I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 312: Animate of the Tempest Cliff

“Haah…haah…” After the trio was done dodging all of the lightning drops that fell from the dark clouds, the first thing they did was to congregate in the middle of their respective locations and look at each other with auras of elation and relief. They then went ahead and looked at the dark clouds for a short bit, briefly radiating an aura of fear as they wondered if more lightning bolts would come striking down after what they had gone through. Fortunately, after looking at the dark clouds for a while, no glowing spots could be seen on it, hence that meant that Herellia’s Existence Tribulation was finally over.

“It’s finally over,” Argentum was the first one to talk among the three, focusing his sense of vision towards Herellia before saying, “Congratulations, Herellia. From now on, you’re going to be a fully-fledged Animate.”

In response, Herellia let out a light chuckle as she focused her vision onto Argentum before replying, “Hehe. In that case, I’ll be thanking you in advance. You’re pretty much the reason why I was able to successfully clear my Existence Tribulation. On top of that, with your help, you even allowed me to enhance my evolutions! Twice!”

As for Horell, although he was excited that the trial was already over and that Herellia was now going to evolve, an aura of slight surprise emanated from him as he was still in disbelief that there were no more trials after what seemed to be such a gruesome trial…which did become easy at the end. With that in mind, he looked at Argentum and asked in an uncertain tone, “Argentum, is Herellia’s Existence Tribulation really over? From how we cleared the trial without much of a problem, surely there would be another trial after that, right?”

“Hoh?” Listening to Horell’s words, Argentum could not help but tease Horell as he replied with a light chuckle, “Do you really want to undergo one more trial? Well, I’ll satisfy your wishes right here and now!”

It was at this moment that Argentum was not joking with his earlier words at all, prompting Horell to radiate an aura of fear as he imagined what Argentum would do to him to fulfill his previous words. Without hesitation, he moved a few steps back as he replied, “I was just joking! Just joking! I don’t want to undergo such a hellish trial like that anymore!”

Hearing Horell’s pleas, Argentum and Herellia could not help but look at each other in silence before looking back at Horell and letting out boisterous laughter simultaneously. At this time, Horell radiated an embarrassed aura, which was soon replaced with another aura as he let out a laugh of his own, recalling what had happened in the Existence Tribulation.

After some time, the three of them were finally finished laughing, with Argentum looking at Herellia and asking, “So…do you have any clue as to what type of human you’re going to evolve into?”

“There are types between humans?” Herellia instantly let out an aura of slight shock after listening to Argentum’s question. In her mind, she only knew that any Inanimate that evolved into an Animate would be the same in terms of combat power. But according to Argentum’s words, there seemed to be other types of humans than the one she knew?

Noticing the aura surrounding Herellia’s body, Argentum quickly responded to Herellia’s question, explaining, “In general, there are two broad types of humans in this world. There’s the normal humans, and there’s…”

“The Awakened,” Argentum emphasized his voice on these two words. With him emphasizing those words, Herellia knew that she had to know more about the latter two as she already had a few ideas regarding the first type. Without hesitation, she asked him, “What are the Awakened?”

Recalling all of the information Aurus knew about the Awakened through his memories, Argentum went silent for a bit before responding, “In short, the Awakened are humans that are born with an innate ability. Innate abilities are more or less the skills we use every so often. If we were to get more specific, there are multiple branches and types of Awakened humans. The only thing you have to remember is that an Awakened is significantly stronger than a normal human at Rank 0.”

Hastily processing and organizing the information she had obtained from Argentum, Herellia nodded her head, only for another question to pop into her mind as she looked at Argentum and asked, “How do you know all of these?”

Naturally, Argentum could not say that he knew all of these thanks to Aurus’s memories. And so, utilizing his quick wits as a Pseudo-Animate, he radiated an aura of slight confidence as he replied, “I obtained some information regarding Animates here and there from my journey. Even Aurus doesn’t know anything about this?”

“Even Aurus?” Herellia let out an aura of surprise as she first felt that Aurus, as a clone of Argentum, would be more knowledgeable about these sorts of things compared to his clone. Of course, she was indeed correct in that thinking, but thanks to Argentum’s persuasive words, her thoughts had been shifted to another place, prompting her to respond, “I see.”

Rumble…

After a moment of silence ensued between the three of them, the dark clouds started to rumble after what seemed to be a long time. Without delay, the three of them looked at the dark clouds and noticed that the dark blue lightning bolts and the white lightning bolts were now mingling with each other. While this was happening, Argentum noticed that the lightning bolts were exuding a peculiar intent. Without hesitation, he used his enhanced senses to glean information regarding the intent, only to be left at a loss for words as he muttered, “The lightning bolts…are actually joyous that Herellia passed through the trials?”

Although he felt that it was weird, he placed this thought at the back of his head as the current event was indeed a thing meant to be celebrated. Not long after, the two bolts started to fuse as one, forming into a lightning bolt that the trio was familiar with, a lightning bolt that only popped up whenever Herellia was going to evolve.

“The rainbow lightning bolts are coming,” Herellia said to herself before looking at Horell and Argentum in front of him. With an aura of excitement and teasing surrounding her, Herellia told them, “I’ll be separating from you to for a while. For now, stay here. Whatever happens to me, don’t move.”

Instantly thinking what was going on in her mind, Argentum let out a giggle before replying, “Alright, we’ll stay here.” As for Horell, he lightly nodded before radiating an aura of happiness, saying, “I’m quite eager to see what you evolve into, Herellia.”

Whoosh!

And with that, Herellia had departed from the vicinity of the two, heading towards another part of the surroundings they were in. Unsurprisingly, Argentum went ahead and used his enhanced senses to find out where Herellia stopped, eventually seeing that Herellia stopped near some of the trees in order to shroud her evolution even more. With a lighthearted sigh, Argentum looked at the dark clouds before sitting on the ground, waiting for Herellia’s evolution to come.

Rumble…rumble…

After a few more minutes of waiting, another rumble resounded from the dark clouds, carrying intent within it. Without delay, Argentum used his enhanced senses to find out what the intent contained, only to look at Horell, who was sitting beside him, and say, “Herellia’s about to evolve.”

Hearing those words come from Argentum, Horell could not help but radiate an aura of excitement and expectation, incredibly eager to see Herellia’s final form after the Existence Tribulation. As for Argentum, after saying those words, he focused his vision onto the glowing spot in the middle of the dark clouds, which radiated an incredibly intense glow consisting of various colors.

Not only that, but the intent of life and nurturing contained with the iridescent spot was almost a thousand times more intense than the previous batch of iridescent lightning bolts. It was at this moment that Argentum confirmed that the intent of life and nurturing contained within the iridescent lightning bolts was due to the type of lightning bolts being used to make them. Naturally, with both Abyss-level and Genesis-level lightning bolts being used to form this batch of iridescent lightning bolts, it came without saying that the species Herellia would evolve into would be nothing short of amazing.

Bzzt…crash!

And so, after another minute, the glowing spot in the middle had finally broken, sending forth a large number of iridescent lightning bolts towards a certain spot on the ground. Of course, this spot was none other than the spot Herellia stopped at in order to greet the iridescent lightning bolts. It also came without saying that thanks to the strong intent behind the iridescent lightning bolts, the trees that surrounded Herellia at that moment had been felled without a problem, allowing both Horell and Argentum to barely see what was currently happening to Herellia.

Then again, the only thing they could see from where they were was the cocoon of iridescent light that covered Herellia while she was in the process of evolution. Nevertheless, this sight was enough for the two to be at ease as they waited for Herellia to finish with her evolution. Unfortunately for them, the ease they felt did not long as they soon heard a loud scream come from a familiar voice to the two of them.

“Nngggraaahhhh…!”

A scream filled with immense pain and agony soon resounded throughout the area, hastily being picked up by the senses of hearing of the two. In an instant, the two of them deduced that this scream came from none other than Herellia, prompting the two to look at each other as a tacit agreement was formed between the two of them from their aura.

Without hesitation, the two of them stood up and summoned forth all of the strength inside their bodies as they dashed to where Herellia was at the fastest speed they could muster. Along the way, they could not help but radiate auras of worry and concern as the two of them did not want anything bad to happen to Herellia.

Fortunately, nothing bad did happen to Herellia since by that they had arrived, the cocoon of light covering Herellia had been dispelled. At the moment that the two of them had arrived at where Herellia was, both of them were left at a loss for words as they could not believe what they were looking at. Silently, they looked at each other for a bit before looking at the seemingly perfect figure slightly far away from them. Although the two of them could only see the figure’s back, that alone was enough to tell the two that the being in front of him was someone who was incredibly powerful.

They continued to look back and forth, only to simultaneously say to each other, “Is that really, Herellia?”

“What? Who else could it be other than me?” In response, a voice that seemed to give anyone who listened to it a sense of motivation soon came out of that figure’s mouth before turning her head around to look at the two behind her. A light smile filled with a hint of arrogance could be seen on her lips, complementing everything from her face to her current wardrobe.

A red robe covering her upper and lower torso could be seen draping over her body, held in place by a black strap that went around her stomach. If one looked closely at the robe she wore, the exquisite design of golden flowers with a pinkish hue at the tips could be seen on the fringes of her robe, which was almost the same type of flower that was placed above her right ear, though it was more of a golden hibiscus than the flowers on the robe.

In addition to her robe, she currently wore black stockings and wooden sandals that came from who knows where, as well as a strap of red and black fabric that went around her right thigh. At this moment, both Horell and Argentum could not help but notice that a puddle of red fluid had appeared under the figure’s sandals, wondering if that puddle was due to the evolution she had gone through.

But what stood out to them the most was the fact that the figure’s eyes were now lively, unlike from her previous evolution which was lackluster, to say the least. Her irises glistened a beautiful gold, complementing the golden hibiscus above her ear, as well as the crimson red hair that covered her head, flowing naturally with the movement of the wind. Add on the fact that she had earrings on both of her ears, which also came from who knows where, a perfect figure to both Animate and Pseudo-Animate was standing in front of the two, radiating a faint red aura that accentuated the look that Herellia had for her.

Indeed, the figure standing in front of them was, in fact, Herellia in her Animate form (check paragraph comments for illustration!).

Just as Herellia was about to turn around and look at the two behind her with a proud expression, a soft rumble started to resound in the surroundings of the two, only for her to clutch her hands around her stomach as she kneeled to the ground. In that instant, both Argentum and Horell radiated auras of surprise, with Argentum’s aura of surprise being more subdued as he already had an idea as to what was going on.

And just as he was thinking about what he was going to do next, Herellia unhesitatingly looked at Argentum and parted her mouth to ask him, “Argentum, do you know why this part of my body is hurting all of a sudden? It’s as if it feels empty.”

Growl….

——–

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