Ethan walked out of the underground secret room, passed through the corridor, and emerged from the main entrance of the house.
The streets were in complete chaos.
Panicked Amons were fleeing in every direction.
Warriors attempted to organize a defense, but their spears and hunting bows had no clear target to aim at.
The barrier was still active; the emerald-green dome of light trapped the entire city beneath it, leaving no way for anyone to escape.
Ethan leaped onto the roof of the main house and stood at the highest point of the ridge, his gaze sweeping across the city.
Then, he raised both hands.
"There's a move I've always wanted to try."
Emerald-green light surged from his palms like a bursting flood, flowing down the roof ridge and sinking into the stone-paved ground.
"Deep Forest Emergence!"
The next moment, the ground exploded.
Countless vines burst through the gaps between the stone slabs.
They erupted from every crack in the pavement, every patch of exposed soil, and from beneath the foundations of every wooden house.
They grew at a frantic pace, intertwining and spreading in all directions.
The trees lining the streets responded simultaneously.
The canopies that had been pruned into spheres suddenly burst open as branches and leaves grew wildly. Their trunks swelled and thickened, and their roots surged up from beneath the earth.
The vine decorations clinging to the walls of the wooden houses came to life, slithering out from the cracks in the wood to ensnare the Amons inside.
One wooden house was pierced through its foundation by a massive vine, causing the entire structure to tilt to one side as the roof tiles cascaded down.
Before the people inside could flee, their ankles were seized by vines erupting from beneath the floorboards.
Another wooden house was crushed by the rapidly growing trees on either side of the street. Planks shattered and wood splinters flew everywhere.
The trees' root systems surged from the ground, tossing aside rubble and wooden boards alike.
Vines crawled over the entire city. They wrapped around the ankles, waists, and necks of the Amons, dragging them down, tightening, and crushing their bones.
They slithered through the windows and door gaps of the wooden houses, rampaging within. They scaled the city walls, dragging the defending warriors down from the ramparts.
Screams, cries, the sound of snapping bones, and the cracking of timber blended together, echoing beneath the emerald-green dome.
The Life Energy counter on his panel began to jump rapidly.
The numbers continued to climb at a staggering speed.
At the same time, the vines began to collect books.
Every book, every scroll of parchment, and every wooden slip carved with text in the city was snatched up from bookshelves, pulled from drawers, and pried from the arms of the dead by the vines.
The vines acted like countless green tentacles, gathering these items and delivering them to the roof where Ethan stood.
Ethan stood on the ridge, the area around his feet already piled high with books and scrolls.
He casually picked up a book and flipped through a few pages. It was an agricultural record in the Amons Common Tongue, detailing the cultivation methods for a certain crop.
He then picked up a parchment scroll that contained a simple map, marking the territories of several nearby tribes.
It wasn't anything profound, but it was precious.
Information like this was the best way to understand the knowledge of a world.
While Ethan was happily studying these native texts, the entire city had fallen into despair.
An Amons warrior swung his battle-axe, severing a vine that had ensnared his companion.
But before he could pull his companion up, three more vines burst from the ground, binding both of them at once.
The battle-axe fell from the warrior's hand, bouncing twice on the stone pavement.
The vines tightened, crushing the two together. The sound of bones shattering emanated from the gaps between the vines.
An Amons woman huddled in the corner of a wooden house, clutching her child.
Vines slithered in through the door gaps, reached in through the windows, and burst through the floor.
She had nowhere to hide. A vine wrapped around her ankle and dragged her down.
She desperately held her child above her head, but vines dangled from the ceiling and snatched the child away.
An Amons elder knelt in the middle of the street, hands raised to the sky as he chanted a prayer.
Vines surged from all directions, submerging the old man in a green tide. The prayer was cut short.
The Life Energy continued to climb.
When the last group of Amons warriors was strangled at the foot of the city walls, the entire city fell into a dead silence.
Ethan stood on the roof, his gaze sweeping over the city that had been turned into ruins.
The streets were covered in a thick layer of vines, with pale green blood and mangled limbs visible in the gaps.
The wooden houses were leaning or collapsed—some crushed by vines, some pushed over by the wildly growing trees, and others overturned by roots surging from their foundations.
"That's about enough."
Ethan gave a light leap and jumped from the roof.
The vines beneath his feet automatically wove themselves into a soft bed, steadily catching his falling body and lowering him to the ground.
Ethan glanced at the barrier overhead, mana surging through his body.
"Open up for me!"
Countless plant roots and vines burst from the ground and from the gaps in the ruins. Like a green tide, they surged toward the shield-generating array that was still operating within the secret room.
Boom!
A thunderous explosion erupted.
Emerald light and grayish-white rubble sprayed in all directions simultaneously. The shockwave overturned the surrounding ruins once more, sending shattered stone slabs, broken timber, and twisted vine fragments flying outward like a torrential rain.
A small mushroom cloud of smoke rose from the center of the blast, with remnants of emerald energy crackling within it.
Ethan's body was shredded by the shockwave.
【Deceased. Consuming 1 year of longevity, Perfect Resurrection.】
He crawled up from the ground.
A massive crater, hundreds of meters deep and nearly a kilometer in diameter, remained in place of the site.
The walls of the crater were as smooth as if they had been cut by a knife, with rubble continuously tumbling down the edges.
The air was thick with a pungent burnt smell and a heavy scent of ozone.
The shield was gone.
The array was gone.
The secret room was gone as well.
The entire city had already been in ruins, but now it was completely leveled by the explosion. Not even a single intact piece of a wooden house could be found.
"Crap, wait. I blew it up without looting the bodies first. What a massive loss."
Cursing under his breath, he turned and ran.
A commotion this large could be sensed not just by nearby tribes, but even by larger city-states further away.
Staying any longer would be asking to be surrounded.
After sprinting through the mountains and forests for about three hours, Ethan stopped beneath a cliff.
After confirming there were no traces of any Amons nearby, he sat down against the trunk of an old pine tree.
He opened his panel.
【Current Life Energy: 117621.】
"Unlock passive."
【Consume 65536 Life Energy to unlock the 17th passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 65536. Current energy: 52085.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete, obtained passive: Glutton.】
【Glutton: When consuming any item, the buff effect is increased by 10,000%.】
Ethan stared at the line of text on the panel, only one thought remaining in his mind.
One hundred times.
When eating or drinking anything, the buff effect is increased by a hundredfold.
A Spirit-Refreshing Potion originally increased meditation efficiency by 15%. In his hands, multiplied by a hundred, that would be 1,500%.
If he drank a single bottle...
"This cheat..." He wiped his face, his shoulders shaking as he suppressed a laugh in his throat. "It's just absurd."
Rate on N.U.
