Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 438: Scarn

The marine life didn’t want to get caught, which is why they immediately fled into the kelp forest or narrow cracks to hide from their pursuers. Rid must have done this often, as he followed the fish into the kelp forest while still being fast enough to catch two already.Thalion didn’t want to let him go on his own, but he really didn’t like swimming into the kelp forest. There was basically no vision, and the Tidecaller Serpent was horrible in close combat—especially against most other marine life whose mouths worked like shredders that destroyed anything once bitten.

Instead of diving in, Thalion swam above the forest and looked down to track where Rid was going. As long as Rid didn’t dive deeper into it, Thalion had a good view from here and didn’t need to go down himself. His biggest problem right now was that catching something was almost impossible for him and far too dangerous.

The fish in and around the kelp forest were all relatively small, which meant there wouldn’t be much left if he hit them with an Aqua Lance. Trying to bite them was difficult for multiple reasons. First, they were fast, and Thalion had no experience. Then there was the fact that even those relatively small fish could bite back and kill Thalion if he didn’t watch out.

The crab-like beasts were even worse, with their giant pincers and hard shells.

Rid had no problem catching one beast after another. Around his waist, already five dead fish dangled from his belt, along with one crab with an elongated body, one giant claw, and one tiny one. A precise stab to the head with the saber was all it took to kill them.

Thalion really began to feel bad while he made sure Rid wasn’t attacked from behind. He also tried to catch a colorful half-meter-long fish, but it was too fast and dove away before Thalion could get close.

Unable to contribute anything, Thalion kept his eyes open. From his position, he sadly couldn’t see the deeper waters or whether something was moving, but sailors were everywhere and none seemed to be under attack. So far, everything was going very well—if you ignored that Thalion wasn’t catching any fish.

After forty seconds in the kelp forest, Rid shot up toward the surface with the fish dangling from his belt. Thalion didn’t know any better and just followed along. He could stay underwater as long as he wanted, in contrast to Rid, who only had a bit over a minute underwater.

Rid quickly handed the fish to another waiting sailor before diving down again.

“You’re not that good at hunting fish, huh?” Rid said as he shot back down into the kelp forest.

The comment hurt a bit. It wasn’t Thalion’s fault that his skills were meant to obliterate targets instead of precise, small attacks.

“Hey, it’s not my fault. All of my skills would just destroy the target in one go, and when it comes to biting or close combat, this form is kinda lacking,” Thalion tried to explain his situation. He didn’t want Rid to think he was just skipping work.

“Sure. Then just keep an eye out. I’ll speed up a bit more,” Rid replied as he accelerated downward.

That’s fine. Keeping watch over Rid should be easy enough, and if something tries to sneak up on him, I’ll blast it with Aqua Lance, Thalion thought, relieved that Rid wasn’t angry or anything.

While thinking this, he turned around to get a quick overview once more before fully focusing on the kelp forest. Yet instead of seeing the beautiful reef and open waters, he found himself staring straight into a female face looking back at him curiously.

Thalion felt like he’d been hit with a hammer.

The face was barely twenty centimeters away from his—far too close for comfort. Also, what the hell was going on with his title? Wasn’t that thing working properly?

He was so shocked that he forgot to use Tsunami Breaker or Aqua Lance and instead just hovered there, staring at the fishwoman—who stared right back at him.

She reminded Thalion a bit of the fish that had turned human shortly before the treasure hunt back on Earth. The shock was slowly wearing off, but since she didn’t try to get closer or attack, Thalion hesitated as well.

Should he just blast her right now?

It felt wrong. At the moment, she didn’t act like the evil creature Rid had described.

Then Thalion saw movement behind her.

Multiple long predatory fish emerged from the rifts in the reef, rushing toward the sailors. There was already blood in the water. Thalion also noticed how one fishwoman distracted a sailor simply by staying in his field of vision, while from below one of the Skarn sped up and swallowed the poor guy whole, blood spraying from its gills.

Thalion looked down and saw another Skarn charging straight at him.

The sight snapped him out of his stupor, and he activated Tsunami Breaker with full force.

Part of the kelp forest was leveled, and both Skarn and fishwomen were hurled backward.

That they got through this uninjured was wild too.

“RID, it’s time to leave!” Thalion shouted to his buddy, who had only now noticed what had transpired.

There was no need to let the stupid Skarn and the fishwoman off easy, so Thalion followed up with an Aqua Lance aimed at the stupid Skarn below him. Scales were torn off the Skarn’s side as the fish sped away. No wonder those things could keep up with the ships when they were this fast, Thalion swore. An Aqua Lance barely injured the creature. No wonder the sailors struggled so much with those fish.

The fishwoman was now staring at him with an expression of pure hate as power began to revolve around her. Thalion didn’t waste time using Identify and also pushed his speed, trying to create space for Rid, who was still in the kelp forest below.

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The fishwoman stretched out her hand, made a grasping motion, then pulled.

All of a sudden, it felt like Thalion was swimming against a powerful current that dragged him backward with terrifying force. Of course, he knew it had to be some kind of skill, but there was little he could do against it. After absorbing the blue crystal, his scales had changed, and normally the water felt like it offered no resistance at all—but against this skill, it was barely enough to hold his position.

No, they mostly attack with those damn fish. Where is that stupid Skarn again? Thalion swore, readying another Aqua Lance or Tsunami Breaker. He would have liked to fire directly at the fishwoman, but he feared ending up as a meal for the Skarn approaching from his blind spot.

The danger sense from his title had kicked in, but instead of giving useful information—like where the danger was coming from—it was just screaming like an alarm bell.

Yes, I know this isn’t going well, so can you stop acting up? Thalion shouted internally at the title.

He saw Rid shooting toward the surface like a rocket. Then he saw the fishwoman stretch her hand in Rid’s direction, and the water around him twisted, dragging Rid back down. The skill was far more effective on Rid than on Thalion. Rid didn’t just slow—he was pulled back meter after meter.

Thalion turned and blasted the incoming Skarn with an Aqua Lance, ripping more scales from the over eight-meter-long creature and blasting it backward.

Man, if I were just E grade, those damn fish would already be dead, Thalion cursed while firing a second Aqua Lance at the fishwoman holding them both in place.

This was something she hadn’t expected. Green blood spread through the water as a hole was torn into her right side.

Injuring the fishwoman triggered a chain reaction Thalion had been expecting. Sharks could enter a feeding frenzy at the smell of blood. With the Skarn, it seemed even worse—they became furious when a fishwoman was injured. Her pained screech, which sounded nothing like anything human, didn’t help either.

All at once, the other sailors were completely ignored as every Skarn and fishwoman locked onto Thalion.

In the next moment, they accelerated straight toward him.

Thalion was still above the reef, with several hundred meters to the surface—and many Skarn and fishwomen were already blocking that path. There was no room for hesitation.

He dove downward into the rift between the reefs.

Thalion had never moved this fast as he plunged into the darkness, hoping it would confuse the fishwomen and buy him some time. He knew the ship wouldn’t wait for him and would take off immediately. Still, he had a rough sense of direction.

Once fully beneath the reef, he turned and shot through the water.

He could feel vibrations behind him—the Skarn were closing in—but he didn’t dare look back. That would cost him speed. Thalion focused entirely on moving as fast as possible, pushing his body to its absolute limit.

In his mind, he cycled through every option, but underwater most of his other forms were borderline useless. He especially didn’t want to risk turning into Eagly. He had no idea how extreme the water pressure was down here since he didn’t feel it at all—likely due to his affinity and how well this form was adapted to water. Eagly might be crushed into pulp the instant he shifted.

The Skarn were gaining.

Thalion had to act.

Instead of firing backward and slowing himself down, he fired an Aqua Lance upward into the reef. He still lost some speed, but far less than if he’d twisted around completely. Looking backward while moving forward was far harder as a serpent than as a human—and Thalion hadn’t learned whether that was even anatomically possible.

The bottom of the reef was shredded by his Aqua Lance, which kicked up a massive cloud of sand and debris sinking downward. Thalion dove straight into it, hoping it would buy him a bit more time. Through one of the rifts above him, he could see that the ship was already moving at full speed, pulling away. He decided to use the distraction to enter one of the rifts and go for the surface and then after the ship. He couldn’t evade those Skarn forever, and if he missed the ship, he could forget about having any chance at first place.

His little distraction worked far better than expected, and Thalion shot upward toward the surface with only a single fishwoman still in sight. The problem was that she must have been one of the ones following the ship underwater, trying to slow it down with water skills. She didn’t even seem to realize what was happening behind her, and Thalion used the opportunity to make his first kill, blasting her with a Water Lance straight through the neck from behind. Her skill collapsed instantly, and Thalion saw the ship above surge forward even faster now that it was no longer restrained.

Jeez, you don’t need to go this fast, Thalion complained internally while giving it everything he had for one last burst upward.

From above, he saw Rid jump into the water beside the ship, diving down and shouting toward him.

“Go, go, go! You’re almost there!”

Rid also sent a few attacks downward, clearly aimed at whatever was chasing Thalion from behind. Catching up to the ship underwater wasn’t just impossible—it was suicide. Instead, Thalion aimed to break the surface first and then catch up as Eagly. The ship was fast, but Eagly should be able to close the distance in under a minute.

Thalion burst through the surface seconds later and instantly shifted into Eagly, activating every movement skill he had to accelerate through the sky. Behind him, an especially massive Skarn launched itself out of the water, trying to snack on him midair. The thing reached over fifteen meters high before gravity finally caught up with it—but that wasn’t something Thalion could allow.

The damn fish actually wanted to eat him.

Also, Thalion still hadn’t caught a single fish so far. A failure he could fix right now.

Instead of flying upward like a scared bird, Thalion performed an elegant looping maneuver that brought him directly beneath the airborne Skarn. He released a lightning beam straight upward. The creature’s scales had resisted his Aqua Lance earlier, but against lightning they were useless. The Skarn died within a second of being hit.

Thalion immediately shifted into his wyvern form, grabbed the massive fish with the claws of his hind legs, and flew after the ship. Wind thundered beneath his wings as he accelerated. As a wyvern, he wasn’t exactly fast, and catching up to the ship while dragging a ten-meter-long fish was easier said than done.

Thankfully, Rid must have said something to the captain, because the ship slowed down just a little.

By then, every sailor on deck was leaning over the railing, arms raised, cheering at the wyvern hauling what was probably the biggest catch they had ever seen. That was slightly problematic, since Thalion needed to drop the fish somewhere—and with the massive sails overhead, getting close wasn’t exactly safe.

“Hey! Can you get out of the way, or where the hell do you expect me to drop this thing?” Thalion roared downward in wyvern form. Flying this fast while carrying the fish was hella draining.

“Just drop it! We’ll catch it anyway!” Rid shouted back.

Thalion didn’t need to hear that twice. He released the fish, which missed the main mast by a hair’s breadth before water gathered beneath it and safely caught the massive body. Pretty damn convenient to have so many water mages on board.

Thalion shifted back into his human form and let himself drop onto the deck, where the entire crew was waiting.

“Windmages! Full power again! I don’t want to give those damn sea devils a chance to catch up!” the captain shouted before turning toward Thalion.

“Haha, good catch, old man. Haven’t seen that move before, but I like it.”

The sailors cheered even louder, thrilled by the sudden abundance of food—and by the fact that a creature they had feared moments ago had been killed in a split second after leaving the water.

“And he thought his form wasn’t good for fishing!” Rid laughed loudly, already holding a mug and pointing at Thalion with the other hand.

“We better find an island fast and avoid another battle,” he added more seriously. “They won’t let us go now.”

Thalion couldn’t agree more.

The final laugh of the day came when the cook stood in front of the massive fish.

“Hey, are you kidding me? Why don’t you catch a whole damn whale next time? Do you expect me to have a five-meter knife or what?”