Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 397: Sects Really Suck

“No, I’m not a werewolf anymore,” Aris explained, almost raising his arms defensively. “We had a werewolf clan on our planet that tried to get as many young warriors from our clan under their control. Long story short—they caught me and turned me. But after I escaped, my people cleansed me. Lycanthropy is treated like a disease, and a skilled alchemist can remove it easily. It depends on the rarity of the werewolf, of course, but in our sector you rarely saw anyone above legendary rarity. The werewolf who turned me definitely wasn’t that high.”The massive skyship was already flying toward the next outpost at full speed while the three of them sat lazily on deck, chatting. Thalion had originally planned to start some blood training or create more spirit veins, but the werewolf topic was simply too interesting to ignore.

Thalion mused. Actually, a lot of Earth’s myths had turned out to hold some truth—not in the sense that those monsters had existed on Earth, but because vampires, werewolves, and dragons existed . And Thalion doubted that this was all just coincidence.

“Interesting. How was life on your planet in general?” Thalion asked. He was open to all kinds of information. He wanted to understand how they lived before they received this offer. Maybe such knowledge would help him make important decisions in the future.

On New Earth, a war was brewing on the horizon. If everything in this treasure hunt worked out, Thalion would become an important player there—and also an easy target. Honestly, Thalion couldn’t imagine things getting worse; almost everyone already wanted him dead. The only human he had a decent experience with was Eric, and even then, Thalion still had trust issues.

Too many betrayals.

Too many liars.

Too many people who wanted him dead.

In this new world, power ruled everything. What if the other human Chosen banded together and decided that the world would be better off without him? Thalion knew at least one human Chosen who would definitely try.

Before his thoughts could spiral further into predicting future alliances and betrayals, Rakati finally answered.

“It was brutal. My kin and I were part of an E-grade sect—and not even a strong one. In a sect, you’re not allowed to keep any items for yourself. Everything must be handed over after a mission. In return, you get contribution points, which you can use to buy some of the items you brought back. You also have weekly quotas. You must earn one hundred contribution points every single week. That’s equal to two normal, relatively harmless expeditions and one very dangerous one. In between, you could cultivate or recover.”

He shook his head.

“Being sick or injured doesn’t save you. Failing to reach the hundred points gets you assigned five very dangerous missions for the next ten weeks. That’s a death sentence. No one ever survived those. In my old life, even with my status, living was incredibly rough. You barely had time to cultivate or work on anything else. It was just constant fighting.”

Thalion thought, absorbing the information.

“You two are quite powerful. What level is the end of E-grade, and why didn’t anyone evolve to D-grade?” Thalion asked.

He still didn’t understand why a sect stayed stuck at E-grade. With so many missions, the sect leader should have collected plenty of treasures. That was the whole point of the sect structure. So why had none of them evolved to D-grade? It should have been possible—or so Thalion thought.

When he looked up, Rakati and Aris were staring at him in shock.

“Wait! You really don’t know when E-grade ends?” Aris exclaimed loudly, nearly jumping to his feet.

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Rakati, still somber from previous memories, continued the explanation.

“The problem isn’t the level where E-grade ends. The real problem is the sect leader. And for us, rarity always comes before everything else. Weak D-grades are still stronger than E-grades, but most sect leaders have the opportunity to upgrade their class rarity. That’s why they often postpone their evolution—waiting for a grand treasure to appear. Also, this only applies to the sect leader and in my case, our leader wasn’t close to D-grade anyway.”

“There are a few ways you can become a sect leader, and mine didn’t rule through personal power but through his large family. He still had over twenty brothers and sisters who all banded together to form the sect. At first, it was easy for them to force the smaller groups around them to join, and so the cycle continued. The constant delivery of treasures ensured that they stayed at the top. Another issue is that the experience you gain when fighting in large groups is close to nothing,” Rakati continued, lamenting over his former life—likely forgetting that his current situation wasn’t much better. Thalion would even argue it was far worse.

“The thing with sects is that you don’t really have a chance to advance to higher grades. For example, it’s practically impossible to reach D-grade in an E-grade sect. Before that happens, the sect leader will kill you. Even when rival factions are strong, a member surpassing the sect leader in grade and power is a far greater problem. The last level of E-grade is at one hundred eighty, and D-grade ends at level three hundred. Beyond that… I’m not sure how it continues,” Aris chimed in after Rakati finished.

Thalion had to admit—it was quite the range of levels. Level 180 meant E-grade had a total of 100 levels. The question now was whether a Chosen could reach that in the treasure hunt. With every level, the experience required increased drastically. Maybe Thalion was lucky, and they wouldn’t be able to evolve to D-grade. Evolving to D-grade sounded like a game-winning move from everything Thalion had heard so far.

Even if they didn’t hit D-grade during this system event, it meant that after the treasure hunt a race would begin. War between the factions would erupt for real once the Chosen reached D-grade and gained the ability to kill anyone who stood in their way. Thalion could only hope his divine class would become so overpowered that he could somehow compete with those powerhouses.

After the system event, Thalion would need to go on a serious leveling trip to close the gap between him and the other Chosen.

“Sometimes I find it ridiculous what is possible in a tutorial. We have to fight for years and years, but someone like you gets such a curse and likely even a class above legendary. It doesn’t seem fair at all. At some point, it feels like we’re just getting fed to you tutorial brats,” Rakati snorted after a short silence. His tone sparked a flicker of anger in Thalion.

Yes, their lives had been hard—but it wasn’t like Thalion had everything handed to him on a silver platter either. In fact, before the treasure hunt, New Earth had been far easier than the tutorial. Sure, the Incursion happened, but it was never truly a threat—not to Thalion. The real conflict was only about to begin after the treasure hunt. Still, Thalion wouldn’t say his current power was undeserved, considering the pain and risks he endured.

He could have stayed out of trouble entirely and refused to compete for advantages. He would be weaker, yes, but life would have been much easier.

And it wasn’t like Aris or Rakati were weak—they had already killed many trialtakers and only failed to kill . He still remembered their arrogance before the curse took over.

Either way, Thalion didn’t bother arguing with them about their behavior or worldview. Their chances of surviving the treasure hunt were close to zero. Even though they were useful, he didn’t want to create an army of blood slaves that constantly needed to kill to survive. There were too many unknown variables, and it wouldn’t give him a meaningful advantage. If he created such an army, there were other threats—if someone developed an antidote, the entire benefit of his curse would vanish.

No, until he had a direct target for such an army, there was no reason to create one.

Thalion switched to meditation, creating a few more spirit veins while the hours passed. With every passing hour, Aris and Rakati grew more restless, pacing across the deck. Both consumed too much blood simply by existing, and the hunger gnawed at them relentlessly. Thalion found it insane that all the blood they had consumed only bought them a few hours of peace. They had devoured an entire army, yet it was barely enough.

Fortunately, the wait wasn’t much longer. In the distance, a floating rock finally came into view.

By now, Rakati and Aris were prowling across the deck like predators, eyes blazing, breath ragged.

“Good. I’ll move closer and use the Crimson Eidolon again. Same procedure as last time,” Thalion said while beginning to lower the sails. Once the sails were down, he would be in range to deploy the Crimson Eidolon, and there was no need to risk the skyship.

It looked like they had been waiting for them and were definitely prepared for a fight.