Thalion continued to fly for an hour after the fight against Sylas before landing in a clearing to gain some power-ups. He started to roll out the big magic circle and placed all the blood vials in it to infuse the blood with extra mana. Oh, the thorn’s gonna like that, he thought in amusement.

With that done, he began to set out the plants that Zyra had prepared, which were mostly moonberries and nightshade roses. Thalion transformed into the umbral predator and started to devour the plants while pushing his body-tempering method to new heights.

His power grew with every hour. If any survivors came along, they would see a being of darkness sitting in a clearing, munching on plants while its mere presence was devouring the light as the shadows grew longer and darker.

It took Thalion two days to consume all the prepared plants. When he was finished, his body was tempered in darkness; the light almost disappeared a meter around him, and darkness was rising from his skin. The biggest difference aside from the increase in power was that he could feel the darkness—not just feel it; he could touch it. He activated claws of shadows, and with a swipe, he unleashed five slashes of darkness, ripping a seven-meter tree into pieces.

This was new; normally, the claws of shadow only made his claws longer and stronger, but now it was more akin to the active ability of his mana blade, except it took the shape of his claws. Thalion walked over to one of the trees still standing behind the one he’d felled, and it had five deep claw marks in its trunk. Darkness was rising from the claw marks, and the wood around it turned dark.

The range of the abyssal devourer's tendrils had increased to 30 meters, and the umbral predator’s instincts had turned into a passive skill. This explained why he was cloaked in darkness—it was not only the body-tempering but also the skill that had evolved. The range he impacted had almost doubled, and he could feel the vitality in a circle a hundred meters around him. The darkness he pulled in boosted all his skills and strengthened him in multiple ways, from channeling speed to the mana cost and the maximum power he could put into every strike.

Then there was the last effect: his darkness was like a curse for everything. He first noticed it after a bite attack and the second time when he was hit with magic attacks, which got partly turned into shadows. Thalion was very satisfied with his accomplishments; with this power-up, he should be able to easily fight level-60 beasts.

The blood vials had been infused with incredible amounts of mana over the past days while Thalion was body-tempering himself, and they hummed with power. He turned into his human form and began to absorb the blood. It would take some time and was hopefully enough to upgrade the sanguine thorn.

It took Thalion until the arrival of the system shop to feed all the blood to the sanguine thorn with the enchanted blood until it woke up. Power surged through Thalion’s body, and then came the pain: the sanguine thorn grew and empowered every cell in his body to a crazy degree. The vines grew inside his bones, and it felt like his nerves were set on fire.

He screamed in pain for ten minutes until the process was finished. The initial rush of power was nothing compared to what he felt right now. His veins had turned from a pedestrian path into a highway, all his senses were sharpened, and the sanguine thorn was now directly connected with his blood and fueled it with power even more so than before. This wasn’t the biggest difference; he felt a presence pressing against his mind, connecting him and the sanguine thorn even more.

Before, he could feel the presence of blood in his near surroundings, but now he sensed the blood of an insect over 100 meters away flying in his direction, and it wasn’t even wounded. Time to see how strong his blood skills had become, he activated blood thorn. He felt the sanguine thorn acting and fueling the process, and the blood thorn was shot with almost double the speed it had before, not to speak of the power as it completely pierced two trees before it got stuck in the next one. That was not all; he still had a connection to the thorn, and with a thought, vines started to grow from the thorn stuck in the tree, fueled by the tree’s vitality.

The tree tried to resist, pushing against it and trying to win back control of its vitality, but now with the sanguine thorn on his side, he wiped away the tree’s resistance like it wasn’t even there. Soon after, vines burst out of the tree, ripping the trunk into pieces. Thalion called the vines back to him, and they flowed like a river to him, being reabsorbed by the sanguine thorn.

That was amazing—one hit with a thorn meant death for most, and when he advanced his soul cultivation to the next level, it should be impossible for most to fight him when he had the opportunity to drain their blood, and with the blood also health, mana, and stamina.

Next were the vines of the sanguine thorn; they had also increased in power and range and were now thicker than his leg, with thorns radiating sinister energies. They could easily extend over 30 meters, and the power packed into the skill was overwhelming.

The best part was he had almost no mana cost—it was mostly covered by the sanguine thorn, and if necessary, he could infuse the skill even more. And he wasn’t the only one—the sanguine thorn could also push more power into its vines. He would be a very different opponent to deal with than a few days ago.

He had thought about what had happened in Kael's base, and he was sure that Kael must have bought an item to mutate the sanguine thorn already, because Thalion doubted that Kael planned on cultivating blood. Nonetheless, Thalion wanted that item now. Even if it wasn't for mutation, an item strong enough to have inpact on a plant created by the strongest vampire god should also be able to upgrade it or could be used for many other useful things.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Now with the system shop appearing, he had a few things he needed for the coming weeks. First was, of course, a body-tempering method for the tidecaller serpent—his nuclear weapon—and he wanted more information on runes and how to enchant his current outfit. After that, he would hunt for levels and some new, cool skills and push his soul cultivation to new heights.

There would be a lot of natural blood mages on the fourth stage, also called vampires. He doubted that they could have collected enough blood to push their sanguine thorn to such a level and have a powerful soul cultivation manual that could keep up with his current one. In the end, the one with the stronger spirit would take control of the blood, and he planned to use the vampires as blood bags to further strengthen the sanguine thorn.

When he would teleport to the fourth stage, the vampires most likely have gathered a lot of blood from the survivors who were teleporting next week, and he wanted that blood. With that, he would help the remaining survivors and push his strength even further. He could feel it: the sanguine thorn was like him—not satisfied and hungry for more.

Thalion had felt it the moment after the fight against Sylas. He was always held back by the others, caring too much about them instead of fully focusing on his dream to defeat time and live forever. It was like a switch was flipped.

Finally, he was back on the road to eternity; the title was a fallback for now, but it should be of great assistance in the future. The system shop had arrived, and it was time to say hello to the shopkeeper—the voice of the system.

"And how did it go?" the voice of the system said with amusement.

"Actually, pretty good. I'm still here, and I squeezed a lot of resources out of them," Thalion said with a smile. He hadn't realized it yet, but between him and his former friends, it definitely stood one to zero for him.

"Good, good. Now, what do you need?" the voice said, fully focused on selling stuff.

"I need a good body-tempering manual for my new form, the Tidecaller Serpent, and if credits are left, information on runes and how I can enchant my current robe," Thalion explained.

He didn't have that many credits, since the only time he was hunting was with Annie and Seraphina. After that, he was fully focused on the sword and his former friends who tried to kill him, but it was enough to buy a good body-tempering manual for the serpent and a scroll on enchantments.

The latter one was very cheap, only costing a few thousand credits, so it wouldn't do that much. Good that the higher-leveled beasts gave a lot of credits. Thalion exited the system shop with a smile. Even without that many credits, he got everything he needed, and the scroll for the enchantments should be good enough.

He had bought the advanced body-tempering manual for the tidecaller serpent, which should suit him well, and the Scroll of Empowered Crafting. Thalion would do a bit of crafting right now and then make a bit more distance from Kael's base to avoid running into hunters. He wouldn't hesitate to kill them anymore, but it was just unnecessary death, and Kael probably had made up some horror story to send people after him.

So he went to it, opening the scroll. Flooded with knowledge on enchantments, maybe this would be easier than first thought after checking on his newfound knowledge. He would start enchanting his robe and mask immediately—no time to waste. The process was simple: he was just drawing the runes the scroll had taught him on his equipment using blood the sanguine thorn provided. He spent the rest of the day and night enchanting all his equipment.

On his mask were runes which increased sight and obscured his figure. Thalion had placed the same obscuring runes on every piece of equipment multiple times. It didn't camouflage him but instead was a mental manipulation.

In the eyes of everyone who saw those symbols, he shouldn't even exist. But most likely, those runes were far from absolute; it would arguably just take a bit longer for them to realize he was there, and if he didn't hide his aura, they were useless after all.

Next on the list was a bit more blood training. With the now awakened sanguine thorn, his progress was beyond fast, and he learned to create blood mist. Thalion used normal blood to absorb mana, health, and stamina, which was basically the same thing he did with the vines and the blood thorns. But then he also discovered how to heal with blood, namely by transferring the power of the blood to the body part—in short, the opposite of what he normally did when piercing a target with one of his vines.

After a few hours of training, it was time to go. Thalion put his forge back into the spatial ring and took to the air as an eagle. He had flown in the direction of the ocean, but now he was not so sure if it was the best place to go.

Seraphina and Annie had the same patron, a god who was fighting against the Undead Empire; maybe they would also be after him, even if it was just to help Kael. He saw that Annie would reject such a task, but Seraphina wouldn't care at all—that was for sure.

I guess it’s best to wait until they have teleported to the fourth stage before I go for a little swim. So Thalion turned to the left, but he didn't get far until he saw, in a clearing, three scorpions and two spiders battling—all relatively high-leveled, with two humans cowering on the side—the perfect opportunity to test his new powers.

The fight was even easier than he had thought, and he was even more powerful than expected. His body burned with power, and his reflexes were even faster than before. The spiders and scorpions had no chance fighting him, and he even got a bit of healing practice on the half-eaten man. He thought a bit about it when the teenager asked for his name but decided on telling them. In the end, it wouldn't matter much if he told them.

Their description of him would be enough anyway, and he hadn't hidden his aura through the fight, which automatically deactivated the runes he had engraved in his equipment. Chances were it would even help him in the future; at least it would throw a wrench in Kael's plans or whatever story he tried to spin. At the very least, it would be a sign for Jakob, Evelyn, Kargul, and Annie that something of what had happened was not as Kael and the others had told them.

Thalion was confident that the three of them would find their way to Kael's base without his help. They presumably wouldn't even need to travel all the way alone since there were hunting parties all around Kael's base. Then there were the scouts he likely had sent after him—yeah, they would be fine. He switched back to eagly and shot into the sky, traveling into the parts of the jungle none of the big human camps had explored before.