Age of Adepts

“Protection Barrier!”

Evil Bugs kept repeating this phrase in a hoarse voice, as he was struck dumb with amazement by what he saw in front of his eyes.

Protection Barrier was a spell which could divide space and was considered one of the sturdiest shields in the world. Even an official Adept would have a hard time breaking through this paper-thin barrier.

“Impossible! Absolutely impossible!” Evil Bugs lost control and let out an angry roar, “Your barrier must be fake! Else that would mean you are as strong as an Adept! March, my children! Use your numbers and overwhelm our enemy’s defenses!”

Under the control of Evil Bugs, thousands of scorpions immediately burst out from underneath his cloak, forming into scorpion armies that marched toward the little girl who was standing in front of them. At the same time, Evil Bugs opened up his mouth, spitting out countless flies, which looked like clumps of dark clouds, quickly blotting out the sky and the land as they flew towards the little girl.

No beginner Apprentice could interfere in a battle between two Advanced Apprentices. So, from the time the battle began, Greem had been slowly backing away, doing his best to get out of the way, so as not to get hit with a wayward spell.

Judging from the current situation, Evil Bugs had established a dominant position, as the little girl was trapped under a mound of his scorpions. As soon as he could find a way past the Protection Barrier, this battle would be over.

Unfortunately for Evil Bugs, the situation was overturned in the next second by a seemingly unintentional counter-attack from the little girl.

The Little girl, who was seemingly trapped by countless scorpion, still wore the same sweet smile on her face, as if she had nothing to fear from those crawling scorpions around her. Looking Evil Bugs through the rising wall of scorpions, she raised the birdcage in her hand and shook it in Evil Bug’s direction.

At this moment, Evil Bugs felt his heart go cold.

Greem had told him about how bizarre was this little girl was, so Evil Bugs had been paying extra attention to any movements the girl made. When he saw little girl shake the cage, although he didn’t notice any attacks falling on his body, Evil Bugs still dodged to one side as fast as he could.

A pained cry came from Evil Bug’s mouth.

His body had, indeed, moved away from where he had previously stood, but, for some reason, he nearly fell down after dodging movement. Then he noticed that his right leg had mysteriously disappeared. In next second, his missing right leg appeared in the birdcage, looked extremely tiny.

The little girl stared at him in astonishment. She never expected that her enemy would be able to dodge so fast.

Before the enemy could do anything to his limb, Evil Bugs let out a furious cry, causing the tiny leg trapped in the birdcage to explode into countless scorpions. The scorpions transformed into a thread of dark smoke and disappeared. At the same time, his black robe started to ripple and flow. This was caused by the movement of scorpions, which had started to cling to each other to form a brand new leg.

“Biological modification?” For the first time, the little girl’s smile disappeared. Her grim-looking little face had a somber expression that didn’t match her appearance. “What a surprise, so you have given up your human body and modified yourself to be entirely made of bugs. Hmm! Don’t assume you can be immortal like this. I, Alice, will let you taste real terror today!”

After that, the little girl stretched her cute little hands and performed a grabbing gesture toward Evil Bugs. In next second, Evil Bug let out an angry roar, pressed his hand against his chest, and staggered back, almost falling to the ground. At the same time, out of nowhere, a beating heart appeared in the little girl’s hand.

If it was any other person, perhaps this would have killed them. But, obviously, Evil Bugs had gone through thorough body modifications and had gotten rid of several organs which were vital for normal human beings. When he saw his heart had been stolen by the little girl, he simply let out a shrill cry.

Following this cry, just like his right leg, the heart in little girl’s hand exploded into countless scorpions, quickly turning to ash.

“It seems you were quite thorough with your modifications!” The little girl spoke savagely. With a reedy, grating voice, she continued, “I don’t believe you have replaced all of your organs. I’ll definitely find the core that maintains your bug infested body!”

Finished speaking, the little girl began to recklessly attack with both hands, continually grabbing at Evil Bugs’ body. Although some of her attacks were dodged, under her continuous attacks, she would still successfully hit her target every few attacks. And whenever she succeeded, some weird object would appear in her palms. Bloodily, sloppy, and sticky, no one would be able to identify where these organs came from in his body.

But no matter what kind of organs appeared in little girl’s palm, in the end, they always exploded into scorpions and then faded to ashes.

While she was happily pulling his organs out, Evil Bugs was filled with a raging inferno of anger.

While moving at high speed and continuously dodging the bizarre, mysterious, long ranged attacks from the enemy, Evil Bugs kept attacking little girl with his scorpions. However, no matter how carefully he tried, he still couldn’t completely dodge the bizarre spell attacks, which gave no warning and put off no Elementium ripples.

At the same time, when faced with the indestructible Protection Barrier, he actually felt a sense of helplessness, as he couldn’t find the opportunity to attack the little girl. If this kept going on, even if he had a high confident on his own modified bugs body, perhaps he would have to admit defeat to this little girl.

Right when the thought of retreating was growing in Evil Bugs’ mind, Greem suddenly shouted out to him.

“Sir Evil Bugs, attack the back of her head…”

Eh? Attack the back of her head?

Evil Bugs groaned in his mind. He had already tried the back of her head. In fact, he had tried attacking from all possible angles and positions, even from underground. But no matter what he did, the paper-think Protection Barrier had dissolved all of his attacks. No matter how he tried, he just couldn’t find any weak spots in her invisible Protection Barrier.

But something surprised him, as when Greem’s shout was heard by Alice, she unconsciously turned rigid for a second. At the same time, her pair of big, purple eyes glared at Greem, who was hiding in a far distance, and she started secretly gnashing her teeth in anger. Although no much emotions could be seen on Alice’s rigid face, Evil Bugs still noticed a small bit of panic in her eyes.

Could that really be her weak spot?

Though he was still skeptical about what Greem had said, Evil Bugs’ heart was filled with anger, as he had most of his internal organs plucked out by this little girl. Hence, without giving it a second thought, he initiated a close ranged attack.

Without making any noise, Evil Bug’s body collapsed. His black cloak fell to the ground after losing its support, revealed nothing but emptiness underneath it.

At the same time, a dark figure suddenly appeared at Alice’s back.

It was a dark figure completely formed from countless scorpions, an amorphous bug body which had been assembled into a human form. A face could be barely seen on the head of this figure.

Right after it stood up, the humanoid figure immediately leaped forward, pressing its body into the invisible barrier that he had been having a hard time in breaking through. In the next instant, the scorpions around them turned into a black tidal wave, crazily slamming themselves against the regions behind Alice’s head.

Somehow, a fist size ripple finally appeared on the Protection Barrier, right at the position where all those scorpions were slamming into.

In fact, that region was not a Protection Barrier, but a mini size Air Barrier, which had perfectly connected with the Protection Barrier.

Evil Bugs instantly widened his eyes, and his heart was filled with an unspeakably wild joy. Indeed, there was a flaw in the enemy’s defense, and the flaw was this Air Barrier.

Although they were both Barriers, there was a vast difference between their magical characteristics!

Protection Barrier was a Space Type Spell, the top Principle among all Adept Principles. It was also referred to as the strongest defense within the Planes. On the other side, Air Barrier was formed from a variant usage of Wind Elementium.

If no one spotted this weakness, perhaps it would be extremely difficult for anyone to discover this small ‘backdoor’ that was hidden in the Protection Barrier. But when Evil Bugs used all his effort and hit on this particular spot, the only unstable part of the Protection Barrier instantly exploded.

After a heart-stirringly loud crash, the scorpion army broke the ‘mirror’ and swarm into the Protection Barrier like a black tidal wave. In an instant, the small cute body of Alice had been covered by the rolling and creeping tide of scorpions.

Unexpectedly, a sharp grating cry resounded throughout the scene, and a ground shaking explosion suddenly rippled from within the scorpion army, which had piled up like a small black hill of scorpions.

Broken pieces of black scorpions flew in all directions, as terrifying looking cracks of space stretched out in a spider web pattern. Whenever a scorpion touched by these space cracks, its body part would immediately disintegrate without making any sound. No matter how thick their shell was, none could escape from the devastating attack. This perfectly showed the matchless ability of space spells.

A raging shockwave repelled all the scorpions that had piled up on her body. Then the ‘space cracks’ swept the area, violently crushing and disintegrating any scorpions which got in their path, revealing Alice’s small form within the mound of bugs.

Right in the center of suddenly the web of space cracks, Alice was floating in mid-air, her long waving hair flowing out from her head. She let out a terrifying and extremely angry roar into the sky.

Using space as her weapon, disintegrated all the scorpions around her. Once this little girl, who possessed a great innate talent of space, became angry, she was capable of launching such terrifying and deadly attacks. This made Greem, who was hiding a few hundred meters away, feel his heart tremble with fright.

Was the gap between Beginner Apprentice and Advanced Apprentice this huge? Although he kept reminding himself that this Alice belonged to the top tier of Advanced Apprentices, he couldn’t hold down the fear and shock growing in his heart. This group of people was simply too powerful!

Even though they were still not official Adepts, or even Pseudo-Adepts, they possessed terrifying abilities which were beyond belief!