I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 167: Why Not Retaliate?

A couple of minutes before what seemed to be an uprising occurred within the main hall of the Tempest Branch Alliance, an invisible branch gradually made his way towards a part of the alliance’s base wherein he would not be seen that easily even with his invisibility skill activated. He also took into consideration his need to see the targets he had to possess.

This invisible branch was none other than Reinvor, who had been tasked by Horell to initiate Code 2 on the Tempest Branch Alliance. At this moment, he could not help but radiate an aura of elation after knowing that he could show his abilities to Chonk, which would possibly allow him to be promoted to a higher position in the army. Nevertheless, since this part of the mission needed him to not be noticed by the alliance, he hastily suppressed his aura before focusing attention on the members of the Tempest Branch Alliance.

“Hmm…to make Code 2 successful, taking Horell’s words into consideration, it seems I need to possess around 5 members to incite a feeling of unrest amongst the members of the alliance,” Reinvor muttered to himself, calculating the optimal number of beings he had to possess and take on their actions in order for an uprising to happen.

Not long after, he looked at the auras of each and every member in the alliance, since his skill would not activate if the aura radiated by the being he was going to possess was many times higher than his aura. While doing so, he could not help but become shocked once he found two beings in the center of the alliance’s hall, which were radiating an aura that exceeded most of the auras radiated by those surrounding them. After noticing this, Reinvor could not help but release a bit of sap in fear, muttering to himself, “If they find out where I’m controlling the victims, I’m seriously going to be screwed.”

He then went ahead and composed himself, adjusting his soul to its peak condition before settling on five members that seemed to hold a bit of authority amongst the members of the alliance. Not long after, he decided to possess another member just in case, but his grasp over this last member was a bit lacking when compared to the previous five.

“[Puppetry Arts: Instigation]!”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

After saying the name of the ability, six threads, that was the same color as his body, shot out of his body as each and every thread made their way towards the six members he had chosen to possess, with each of them radiating a slightly different aura after being possessed.

Noticing this, Reinvor used his soul to its limits, returning the auras of the six to what they were before, waiting to make a move when the situation seemed right.

“Code 2 has finally begun.”

…

Tempest Cliff, Tempest Branch Alliance.

Aurus and Herellia looked at each other with an aura of slight confusion radiating from their bodies. They then looked at the members of the alliance that complained all of a sudden, wondering as to why they only started to complain just now. Not only were Aurus and Herellia looking at the alliance members who complained with slight confusion, even the members who were not affected by Reinvor’s skill looked at these alliance members with slight confusion.

“It seems we have a rat on the loose,” Aurus could not help but mutter to Herellia after asking a few questions to Herellia regarding these members. While these alliance members noticed that everyone was looking at them with auras of confusion, prompting to band together and continue complaining, Herellia ignored this and looked at Aurus before asking, “It seems so. Did Chonk plan this before the war started?”

“It could be planned before the war, or it was done in retaliation to what we did to the small party they sent,” Aurus responded to Herellia’s question, before adding, “But by the looks of it, it seems their plan is not working. What did you do to achieve this level of solidarity, Herellia?”

“Uh…” Herellia pondered over Aurus’ question for a while before responding with, “To be honest, I did nothing at all. I just treated each member kindly, gave them attention for their feats, and so on.””Yeah, that makes sense,” Aurus said before looking at the alliance members, that were complaining a while ago, finally congregate towards a certain portion of the main hall in order for their voices to be heard louder.

“We don’t deserve to be used as cannon fodder! We’re more than that!”

“Yeah! We still have a long life ahead of us!”

“We should band together and oust the leader from her position! Who’s with me?!”

“As long as we band together, we can do anything!”

“Come join us for a good cause, my fellow members. We’re going to change the position of the alliance for the better good!”

“Fuck yeah! Change!”

Listening to their words one more time, Aurus could not help but look at Herellia and ask, “So…what are we going to do them? Just let them complain until they get sick of it?”

“Since it has something to do with Chonk, those complaints won’t stop until the opinion of the other alliance members change,” Herellia replied to his question, pondering a bit not long after. After that, she added, “Then again, we have to make sure that it’s a third party doing this, and not their actual feelings. If it’s their actual feelings, then I’ll be the one to handle that.”

“How are you going to do—” Just as Aurus was about to ask how Herellia was going to make sure that a third party was making those alliance members complain, a certain skill flashed in Aurus’ mind before adding, “Ah, right. Go ahead.”

Whoosh!

At that instant, Herellia hastily made her way towards the complaining alliance members and radiated her aura at its limit, making those near her feel stifled. Fortunately, this feeling was only faint among the members that were near his aura. Her true focus was the six alliance members who were complaining, focusing her aura towards them with the intent of making their complaints stop.

Surprisingly, that method worked, making the six alliance members stop complaining. In response, all of the alliance members that were looking at the six that complained could not help but let out sighs of relief as they continued on with what they were supposed to do so, knowing very well that their alliance leader would handle this without a problem.

“[Eyes of Undeceiving Truth],” Herellia muttered to herself, before an aura, that seemed to make everyone feel that every lie would be uncovered by her, radiated from her body, enveloping the six in this aura.

Not long after enveloping the six in that aura, she asked them, “Tell me. Are these your true feelings?”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Although the six did not reply due to the overbearing aura pressing on them, the aura they radiated alone was enough of a reply for her, retracting the skill, as well as the aura she was radiating before heading back to where Aurus was. At the time she had made her way back to where Aurus was, the six alliance members continued to complain once more. This time though, all of the alliance members ignored their cries, continuing on with what they were tasked to do.

Nonetheless, it was quite jarring to the sense of hearing of the Inanimates, prompting Herellia to shout, “Could anyone seal their ability to speak for a while? It’s quite annoying.”

Whoosh!

Not long after, six silver threads of energy made their way towards the six alliance members, abruptly stopping the complaints that came out of them. Although they radiated auras of shock and disbelief, one could still sense a small hint of relief from their auras.

Wondering where the silver threads came from, Herellia looked around, only to find out that these threads came from Aurus as a small ball of energy gradually dissipated into thin air. Just before Herellia could ask as to what that skill was, Aurus was the first one to talk, saying with an aura of slight happiness surrounding him, “That’ll be a secret for now.”

“Anyways, what should be our next move against this attack?” Not long after, Aurus asked Herellia, to which she replied, “I have no idea. I would’ve been able to retaliate if it was a physical attack against our members, but this is the first time I’ve experienced an attack such as this.”

Seeing as Herellia did not have any plan to retaliate against this move made by Chonk’s army, Aurus could not help but radiate an aura of slight elation as he said, “What if I told you…I have a way to retaliate against that?”

“You do?” Herellia could not help but radiate an aura of slight curiosity from Aurus’ words before adding, “What is it?”

“Quite simple, really,” Aurus replied to Herellia’s question before adding, “If they want to incite public outrage amongst the members of our alliance, then that means we just have to incite public outrage amongst their members as well!”

“…” Herellia was at a loss for words for quite some time. Eventually, she looked at Aurus with an aura that radiated ‘As if I haven’t thought of that’ before saying, “Well…if we had someone that could do that, I would’ve done it already. No?”

“Well…” Aurus’ aura of elation around him intensified by quite a bit as he said, “That’s the point. I could do that.”

“Oh,” Herellia replied to Aurus’ words as if it was normal, before finally being processed by her mind as she uttered not long after, “Eh?”

“You should’ve told me you could do it in the first place!” After finally processing what Aurus said, Herellia could not help but say to him, to which he replied, “We can’t have our enemy find out everything about us, now can we?”

“Anyways, the inciting public outrage part is still an uncertainty for me, but I’m extremely sure that I can scout out the opposing army and their next plans,” Aurus said to Herellia afterward, to which Herellia replied, “Even that is more than enough. Inciting public outrage is a bonus. Other than that, could you go ahead and find out who’s doing that to our members?”

“I’ll try,” Aurus replied before closing his sense of vision, activating his [Unified Soul Control] skill as he manipulated half of his soul’s power to manifest outside his body.

Fwoosh!

Not long after, a decently sized silver ball appeared on top of his body, which prompted Herellia to ask, “What’s that?”

“A part of my soul,” Aurus responded to Herellia’s question before splitting up the silver ball into 8 smaller balls. Due to the fact that the amount of soul power he allocated to this soul vessel he made was far less than the amount he used while he was testing it out, he had a far easier time controlling these 8 balls, allowing them to move in different directions and speeds.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Adjusting his mind to the burden of controlling 8 small balls at once, as well as being aware of his original body and clone’s surroundings, Aurus then willed the 8 balls to transform into a smaller size as he manipulated the 8 balls to head towards where the opposing army was.

“Hmm…I kind of like the idea of naming skills like these under codes,” Aurus could not help but mutter as he opened his sense of vision once more, allowing him to look at three perspectives at once. He then looked at Herellia, who was beside her, and asked, “Don’t you think this deserves to be called a code?”

“That’s up to you,” Herellia replied before heading towards a certain portion of the main hall. “If you find any results, just send a thread of energy to me. I’ll be discussing Code 5 and Code 7 with the other Pillar members. You could come with me and add a few of your skills to enhance these codes if you want.”

“Sure, I’ll go and join the discussion later,” Aurus muttered as he focused on one of the perspectives he could see, which was currently expanding at a fast rate due to him commanding the 8 balls to move outward. He then added, “I’ll just make sure that the balls I sent out won’t get destroyed. Once that’s done, I’ll definitely go and join.”

“Alright then,” Herellia radiated an aura of affirmation before leaving Aurus to his own.In response to this, an aura of intense elation radiated from him as he proceeded to think up of a good code number for this skill of his, as well as a good codename.

“Hmm…what would be a good code number and name for this?”

Eventually, Aurus found a suitable code number and name for this skill, muttering to himself, “Since this skill was deployed as retaliation to the unexpected betrayal our alliance has just experienced, that would surely be a good codename! As for the number I have in mind, it would fit as well!”

“Well then. Let’s try saying it.”

“[Code 69: No U]!”

“…”

“…”

“Okay, that kind of made me cringe.”