Rise of The Demon General

Chapter 391: Chapter 391. Looking for Information

Since Amon started his seclusion, he decided to end it when he broke through to the Martial Realm. He could continue cultivating under seclusion and would eventually reach the Lord Stage. However, doing that would mean throwing away everything he built during his time at the Royal Academy.

He had confidence in his underlings, but like everything, there was a limit. No matter how strong his underling’s belief in him, it would still degrade with time. If he stayed absent for a hundred years, or maybe even half that time, he would find no one remembering him by the time he returned to civilization.

He believed in individual prowess but also understood not to neglect organizational power. This world might be able to turn an individual into a God-like being, but the power of many was still real. To achieve the great thing he planned, he needed that power. The power to band people into his service and that power required nurturing.

Thus was his promise to himself to end his seclusion after entering the Martial Realm.

Coming out of his bunker, the first thing he needed to do was gather information. Many things could have happened in these five years. The closest settlement was Qishurg City, so he headed that way. The spirit beast invasion might have caused much damage, but the city should have been rebuilt in these five years.

When Qishurg City came into view, he realized his speculation had been wrong. All that was left of the city were ruins.

’The kingdom abandoned the city?’ Amon asked in his mind.

Looking at the ruins, the destruction had been severe. The kingdom’s reinforcement must have arrived late, or the reinforcement was not enough, causing the spirit beasts to stay inside the city for days.

Despite the state of the city, Amon’s sharp eyes caught some movements inside the city. People were roaming the ruins. He decided to enter the city and questioned the people there.

Most of the walls that enclosed the city were no more, so he could enter the city freely. Inside the city, he got a better sense of the devastation. No structures were intact. There were signs of pillaging, probably the humans contributed to the city’s destruction after the spirit beasts left. If so, it would most likely be the rebels who were responsible.

Amon wandered around the ruins. The streets were unrecognizable. There was rubble everywhere. It was a far cry from the Qishurg City he knew. After walking for some time, he heard voices. He went in the direction of the voices.

He found a group of rough-looking men and women, nine in total. They were hanging around while chitchatting inside a large house that had lost its walls and roof. Judging from their appearance, Amon guessed they were scavengers. Several large leather bags were piled up beside them.

Amon walked over to them while using his Mystic Stage senses to check their cultivation one by one. This was the first time he used the ability to check the power of other cultivators. Despite that being the case, he could estimate all eight were between the Peak Strength Stage to the Beginning Transformation Stage.

The nine discovered Amon’s approach. Their chats and laughter stopped. They stood up and turned to Amon.

”What is this? Another scavenger comes to salvage on our turf?” One of the nine uttered.

Hearing the statement, Amon looked at himself. His Jue Body Suit was still intact, but the clothes he worn over the Jue Body Suit were already tattered. He never bothered to change, clean, or repair his clothes during seclusion. Compared to the nine people he approached, he had a more worn-out appearance.

”Dude, piss off before you get hurt,” another said.

”Hehe. This fool is asking for a hurting,” his friend added when Amon continued to approach them.

Amon stopped after arriving in their midst. ”I have questions. Do you know what happened to the teachers and students from the Royal Academy?”

The scavengers laughed at his question. One of the nine whispered something to someone who seemed to be in charge. This leader told Amon, ”You seem to have found a real treasure here. Hand over that space ring on your finger, and we will let you live.”

”A space ring?” The other sounded excited after learning the fact.

”Great! With a space ring, we don’t need to hurt our backs hauling all this stuff.”

”Haha! Finally, a great find after wasting so many days in this God-forsaken place!”

One of the nine approached Amon and shouted in a threatening tone. ”Hey, fool! Are you deaf as well? Our boss asked you to give us that space ring. Are you going to do it, or must we cut it out of your finger?”

Instead of answering, Amon shook his right arm. The Xian Cloth covering his arm unraveled, revealing the black ceremonial dagger. The dagger shifted to his grip, and he vanished.

The throat of the man who approached Amon split and gushed out a large amount of blood when Amon vanished. Amon reappeared next to the closest person. He then vanished again. The person he appeared before suffered the same fate as the first man.

Amon continued to reappear and vanish repeatedly. Each time before a different person. That person had his throat ripped apart when Amon was gone.

These people might think Amon teleported around the place, but he was simply moving extremely fast. He was using the Invisible Sky Steps. During his seclusion, he had trained this movement art to the skilled mastery. The higher one’s mastery over this art, the faster the movement boosts and the shorter the pause between each move.

One could move consecutively using this art, but each move without resting increased the expenditure of stamina and aether. Amon’s current record was twelve times. After zooming around twelve consecutive times, he would run out of breath and feel exhausted. If his mastery improved, the energy expenditure of each zooming would also decrease, allowing him to perform the zooming more times.

After zooming around eight times, he arrived before the leader. All eight scavengers had their throats slashed. They dropped to the floor without realizing how they died. The leader himself was shocked to silence. He didn’t understand what was going on. Everything happened too fast.

”Do you want to answer my question now?” Amon asked.

”Waahhh...!!” Instead of answering, the leader screamed like a madman. Overwhelmed by fear, he ran away, leaving everything behind.

”Hm...” Amon planned to let the leader go after he answered his question, but the guy was rude to just run off like that.

Two flashing lights flew out of him. These flashing lights zoomed past the fleeing leader, and he fell to the ground with his head lopped off.

The flashing lights returned to Amon. When they slowed down, one could see they were Amon’s alpha flying knives. During his seclusion, the mastery of his Flying Sword art had improved to the master level. The speed of his flying knives increased dramatically.

The alpha flying knives themselves, however, were still damaged. The cracks from the battle with Yan Wang still decorated the knives. Amon’s blacksmith skill was not enough to repair the knives.

Amon stored the alpha flying knives and hid the ceremonial dagger under the Xian Cloth. He then checked the contents of the leather bags. Everything inside was rubbish. This lot was just useless fools hunting for trash.

After this encounter, he thought there was not much he could learn here. He decided to go to the capital and look for information there. He first changed his outfit to clean clothes before heading out of the city. He took a different path from when he walked in. On his way, he heard the voices of men laughing and a woman crying not far away.

He ignored the voices, but then he heard the crying voice of a child near the man and woman’s voices. He continued to tell himself to leave, but Madam Lin’s words echoed in his mind. He sighed and changed direction.

The place he was heading was blocked by a mountain of rubble, so he jumped to the top. Up there, he saw a man was pinning a woman down, raping her. Not far ahead, another man was holding a small child. The child was crying as he called to the woman who was his mother.

”Hahaha! How does it feel to get manly treatment while being watched by your son? It is exciting, isn’t it?” The man who was raping the woman laughed. He then slapped her. ”Hey, I asked you a question!”

”Bro, don’t rough her up too much! You might accidentally kill her. I want to taste her as well!” The man that was holding the child called.

”You can still taste her even if she is dead.”

”Eww...! That’s disgusting! I’m not into that kind of sick thing like y–”

”Hm? Hey, I don’t get what you say,” the man turned around to look at his friend, but he saw a palm coming at him instead.

The palm grabbed his face. The hand was very strong. It lifted him like he was nothing. He was then slammed headfirst into the ground. He felt nothing afterward.