Thalion entered Kael’s living room, where comfortable chairs surrounded the fire pit. Kael and Kai sat eating some grilled beast meat.

"Hey there, where are the others? How many are coming today?" Thalion greeted them.

"Only Sylas is missing, and the others are out hunting," Kael said.

"Your base has grown a lot in the last few days. How many actually live here?" Thalion asked while sitting down in one of the chairs.

"We are close to two thousand survivors," Kael said. "Good thing we now have two extra walls thanks to the orcs. Otherwise, it could be difficult to fit them all."

"But they are so far from our walls. Are they really that useful?" Thalion wondered.

"Did you not go out hunting?" Kai asked with amusement.

"No, I was focused on different things," Thalion answered. He still didn't want to tell them too much. Even if they had given him no cause to not trust them, he was still wary. Sharing that he was the umbral predator was maybe a bad decision he should not have made. Thalion knew that he had done it back then to ease their mind, to help out, but now, after having some time to think about it, it probably was not the best idea.

"No wonder; then you would have seen it. After the system store, I was able to pull the ring walls closer to us and even attach bridges. We could even build another housing district in the space that is not occupied, which is a lot," Kael explained, "but it doesn't look like we need it anytime soon."

Before the conversation could go on, an exhausted Sylas entered the room. "Sorry that I am late," Sylas said while sitting down in a chair next to Kai.

"God, I just had to run from four giant spiders. Can you believe that they were even close to level forty?" Sylas added. "Oh, do you have some meat for me? I am starving."

"Sure," Kai said while pulling another plate with delicious grilled meat out of his spatial ring and handing it to Sylas, who started eating it with much fervor.

"This is bad, most beasts are weak, but some have grown too strong. They could be a danger to the weaker survivors," Kael said, worried.

"Not only to the weaker. I probably have little chance of defeating them, but don't worry. I marked the spot. From there, it should be possible to hunt them down," Sylas said with a full mouth.

"There is currently no party available, and Kai and I can't go out hunting tonight. Do you think you two are strong enough to hunt them down?" Kael said with worry.

"Yeah, we should definitely be enough," Sylas said with confidence while grabbing one of the meat sticks.

"I can go for a little hunting trip tonight," Thalion nodded. Those high-level beasts were a good opportunity to gather lots of experience.

"Great! There is another thing we need to talk about: I want you to help out with the training of the guards," Kael said. "Since we are this many people, we need guards patrolling, and I have to pay them for their services. One way is teaching them from the stronger ones."

"How often do you want us to teach them?" Thalion asked, hoping it was not too often.

"Not that much, maybe an hour or two a day. You don't have to only train them. Just use them for sparring or give them some pointers while they are working on spells or fighting," Kai said calmly.

"We need them now more than ever. The higher the credit score of the people, the more murder will happen within these walls, in addition to the normal troublemakers," Kai explained.

"That's fine with me," Thalion said. Sylas also nodded in agreement.

"By the way, did you hear about the shapeshifters in this city?" Kael asked Thalion. "They say that they are a lot stronger than you."

"Yeah, an alchemist told me today. Did they improve much since the fight against the orcs?" Thalion asked.

"Actually, yes," Kai said. "They had paid hunters to take down strong beasts and took their forms, which made them quite powerful. They also have a pretty high level since hunting in those new forms seems to be very easy."

"Are you taking the form of the spider? They should be at least as powerful as their forms," Sylas asked before Thalion could say something.

"No, of course not! I already have enough work with my two beast forms," Thalion rejected. Maybe it would be smarter to hunt for a better flying from like the griffin, but he liked it that Eagly was so small and difficult to hit.

"Okay, but don't you worry that they would get too strong? You are already behind in level; there are rumors they want to take the bird form from you," Sylas said with a worried look.

"It should be fine," Thalion said. "I will be here tomorrow for some training, and then I will go out hunting for a while to catch up in levels."

"Can I train a bit later tomorrow with the guards?" Thalion asked. He liked helping out others but first he had to do some stuff for himself.

"Yeah, sure. I am not that strict, just give them some pointers," Kael laughed.

"We need to talk about one other thing that will happen very soon: we will start talks with the other camps," Kai said.

"Why are you so afraid? Nothing should change for you," Thalion asked.

"The others could try to become the leaders of this alliance, and that could bring trouble along the way," Kael said. "After the special quest, it is likely to be an all-out war between the survivors."

"I think you will do fine," Thalion said, not worried in the slightest.

"There is still the situation with Garrick and the shapeshifters. They will slowly start to grab for more power. In five days, Garrick and his base will arrive here and fuse with us. I fear something could happen," Kael said with a pointed look at Thalion.

"What do you want from me?" Thalion asked, puzzled.

"If you could deal with the shapeshifters before Garrick arrives here, it would strengthen my position greatly," Kael said. "I don't want them roaming in the jungle around my base in beast forms; there are already rumors spreading that they are waiting for survivors outside the walls."

"What do you mean when you say I should deal with them?" Thalion asked.

"They are already challenging you, and since you are my close friend, it reflects badly on me. If you could beat them up openly, it would be great," Kael explained the situation.

"Okay, but I have a lot of stuff to do first. Maybe an opportunity will come up when I start to openly train the guards," Thalion thought out loud.

"True; that would be even better. Remember, you are not alone and have our full support, so don't hesitate to ask for assistance if you need it," Kael said.

"It should be fine, but in the future, I could need more help, like gathering blood from dead beasts, gathering plants with darkness, wind, or lightning affinity, and maybe some mages that shoot me with lightning," Thalion said with a smile.

"Right, I kind of forgot to tell you, but I already gave orders to gather blood from beasts. Here are the keys to the spatial crystals," Kael said while scratching the back of his head.

"Great! That's awesome," Thalion said with elation. Having access to so much blood would speed up his cultivation a lot; maybe even fully awaken the sanguine thorn.

"It’s not a big deal, only a few alchemists are using the blood for experiments," Kael shrugged.

"There will be a lot happening in the next days; the others are back from their hunting trips soon. I would like another meeting in two days," Kael said, mostly about when Garrick is joining us.

"Sure, I would go for some spider hunting. How about you, Sylas?" Thalion said.

"Yes, let’s go," Sylas said, almost jumping out of his chair, still with one of the meat sticks in his hands.

"Good hunt; take care," Kai and Kael waved.

With that, Sylas and Thalion left the building to hunt for some big spiders.

"Can we fly there?" Thalion asked; he really wanted to get this over quickly since he heard that there was a lot of blood waiting for him.

"Sure, but I won’t be much help in a fight when I have to use a lot of mana in traveling there," Sylas said.

"It should be fine," Thalion said while he transformed into eagly and, with a beat of his wings, shot into the air.

Soon after, they were on the way to the still smoking trees far in the distance. It would take some time to get there since Sylas couldn’t fly as fast as eagly. Thalion was basically lying on the wind and didn’t even need to beat his wings to fly in the direction while Sylas had to keep his movement skill active to fly at his current speed. If he used more mana for traveling, he might not have enough to fight against the spiders. It still was an impressive show of strength. Sylas’ mana regeneration could be higher than his own. In the meantime, Thalion was trying to meditate to start with the first stage of eagly's body tempering. They were almost there when Thalion finally managed to enter meditation. It felt like diving underwater. The wind was all around him, and he could feel how he was very slowly losing speed while traveling. He tried to adjust the position of his wings but before he could find the optimal position, they arrived at the still smoking trees. Thalion tried to spy through the canopy of leaves for clues, but he couldn’t make out any movements or spiders.

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"This is the place," Sylas said while landing on a tree crown.

Thalion followed him and transformed into his human form. Sylas had told him that the spider had eaten a beast here, and he hoped he could hunt them down with his blood sense. As soon as he was in his human form, he could sense where the beast had died. This worked better than he thought, and he also had a clear direction where the scent of blood was going.

"In that direction," Thalion said while jumping from tree to tree with his movement skill. When his blood sense was right, they shouldn’t be that far. He motioned for Sylas to stay behind him while he started to move fast through the jungle. Thalion followed the scent of blood. It was already midnight, but he had no trouble seeing in the dark. In front of them, they heard the sound of fighting. Thalion jumped to the ground and sped up significantly. He soon entered the battlefield, the smell of blood was intoxicating, and the sanguine thorn urged him on to feast on their blood. There was a fight in front of him between five people who tried to avoid the spiders as best as they could, with already five humans lying dead on the ground and one stuck in the mouth of one of the giant spiders. The other spiders were playing with their food, running around them with incredible speed, making it impossible for them to escape.

Thalion wanted to use the moment and shot a blood thorn at the spider who was currently sucking down the human corpse, but the spider reacted with incredible speed and, without looking, jumped forward to avoid the thorn. The spider was not finished; by avoiding the thorn, the next jump brought it directly in front of Thalion, who smashed his fist into the ground, activating tectonic slam, which turned out to be worse for the spider than he thought. The spider lost its footing and was thrashing around like it had lost its vision. Thalion used the distraction and shot out a vine of the sanguine thorn and pierced the forehead of the spider with the black spike, killing it instantly. He also drained the spider of any blood, which almost happened automatically since the sanguine thorn wanted that blood badly. The other spiders turned around with anger in their eyes upon seeing one of their comrades fall and rushed at him. In his dismay, he had to watch how none of the spiders touched the ground, jumping from tree to tree, all coming at him from different sides; none ran at him in a direct line, which made them difficult to hit. One of the spiders jumped on a higher branch and shot hairs at him that ripped through the air like metal spikes.

Thalion dashed to the side and dodged the hairs the spider shot at him and attacked one of the spiders that sped at him with incredible speed, summoning the manablade in his right hand, swinging at the spider. The spider he attacked reacted fast and moved back out of reach of his blade, but Thalion used the active ability of manablade, and a blue mana slash shot at the head of the spider, which didn’t manage to dodge. The slash ripped deeply into the head of the spider, almost cutting it in two. Thalion spun around to address the other spiders who were coming at him; at this time, Sylas had entered the fight and fired lightning bolts at the spiders, hitting two of them and throwing them off their branches, but they failed to inflict serious injuries. One of the humans they just helped fired arrows at the spider hit by Sylas’ lightning, but it seemed that the spider had extremely hard skin and the arrows didn’t pierce deeply.

Thalion used his fireball skill; he had worked so hard to improve it and shot a constant stream of fire at the spider, which tried to avoid it but still got hit and burned on the side. Thalion stopped his skill and immediately fired a blood thorn at the spider and one at the spider that got hit by the arrows. The first spider now had a thorn stuck between her eyes; it was hard to say where the brain of spiders was, but that spider should be out of commission for sure. The other spider got its abdomen ripped open, and black blood was spilling on the ground. Thalion used telekinetic dash to charge the last spider, which was now back on its feet.

It stood up on four legs and used its other legs to stab at Thalion.

He deflected the blow to the side and spun around, cutting the leg off with a swing. Next, he slashed upward since he was close to the spider and activated mana slash, cutting the spider in two. This fight was over faster than he had anticipated. The spiders were intelligent and powerful, but his skills had turned out to be very effective against them. Maybe they also were a bit exhausted from the fight against the humans, but he doubted it. The fight made his human and umbral predator forms catch up with eagly, both reaching level 37. Thalion put his free points into wisdom, and as umbral predator, it went into dexterity. Then he consumed all the blood in the area with crimson harvest, trying not to pull blood from the other survivors. Sylas landed next to him, and together they walked up to the survivors who were sitting on a branch, breathing heavily. They had come at the right moment; a bit longer and they would all have died to the spiders.

"Hey, are you okay?" Thalion asked the five survivors.

"Yes, we should be fine. It will take a bit of time for the healing potion to fully restore our health," the archer said while jumping down from the tree branch.

"Thank you for saving us. I am Rowan. I started working as a guard for Kael. There are many rumors about you, Thalion, but I didn’t expect that you would be that strong," Rowan stammerd while reaching out with a hand.

"Nice meeting you," Thalion said while shaking Rowan's hand.

"Can you travel safely, or should we stay?" Sylas asked.

"If you could escort us for a bit until the wounds have fully healed, would be great," the archer said.

The others were now also jumping from the tree, introducing themselves.

The other four guards were Brennan, Talon, Cormac, and Roderic. They were a mix of medium and light warriors, with the mages and heavy warriors of their group being killed by the spiders first.

"We got a message from Kael this evening that you would train with us this week, is that true?" Talon, a light warrior, asked.

"Yeah, that’s correct. I have some stuff to do before, so it probably will be around midday or afternoon," Thalion said.

"I will be around earlier," Sylas said with a smile. "I don’t have much to do tomorrow, at least nothing I can do in a training session."

"Awesome; I am looking forward to it," Cormac said with elation, the other guards also nodding.

"I was a bit caught up cultivating; could you update me on rumors?" Thalion said. Those guards had eyes and ears everywhere; he was curious what they had picked up.

"So far, it seems fine. The fucker Michael and his men are gathering plants like madmen to prove that they are useful," Rowan explained. "The shapeshifters are dangerous. Did you know that they are claiming that they could easily defeat you?"

"I heard about that," Thalion sighed.

"Don’t worry too much. Guards are everywhere, and we are getting new members by the day," Rowan said with a confident smile. "We got over a hundred new members in the last two days."

"Don’t worry; I am fine," Thalion waved it off and continued with a grin. "Could you spread that the shapeshifters are shit compared to me? I would like to see their faces if they hear those rumors."

"Haha, it will be our pleasure," Cormac said with a loud belly laugh. "I don’t know how strong they are, but it would greatly surprise me if they could defeat you."