I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 142: Dawn of a New Era

“From your standpoint, you could say that the name Chungus doesn’t fit the species of the Animate, but if you knew how large the guy was, you’d probably think otherwise,” Aurus replied, not minding Herellia’s question as she did not come from Earth unlike him.

As he said this, he could not help but recall the appearance of this Animate named Chungus. Although this Animate has not transitioned into a Rank 1 class, the aura emanating from its body, as well as the stats that it had got it really close to showing the properties of a Rank 1 Animate. Not only that, its body size was incredibly large for an Animate, to which Aurus attributed to either the Animate’s gluttony or the specific feature of the Animate’s species.

“Sure…” Hearing Aurus’ reply, Herellia did not bother to delve any further into the Animate, steering the conversation to another topic. “Anyways, Chonk actually became a Rank 1 Animate? I thought that we were up against a Rank 0 Animate as the main boss, but to think that he actually succeeded in breaking through.”

“Oh?” Aurus found it quite surprising since Herellia did not mention of Chonk’s existence level other than the fact that he was an Animate. Hence, Aurus thought that he was a Rank 1 Animate from the start. “Wasn’t he Rank 1 from the start?”

“Nope, he was Rank 0 for most of his Animate life, only breaking through very recently by the looks of it. If he didn’t break through, he wouldn’t have started this war to eradicate the three alliances of Tempest Cliff,” Herellia replied, exuding an aura of denial.

“Speaking of which, are there any Inanimates we have to keep an eye out for? I know us two can fight against X-grade Inanimates without any problem, but I can’t say the same for others,” she then changed the topic one more time, looking at Aurus as she waited for his reply.

“Hmm…” Aurus pondered for a bit, answering Herellia’s query a few seconds later. “Only one X-grade Inanimate showed a combat power that exceeded X-grade in my system, to be honest. As for that Inanimate’s specialties, it’s mostly based around the lightning element, and is also specialized in close combat according to the skills I’ve obtained.”

“What’s his name?” Herellia could not help but ask, making a mental note of this Inanimate for the time the two factions meet up.

“Aucrill,” Aurus replied in an indifferent tone.

After hearing the Inanimate’s name, Herellia closed her sense of vision for a bit before exuding an aura of understanding. She then looked at Aurus and said, “That’ll be all for now, Aurus. Thanks for taking up the reconnaissance mission. You can go back and prepare, I guess.”

“Sure thing,” Aurus answered back, radiating an aura of slight confusion not long after. “To be honest, I’ve done almost everything I needed to do to prepare for the war. What else should I do?”

“Why not use the time to craft up a few more trump cards for the war?” Herellia replied back with a question, with Aurus exuding an aura of indifference as he replied, “Well, I guess that’ll do for now.”

Whoosh!

And with that, Aurus disappeared in front of Herellia’s field of vision, heading towards the Tower of Seclusion as he wanted to check up on the progress of Fenrir and Charisa’s grinding spree.

…

While Aurus was doing that, on a certain sector of the Celestial Plane, a Greater Goddess with a whip that exuded an intense aura of purity was heading towards a plane after knowing that the gods that dwelled there were demons.

This Greater Goddess, well to be more exact, this divine clone of a Greater Goddess, was none other Shirohana, tasked by Kurohana to help Nix in solving the problem of demons inside the Celestial Plane.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Due to Shirohana being blessed by Misha with her skill before she left, she was able to reach a speed a few notches beyond what she could normally attain, only taking her around three hours as the plane was situated a decent distance away from the Hall of Greater Divinity.

Whoosh!

At the very instant she arrived, she decided to not head down as she wanted to take a look at the state of the plane first. Due to her memories being from Kurohana, she knew that gods that have possessed by sins coming from demons often had their planes become corrupt or demonic in some form.

From what she was looking, that seemed to be the case, with the whole plane taking on an incredibly dark violet hue. The landscape on the plane was enveloped in a dark violet energy, as well as the flora and fauna on it. The only exception to this was a tower situated in the center, which radiated a crimson red glow.

After touring around the plane for a few minutes, it was then that Shirohana decided to land, only for something unexpected to happen not long after her landing.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

In a matter of an instant, multiple tendrils, made out of the dark violet thing that enveloped the plane, coiled themselves around Shirohana, basically restraining her freedom of movement. She then tried to move her body around a little bit, seeing that just a small amount of force would not be able to break it. But when she was just about to use more force, she could not help but hear a woman’s laughter get closer and closer to where she was restrained.

“Wahahaha! To think we actually got a Greater God on our first attempt!” the woman said as she slowly revealed herself to Shirohana, her irises a flat black. “Isn’t that great, darling? We can actually form a True Demon God to continue with master’s plan!”

“Before we do that though, isn’t it better to make her submit to us first?” Not long after, a man appeared in front of Shirohana as well, his irises the same color as the woman’s. “If even there’s a small smidget of her resisting the possession, it could backfire on us.”

“But with the newfound power we’ve obtained, isn’t that easy?” the woman questioned the man, kissing the man on the lips passionately as the atmosphere around the three become amorous soon enough.

While staying silent, Shirohana could not help but look at the two and assess the characteristics of the sin that possessed the two of them. Of course, these two gods were none other than Hinari and Hodazuka, the Lesser Goddess of the Moon and Lesser God of the Sun, respectively.

From what they were doing at the moment, a certain sin in Shirohana’s mind could not help but surface as she muttered, “The Sin of Lust has possessed them both. The question is, at what level is the sin possessing them?”

As she was wondering as to how strong the sin possessing them is, she also took this time to gradually apply a bit more force to the multiple tendrils restraining her, making sure that she did not alert the two as she gradually escaped from the hold of the tendrils.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

Little by little, thanks to the force she was exerting, as well as the whip of purity she was holding, she was able to remove all of the tendrils restraining her without alerting the two. Speaking of which, even if she made a loud sound, it wouldn’t even alert the two as they were…

Connected through their bodies at the moment.

“Unngyahh~” Hinari moaned as she could feel Hodazuka’s mining drill explore her caverns bit by bit. Of course, Hodazuka could not help but scream out in pleasure since what they were doing was pretty pleasurable. But other than that, an ominous energy gradually surrounded the two of them. From the looks of it, it seemed that this ominous energy was fusing the two of them as they wallowed themselves in great pleasure.

Looking at this without any malice in mind, Shirohana then deduced the power level of the sin, letting out a sigh of relief as she muttered, “It’s just a Refined Sin that just happened to be lucky to possess two Lesser Gods.”

“Since that’s the case…” Shirohana looked at the whip she was holding, before panning her focus back to the amorous couple, a small smile slowly creeping up her face as she swung her whip backwards, sending the tip flying at great speeds, aiming for…

Hodazuka’s mining drill.

Whip!

“Gyaargh!” The whip hit its mark, forcing the mining drill out of Hinari’s cavern as the ominous energy surrounding the two of them gradually dispersed thanks to what Shirohana did. Of course, that did not stop the two from getting angry at Shirohana as Hodazuka shouted, “What the hell did you do that for?!”

And with that, Hodazuka started his charge towards Shirohana with his mining drill in a half-stiff state, forming a ball of light above his palm, which was gradually tainted by a dark energy not long after.

“Take this! [Solar Oblivion]!”

Whoosh!

With all of the strength he could muster in his body, Hodazuka threw this ball of light towards Shirohana…as Shirohana deflected it with her whip with ease. Seeing that Hodazuka’s attack didn’t work, Hinari also made her move towards Shirohana, which consisted of a crescent blade being tainted with a dark energy. But since Shirohana was blessed by the Greater Goddess of Purity, and also borrowed a Cherubim-level whip from her, the two attacks shot out by the two were deflected without any problem.

Realizing that their attacks did not work, the two of them could not help but tremble in front of Shirohana. Shirohana could not help but look at the two with a slight sneer, saying not long after, “Is that all you two have?”

Feeling intimidated by Shirohana’s presence, Hodazuka could not help but grit his teeth as he told Hinari, “Connect with me.”

“Eh?” Hearing Hodazuka’s words, Hinari could not help but blush.

“We won’t be able to beat this Greater Goddess if we don’t use the full power of our sin,” Hodazuka added, persuading Hinari to connect with him. “Do you want to create a True Demon God or not? Do you want to disappoint the master?”

Looking at Shirohana, who was emanating an intense aura of purity that made her uncomfortable, Hinari decided to follow Hodazuka’s words, allowing his mining drill to enter her cavern once more. This time though, a dark and ominous energy hastily covered the two of them, transforming them into a monster made out of dark ominous energy.

“Take this!” the monster shouted, forming a ball of dark energy above its palm, before swinging its arm towards Shirohana as the ball flew at incredibly fast speeds.

“Hmph.” Shirohana snorted, looking at the monster with disdain. “Is that seriously the strength of a Refined Sin? And here I thought I was going to have to fight for a long time. You two have really disappointed me,” she scoffed not long after as she raised her free arm up into the air, forming a magic circle in an instant.

“With purity as my blade, and courage as my hilt, I beseech the laws of the universe to help me.”

“5th Divine Circle, 3rd Demon Slaying Circle, Nox Luminaris Desterii.”

“[Boundless Demon Shackle]!”

Whoosh!

At the very instant she was finished chanting her spell, she then aimed the magic circle towards the monster, firing out a ball of light that glowed a faint gray. This glow was then replaced with a white glow thanks to the aura of purity surrounding her.

Fwoosh!

Before the monster could even react, the ball of light had collided with its away, siphoning all of the dark energy that merged the two Lesser Gods together, revealing the bodies of the two with their eyes closed.

As for the dark energy, it continued to be siphoned out of the two gods’ bodies. It was not long after that a demon’s mark manifested above the two bodies before making their way towards the condensation of dark energy.

Seeing the demon’s mark that manifested above their bodies, Shirohana could not help but frown.

“Well this is a problem,” she muttered to herself as she grabbed the orb of dark energy that was formed from the Sin of Lust. She then looked at the two unconscious gods lying down on the ground, deciding to send a bit of her divine energy towards them as a matter of disseminating information about what happened to the two of them.

Not only that, since the Sin of Lust residing within the two of them was now absorbed into the orb Shirohana was holding, the state of the plane the two resided in gradually reverted back to its original state as Shirohana flew off not long after the plane’s full reversal.

Whoosh!

With the orb filled with the sin in her hand, she headed back towards the Hall of Greater Divinity to tell Nix of a possible storm heading towards the Celestial Plane.

“Demon’s Mark…the Deified Sins are going to attack the Celestial Plane.”

“I don’t know when, but I better prepare.”

“I can’t afford to waste any more time. I need to craft up my Evolving Weapon as fast as possible.”