"What are we doing now?" Eddie asked after the blue-robed figures had left. "We can't just let them be enslaved."

"You said you were going to protect us against strong beasts," Chloe accused Thalion, who, now that the danger had passed, approached again.

"I'm too weak to fight them alone," Thalion said calmly. "Didn't you notice their strong aura? They might be close to level 70."

"Forget that excuse! You blew apart those giant squids with ease," Chloe complained loudly, pointing with one of her giant hands at him.

"Yes, but those were big creatures without any defenses," Thalion argued. "As long as I can keep my distance and attack them with my skills, I'm fine. This will become much harder against trained water mages. If they land even one good hit, I’m dead."

"But what do we do now?" Chloe asked, desperate. "Jack and Josh are too good to be enslaved."

He could try to find Annie or Seraphina at one of the larger reefs. Thalion thought, though he questioned if that was even safe. Kael had gotten an item from his god for the sanguine thorn, so why shouldn’t he ask Seraphina for assistance?

Perhaps her goddess even commanded her to help them, since Kael was seen as a beacon of hope in the gods' eyes in the fight against the undead—while Thalion himself was deemed unworthy.

Why was it that gods held such views? If not for his title keeping him at such a low level, he could potentially kill them all as the umbral predator. Even though he felt good while spending time with Seraphina, he wouldn’t bet his life on it, with so much that could have changed while he was gone.

Although Seraphina had been very helpful, it was clear he wouldn’t get any special treatment. The moment killing him became advantageous to her, she would definitely do it.

There was also Annie, but he didn’t want to drag her into this by pushing the task of freeing the two onto her. Nerissa likely held a high standing among the blue-robed society, and even if Seraphina was willing to help, was it even possible for her to demand that Nerissa release Jack and Josh?

"There's nothing I can do. You should fly back to Kael and ask him to negotiate their freedom," Thalion said after weighing his options.

"That could take days! We don't have one of those flying ships anymore, and we were already scouting for you when the other shapeshifters went to the mountains with Kael to find a good flying form," Chloe exclaimed in desperation.

"What are your flying forms, then?" Thalion asked, intrigued.

"I'm a wasp," Chloe muttered, a bit embarrassed.

"And I'm a wasp too," Eddie proudly announced.

"Well then, let’s just hope they aren’t killing all the slaves when they teleport to a higher stage like they did last time," Thalion sighed in sorrow. Even when they were a bit annoying, he liked them.

"They did what?" Eddie and Chloe exclaimed, both looking at him in shock.

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter now. We can’t do much to help them. By the way, how many pearls did you get?" Thalion asked the important things. He wondered how fast they would help with his bodytempering.

"None. I was stuck in that gap the whole time," Chloe said, annoyed still trying to climb out of it.

"I got one after winning a fight against another coral golem," Eddie said proudly, holding up a single blue pearl.

"After hours of searching, you both found only one pearl?" Thalion said in disbelief. How were those people such a high level? It must have had something to do with the low rarity of their classes, which makes leveling easier.

"Well, Jack and Josh might have found more," Chloe mumbled and blasted on of her new skills against the gap she was stuck in, but it didn't help.

"Oh, I'm sure the spinning squid and the crab caught in his tentacles have found more than you two," Thalion laughed loudly. He really wanted to try the form of a squid now, just to test if it really was that difficult. Normally, most things came very naturally when getting a new form. He didn't have to learn flying from the start as eagly, for example. Maybe it was that in science those tentacles had so many nerves, that they could function a bit like brains, too? Very interesting.

Getting no pearls was no big setback for him. He’d planned to dive deeper where the real bigshots resided. Those large crystals were likely far more potent than those tiny pearls anyway, he thought.

"So, what do we do now?" Chloe asked sadly, looking down in defeat.

It was indeed a difficult question. Thalion knew he couldn’t take them with him when he dove into the depths for various reasons. First, sharing the experience would leave him with next to nothing, and they’d be one-shotted by any stronger beast they encountered. Plus, he wasn’t confident he could protect them if things got intense and could those golems even swim?

"You two should go back to Kael’s base and ask for help. There’s nothing you can do here," Thalion suggested, trying to help them as best he could.

"But didn’t we agree to betray Kael by not killing you?" Eddie interjected a bit confused.

"You're lucky he doesn’t know that" Thalion replied with a grin.

"He tried to kill you. Why wouldn’t he try to kill us too?" Chloe added, still trying to get out of the gap.

"Because it wouldn’t benefit him in any way," Thalion explained. This was taking too long. He needed to get to some killing.

"Okay, but there's still one more problem—I don’t think these golems can swim," Chloe admitted, embarrassed after finally getting out of the gap.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Then let’s find you a new form." Thalion said, happy to have some progress while scanning the reef for a new form. Many fish swam around. Now it was just a matter of finding the best option for them. The most important trait should be speed.

They eventually settled on a tarpon, though it took Thalion some time to catch one. The fish didn’t fight but instead fled at an incredible speed. After that, Chloe and Eddie set off back to Kael to save their friends.

<--

"Oh, he found something, he found something," Kargul exclaimed excitedly, running after the now faster-flying Vorlok.

The turtle flew with increasing speed between the giant trees, always sniffing and searching for potential prey. Then, as it seemed to spot something, it flew straight into an 80-meter-high hill.

"Uh, does he want to eat dirt now?" Kargul asked Evelyn, who landed beside him, both totally confused.

Before she could answer, Vorlok pulled his head back and yanked a three-meter termite out of the hill.

Rock Termite Level 63

"Oh yes," Kargul laughed loudly, "a termite hive! That's awesome! Good job, Vorlok!"

Kargul charged the hill and started unearthing the whole thing, hammering against the soft earthen walls. Termites upon termites crawled out, and Kargul happily smashed them while Vorlok swallowed everything that came his way.

He struggled only with the larger ones, but then Vorlok acted like a crocodile, tearing them into bite-sized pieces by throwing his head around like crazy. Evelyn stood back and watched the carnage unfold, occasionally healing them. Then, they heard a loud screech from beneath them. This was only the top of the hive.

Moments later, a massive termite broke through, with a huge head, giant pincers, and legs longer than the Kargul. Its shell was covered in earth spikes, and it was over 9 meters long, a true giant. The patterns on many of the other termites started to glow, and threads shot out, connecting to the new creature, which began radiating far more power than should be possible.

Rock Termite Level 69

"Finally, a true apex predator!" Kargul roared. "Our battle will be epic!"

The termite exploded with energy and shot toward Kargul, who charged it head-on. The clash shook the surroundings, and Kargul was thrown back into a tree. Evelyn managed to boost him before the impact and now quickly healed his wounds.

Vorlok had flown up upon seeing the giant termite, but now dive-bombed back onto the smaller termites, fully focused on consuming every one that was empowering the big one.

Kargul sprang out from the crater he’d made in the tree. In front of the termite, he swung his mace at its head. Just before impact, the mace glowed with a brown light, and its size doubled. The termite summoned an extra layer of stone around its head and headbutted the mace.

Another explosion threw Kargul back, but this time he had no chance to stand up. The termite appeared in front of him and bit down. Kargul managed to position his mace between himself and the pincers, screaming in defiance as the termite continued pushing down.

Meanwhile, Vorlok was having the time of his life. The termites couldn't move while empowering the big one and willingly sacrificed themselves to sustain the larger one, so he easily devoured them one by one.

Kargul and Evelyn continued to struggle with the giant termite. Its power was overwhelming, but Kargul was incredibly resilient, even more so with Evelyn constantly healing him. The termite tried various tactics, but Evelyn healed Kargul's wounds before they became fatal. Almost out of mana, Evelyn barely held on, healing Kargul after each blow he took.

Kargul smashed at one of the termite’s legs and broke it. In return, the termite kicked him with another long leg, sending him flying backward with rock spikes stuck in his body. The termite followed up by launching another rock at him using an earth skill, hitting Kargul square in the face just as he stood up. He flew twenty meters back, landing with a thud as the termite loomed over him, about to stomp him into the ground.

He caught the foot and pushed against it, but he was too weak, and the foot slowly descended. Kargul’s face turned red as he mustered all his strength to push the termite back, with Evelyn adding her last bit of power to boost him. All of a sudden, Kargul managed to press the foot up slightly.

"Yeah, who's stronger now?" Kargul roared in triumph and an aura of pure bloodlust shot out from his body. Then he saw something moving on the termite’s abdomen—or, rather, what was left of it. Vorlok had devoured all the smaller termites and had burrowed into the large termite’s back, now feasting on it from within.

The termite screamed in pain and thrashed around, but Vorlok was deeply embedded in its body. Kargul swung his mace, breaking leg after leg to bring the big one down, and then crushed the head with a mighty swing. Vorlok continued his feeding frenzy, devouring the entire termite only moments later.

"Did you eat all the termites?" Evelyn asked in surprise as she surveyed the battlefield, which was remarkably clean.

Vorlok happily shook his head in agreement and started to fly into the nest, but Kargul grabbed him by the flipper and pulled him back.

"First, let’s take a break. Then we’ll kill every last one of the termites," Kargul anounced, exhausted padding the head of the giant turtle.

A deafening roar of anger shook the entire hill, coming from deep within.

"Or we could run and come back later," Evelyn suggested, hopping onto the turtle’s back.

They all agreed since the aura seeping up through the ground was far beyond what they could handle.

<--

Thalion dove down into the depths to hunt, this time taking care not to leave too many body parts or too much blood in the water. To avoid attracting more marine beasts than necessary. He transformed into his human form, from time to time to feed the blood in the water to the sanguine thorn. He still had some corpses from his last hunt and wondered how many stats he could gain from devouring them.

There was something new he wanted to try. He always consumed his enemies using the black tendrils of his skill, which turned the corpses into darkness before absorbing them. So far, this had greatly helped with his body tempering, but it hasn't given him much stats so far. Now he desperately needed stats to fight stronger beasts.

Already, he’d had to flee from four beasts that were too powerful. His level 42 Tidecaller Serpent was formidable, but against level 70 beasts, he struggled—especially against higher variants. This meant he had to eat the beast the old way to get more stats and be able to fight them hopefully in the future.

The good news was that his passive skill, Camouflage of the Depths, hid him well, and whenever a powerful beast approached, he could just hide and give up on the corpse. He was so weak, though, that he didn’t even dare fight for a position on one of the large blue crystals floating in the depths. Most of the beasts guarding them were powerful, and he didn’t want to attract attention while such dangerous creatures roamed the area.

Thalion planned to spend all his time in the depths until the System Shop arrived. Levels were his top priority right now, followed closely by credits. Currently, he had 70,539 credits from all the beasts he’d killed, and he still had time to gather more until the shop arrived, when he could finally find out more about the outsiders. Maybe this would give him the advantage he needed to fight far above his current level.

Between fights, he practiced some body cultivation, gradually getting better at interpreting vibrations in the water. His title helped him immensely with this skill. Thalion still didn’t know how to feel about his title. Without it, he wouldn’t be this strong or learn this fast at his current level. On the other hand, he hadn’t had to flee from Kael and the others and could have slaughtered them like the shapeshifters if his level was high enough.

For now, revenge would have to wait until after the special quest, maybe even after the tutorial—or longer. If Kael and the others managed to keep their level advantage, taking them down would be difficult. Thalion had always imagined burning down their whole base once he was finally strong enough, defeating all of them and their allies at once. Sadly, that was unlikely to happen. He might have to pick them off one by one or get help through some political schemes.