I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 406: The Final City

As the decapitated corpses of the five strongest figures of Silver Hoof City laid before him, Aurus took a look at how much his comprehension over his Epiphany had improved after killing all of the inhabitants of Silver Hoof City. Fortunately, the amount of progress he had obtained from this city was similar to the previous city he had destroyed. Gaining 7 more levels from this city, his level of comprehension over the Epiphany of Tempest was now at Level 61, which meant that he was more or less two-thirds of the way to reaching the maximum comprehension level for his Epiphany.

After trying to take control over the strength that he had obtained after reaching Level 61 in his comprehension, the primal instinct in Aurus’s body gauged that he would only need to destroy one more city before having enough confidence to head towards the larger settlements and escape unscathed, even with strong beings fighting against him. Of course, the only settlements larger than the cities were provinces and kingdoms, so that meant his next target after this final city were the provinces.

With that in mind, he didn’t waste any more time as he activated [Zenith Nihility Dash] to its limit, teleporting to the nearest city from Silver Hoof City.

In the meantime, while Aurus was making his way to the last city he would destroy before trying to digest his experiences again, all of the cities near Silver Hoof City had finally received the news regarding Aurus’s return, prompting all of them to plan accordingly after learning from Silver Hoof City that another city, Nachthexen City, had been destroyed before Aurus headed to Silver Hoof City.

Of course, the first thought in every city leader’s minds was to evacuate all of the innocent people to the larger settlements. Unfortunately, they couldn’t really prepare for something like that within hours as the travel time from their cities to the provinces or the Seraph Kingdom took a few days to over a week.

With that, the leaders were left with no choice but to make sure that none of those that had no ability to fight would be able to leave their houses. As for those cities that had underground bunkers due to how their territories were, their leaders asked them to head down to the underground bunkers and only move out if they were given the go signal.

As for the military personnel of those cities, a meeting among the higher-ups was done in order to plan how they would stall or fight against Aurus. In the end, most of them had come up with plans that would allow them to stall him for minutes, which allowed the possibility of reinforcements to arrive, but in the end, they all knew at the back of their minds that it was inevitable for them to die.

It was unknown as to how the various cities had done it while Aurus was making his way to the next city, but a rough communication network had been established between the various cities that were near Silver Hoof and Nachthexen City. Although it wouldn’t allow the city leaders to talk to each other in real time, it still had the function of alerting the other cities if one city was destroyed.

With all of that prepared, Aurus had eventually arrived a couple of kilometers away from a city, noticing how there were more guards guarding the entrance gates of the city than the previous two cities he had entered. Pondering over it for a bit, he eventually came to the conclusion that the previous city he had destroyed had alerted the other cities of his return to destroying settlements.

Although it made him slightly angry, he knew that it was just a matter of course. Placing the thoughts of getting mad at the people he had killed in the previous city behind, he decided to enter the city from another route, deciding to scale up the decently high walls of the city he had chosen, which was named Vallachia City after looking at the large sign over the city’s entrance.

Making sure that none of the guards would see him, he decided to teleport over the wall before appearing in one of the various alleyways in the city. After that, he took a look at the streets to see if they were any inhabitants moving around, only to find out that none of them could be seen at all.

Thinking about it for a bit, Aurus had arrived at two conclusions. The first conclusion he had arrived at was the thought of the city barring their citizens from leaving their houses. If that were to be the case, then he could just employ the same tactic he used in the first city he destroyed, or exploit something that covered the whole city like the sewage system in Silver Hoof City.

As for the second conclusion, he thought that the city leaders had told the citizens to evacuate, only leaving a few people to symbolically protect the city from his destruction. To Aurus, this conclusion was the one he didn’t like since that meant he had to destroy more cities, which would end up taking more time.

With that, he went ahead and broke into one of the houses, only to find out that no person was inside it. A few seconds later, he broke into another house, yet the same result had appeared. Slightly becoming angry as to how the city was stopping him from improving faster, he could not help but have the urge of heading to the center of the city before killing the city’s leader in front of the remaining people in the city.

Fortunately for Aurus, while he was making way to the center of the city, he heard the sounds of people murmuring from one of the vents near the city’s main road, prompting him to take a small peek into it. As for what he found after taking a peek, it was the fact that the city had a few bunkers underground.

Inwardly letting out a sigh of relief as he thought that he wouldn’t have to destroy another city to arrive at the same point, he gradually made his way to the center, only to be greeted by the sight of multiple military personnel in an orderly formation.

At the very front of this formation was a middle-aged man in a slightly disheveled military uniform. Nevertheless, with one glance, it was apparent that the middle-aged man had multiple years of experience in the battlefield, exuding an intangible aura that dwarfed most of the intangible auras radiated by the other people.

“Listen, men!” he shouted. “Stand and follow command! Our blood shall be shed for the homeland!”

“Heed our motherland’s call for we shall brace for the storm!” the formation said in response, prompting the middle-aged man to nod as he continued, “Vallachia City shall never give in, for there is no surrender! “

“We shall force The Great Calamity to retreat and into defeat,” the formation said, which made the middle-aged man sternly nod, proud that he had instilled a sort of discipline into the city’s military. However, his pride was short-lived as a small dagger made out of wind made its way through the formation, piercing through his forehead.

Puchi!

As blood started to trickle from his forehead, the middle-aged man used every ounce of consciousness he had left in him to find out the culprit for his murder. Soon, he noticed the silhouette of a dark red being far behind the formation in front of him, prompting to point out with all his remaining strength as he shouted with all his might, “Enemy…attack…!”

Thud.

With the middle-aged man lying lifeless on the podium he was standing on, the remaining people that were in formation hastily turned around, recalling their commander’s last words, only to be met by the appearance of Aurus. Naturally, all of them froze up for a bit after realizing that their enemy had silently sneaked up on them. However, it only took them a second to regain their lost courage as the people closest to Aurus went ahead and unleashed their comprehended Ideas, aiming to inflict damage to him.

Well, after finding out that the previous city had leaked out his traces, Aurus did not hold back at all, thinking about how it would only take some time for strong beings to arrive where he was as reinforcements. With that, he activated [Supreme Deification] once more before allocating all of his remaining energy towards [Dark Universal Blade], wanting to end the useless battle as quickly as possible before he had to go in seclusion once more to digest all of his improvements.

Since he was going out, he went ahead and conjured the maximum number of decoys he could conjure, instantly instilling a sense of fear and despair into the military that was about to fight him. Oblivious to what emotions the other side was feeling, Aurus went ahead and commanded all of the decoys to conjure claws made out of a thousand blades before going ahead and using it to mow the military down like they were tall grass.

“[Thousand-man Manifestation].”

“[Spellswords of Ruination: Ultimate Lost Art].”

“[Million Sword Embodiment: Tempest Claw Symphony].”

Swish! Swish! Swish!

With each swipe of a claw, a couple of people would be bisected laterally, quickly turning the battlefield to favor Aurus as the entire military was wiped out within a couple of minutes. Since there were still a great number of claws that hadn’t been used to kill enemies, Aurus ordered his decoys to destroy all of the houses that were in the city, just in case there were still a few people in hiding, waiting to ambush him when he was off guard.

Surprisingly, his instinct was correct as a small group of skilled assassins had been hiding inside some of the houses in the city. Unfortunately for them, they did not know how they were realized as the last thing they saw was a claw cutting their bodies in half as the roof above their heads crumbled down.

Taking about five more minutes, all of the houses in the city had been destroyed by the remaining decoys, which meant that Aurus was the only being remaining on the surface of the city. With that, he recalled the vent where he saw most of the citizens were huddling in, using it as a passageway to enter the underground bunker where the people had no choice but to die under his attacks.

Well, Aurus decided to be kind this time around, quickly killing all of them with a ball of wind, which he allowed to detonate. If he wasn’t pressed for time, thinking about the possible reinforcements that might come to apprehend or kill him, he would have definitely enjoyed his sweet time in torturing each and every person, bringing all of them to utter despair.

Unexpectedly, after detonating a ball of wind, Aurus was able to reveal more passages that lead to more underground bunkers. Naturally, Aurus did not hesitate in using more wind balls to kill large numbers of people at once. In fact, in one of the bunkers, the city leader, as well as the higher-ups of the city, were huddled together, fearing for their lives as they hoped for Aurus to not come where they were. Well, by the time Aurus had appeared in front of them, did he spare them?

Of course not. Why would he spare beings that would give him a ton of Wind energy particles?

Eventually, all of the bunkers under the surface of Vallachia City had been destroyed, with the power behind each of Aurus’s attacks allowing the shell of the bunkers to be seen from the surface as the mangled mess of blood and flesh covered the floor and walls of said bunkers.

After double checking that all of the inhabitants of Vallachia City had been killed, he took a look at how much his comprehension level had improved, satisfied that it had improved by the same amount as the two previous cities gave him.

Content with his current level of comprehension over the Epiphany of Tempest, he headed towards another part of continent where he wouldn’t be disturbed. With the goal of digesting all of his experiences and acclimating to his newfound strength, it wouldn’t be until one and a half weeks later did he come out of seclusion once more.