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Chapter 163: Life and Death Decision

At the very moment he had returned back from his spell testing, Argentum hastily sat down on the ground cross-legged, envisioning the methods to progress in his Tempering skill as he closed his eyes. Due to the elation and motivation he had felt from the damage dealt by the first spell he had unlocked with his new class, the speed at which he had completed a cycle of training this time had been reduced by quite a bit, only taking around 15 minutes or so instead of the usual 20 minutes.

And so, with a hastened pace of completion, a full 2 hours had passed by, increasing Argentum’s progress in his Tempering skill by 1.6 percent, bringing it to a total of 6.6 percent. While moving on to the next cycle, a few thoughts could not help but linger in his mind. One of the thoughts that lingered was the fact that if he wanted to enhance his Tempering skill, he would need to enhance the power of the skills making up the skill. The only problem was that, he only knew a few ways to enhance this skill at a fast pace, without enlisting the tutelage of a mentor from an academy of sorts.

With this thought in mind, he promised to himself that once the war was over, he would let Argentum enter human civilization and learn in an academy to increase the speed of improvement by quite a great degree.

One of the other thoughts in his mind was the fact that he knew that for every cycle he completed, the time remaining until Chonk and his army arrive in front of the Tempest Branch Alliance was getting shorter and shorter. With this in mind, he was trying to optimize his training as much as possible, but it seemed that fate did not want him to improve any further.

Rumble…rumble…

While finishing his current cycle, raising his progress by another 0.2 percent, Argentum could not help but feel the ground shaking violently. This shaking prompted him to stand up, wondering as to where the shaking came from. He had a thought that it could have from Chonk and his army traveling towards the alliance base, but then his rationality took over, telling him that Inanimates, when moving, can’t make the ground shake.

“I guess it’s just a passing earthquake,” Argentum said to himself, thinking that this was the most plausible thing that was happening right now. Letting out a sigh of relief, he then sat back down on the ground…only to stand up once more.

Bang! Crack! Bang!

Amidst the violent rumbling of the ground, Argentum could not help but pick up faint sounds of explosions, as well as trees cracking and falling down. It was at this point that the idea of Chonk and his army getting closer in his mind had become more solidified. He thought about it for a bit, thinking about how the ground rumbling and the trees falling could be correlated to the movement of Chonk and his army.

“I should get closer to the origin of the sounds,” Argentum said before dashing towards the direction of the sound’s origin. While making his way towards it, he was thinking out loud.

“Faint explosion sounds, trees cracking and falling down, as well as the ground shaking,” Argentum muttered to himself, thinking up of a connection between the three. “I can connect the first two quite easily. The reason why I could hear faint explosion sounds and trees falling down can be due to the fact that Chonk’s army wants to create a level ground for their army and our alliance to fight in, commanding his army to break as much trees as possible.”

“As for the ground shake…” Argentum could not help but scratch his head, pondering over how he could connect this to the previous two. Eventually, when he had come to a distance where he could hear the sounds clearly, he muttered to himself in a doubtful tone, “The reason why the ground is shaking…is it because they want to remove the tree stumps along the way?”

Fortunately, he was only a short distance away from the origin of the sound, making sure to hide himself if the ones making the sound were Chonk’s army. After making sure that he was camouflaged, he looked at the area where he heard the sound come from, only to have a slightly elated expression on his face. Not long after, this expression turned into that of slight fear.

“My guess was actually correct,” Argentum shouted inwardly, slightly shocked from what he was seeing in front of him. “At a scale like this, it’s no question that the ground would shake violently.”

In front of him was the sight of multiple Inanimates, ranging from rocks to sticks, to even plants and small trees. Half of these Inanimates were targeting the trees along the way, making sure that the trees fell. If one attack did not make a tree fall down, then another attack would come to make it fall down. As for the other half, they manipulated the energy within their bodies to move the fallen trees out of their way, allowing them to move at a constant pace.

“To think that he’s the one removing the stumps.” Continuing to look on further as to what was happening, Argentum could not help but mutter as the sight of an ethereal looking being hovered above all of the Inanimates, forming multiple threads of energy that singlehandedly uprooted the tree stumps along the way. This ethereal looking being was none other than Horell, who was now a Pseudo-Animate being. While looking at him, Argentum could not help but mutter to himself, “I sure hope Herellia was right about Horell.”

“Wait…shit! I gotta alert Herellia about this!” Just as he was about to continue watching from the sidelines, he realized what he was looking at, making sure to move away from the site in the most silent way possible, before making a dash towards the area he was training in a while ago.

Since it was an emergency, Argentum pushed his body to the limit, arriving at the area in the span of a couple of minutes. Although he was heavily gasping for air, the thought of conveying the information of Chonk and his army getting closer filled his mind, leaning on the trunk of a nearby tree before hastily transferring his control back to his original body. Of course, he made sure to still have [Sense Sharing] activated just in case the army came across his clone. But he did not activate [Automated Clone Control] since he did not want his clone to be put in danger unless needed.

Whoosh!

At the very instant Aurus regained control of his original body, he commanded the system to summon Fenrir and Charisa. It did not take long for them to manifest in front of their master, sensing the aura emanating from their master not long after.

“Master…has the time come?” Fenrir could not help but ask.

“Yeah, they’re finally here,” Aurus replied to Fenrir in a concise manner, before adding, “Although we’re in the Tower of Seclusion, could you two protect me in the off chance that someone from the enemy army tries to attack me?”

“Don’t worry, Master~! We’ll make sure no one can touch you except for us!” This time, it was Charisa who replied, replying in her energetic tone as usual.

Radiating an aura of slight happiness, this aura then transformed into that of solemnity, hastily sending a thread of energy towards Herellia through the alliance system, connecting their minds together.

“Herellia, tell everyone to congregate at the main hall,” Aurus said at the very instant the connection was made. Herellia, who was on the other side of the connection, was slightly confused by Aurus’ request, asking, “What’s it for?”

“Very bad news,” Aurus hastily replied. “Chonk and his army are getting closer and closer to the alliance base. You don’t have to know how I found out for now. Just tell everyone to congregate at the main hall and have their trump cards ready.”

After a moment of silence, Herellia responded with, “Alright. I’ll tell them. You better head to the main hall as fast as you can as well, you hear me?”

“Don’t worry, I can teleport there at any time,” Aurus replied back with a slightly cheerful tone before cutting the connection between the two of them. Letting out a short sigh, Aurus then looked at Fenrir and Charisa, telling them to fall in line in front of him.

“I should’ve done this earlier,” Aurus could not help but say as he looked at the two in front of him. “I know it takes some time for the two of you to adapt to it, but I’m going to have to evolve the two of you to X-grade right now to increase our chances of winning.”

“Go ahead, Master,” Fenrir responded without hesitation. “It would allow us to protect you even more anyway.”

“Plus wouldn’t it help in the plan you had in mind, Master~?” Charisa continued where Fenrir had left off, before adding, “We’ll try to adapt to our increased powers as fast as possible.”

“If both of you are fine with it, then…” Hearing their replies, Aurus did not beat around the bush anymore, commanding the system not long after.

“System, use my unused experience points to max out Fenrir and Charisa’s levels.”

Ding!

Aurus did not know if it was an illusion or not, but he had a feeling that the commands of the system become instantaneous when it felt like Aurus was in danger. It did not take long for multiple notifications to appear in front of his field of vision.

‘A lot of unused experience points has been consumed.’

‘Fenrir and Charisa have both reached the MAX level.’

‘Fenrir and Charisa have both met the necessary requirements and are ready to evolve.’

After closing all of the notifications he had received, he then commanded, “Evolve both Fenrir and Charisa. Use up all of my unused experience points after that to raise their levels as high as possible.”

Ding!

Whoosh! Whoosh!

For some unknown reason, the speed at which Fenrir and Charisa had transformed into their evolved forms only took an instant, which made Aurus question the idea of the system acting faster when necessary. Nevertheless, he put this idea to the back of his head after removing notifications regarding Fenrir and Charisa’s evolution, as well as their increase in level.

“Since both of you don’t have any teleportation abilities, I’ll keep you in the system for now,” Aurus said to the both of them, with them disappearing in front of his field of vision not long after. He did not wait for their approval since a matter of survival was currently happening, a matter which would dictate the alliance’s life and death.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Pulling out all the stops, Aurus activated all of his Ruler skills, gobbling up quite a lot of his FP at the first activation. Fortunately, the rate at which his FP regenerated was faster than how much the Ruler skills consumed, allowing him to maintain a state of always having full FP. Soon after that, he hastily teleported towards the main hall.

…

Whoosh!

It did not take a lot of teleportations for Aurus to arrive at the main hall, being greeted by the sight of almost all of the members of the alliance congregated with their equipment sets being worn. Even the Pillar level members were no exception, wearing their ‘Blessed by the Heaven’ sets, just like the Executive level and normal members of the alliance.

Seeing as everyone had already worn their equipment sets, Aurus decided to wear his equipment set as well, opening up his weapon inventory to bring out his ‘Marquis of Magical Destruction’ set for everyone to see. It did not take long for him to equip set, enveloping him in a layer of white light. Of course, at the very moment he was finished equipping this set, the aura he exuded exceeded the aura all of the Pillar level members could exude combined. Nevertheless, one certain Inanimate could still surpass his aura.

Whoosh!

Not long after equipping his equipment set, the sight of a crimson red branch appeared in the center of the main hall, radiating an aura of power that exceeded Aurus’ aura by quite a bit, allowing everyone to know that there was not much difference between the combat power of Aurus and the crimson red branch, slightly stupefying everyone. Nonetheless, since they were at war, the fact that two members at the leader level of combat power made them feel at ease.

“It seems you’ve showed your full power, Aurus.” A familiar voice resounded throughout the main hall, making Aurus smile inwardly as he replied, “I can’t lose out to you now that I’m the vice leader of the alliance, right Herellia?”

“Well, that’s true,” Herellia replied with a light chuckle, only to be stopped as a stifling aura swept over the whole alliance base, making everyone silent in an instant as they looked towards the direction of the aura’s origin.

Once they looked at its direction, they could all see a wolf with jade green fur standing in front of what seemed to be a giant army of Inanimates, not losing out to the number of members the Tempest Branch Alliance has. On the left side of the wolf was an ethereal looking being that was floating, while on the right side was a docile looking rabbit…if one ignored the murderous aura emanating from it.

Seeing as how the wolf was just standing there, Herellia looked at everyone in the main hall before saying, “Everyone, follow behind me.”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

In that instant, all of the members of the Tempest Branch Alliance had come out of the alliance base, coming face to face with the army of the wolf in front of them. At the very front of this was Herellia, looking at the large wolf at the front of the army opposite her.

“You have two choices.” After a moment of tense silence between the two, the wolf opened its mouth and started to talk. “You could submit to me and let the Tempest Branch Alliance be spared from destruction, or…fight.”

“Hmm…” Herellia used some of the energy in her body as a carrier of her voice, allowing everyone to hear her reply. After a few seconds, she then replied, “How about we choose…the latter?”

Whoosh!

Soon after, an aura of power that surpassed what she showed before started to emanate from her, putting all of the members of the alliance at ease. As for the wolf on the other side, it remained silent for a bit in ponderation before opening its mouth to say…

“So be it.”

“Destruction it is.”