Chapter 468: Free |
“Greetings, human. I must apologize for what has happened, but please give me a chance to explain myself,” Aelar almost cried while going down on all fours before the human, who looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Huh. Really? From my point of view what you’ve done is pretty obvious. But sure, since you’re asking so nicely, I’ll give you a chance,” the human said, motioning for the elf to stand up.
“Thank you. Thank you. You will not regret this. I know it doesn’t look good for me, but I am forced to collect workers for the great Liraeth, Chosen of Lunareth. There is a war coming, and they want servants to gather resources—that is all. You would do best to take your time and flee from here as fast as you can.”
Aelar tried to sound honest, even though he internally despised the human for forcing him to go to such lengths. Lyanna was already looking at him strangely, but thankfully she kept her mouth shut.
“A war? That doesn’t sound good. You might be right—I really should leave. By the way, what resources are you gathering with the slaves?” the human asked, looking actually worried, though that was hard to tell with his golden skin and glowing red eyes.
To Aelar it didn’t matter. He just needed to keep talking. Time was everything.
“I simply hand them over to the authorities. I know of fields where many plants grow, and there are also places for seaweed and other natural treasures beneath the surface. It would be a shame to miss out on those when we are already this close. There are, of course, the great wonders of this world, and a lot of workers will be needed to bring them home.”
Aelar explained slowly, hoping to buy more time—but that plan failed spectacularly.
“Wonders of this world. I’ve heard of a few already. Which ones do the elves want?” the human asked, which surprised Aelar.
“We don’t know where they are yet, so I can’t tell you exactly. But it is certain that every wonder is protected by a very powerful beast. I heard that our leader still wants to search the ocean depths for pearls, but that is all I know. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Aelar said this while holding back a smile.
This human was stupid. The support group had to be close already.
Yet to his dismay, one of the slaves finally gathered her courage and shouted loudly:
“Don’t believe a word this elf is saying! He called for support long ago—I heard it with my own ears!”
This was outrageous, but Aelar couldn’t punish her right now with the human watching.
“Ah, great. So the elves running over the water are the support. Then the negotiations can finally start,” the human said happily, as if he had just solved a great riddle, while motioning over Aelar’s shoulder.
Aelar immediately spun around to see how many had come to their rescue.
But there wasn’t a single one.
A sharp pain cut through his neck, and suddenly the world began to spin.
<--
“Wow… that actually worked,” Thalion laughed after killing the two elves.
He drained their blood and threw the corpses overboard.
“The token is in that backpack! Quick, there isn’t much time!” one of the slaves shouted in panic.
Thalion had to admit he wasn’t fully satisfied with this first fight.
The first problem was that after killing the first two elves, his sword had forced him to kill the others with proper swordsmanship.
It wasn’t too bad, though, and he had been able to test a few of his passive skills.
Sight of the Blooded Templar was far better than he had expected. As long as he looked at his enemy, he knew exactly what they were doing just by watching the movement of blood inside their bodies.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Scarlet Maelstrom had also been a big success. The skill really packed a punch—especially with his bloodline empowering it even further.
Good thing he had practiced control during his time with Ratgul.
Now he could use his bloodline to the fullest, which probably made his human form the strongest one.
Since he had decided to save the slaves, fighting only with the sword hadn’t been too bad.
The slaves would talk about him—there was nothing he could do about that—but he still wanted to remain an enigma for the next few months.
No need to inform the Chosen about what he was capable of.
Thalion grabbed the backpack—which was basically empty anyway—and threw the whole thing overboard while turning the ship around.
Then it hit him.
Shit, where did I hide my backpack again?
The ice had already melted, and the ship had traveled quite some distance. On the other hand, was it even worth finding the backpack?
Ratgul had told him far more than the scrolls inside it ever could, and since he hadn’t been able to take any items besides his equipment out of the treasure hunt, it was pretty worthless to him now.
Ratgul had told him that if he had taken the items he wanted out before the clock reached zero in the final stages, it would have worked.
At that moment, Thalion had been almost dead, which was why he hadn’t even thought about it. A real shame.
There had been so many dwarven books about smithing and other cool treasures. All the escape tokens were gone as well.
Still, it should be fine.
Ratgul had taught him a lot, and he had progressed so far with his body tempering in every single form that it didn’t matter that much right now.
Also, Thalion was now strong, and after getting a few levels under his belt he should be able to contest a few things—even in a fight against the Chosen.
That was probably only true as long as they didn’t evolve to D-grade, which likely wouldn’t take too long.
Ratgul had said that he probably had a month or two before the first of them managed it. He had also told Thalion that almost everything in the system event granted more experience than on New Earth.
But first it was time to free those slaves.
Another thing Thalion had practiced was aura control and managing his passive skills. He was not only able to rein in the heat that would otherwise radiate from his body—even when his aura was suppressed—but he could also control Flamebound Essence, which made him stronger while on fire, gave him additional control over flames, and allowed him to apply his bloodline affinity to all other flames in the area.
Being able to control that skill would make Thalion’s life much easier in the future.
It also made things far safer for the human slaves who had been captured.
These days you never really knew what kind of people one was, but Thalion had the feeling that these were decent folk.
“Good. Now that we’ll be out of here in no time, do you know where Eric’s base is? And step forward so I can take those slave collars off,” Thalion said in a good mood.
Ever since gaining the title he had struggled to keep up in power, but now it looked like he was truly back.
The slaves happily followed his instructions, and a few minutes later everyone was free while the ship sped in the opposite direction from where the elves had been steering it before.
“You mean the Eric on the leaderboard? The Chosen of Solarion? Is he here?” The questions shot out like a machine gun.
“Huh, so you were in the treasure hunt too? And yes, he is here somewhere. The thing is, it’s been quite some time since I left for the treasure hunt, and now with the fight and everything I’m not entirely sure anymore. But I think if you go on land and head roughly in that direction, you should find his camp—or run into hunters from his faction,” Thalion explained while pointing toward where he believed the camp to be.
“To join the Chosen of a god would be an honor for us, but why won’t you come along?” one man asked.
“Ah, let’s just say we had a bit of a misunderstanding, which I’m partly to blame for. There’s no reason to test my luck right now,” Thalion explained.
Maybe those humans could help him with Eric in the future.
On the other hand, the advantages of being on good terms with the Chosen were close to zero, and there was no way Thalion would go through the portal to a god’s domain.
Still, it would be nice if they could get along in the future.
The other Chosen would likely do a lot to make Thalion unpopular. Especially the Chosen of Aeta would try to hunt him down.
Well, the bastard could try his worst.
Thalion had seen the Chosen fight in the last stage and against the Second Daughter.
Right now Thalion was probably still too weak to pose a real threat, but he had time—and he no longer carried a title that slowed him down.
“Oh… that doesn’t sound good. What happened, and can we help? Since you freed us—and I speak for all of us—we would gladly put in a good word for you if we ever meet the Chosen,” the man said.
“If you want to, but to be honest it likely won’t matter much. There are quite a few people who want me dead, and some of them will probably be very close to Eric in the future. They’ll just phrase it as some manipulation tactic to gain benefits,” Thalion explained.
After that the poor guy probably had no idea what to say next.
“So, since you are all recovering and now have a direction to go to, you no longer need me. It has been a pleasure saving you, and good luck in the future,” Thalion said with a small bow before activating Scarlet Maelstrom to shoot toward the horizon and the open sea, leaving the freed humans behind, all of whom needed a moment to understand what had just happened.
“What a powerful skill!” the man who had spoken earlier said, watching Thalion until he disappeared in the distance.
“We should have asked for his name. Now we can’t even help him in the future,” the woman with the broken chin muttered.
“I don’t think that guy will need our help, but I will still try to speak with Eric and tell him about the misunderstanding. Maybe that will help, and I don’t think it will hurt our savior,” the man said thoughtfully while steering the ship toward the beach so they could join the human faction and hopefully be safe in the coming war.