Thalion constantly let power trickle through his soul body. At first only slowly, but with time he got faster and faster.
The issue was that an entire month had already passed and he still wasn't fully healed.
In fact, he was certain that if he overextended himself again, all of his progress would instantly be undone, which was why he carefully made sure never to push himself too far.
His continued weakness, of course, did little to ease the minds of his benefactors.
So far the gods had done a lot of work, delivering multiple forms, but Thalion hadn't taken a single one yet.
On top of that, he hadn't shifted into another form during the entire month and continued living solely as an Eclipsari.
He had even carved a few additional runes into several armor pieces using darkness, which so far could dissolve almost anything.
The armor itself was doing very well inside the blood pond.
The only things still missing were the crystals.
Even though Thalion hadn't been doing particularly well during the last month, his faction had progressed rapidly.
Ricarda had already reached D grade, which was an incredibly fast leveling speed.
Thalion's friends were also very close, which was excellent given what was about to happen after the third system event.
A base had been constructed around the teleportation formation to Integrated Space, and all three bases they controlled on New Earth were now connected through a growing teleportation network.
Thalion hadn't visited the other settlements during the last month, but according to the reports, every single one was developing rapidly as defenses were erected at an astonishing pace.
Annie and Thalasan had even managed to bring one of the giant crystals up from the ocean. It was now being used to power their defenses should one of the larger factions discover their location.
For Thalion, however, today was an important day.
It was finally time to speak with the Echovore god.
He needed answers regarding what had happened to the Eclipsari, even though he already had a few suspicions of his own.
So despite being genuinely excited for the conversation, the god that appeared before him wasn't exactly reassuring.
The massive body of the Echovore god looked as though it had been sliced apart countless times and then stitched back together.
Its first words were even less comforting.
"What kind of abomination are you?"
The voice sounded as though it were spoken by multiple tongues at the same time, even though the god's mouth didn't move in the slightest.
"I was actually hoping you could help answer that question. I'm not an Echovore, but my form has changed quite a lot."
Thalion intentionally kept things vague.
He wanted to make sure the god remained interested in helping him.
He had been told that one of Nyssa's avatars was observing the conversation from the background, but there was no reason to take unnecessary risks.
"What does your status screen say?"
The god's simple response immediately began to annoy Thalion.
His appearance alone should have told the Echovore plenty, but since his status screen hadn't changed much, answering wasn't a problem.
"Everything stayed the same except that my health bar changed into the black Essence bar."
The Echovore seemed to arrive at the conclusion that Thalion was somehow even more disgusting than before.
"A half-breed."
The creature paused.
"So what does the half-breed wish to know?"
These constant statements without any actual information were beginning to irritate Thalion.
"Please summarize all the upsides and downsides of my new condition and explain how I can work around the negative effects."
It turned out rather quickly that the Echovore possessed a very different view of life than most beings.
"Kill yourself and hope your soul is reborn in a better body."
Thankfully, the god continued from there with something resembling useful advice.
"You are partially an Echovore now, which means you possess the advantages of our race and the disadvantages of the Eclipsari."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a moment."
Thalion immediately interrupted him.
"Downsides? The Echovore weakness is mental attacks and domains. So if I'm not vulnerable to mental domains, what exactly am I weak against?"
Right now it sounded as if he had become an even more ridiculous creature.
The Eclipsari didn't possess that particular weakness anymore, which meant he was only gaining advantages without any meaningful downside.
The Echovore portion of him offered greater resistance against physical attacks while everything else remained unchanged?
If that was true, then this sounded far too good to be real.
"What do you mean, no downsides? Any sufficiently strong physical attack will crack your weak armor. We Echovores are practically immune to such attacks and only the strongest mental assaults can truly threaten us. You, on the other hand, will also be more vulnerable to mental attacks. Overall, you simply belong to a weak race."
Thalion was starting to grin like an idiot.
Whatever the Echovore considered a failure might very well have been his greatest success so far.
"Good. Besides these obvious downsides, I have already collected a few souls. Right now, however, I can't use them to empower my skills or movements. Can you help me with that?"
The Echovore god looked mildly offended that it had been asked what it clearly considered a trivial question.
Thankfully, this was where the Echovore truly began to shine.
It explained everything to Thalion in meticulous detail.
Parts of it he already knew from the scrolls, which apparently Nyssa had tortured out of the god, but hearing the explanations directly was far more valuable.
The lecture lasted four entire days before the transmission finally ended and Thalion was left alone with his training once more.
Throughout the conversation, he had continuously circulated energy through his soul body, slowly accelerating the healing process.
One more week and he should be able to use skills again.
That was important because he needed to test everything he had just learned.
In short, the power stored inside captured souls acted much like a nitrous system, supercharging skills far beyond their normal limits.
The amount of power gained depended on both the number of souls and their individual strength.
After that, efficiency came down to how effectively one could squeeze power from them.
According to the Echovore, the best method was to inflict immense suffering without actually damaging the soul itself.
That way the released soul energy would also carry the final emotions experienced by the tortured soul and transfer them into the attack.
Given the inherently sinister nature of his darkness elemental, soul-infused abilities would hit like a truck.
Satisfied with the progress he had made, Thalion fully focused on recovery and rebuilding the body tempering he had lost.
Everything still felt painfully slow.
He remained unable to absorb large quantities of darkness at once, which significantly hindered his progress.
His friends even held a celebration after Kargul, Thalasan, Jack, and Josh reached D grade, but Thalion skipped it entirely.
Right now he needed peace and quiet.
He had already lost too much time and needed to catch up.
Thanks to his relentless effort, Thalion regained the ability to use skills after only two days.
That allowed him to properly repair his damaged pathways, and merely three days later he was fully operational once again.
Back on track.
Before heading out to test his new abilities, however, there was one thing he wanted to finish first.
His armor.
Only two pieces remained unfinished.
The crystals.
Both still needed to be corrupted before they could be integrated into the final design.
Once that was done, he would leave the armor inside the blood pond.
There was no realistic chance of it being finished before the third system event.
Still, considering what was likely to happen afterward, finishing it sooner rather than later was simply the smarter decision.
So the plan was straightforward.
Finish the armor.
Test his abilities.
Level like a maniac.
Restore his blood reserves.
Experiment with the new forms the gods had provided.
Quite an ambitious schedule.
Fortunately, Thalion was confident he could get it all done in time.
Whether fate intended to grant him that peaceful training period, however, was an entirely different question.
Because their camp was being watched.
<--
While Thalion's new faction had made quite good progress, the divine factions on New Earth hadn't been idle either.
The war between elves and humans had continued until the elves failed to breach Eric's walls.
The base was simply too heavily fortified and received far too many reinforcements.
What truly brought the conflict to a halt, however, was the notification regarding the third system event.
Suddenly, fighting one another wasn't nearly as important as gaining one or two additional levels.
Progressing in D grade was extremely difficult, but every single level made a far greater difference than it had in the earlier grades.
Besides leveling, expansion and mapping New Earth became the highest priority.
Even though humans and elves still hunted each other whenever opportunities presented themselves, the war had effectively ended.
With every passing day, more scouts returned and the map of New Earth became increasingly complete.
Since all major settlements were scattered across the planet and connected only through teleportation networks, none of the factions could truly discover most hideouts belonging to their rivals.
Completely wiping out another faction had become nearly impossible.
The vampires and orcs weren't lagging behind when it came to expansion either.
With all four major divine factions spreading across the planet, most incursions and independent groups were eventually conquered or destroyed.
Everyone else was left with three options.
Join them.
Run.
Or die.
At least that was what everyone initially believed.
Soon a fourth option emerged.
Many of the people who had survived the tutorial simply wanted to live their lives.
Instead of endlessly chasing levels, they built homes, established settlements, and attempted to enjoy what could now potentially be an incredibly long lifespan.
Surprisingly, this mindset was most common among humans and in a way vampires.
Many had no desire to fight in another war.
Others had already lost enough friends and family during the tutorial.
Some simply wanted peace.
Small villages began appearing in remote regions far away from the influence of the larger factions.
Farms were established.
Trade routes emerged.
Hunters protected growing communities from wandering monsters.
For the first time since the system had arrived, parts of New Earth began to resemble an actual civilization again rather than a battlefield.
Whether those peaceful settlements would survive what was coming after the third system event, however, was a completely different question.
Orcs and elves were simply too militaristic. None of them would even consider turning their backs on their own race.
When it came to humans and vampires, things looked very different.
Humans generally didn't care much for someone simply because they happened to be human. When scouts informed them that another human had been chosen by a god and now served as that god's messiah, many wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Most tried to get as far away as possible before the scout could even finish the report.
For vampires, the reasons were entirely different.
Vampires relied heavily on blood, and the more vampires gathered in one place, the greater the problem of feeding everyone became.
In most vampire communities, eighty percent of the livestock's blood ended up in the hands of the top one percent of vampires, while everyone else was forced to hunt for themselves.
On top of that, ordinary vampires were required to pay a weekly blood tithe.
All of this resulted in many vampires leaving in small groups to seek better opportunities elsewhere.
Those runaway vampires eventually encountered large groups of displaced weak humans.
Many were still F grade or only early E grade.
Over time, the groups merged and continued to grow as more people tried to escape the endless conflict between the four major factions.
This unexpectedly led to a rather unusual symbiosis.
The humans desperately needed protection.
They were far too weak to defend themselves against the stronger races.
The vampires, meanwhile, needed blood.
The agreement was simple.
The humans would provide blood.
The vampires would provide protection.
With every kilometer they traveled, their wandering flock grew larger and larger.
Everyone was searching for the same thing.
A permanent home.
A place where they wouldn't be dragged into another war.
The longer they traveled, however, the more everyone realized that true peace might be impossible.
There were two reasons for that.
First, their group had grown too large to remain hidden forever.
Sooner or later one of the major factions would discover them.
Second, the vampires wanted to become stronger.
Much stronger.
Peace was never truly part of their agenda.
Unlike the humans, they possessed enough power to fight if necessary.
Many of them fully intended to continue leveling and expanding their strength.
Their plans, however, were about to change.
One day the scouts returned with an unusual report.
Near the edge of a forest stood an enormous tree-like plant that towered over the surrounding landscape.
At first they thought it was simply another strange monster.
Then they noticed the camp beneath it.
Humans and elves lived there side by side.
Not as prisoners.
Not as slaves.
Not under guard.
They simply lived together.
The news spread through the traveling settlement like wildfire.
For both races, such a thing should have been impossible.
Yet the scouts swore they had seen it with their own eyes.
And for the first time in a very long while, many among the refugees felt something they hadn't experienced since arriving on New Earth.
Hope.
<--
"Just how long do we need to follow those weaklings? At some point the vampires are going to notice us."
Fredric sounded thoroughly annoyed as he sat beside the campfire.
He was one of Ethan's rangers and, together with a handful of others, had been assigned the unenviable task of following the wandering refugees so they could be captured later.
Even if the humans were weak, they would still make useful laborers.
Workforce was desperately needed since nearly everyone capable of fighting had been pulled into the war effort.
"Until they finally settle down and we can call in the craftsmen to establish a teleportation circle nearby. After that we can bring them all back."
Tony poked at the fire with a stick.
"We also need more manpower if we're going to deal with the vampires. A fully fed vampire is quite dangerous, and they weren't weak to begin with."
"I still can't believe humans would agree to such an arrangement. Letting vampires drink their blood. Disgusting."
Fredric shook his head.
In his eyes, those refugees reflected poorly on humanity as a whole.
"Agreed."
Tony snorted.
"Did you know people can actually become addicted to being bitten by vampires?"
"Yeah. I heard some vampires even have skills specifically designed for that."
Fredric's expression darkened.
"If one of those vampires bites you enough times, you can practically become their slave. Horrible creatures. Every single one of them is a threat to the living and should be wiped out."
Tony nodded in agreement.
For a while, only the crackling of the fire filled the camp.
Then hurried footsteps approached.
"Hey, everyone, I think it's time to report back."
One of the returning scouts emerged from the darkness with an excited grin on his face.
"There is a settlement ahead. Humans and elves living together. If there was ever a reason to report back, this is it."
"Excellent."
Tony immediately straightened and for the first time in days, genuine excitement appeared on his face.
"Then we finally have something worth bringing to Ethan."
The scout smiled.
"Exactly. This whole assignment was starting to drive me crazy."
"One of us will still have to stay behind and guide the army once they arrive."
Tony looked around the camp.
A moment later, every pair of eyes slowly turned toward the scout who had just delivered the report.
His smile disappeared instantly.
"No."