After a whole day of reading scrolls, Thalion wasn't feeling much better. He had tried to stand up once, but it felt like he was walking on open wounds. In his wisdom, Thalion decided to stay on the floor a bit longer and read some more. When it came to scrolls, there definitely was no shortage.
Another thing he did was check whether the tentacle skills from the octopus actually applied to the four tendrils now growing from his back. They were far from normal tendrils and hovered behind him as if they were underwater. In fact, his whole body had changed quite a bit, and currently he wasn't even sure if he should put the tendrils away. After a few test runs, he noticed that his earlier assessment had been wrong and the tentacle skills did nothing for him, so he quickly cleansed his status screen of them. There was already so much stuff going on there that he didn't need another distraction.
Given his current situation, he was happy enough that his claws and everything else had fully regrown. Sure, the weakness was annoying, but in a week or so he should be fine again. He didn't know exactly what had happened. His soul was damaged, overloaded with power, and no matter what he tried, he couldn't circulate enough energy through it to begin repairing the damage.
Then Thalion heard footsteps from below.
It couldn't be Kargul because those footsteps were far lighter and easy to miss compared to the orc's. Thalion wondered what multiple elves wanted in his mansion. The gods had probably sent them to bring more scrolls or something similar, but why were they sneaking through the mansion then?
It was probably safest if he stood up and got ready, just in case. He probably hadn't made the best impression lying on the floor for so long.
In fact, it was far more than just a few elves.
They were also taking positions on neighboring rooftops.
It had to be well over twenty of them, and they were all wearing white masks. Normally those masks might have helped hide their identities, but now, with Thalion's new soul sense, they were utterly useless.
"So what are you all doing here at this hour of the day?" Thalion asked as more and more elves entered his room.
He felt a bit like Dumbledore in The Half-Blood Prince, with all those Death-Eaters visiting him in the tower after returning from his last mission with Harry.
Thalion couldn't see their faces, but by the way they moved it was clear they had no good intentions. Furthermore, they didn't answer and just continued to spread out.
Thalion was a bit confused and uncertain what to do next.
Should he just attack them outright?
It would be a fight to the death, and the elves weren't weak. All of them were closing in on D grade, fully grown, and trained in the godly domain. It wouldn't be an easy fight for Thalion in his current condition. His essence, mana, and stamina bars were all completely filled, but that didn't mean much given how horrible he felt.
Judging by the feeling his title gave him, he decided it was better to create some distance.
This, after all, was his mansion and he didn't want it destoryed. There was nowhere for the elves to run once he regained his strength.
Activating Soulshape, Thalion simply moved through the floor, which greatly surprised the elves. He heard them swear above him before an attack punched through the floor in a single blow.
Thalion was already on the move and sprinted for the wall, using Soulshape one more time to pass through it and jump into the street.
He noticed that he wasn't making the slightest sound while running, which must have been another boon of his new form.
The elves must have seen him because their footsteps quickly shifted in his direction.
The next issue were the many elves stationed outside.
Thalion wanted to flare his aura, but in his current condition and with the elemental still occupied, he didn't want to risk anything. If those elves delayed his recovery even by a minute with this stupid attack, he would truly test the limits of what could be done to a living being before it died.
The elves outside didn't hesitate and immediately attacked.
Thalion made use of his title to analyze where the attacks were coming from and began to dance between them. He needed to cycle quite a bit of power, which felt horrible.
Thalion believed that the only reason he even had a chance of escaping or buying time was the Throne of Agony. Even though the stats didn't change, it strengthened him in almost every way possible, much like the amulet had done for his human form before.
An arrow buried itself deep into the ground where Thalion had been a moment earlier, and he quickly had to move in a zigzag through the street to evade the next few.
The elves weren't amateurs and quickly followed, sprinting over the rooftops. A few had already jumped down, while those who had visited him in the mansion had broken through the walls and were now chasing him as well.
The problem in this whole situation was that Thalion had no idea where he should be running.
The elves clearly had more fuel left in the tank, and every step felt as if he were running across hot coals. Keeping up this speed for much longer likely wasn't possible.
The smartest move was probably to head for the main plaza and activate the communication circle to the godly domain.
That the elves also clearly wanted him to go in that direction, judging by the way they moved, settled it.
Thalion also noticed the neat interaction between Hunter of All and his new soul sense. There was simply no way those elves would ever escape him.
The melee fighters were catching up fast, and Thalion had to use a bit more power and Shadow Step to create some distance.
Directly going for the communication circle probably wasn't a good idea. The elves on the rooftops could follow his every movement, and those powerful shots would simply blast him off the circle before he could activate it. Reaching it without a fight likely wasn't possible.
Thalion was slowly using more and more of his power as the elves caught up. It felt as if he were slowly skinning himself layer by layer like an onion. Fighting while suffering from such a massive backlash really was a thrilling experience.
Thalion wondered if Ankhet had suffered from the same problems back when they had fought. After being gone for so long and having his soul split into four pieces, Ankhet must have felt much worse. In hindsight, Ankhet had been a completely different caliber of enemy considering all the hurdles he had been dealing with. That he had never shown any weakness was truly impressive and something Thalion only now learned to appreciate.
Thalion fired a few spears of darkness at the elves, but they were mostly distractions. The attacks hurt Thalion far more than the elves because they easily danced around them.
That they could evade his attacks so effortlessly began to truly annoy him.
He should have been the one with all the extra stats, but this only showed him how barely he had scraped by with his last experiment.
Now more and more attacks flew at him, and one elf even tried to trip him. Thalion jumped over the foot, which, since gravity no longer really affected him, launched him much higher than expected.
Luckily, he wasn't the only one surprised.
The elves' confusion bought him a single second of peace.
A second unfortunately wasn't a particularly long time.
An elf suddenly appeared before him, fist glowing with white light.
Splendid. A punching skill. I always wanted one of those.
Thalion had just enough time for that thought before the fist smashed directly into his forehead.
Yet what happened next completely surprised him.
The pain was, of course, terrible, but instead of being launched backward like a cannonball, he only drifted a few meters away.
Thalion simply hung there in the air, stunned.
The elf continued falling toward the street.
Judging by the way he tilted his head, Thalion was certain the elf was even more surprised than he was.
Sadly, he couldn't dwell on that minor victory for long.
More elves were already incoming.
They now felt even more comfortable and began trying to land kicks and punches.
"Ah, shit. How are you doing in there? We might need a bit more than that."
Thalion complained slightly to the elemental, which of course wasn't at fault for the current situation.
Utilizing all of his combat experience helped him very little against so many attackers who were both faster and more agile.
Thalion told himself that he would have looked even worse with poor technique as one attack after another connected.
Just like the punch before, he took almost no actual damage and was only pushed back slightly.
The real pain came from forcing so much power through his body just to somehow keep up with the elves.
The stronger skills he didn't even want to use.
A few fire mages were utterly confused when their flames suddenly turned black and began dissolving their own hands, but that was only a small source of joy for Thalion.
This wasn't looking good.
His body was so battered that he didn't dare use any of his stronger skills or shapeshift.
On the positive side, the elves had failed quite spectacularly when it came to dealing any real damage to him.
The pain from moving around this fast overshadowed everything else by a wide margin.
The elves naturally noticed his condition and began to play with him.
They circled around him, taking turns attacking.
The commotion was slowly waking up the camp, but whenever a human recognized what was happening, the elves quickly shut them down or even knocked them unconscious.
The situation wasn't looking good, and any lesser warrior would have given up.
But not Thalion.
There was this annoying female elf who had already tried four times to punch him in the jewels.
Thalion decided that he wanted to bite her head off, but the stupid bitch was simply too fast.
The four tendrils now attached to his back weren't helping much either. Thalion mostly let them drift around behind him in a threatening fashion even though he had no real idea what to do with them.
Internally, he just hoped none of the elves would grab them, tie them into a knot, or start swinging him around.
Right now the elves were far more occupied with the fact that their attacks weren't dealing any visible damage.
That full-powered punch to Thalion's face had only made him glide a few meters backward, which deeply irritated them.
Thalion guessed they were too afraid he would recognize their voices, which was why none of them spoke.
That at least gave him the pleasure of watching them attempt to communicate entirely through hand signals, something they were clearly lacking the practice to handle for a topic this complicated.
While the elves experimented with all kinds of attacks, Thalion quietly planned his escape toward the plaza.
It was still a bit far, but if he used Soulshape to move through one or two houses and create some confusion, he might make it.
Getting hit by attack after attack wasn't helping his current condition either. It wasn't the damage, nor were the attacks particularly powerful. The problem was that Thalion was utterly exhausted, and every hit drained a little more of his remaining energy.
That he could feel this miserable while all the bars on his status screen were still almost completely full sounded like a crime to him.
Then an elf shot past him, cutting deep into his shoulder with a glowing saber.
This time the weapon actually seemed to affect him.
With his armor weakened after the experiment, the blade broke through and carved a deep wound into his flesh. The strike also blasted Thalion downward.
That part wasn't too bad.
The moment he landed, he took a few quick steps and jumped through the wall of the nearest house. He guessed that elf's weapon had some kind of mental component attached to it while he sprinted through the building, activating Soulshape every time he touched a wall.
He also made a slight turn to the side instead of continuing directly toward the plaza.
Hopefully the elves wouldn't notice.
Until now he had been moving in a relatively straight line toward the plaza. Maybe they would assume he had changed his plans.
Thalion would have liked to test whether he could simply move through walls without activating Soulshape. The Echovore had been capable of doing so, but with a group of angry elves chasing him, he wasn't in the mood for experiments.
Behind him, loud crashing sounds echoed through the houses as several elves blasted straight through the walls. The rest were either flying or moving across the rooftops. Their footsteps reverberated through the buildings below.
The humans and elves living in the houses Thalion passed through first looked surprised and then mildly annoyed when the pursuing elves reduced their homes to rubble.
In Thalion's opinion, a broken wall wasn't that terrible.
He himself had lived with a broken wall for days now, and it hadn't bothered him all that much.
The giant black monster and the heavily armed elves storming through their living rooms were probably a bigger reason for their discomfort.
Thalion didn't see himself at fault.
He wasn't destroying anything.
He even moved in absolute silence.
The elves, on the other hand, seemed determined to demolish half the district.
The more time passed, the angrier they became about being dragged through a labyrinth of houses.
Several activated their boosting skills in an effort to finally give Thalion the beating they believed he deserved.
Keeping his distance in his current condition turned out to be impossible.
A few seconds later, a spear slammed into his back and launched him straight through another wall.
This time he didn't activate Soulshape.
A massive hole exploded through the stonework, but strangely enough getting thrown through a wall wasn't that bad.
Not at all like being blasted through a solid wall should normally feel.
Thalion started to slow down and that made something very clear.
He needed to take more risks.
Otherwise the elves would get exactly what they wanted and Thalion would very much like to avoid that.
It definitely wouldn't be pleasant and that was only assuming he survived.
Given his previous experiences with elves, he had serious doubts about that.
With all their boosting skills active, it felt as if there were twice as many elves around him.
He barely managed to dodge several attacks while avoiding being caught off guard by the rest.
Having a claw between himself and a sword that was about to carve deep into his chest turned out to be very useful.
Even in his current condition, his healing seemed to have increased dramatically.
Most injuries closed almost instantly.
Many attacks didn't even leave a mark.
The real problem was that Thalion grew dizzier with every passing blow.
Now he was in real trouble.
Running wasn't truly possible anymore.
Hit after hit blasted him down the street.
The elves were still baffled by the fact that their attacks weren't causing any serious injuries, which meant they never stopped moving long enough for Thalion to grab one of them.
Right now the pain was slowly being drowned out by a boiling rage.
Even the elemental had begun paying attention.
So far Thalion had held back because he was afraid of causing even more damage to himself.
Now that escape was no longer an option, there was no reason to continue holding back. If it left lasting damage behind, then so be it.