Zho laid on the ground, paralyzed by the continuous pain. Valtar used his sword to cut off the disk-shaped artifact from Zho's skin. Zho's whole body began to writhe as his organs started failing, separated from the artifact. Valtar lifted his sword and then severed Zho's entire head in one fell swoop.
Zho's eyes remained wide open in his severed head, his expression a mixture of pain and shock until the very end, as the life of Old Man Zhao's son was snuffed out brutally. Blood gushed out like a river from the headless corpse of Zho's body, painting the shadowy grounds of the forest in thick red liquid.
Valtar then proceeded to cut out the core from Zho's body. As every awakened being possessed a core, not just beasts, he ate the core. Another burst of strength filled his body. Technically, it was still a first-stage core, but the core of a humanoid being seemed far more effective than its similar-rank beast cores.
[Your stats have all reached 45.]
For a moment, the small, disk-shaped artifact, after being separated from a living body, almost wanted to latch onto Valtar with small, blood-like tendrils protruding from it. But he naturally did not let it do so. He threw the disk into the ground where blood was gathering. Then it literally started to devour the blood somehow. As it was actually getting smaller and smaller, after devouring all the gushing blood for almost 10 minutes, the blood-like small tendrils that it used for absorbing the blood turned wood-colored and now resembled proper tree roots. The roots slightly dug into the ground and started heading towards Zho's dead body.
Valtar almost wanted to stop it. This thing was definitely parasitic. He didn't know what else might happen if the artifact possessed the body. But he stopped himself because of his growing curiosity about what might happen. Thankfully, his conjectures did not come to fruition. As the roots were actually absorbing more blood or life force from the body—or what exactly, he wasn't too sure of—Zho's body started to become more and more dry and shriveled until it literally looked like a dry corpse. It was as if, were someone to put a small fire on it, a big fire might just light it up.
Finally, when there was nothing else to absorb, the whole root section that came out of the artifact slowly turned dry as well and got separated from it. The artifact, which looked like a small disk of black and gray color previously, now almost turned into proper wood and was shaped exactly like a coin with a diameter of 3 cm. Then, there was the beautiful face of a wood fairy-like female creature. Of course, he knew it was no wood fairy but one of the Fae folk.
[Mental Defense has been activated; mental influences of the parasitic artifact have been negated.]
"System, if I put this thing in my sword, it should power it and not affect my body or me, right?"
[Yes, the parasite has absorbed the life force and blood of the entity named "Zho." So, it should be able to add the corresponding effects and buffs to the host's weapon and not affect the host.]
[System can protect the host if it tries to do any harmful actions.]
"Good, now time for the first act to commence," he said in a resolute and determined tone.
Back in the Eastern tribe, after Valtar threw the severed head of Zho to his father, Valtar activated all his skills silently while Zhao was weeping on the ground, seeing his beloved son's regretful and pained face.
Valtar was pleasantly surprised by his big reaction as he pounced forward at the tribe members, aiming to kill as many as he could in that window of opportunity.
The tribe members remained motionlessly standing, as they were not given any orders. The ghosts that possessed them did not have any intelligence nor could they feel any pain in the body. They were but simple summons who could only follow instructions from their summoner.
Valtar was able to kill 12 members in the short span of 8–10 seconds until Old Man Zhao roared at the top of his lungs, "STOP THAT BASTARD! CUT OFF ALL OF HIS HANDS AND FEET! IMMOBILIZE HIM BUT MAKE SURE HE'S KEPT ALIVE!"
"FUCKING WRETCH, just you wait. I will torture you so, so, so badly you will regret ever being born into this world," Zhao declared to him in a vengeful spirit.
The moment this declaration was made, all the tribe members obeyed loyally as they pounced at Valtar, but they were making sure not to target his vital spots. They were simply trying to overwhelm him and apprehend him by targeting non-lethal spots for attack.
Valtar increased his tempo.
"Oh, come on now, you would've killed him anyway too. I just did you a favor in advance without you even asking. It's okay, no need to thank me. It's the least I should do for you since you saved my life, old man. Since your rebellious son dared to have ill intentions towards you, I made sure to torture him very thoroughly," he said in a mocking tone to Zhao.
He added, "Till his last moments, he asked me why? I said to him in his last breath, 'This is simply what old man Zhao ordered me to do, nothing more, nothing else.' You shouldn't have had the thoughts of opposing your father."
Something within Old Man Zhao rumbled, hearing the treacherous actions that this murderous devil did to his son in his last moments. Boundless and unadulterated rage filled his entire being. He was overflowing with so much killing intent that even the possessed ghosts shivered.
"BOY, DID I NOT TELL YOU? I WILL MAKE YOU REGRET EVER BEING BORN INTO THIS WORLD!" Zhao declared thunderously.
"I don't know about me, but your son certainly did regret exactly that," sneered Valtar.
Till the start of this fight, Valtar had not yet activated any of his skills. His increased stats were enough for him to keep up with the small army of 1st-stage awakened beings because, despite him being a second-stage awakened, his stats were now all 45, and only third-stage awakened beings would have stats above 40.
As for provoking Old Man Zhao to this extent of making him lose his mind, that was also for a good reason. He felt the extremely thick and oppressive killing intent of his enemy.
He murmured, "System, activate the skills."
[High-perception activated.]
[Survival Instinct activated.]
[Silent Steps activated.]
[Killing Intent activated.]
[Consuming backup core energies to enhance host skills slightly.]
Valtar also strapped the artifact, which was now coin-shaped, into his sword right above the hilt area. He would've preferred to use the artifact when directly fighting with Zhao, but there was another concerning matter happening. All the members he killed till now were getting up again. They were like goddamn zombies.
"These things don't act like zombies, though—more like mindless robots or something, only following commands."
There were a few members that Valtar had severed the legs of; only they could not get up and started to crawl. In this case, the artifact's effects might be able to keep things down properly.
[Sword attacks are enhanced by 30%.]
[Sword attacks are imbued with bleed effect.]
[Sword attacks are imbued with vitality absorption effect.]
Then he started dancing through the shadows this time, using Silent Steps to its max and killing one member after another as they fell like chickens to the slaughter. This time, every single member that was attacking Valtar frantically was having their heads fly off one after another.
"What a beautiful spectacle of blood and shadows in the midst of it. A handsome and warrior-like boy dancing elegantly with his sword as he kills his enemies one after another despite being at such a heavy disadvantage. His expression cold and calculated, yet there seems such deep-seated madness in his eyes. Such a beautiful spectacle of artistic elegance and majestic slaughter, is it not so lovely, Fiora?" asked Dyona, the queen of the Fae folk, at her queenly abode in her tribe's area, watching the show in comfort.
"Hm, maybe, but unfortunately, knowing how artificially orchestrated it was lessens the flavor greatly," said the unfathomably powerful entity sitting beside her.
"Oh please, unlike you who is merely passing by, we are but tiny ants trapped here. So, this is but our only source of entertainment and the method to keep our last shreds of sanity intact," said Dyona in a humble tone. One could only wonder—the queen who controlled this entire forest single-handedly, for her to be so humble in front of someone, what a terrifying being that person could be.
"I know," said Fiora, watching the show expressionlessly.
However, as she was watching the man named Valtar she could somehow sense something wrong, something anomalous.
After watching for a while, she lost interest and bid farewell to Dyona, "Okay, I need to leave. Goodbye."