danced across his flesh and caused sharp bursts of pain but compared to what he had just experienced, it was nothing.
Only now did he notice the numerous holes in the walls and the fact that the roof was barely intact.
The entire building was still trembling from the outbursts of his aura and with a wince he slowly began pulling it back under control.
As his senses returned, he looked around in surprise at the large crowd staring at his mansion with wide eyes.
He could now clearly see the souls within their bodies.
He could even roughly judge their strength.
His stupor was interrupted when the door below was violently thrown open.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the building and seconds later an extremely broad-shouldered Kargul stormed into the room, ripping part of the door frame loose with his shoulders.
Thalion wasn't sure if he could trust his eyes.
Kargul appeared at least half a meter wider than before and the orc had already been absurdly broad.
From his position on the floor it even looked as though Kargul had grown several centimeters taller, though that might simply have been because his vision was still swimming.
"Thalion! What happened here? Were you ambushed? You must have had a glorious battle and crushed the assassin instantly!"
Kargul roared before narrowing his eyes.
"You aren't looking that good. Should I get a healer? The others are still over in the gods' domain. I tell you, their training masters are amazing. Sadly I can't go back because they fear I've progressed too much and might get stuck there."
Kargul was clearly in an excellent mood.
Thalion, meanwhile, was still unable to respond and focused entirely on steadying his breathing.
His body remained a wreck but strangely there was still an enormous amount of power moving through it.
He felt incredibly light.
The sensation annoyed him so much that he instinctively activated his gravity skill to increase his weight.
It changed absolutely nothing.
Deciding not to waste energy on it, he let the matter go.
The elemental was still completely occupied stabilizing its core while Thalion focused on healing.
With his ridiculous regeneration he had no concerns about recovering.
The real question was something else.
Had any of this actually been worth it?
His human form no longer possessed the amulet which made it noticeably weaker.
That alone was a tremendous loss.
So far it also looked as though the Eclipsari had lost a significant portion of its stored darkness while its body tempering had taken a major step backward.
The Echovore was gone as well which was another major setback and so far Thalion had absolutely nothing to show for it.
Right now he wasn't even able to properly test anything.
"Oh, by the way, there were two crystals outside your door and a bunch of scrolls. I nearly tripped over them. You really should get your things organized. There is so much free space inside and it doesn't suit a war chieftain to have so much rubbish lying in front of the door."
It took Thalion a few moments to process what Kargul had just said.
"Kargul, could you be so kind as to bring the scrolls up here and throw the crystals into the blood pond below?" Thalion managed between long breaths.
"Eh, sure."
Kargul answered, though he now looked genuinely worried.
"You really want the scrolls? For Reading? Thalion, are you alright?"
Thalion stared at him in utter disbelief.
He was barely able to move, couldn't even stand up properly, and only now the orc was wondering if he was alright because he had asked for the scrolls?
Kargul simply shrugged and headed downstairs.
A moment later Thalion heard multiple crashes as the orc apparently ripped open several doors while searching for the blood pond.
Eventually Kargul returned with the scrolls.
Thalion rolled onto his stomach and immediately began reading.
If he truly wanted to, he could force himself to stand and do something else but honestly he wasn't in the mood for anything.
Learning more about souls seemed like the best use of his time.
The days passed.
With parts of the wall and roof missing, Thalion could clearly watch the changing sky while burying himself in soul techniques and knowledge about Echovores.
For example, he learned that while Echovores were almost completely immune to gravity and powerful winds, mental domains were their exact opposite.
A sufficiently strong mental domain could seriously injure an Echovore.
The only way to resist was through superior strength or by constantly sacrificing Essence to empower themselves.
Speaking of Essence, Thalion was still wondering what the hell had happened to his status screen.
Everything looked normal except that his health bar had been replaced by the same black Essence bar the Echovore possessed.
That realization made him pause.
And in that exact moment he finally understood what had gone so horribly wrong.
His skin and claws had regenerated but it appeared that the flesh of the Eclipsari and the Echovore had merged together.
The two forms had fused under the immense pressure of the energies involved.
That explained why he constantly felt so light.
To some degree he had literally become part Echovore.
Thalion also suspected that this was the reason the form had vanished from his status screen entirely.
Back then the pain had been so overwhelming that he hadn't thought much about it.
Now everything was beginning to make sense.
Even days after the experiment he still felt terrible.
So far he had distracted himself with the scrolls but every few hours he ended up falling asleep for three to five hours at a time.
The elemental wasn't doing much better.
With the help of the scrolls Thalion also identified another possible culprit behind the disastrous fusion.
It was the amalgamation of souls the amulet had absorbed from one of Ankhet's pillars back in the tutorial.
Apparently something like that no longer existed in the current era.
It had likely been personally created by Amun Ra himself because even modern gods couldn't replicate it.
The problem was that individual souls naturally resisted merging.
That was why most gods simply compressed them together.
Yet according to the surviving records from Amun Ra's ancient empire, an amalgam consisting of merely ten souls could produce the same power as a swarm of a thousand ordinary souls.
And that wasn't all.
The souls within the amalgam constantly strengthened one another.
Normally souls weakened over time.
The amalgam did the exact opposite.
There was one additional property that wasn't mentioned anywhere in the records.
If free souls came close enough, they were gradually pulled into the mass and absorbed.
Considering how many souls it must have devoured over the years, the thing had likely become unimaginably powerful.
It also explained the occasional surges of power Thalion had been feeling.
Inside the small pyramid at the center of the elemental's core, the remaining souls had very little room.
As a result they were slowly being absorbed one after another.
In terms of raw power the process was incredible.
The problem was figuring out how to actually use it.
Thalion had no idea how to release the souls again during combat.
Several of the scrolls, including some personally written by the Echovore god, explained how their race harvested the power of captured souls.
According to them every soul produced a certain amount of Essence which could then be consumed in battle.
Other texts referred to the same resource as Soul Power.
Those techniques should theoretically be available to Thalion as well.
Still, he clearly remembered Ankhet sacrificing entire souls to empower attacks.
That was something Thalion wanted to learn eventually.
For now it was probably wiser to focus on stabilizing his current condition and continue studying.
The more knowledge he gathered, the easier it would be to plan his next steps.
What Thalion didn't know was that something had been brewing inside the base for quite some time now.
<--
Elves were a very proud race and having a human order them around was already difficult enough to tolerate.
The fact that this particular human had ruined their plans and publicly killed one of their own meant that, in their eyes, it was time for revenge.
On top of that, they hadn't failed to notice that Thalion was currently in a rather precarious state.
With Kargul out hunting, the timing couldn't have been better.
As a result, many of the elves gathered in secret to discuss what should be done.
"I say we do it tonight. Every day we wait increases the chance that Ricarda comes back."
Ermes, the head smith, spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? The human is not someone to meddle with. If he recovers, he might come after us. You've seen him. He could kill half the base and simply ask the gods to send more elves."
Sira was one of the few who had spent time around Ricarda and had therefore heard more stories about Thalion than most.
"It won't matter for long. Even with his new rules, the humans are still behind us. Once Ricarda reaches D grade—and that can only be days away at most—she'll take over this camp."
The speaker was a broad-shouldered elf with white hair named Kinga, one of the stronger warriors who had received training in the gods' domain before being assigned to the base.
"At that point the human won't be able to do anything to us anymore. Besides, we're not planning to kill him. We're simply teaching him what happens when you murder one of our own."
"What if he remembers our faces or our auras?"
Another elf raised the concern.
That immediately caused uneasy murmurs to spread through the room.
Nobody wanted to become the personal target of the human monster.
"You're worrying too much."
Kinga quickly took control of the discussion again.
"Have you seen him recently? He's been lying on the floor for days. Whatever experiment he performed clearly backfired. The backlash must have been severe."
"I heard the screams too. He must be in terrible shape."
One of the elves grinned wickedly.
That comment shifted the mood considerably.
Many of the remaining doubts were quickly pushed aside.
"Did you see what happened to his mansion? Only a human would panic like that."
"By the way, what exactly are we planning to do to him?"
Another elf finally asked.
"I say we cut out his filthy tongue."
"What about his fingers and toes?"
"We should break a few bones and leave him in the middle of the plaza for everyone to see."
More and more elves joined the discussion.
Each suggestion became increasingly cruel and absurd.
"We'll decide once we're there and see how much time we have."
Kinga raised a hand and silence slowly returned.
"We can't go too far or the gods might take offense. Either way, prepare yourselves. We move tomorrow night. The humans will be exhausted and they're still far weaker than us. Nothing should stand in our way."
A tight smile spread across his face.
None of the gathered elves noticed the irony.
For all their planning, none of them had stopped to consider what kind of monster would still be alive after surviving an experiment powerful enough to nearly tear him apart from the inside.