Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 346: Shadows Over Zergur

Multiple hundreds of humans stood arrayed before the gates of the Zergur, all primed for battle. Not only the human ranks were tense. The Zergur too bristled with martial pride. The difference was obvious at a glance. The Zergur wore finer leather and silks, their banners snapping in the wind, symbols of an organized army that expected victory. Before the gate a dense phalanx of Zergur waited, their commander planted in the centre like a dark monument. Broad-shouldered and broad-chested, he bared most of his torso and in his right hand he held a long red spear that thrummed with its own power, a weapon clearly near the top of the food chain.

Tension crackled through the clearing. Everyone knew this would not end in surrender. Zergur commanders were forbidden to yield by their superiors. A lost incursion meant execution rather than disgrace. The Zergur attempted to flank and probe the human lines, looking for an angle of attack, but the humans shifted and countered until the advantage vanished.

Everything changed the moment Thalion arrived on the field. To the crowd he looked as he always did. Composed, the single figure everyone pinned their hopes on. If he fell, there was little doubt the human ranks would fray and scatter.

Thalion felt none of the confident assurance the crowd projected onto him. Fear did not grip him. Rather, it was the chill of exposure. This duel was an open stage, and every card he revealed here would echo far beyond the moment. All the elven factions would see and learn.

If the elves learned too much about him, their pursuit would be relentless and his people would be left exposed. Until now his strength had been the anchor that let the base exist. Now that stability threatened to untangle. The thought of abandoning them crossed his mind like a bitter wind, but the idea of leaving friends and innocents was unbearable. Hard choices loomed like a storm on the horizon.

When Thalion stepped forward, a sneer curled the Zigur commander’s lips as he matched the motion. The very warrior who had swaggered in the day before and declared the humans would be enslaved now opened his mouth in that same insolent cadence. “We have gathered to witness the power of the Zergur,” he proclaimed, and the lines of warriors answered with thunderous applause, hungry for spectacle.

“Do not worry,” the commander bellowed, voice picking up like a drumbeat. “The death of your leader will be gruesome. You will remember his mistake for the rest of your lives. Clap for the glory of the Zergur, and let the fight begin.” The crowd roared. His last words cut toward Thalion like a blade.

“You will feel pain like you have never felt before.” He spun the spear about his body, a dangerous toy in the hands of a practiced killer.

The aura rolling off the commander was potent and predatory. Not unlike the female vampire Thalion had faced in the catacombs. That memory told its own story. This opponent would not be trifled with. The single eye set in the forehead hinted at a mental discipline as well. A psychic pressure hummed beneath the commander’s confident showmanship.

Thalion had been unnerved by less. He weighed his forms in his mind. The Tidecaller Serpent and Eagly offered no real advantages. Eagly might grant speed and reach, but it lacked durable staying power for a duel of this magnitude. The human form would expose too much. The bloodcurse must remain a secret.

In the end, the choice settled like a stone. Thalion would not risk his people by baring his deepest cards. He stepped forward and shifted into the crippled Eclipsari. The change was surgical. His human abilities surged, amplified to levels bordering on obscene, and the shapeshift completed in a heartbeat. One last practice, one last test and then he would drive his claws through that three-eyed bastard.

Darkness began to cling to the surroundings as Thalion’s voice, deep and resonant in the form of the crippled Eclipsari, rolled out like a threat made manifest.

“We shall see about that.”

In the blink of an eye he blurred forward. The three-eyed commander’s gaze widened in surprise as Thalion appeared before him, bringing down a shadow-claw with bone-crushing force, the air itself shuddering from the impact. Yet the veteran did not panic. Muscle memory from countless battles guided his arms as he snapped his spear up, both hands bracing the shaft to divert the blow. The strike still carved shallow cuts across his chest, raw power driving him backward, sinews straining to contain it.

Thalion did not relent. A tendril of darkness surged from the man’s shadow and tore a bloody gash across his side. The commander roared, releasing a wave of force that shattered the tendril and hurled Thalion across the field. Twisting like a cat, Thalion landed on his feet thirty meters away, cloak of shadow coiling tighter around him. His aura flared, and then the Zergur commander did something unexpected.

“ATTACK! SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!” the three-eyed brute roared, raising his spear high as if to pierce the heavens.

This was dangerous. Thalion had been seconds away from unleashing his aura, but now that choice could backfire. An all-out assault, so soon after the duel had begun. It would break the fragile rhythm. He responded instantly, hurling a storm of black spikes from the shadows around him. The charging Zergur had no time to brace. Screams cut short as over twenty were ripped apart, pinned to the wooden barricades like grotesque ornaments. Their war cry faltered. Thalion pressed the momentum, pushing forward, the weight of his power straining against the concealment of his aura.

It was a razor’s edge, to fight while hiding himself, while containing a storm that begged to burst free. The pressure hammered at his skull, yet he forced control. Too much power leaked regardless and skills charged to the brink bled aura whether he willed it or not. Still, the alternative was worse. If he let it all spill free, it would crush friend and foe alike beneath its weight.

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The Zergur commander was not idle. Energy shimmered around him as he invoked a buffing technique, the air rippling with telekinetic force. His spear ignited with a crimson glow, when he thrust forward, a kinetic strike ripped through the battlefield, strong enough to impale Thalion outright had it landed. Thalion swayed aside, his counterattack brutal. One swipe, and the arrogant Zergur who had spewed insults the day before was split neatly in two.

Around them, armies clashed. Human spells lit the sky, hurling fire and lightning against the disciplined formations of the Zergur. Kargul and Vorlok carved swaths through their ranks with terrifying ease. Vorlok, in particular, seemed to delight in hurling his massive shell through wooden towers, scattering defenders like dolls. Once, he even swallowed a fleeing Zergur whole, snapping his beak shut with a sound like a steel gate slamming home.

Despite human numbers and Jim’s formations, the Zergur foot soldiers held their ground. Their long years of war lent them a sharp edge the average human lacked. Yet battles were never decided by rank and file. They were decided by elites. And here, the humans excelled. Kargul was unstoppable, Vorlok devoured all in his path, and Annie and Jakob cut through enemies like scythes through tall grass.

As the duel dragged on, Thalion discovered the truth of the commander’s third eye. A mental weapon, not unlike his own crimson gaze. It gave the Zergur rank-and-file a subtle edge, but the commander’s own efforts against Thalion fell flat. The psychic pressure washed over him without purchase. A cruel smile curved Thalion’s lips. He was stronger, far stronger than this would-be conqueror and nothing the three-eyed bastard could do would change that.

The only real problem was that damned spear. Thalion knew he had to close the distance. Up close, a spear lost its advantage. The Zergur commander knew it too, desperately trying to keep him at bay. Fear crept into the man’s eyes as he realized that once Thalion got within striking range, the battle would be over. Shadow-spikes and tendrils lashed out between sword-swings, forcing the commander to divide his focus between melee and ranged assaults. The sudden shifts in pace, paired with Thalion’s raw power, pushed him further and further toward the brink.

The commander retaliated with flurries of telekinetic stabs and slashes, deadly enough to shatter stone. Thalion gave him credit. The strikes carried lethal precision, but speed and Eclipsari intuition turned them useless. He anticipated every thrust, every sweep, always half a breath ahead.

The Zergur was skilled, but skill meant little against Thalion’s sharpened instincts and the strength honed in the Golden Palace. Still, the duel dragged on longer than he liked. Every moment wasted cost human lives, and though casualties were inevitable in battles of this scale, the thought gnawed at him.

Thalion pushed himself harder, testing feints, weaving tendrils of shadow for sudden kills, but the commander refused to fall easily. His counterstrikes remained vicious, demanding Thalion’s constant vigilance. Only after a storm of rapid assaults did he finally force an opening. Then he was upon the man in a blur of violence. A savage combination of claws, shadows, and the abyssal bite tore the commander down once and for all. With the leader dead, the Zergur lines began to fracture.

Thalion did not stop. He waded into the lesser foes, cutting them apart with ruthless efficiency. Each strike was practiced, measured, leaving room for his allies to recover the wounded and pull them to safety. It was still war, and war meant blood, but perhaps fewer would die now.

When the field finally stilled, he turned to the incursion pillar and devoured it whole, ensuring the enemy’s invasion collapsed. For now, they would claim this base, though Thalion doubted it would hold for long. The elves would never allow humans to flourish here.

“Hey Thalion, what are you doing now? Let’s smash something together!” Kargul bellowed as he strode up, Vorlok at his side, the skyturtle’s beak still dripping with entrails.

“Not now,” Thalion replied, shifting smoothly back into human form. He had no desire to linger as the crippled Eclipsari under the wary stares of his allies. “I need to return to Kaldrek and Maike. And I want to see whether they’ve torn more secrets out of the old elf.”

“Torture? I’ve always been good at torture! Can I come?” Kargul nearly bounced on his heels like an eager child.

Thalion arched a brow but shrugged. “Sure. You should join the meeting too. It will be an important one.”

“Meetings are boring. Torture first!” Kargul grinned wide enough to split his face, tusks gleaming. “I hate elves. Evelyn, Vorlok, and I, we all hate those pointy-eared bastards.” Without waiting for approval, the orc lengthened his stride, already moving toward his prize.

Thalion wondered what Kargul’s idea of torture might look like. He didn’t have to wait long. Evelyn and the others claimed they had extracted everything useful, but when Kargul dangled the elf above Vorlok’s gaping maw, the prisoner suddenly found new words to confess. Even Thalion admitted he might have talked under such conditions.

It wasn’t that Kargul was skilled in interrogation. His first question had been why elves grew long hair and pointy ears. It was that he had no real control over Vorlok. The skyturtle snapped and lunged with each heartbeat, forcing Kargul to wrestle it back with one foot planted on its shell. Every inch it closed on the terrified elf drew fresh answers.

From that moment on, Thalion decided the “torture department” would forever belong to Kargul and Vorlok. Their methods were undeniably effective, and the information they extracted was of utmost importance.