Valtar decided to give them a bit of a twisted version of the story.
"When I was coming here from the western area, on the way I met with a Fairy, no, I think it was a kind and gentle Fae folk, she said I was going to face grave danger, so she gave me a powerful core of a beast which I ate and it helped me advance to the 2nd stage. However, for some reason that encounter isn't very clear in my memories, almost as if it is blurred by something."
The elves exchanged a knowing glance with each other, nodding in understanding that the Fae folks interfered as usual.
Valtar continued, "After reaching this area, while carefully watching the situation and keeping myself hidden, I saw that Zhao had killed everyone in the tribe. There was a blood-red circle in the middle where a crystal was absorbing all the blood, and after it absorbed it all, Zhao picked it up and swallowed it. Next, Zhao's power broke through the limit as he advanced to the third stage.
"Zhao knew all along that I was hiding on the sidelines. Eventually, he and I started fighting to the death, and I was not his match. So, I had to resort to desperate tactics, like running away occasionally and setting everything on fire. I was barely able to win somehow by using the raging fire to my advantage."
Elmyra found it a bit weird but asked the most important question, "Where's the blood crystal now?"
Valtar hesitated for a moment and said, "Well, after I defeated him and he was killed by the fire, I took the blood crystal from his body before it burned and consumed it myself. That's how I advanced to the third stage."
Hearing this, there was utter silence for a while. Elmyra stated, "Well, you did a good job, human. It's time I send you to the afterlife, you've served your purpose."
The male elf named Malrith also looked at Valtar with a sneer, knowing what was about to happen.
Elmyra then, with a mental command, activated the parasitic poison within the human to kill him swiftly, as she waited for him to start panicking and begging like a mongrel.
However, to her dismay, no such thing happened. Valtar still had that small smile on his lips as he continued to stare at Elmyra nonchalantly. Elmyra tried again, but nothing, absolutely nothing, happened.
"This is not possible, even if he has become a third-stage awakened, which was unexpected since the blood crystal simply should not have removed the poison for him. He does not know how to make use of it in such a way," thought the beautiful dark elf.
"You? How did you remove the poison?" She asked incredulously.
The moment this statement hung in the air, silence prevailed in the forest. All the other elves surrounded Valtar from every direction, ready to plunge at him and rip him apart at the slightest signal from their leader. Malrith was also apprehensive about the situation, things were not unfolding the way he would have liked. There was no reason for the poison to not work. Never mind this trash will be killed now anyway, he assured himself.
Valtar then commanded the system internally,
[Stats have been sealed to the third stage awakened level]
His small smile grew wider as he let out a chuckle. He took a small step toward Elmyra, but the moment he did so, all the archers drew their arrows, pointing them at him, and prompting him to stop again.
"I don't know, somehow I felt the poison was gone after I ate the blood crystal. I don't know how, though. I guess this crystal is quite special, is it not?"
Malrith replied in an angry tone, "It seems you don't understand the situation you're in. Just because you've advanced to the third stage, it won't save you today. The team leader herself is close to the peak third stage, not to mention the rest of us are in the second stage. You're as good as dead, worm."
Hearing this, Valtar's pleasant expression vanished, replaced by a cold, expressionless face. He spread his arms and said, "WELL, HERE I AM! Come and get it!"
Elmyra, hearing this, immediately gave a signal, and all the archers shot their arrows at Valtar's critical points to kill him instantly. Valtar, however, was ready, he drew his sword and spun his body like a torpedo, deflecting all the deadly arrows.
It seemed that despite his sealed stats, the transformation he underwent when becoming a pathwalker caused a qualitative change within him, that could not be undone, he was much stronger than he should be for a third-stage being.
The moment he deflected the arrows, Elmyra disappeared and attacked him from behind, but Valtar was not fooled, his sensory perception skill had been activated. He used Silent Steps to covertly dodge her attack as he counterattacked. The blow was strong enough to force Elmyra several steps backward. She was shocked by his strength, the human should not have that much strength.
She decided to go for a mental attack this time, as it was one of her specialties. Valtar felt a strong mental manipulation effect on him, but it was useless. He simply shook it off like nothing.
Elmyra seeing even her strong mental skills not working, now truly felt a sense of dread as Valtar's killing intent pressed onto her like a heavy mountain. Her mental manipulation was useless, his strength seemed above hers for some reason, and the poison had been nullified beforehand.
Even her team was unable to hit him properly with arrows, as he could see them coming from far away and knew exactly when and where to move to dodge them perfectly. The entire damn story that this human had told her was a lie.
She thought, "The damn Fae folks gave him much more, to make him another big obstacle in our path. DAMN IT."
She then conceived another plan. "This place is too bright because of the fire and there's not much darkness. They must make use of the darkness close to their tribe area to win against this human."
So, she ran in that direction, and so did her team members.
Valtar, seeing this, smiled slightly.
He also ran after them, shouting, "My lady, please don't leave me, you promised you would give me a big reward after I did my job well."
"Please my lady, how can I stand it? seeing you're devastatingly beautiful body...please let me have it once, just once."
Valtar was running just 30 meters behind them, keeping his focus on Elmyra.
As expected, no elves reacted to his lecherous remarks, they all had good heads on their shoulders, except for the one named Malrith. In his rage, he shot an arrow toward Valtar from ahead.
He easily deflected it and only gave away his position. It seemed they were running toward the dark elves area border, and as they got closer, the darkness in the air became palpable. Valtar felt all his senses being suppressed by this true darkness, it was quite unlike the Western area. He felt uncomfortable. "So, this is your game, huh? home ground advantage."
"This is disturbing. For merely being close to the elf's area, yet there's such heavy darkness. That means the area within their border should be entirely enveloped by true darkness. No, I don't think they're trying to lure me into their area, they're simply shifting the battleground here. After all, they can't leave the eastern area without killing me."
At that moment, he felt the movement ahead stop. Hmm, or did it?
Valtar's senses were quite obscured at that moment, everything seemed blurry, and he could barely see anything.
Suddenly, he felt something coming, an arrow.
He barely dodged it, if not, it would've struck his thighs. Still, he received a deep cut on his leg from the arrow, which he only sensed at the last moment.
"As expected, these damn things are really dangerous in the darkness. Should I unseal my stats? No, never mind, I should be able to handle this much."
He also used Silent Steps and tried to feel his shadow affinity. Since the area was not entirely filled with darkness, there were gaps of shadow in some areas. He jumped through those points in a zigzag manner and tried to locate the elves, especially the princess, as she was the main threat to him at the moment. As for the rest, not so much.
Despite using steps in the gaps of shadows, it seemed they could still see or sense him quite well. They barraged him with arrows non-stop wherever he went. Every time he tried to close the gap, they moved away. Valtar could now only think of one thing, force Elmyra into close combat. They can't fire arrows at him so brazenly then.
That's exactly what he did for a while. He kept standing in one place and gracefully deflected all the arrows with his sword one after another, trying to map out the locations of the archers.
"Is the princess not firing? She's planning a sneak attack, most likely from behind, if I'm not mistaken." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he fully immersed himself in his other senses, sound and smell. Then, at the right moment, he jumped backward and ran at full speed right where the dark elven princess was about to shoot an arrow straight through his chest from behind.
The princess, being caught off guard by the human, redirected the tip of her arrow to him who was running toward her, and fired it as fast as possible, but it missed because her concentration was suddenly broken.