"It's time to finish this," Thalion thought as power gathered around him. He had tried to sever her hand with the spatial ring, but instead, she had stabbed him in the stomach. This would not end with him capturing her. No, the only way was to force her to flee. He doubted she could evolve to D-grade before he reached E-grade on the new earth. Reaching D-grade took most people hundreds of years, if not longer. The elf was far from ordinary, but a few years would not be enough for her, that much was certain.

Now, in the form of the crippled Eclipsari, it was time to force her to activate her escape token. Her bloodline was too powerful, and the wind somehow always intervened at the last second to save her. Killing her wouldn't be possible either, but defeating her would still open new possibilities. Elves always carried expensive treasures, and with the female gone, nothing should stand in his way.

Thalion would demand ownership of their base. Thousands of elves likely still lived there, which would give him a tremendous boost in credits, especially at the end of the tutorial when all buildings and spatial rings had to be returned. More importantly, he would deny those credits from going to one of these insufferable elves.

Throughout the tutorial, he had grown to despise them. They were nothing like the gentle elves of fantasy tales back on Earth. No, they abused their power, enslaving and killing weaker humans. Putting a damper on their ambitions for the remainder of the tutorial was only natural. Thalion also wanted to free the slaves they currently held. They didn't have as many as the Blue Robes, but it was still a substantial number. Once he took control, he could ensure that most attacks on human hunting parties would stop. Some groups would surely leave the elven base to continue hunting humans, but Thalion was confident they would be dealt with eventually. At the very least, the number of casualties would decrease drastically and that alone would be worth it.

There was a risk, of course, if the female elf managed to control where the escape token took her. She might retreat directly to their base, which would then require an all-out assault. But Thalion was not opposed to that. It would be the perfect place to test his skill Crimson Eidolon and he was certain Lucan would be eager to conduct more field tests with his new bombs.

Yet Thalion remained conflicted. On the one hand, he wanted her dead, knowing that letting her live would create endless problems. On the other hand, her bloodline was a prize worth harvesting after he reached E-grade. If he was honest with himself, he would likely ignore the dangers of her revealing his secrets to other elves, blinded instead by the benefits of claiming such an incredibly powerful bloodline.

His focus snapped back to the female elf. She gazed at the darkness twisting around him, as if the shadows themselves had come alive. His bloodline had amplified his power immensely. If he could master control over this strength, he would become an entirely different kind of monster.

One passive skill immediately revealed its potential when fueled by his bloodline. Eclipsar's Intuition. Before, it had been excellent at anticipating enemy movements, tracking fleeing foes by their mana signatures, and exploiting weak points. Now, with its effects magnified, he felt almost omnipresent. Every flaw in her stance was laid bare before him, and he could nearly taste the fear she tried to bury beneath her rage.

Thalion grinned, baring needle-like teeth wreathed in black mist. Black flames erupted around him as his once-crimson fire turned into cold, consuming shadow. He decided it was best to dash in first, to test what his body could now do and what limits remained. Later, he could still employ the shadows and the Umbral Spire. And perhaps, if she was forced into melee, she wouldn't see his shadow coming.

Most fighters specialized in either close combat or ranged battle. Those who excelled in both were exceedingly rare, especially among shapeshifters. Shapeshifters usually adopted forms designed for specific purposes: tanking, flying, rapid movement, and so on. Their strength lay in adaptability, not in excelling at everything at once. But Thalion was no ordinary shapeshifter and his opponent was about to learn that truth, or die.

He slashed down at the now-smaller elf with claws cloaked in pure darkness. She danced swiftly to his left, evading the blow, and struck back with her rapier, aiming at his side. Thalion twisted, lessening the impact, but the blade still connected. The stab, however, lacked force and his flesh gave only a faint metallic clink as the rapier barely scratching his skin.

Snarling, Thalion abandoned tactics for pure violence. He unleashed a furious flurry of slashes, each claw strike aiming to rip her apart, all while pressing closer, close enough to seize her in his grip or sink his teeth into her flesh.

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She seemed caught off guard, struggling to find an opening, and was constantly dodging backward to evade Thalion's wide swings. With his Intuition skill, he could easily anticipate where she wanted to dash next, throwing her completely off her game. For several exchanges, she couldn't even think of counterattacking, survival was all she could manage.

Eventually, she changed tactics, vanishing in a puff of wind only to reappear ten meters away, stabbing forward with the same skill she had used against the manawave earlier. Thalion had already foreseen it and bent quickly to the side while sprinting forward to close the distance.

She was fast. A sudden shockwave of wind burst from her, cutting through the darkness and driving Thalion back several feet. His wounds healed instantly, but the fact that her attack could even break his skin was impressive. Thalion possessed exceptionally high resistance to mana-infused strikes.

Undeterred, he slashed with a shadow claw, unleashing five arc-shaped blades of darkness to distract her while he closed in. She must have been surprised by his speed. As crippled Eclipsari, he was far faster than in his human form. One swipe of his claws nearly struck her, but the wind carried her just out of reach, by a hair's breadth.

It seemed she had decided to escalate. Her eyes glowed with white light, and her skin became almost luminescent as she activated some kind of boosting skill. It was probably still at a low level, as her aura hadn't risen much. Even so, her movement speed improved drastically and that wasn't all.

She stabbed at him multiple times, each thrust leaving an afterimage that lashed out a moment later. Thalion struggled to evade the lightning-fast strikes, so he simply swiped at them instead. His empowered shadow claw tore through all of the afterimages with ease. In terms of raw power, he easily outmatched the elf.

After gaining some distance, she unleashed a wind slash. Thalion raised his shadow claw like a shield rather than striking, letting the force drive him backward. The elf was already diving back in, expecting him to swing again, but instead he seized control of a nearby shadow, sending it slashing at her in an attempt to tear her apart.

The strike was fast, but the raw power of his bloodline was difficult to control. The shadow was poorly formed, its aim slightly off, allowing her to dodge with ease. With her boost active, evading seemed even easier for her than before.

Annoyed at her constant escapes and frustrated by his lack of precision in directing the tentacle, Thalion realized that without his bloodline's boost, he wouldn't be overpowering her this easily. On the other hand, he was certain he would have landed a few solid hits by now, and he doubted she possessed high recovery speed.

She now seemed more than willing to settle into ranged combat, summoning a bow of pure wind with an arrow already nocked. Thalion wasted no time, conjuring multiple floating spikes of darkness at his side while releasing a breath of umbral miasma. The thick mist made it difficult for her to locate him, and Thalion fully capitalized on the advantage. He dashed through his domain of darkness, firing black spikes at the now airborne elf.

She leapt to dodge one, and from then on, she rose higher and higher with each evasive maneuver. This was bad for Thalion. The higher she climbed, the more time she had to dodge and it left him unable to close the distance instantly. The only quick way up was through his bloodline skill, but revealing that ability might prompt her to trigger her escape token, something he wasn't willing to risk.

Elaria, however, seemed more than pleased with the situation. She dismissed the wind bow and began conjuring a massive spell between her hands. A glowing orb of pure wind formed, intensifying by the second. Before Thalion could interrupt, the orb condensed into a roaring jetstream of wind, resembling a beam of lightning.

It tore through Thalion's domain with ease, detonating on the ground. The explosion of wind extinguished his flames and scattered his dark mist. Thalion had dodged in time but now stood exposed, his passive aura of darkness alone too weak to conceal him from the elf's piercing gaze.

With him fully revealed, Elaria began an orbital bombardment of wind-forged arrows and swords, raining them down upon him. Thalion didn't hesitate. He immediately shifted into his eagle form, shooting sideways and upward with Skydive and Tempest Glide active. In an instant, he was over five hundred meters away from the elf.

Flying in a wide arc, nearly two hundred meters above her, he began charging a familiar weapon. A good old lightning beam. But this time, it wouldn't end there. Until now, he hadn't tested his Domain skill and what better moment could there be than now?

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