Age of Adepts

The battle in the tunnel was vicious!

Neither party had room to dodge. Everything was a matter of raw firepower.

Greem had the Roaring Monster on his side as a shield. The continuous supply of earth elementium ensured that the Roaring Monster could fight on endlessly. Even if the number of spiders was a little overwhelming, they could do nothing about the three-headed demon hound attacking from behind.

Greem followed behind Unguja and the Monster, casually lighting up everything in the tunnel that got in his way. It was only when the chip deemed a specific spider corpse of research value that Greem would take the effort to bend down and pick it up.

Meanwhile, all the opportunistic magical creatures that had secretly trailed behind Greem’s party and followed him into the cave had been devoured by a mysterious enemy in the pitch-black darkness.

At first, the only ones standing in Greem’s way were small and large spiders of various types. There were tarantulas the size of Tibetan mastiffs that walked along the walls of the cave as if they were on flat ground. You had small and stout jumping spiders with thick and powerful legs designed for leaping. You even had evarcha spiders that spit poison and hunted from a distance.

These monsters looked odd and had hideous faces, but they were still spiders. It wasn’t just spiders that came swarming out of the darkness when Greem made it a hundred meters deep though. More and more spiderified creatures were appearing.

They were the same as the withered corpses back in Spider Forest. Even though they were of different species, they became part of the spider army once the spiderites infested them.

Spiderified wolves, apes, kangaroos, ogres.

There were only limits to your imagination, not to the types of spiderified creatures!

Even Greem’s confidence and calmness had slowly turned into concern as he slowly fought his way deeper. Unguja, on the other hand, was furious. He hadn’t stopped cursing at Tula for a single second.

It was only now that Unguja understood why, every so often, a significant number of magical creatures went missing from the Black Forest. It seemed they had all been caught by Tula and turned into these sacrificial pawns.

The magical creatures that Tula caught couldn’t possibly be all that strong. Not to mention, their powers would further deteriorate when they were turned into spiderified creatures. However, just their recklessness and fearlessness made them a most annoying soldier.

Other magical creatures had senses and intelligence. They knew how to avoid harm and pursue pleasure. They would have known whether to fight the Roaring Monster head-on or retreat if they couldn’t resist it. They would have known how to leverage the geography to better stall the enemy’s attack. However, these spiderified creatures knew nothing of death. They insisted on charging at the Monster and Unguja, even when faced with a fierce barrage of attacks.

In doing so, these creatures had nowhere to run.

The Roaring Monster’s stone spikes and Unguja’s chain of tri-elementium spells riddled them with holes the moment they entered their attack radius. However, these spiderified creatures would always fire one last shot before they were blasted to bits.

If it was only one or two of these wild creatures, the Roaring Monster might have been able to endure the attacks. However, when it was hundreds or thousands of spiderified creatures surging at the Monster, it was a whole different story. The storm of spells was enough to severely damage the Roaring Monster, no matter how weak the individual spells were.

Even Unguja was howling in pain from the barrage of enemy spells. He continued to fire off wind blades, fireballs, and acid balls with all his strength.

Finally, after enduring this painful journey, and once they had exterminated most of the spiderified creatures, a new enemy appeared.

These were strange magical spiders as big as bulls. They had the black bodies of spiders and eight hairy legs, yet the torso was a humanoid one. Thick black hair grew all over their upper bodies. These creatures each held a pair of sharp knives in their hands. They climbed on the walls and the ceilings, quickly jumping out from the darkness like fierce tigers.

The Roaring Monster’s stone sword shattered several times in a row. The rain of stone spikes gouged plenty of holes into the torsos and abdominal sacs of these strange spiders. Yet they continued their fearless charge and vicious attacks.

The damaged Roaring Monster was finally unable to take it anymore. Its stone armor shattered into debris, and its elementium body became exposed.

However, it was not the time for the Roaring Monster to bow out; they hadn’t even seen Tula yet.

Greem grunted and advanced. A bright red fire halo blasted outward, and all the strange spider creatures that came into contact with it stumbled backward clumsily.

Flame Halo of Repulsion!

Greem took advantage of the spiders gathering together in one spot. He raised the Blaze of Destruction in his left hand as a precise Scarlet Firestorm exploded in the middle of the monstrosities.

Even though Greem hadn’t transformed, the unanticipated energy merging process from the last battle had significantly improved his fire spells. They now dealt a shocking one hundred and thirty points of damage.

Attacks of this degree were no longer something that ordinary magical creatures could hope to take on with their basic magic resistance!

At the same time that the flame waves devoured these spider creatures, they came stumbling out of the fire, yelling in pain. While they did make it out of the blaze, they were unable to extinguish the elementium flames on their bodies.

Some magical spiders rolled around on the ground, hoping to use the wet mud to suppress the flames. Others rushed towards Greem, trying to drag the adept to his death along with them.

The ones trying to smother the flames were never able to extinguish the stubborn flames no matter what they did. In fact, the fire had even spread into the insides of their bodies. Their muscles, tissues, and organs slowly burned away. The ones that rushed Greem had barely charged into his Ring of Fire before the multiple layers of fire reduced them to ashes without reaching him.

Greem slowly walked ahead, using his magma fireballs to open a path by blasting away the spiders, then roasting them to death with the Ring of Fire. The tunnel filled with violent flame shockwaves and the screams of spiders wherever he went.

Of course, there was the unique acrid smell of burned flesh!

Finally, after blasting away the last strange humanoid spider, Greem’s party set foot in the sinister cave hidden in the depths of the underground.

”You have finally arrived!” A massive black form crouched inside the darkness. Its ghostly green eyes flashed and blinked, casting hateful gazes at Greem.

Greem’s Ring of Fire acted like a gigantic lantern in this place. It immediately illuminated this vast hall.

This big hall was composed of gray and brown layers of stone. Stalagmites and stone pillars littered the ground, while stone spikes and stalactites hung ominously from the ceiling above.

This place was the same as outside. Sticky white spiderwebs covered every single spot. Stuck in these webs were several white cocoons of various sizes. Judging from how they were pulsating, all of these cocoons had living beings trapped in them.

A dense field of eggs covered the floor in the corner of the spider hall. Every time an egg broke, a weird fist-sized spider crawled out from within before disappearing into the web below.

The king of this domain, Demon-Hunting Spider Tula, crouched upon a massive spider web. Its mountainous body was riddled with holes of various sizes. Countless spiderites crawled in and out of these wounds as if they were trying to mend broken armor.

Its abdominal sac had shriveled up, and a disgusting and sour liquid continuously dripped out of what seemed like its anus.

The monumental battle earlier had been tough on Tula. Its injuries would not have recovered that quickly if it hadn’t devoured the three or four of its descendants that possessed adept-level powers.

Its pride as a magical creature lord didn’t allow it to run when it saw Greem arrive in pursuit. It could only sit here and stare at the cruel bastards that had broken into its palace with hate in its eyes.

”Nice. Very nice,” Tula’s wicked mandibles sent sparks flying everywhere when they clashed together as it spoke, ”I am very curious. This should be the first time you are visiting my spider cave. What method did you use to make it through the labyrinth that I created without any mistake? How did you find this place?”

These questions disturbed it deeply. According to its estimations, even if Greem and his party had managed to make it here, it should have at least taken seven or eight hours to do so. This buffer of time would have been enough for it to hatch its ideal mutated spiders successfully.

After all, this was the first time it had managed to obtain a magical creature leader as prey!

However, Greem had succeeded in navigating the safest and shortest route to rush straight into his quarters. Of course, this came as a shock to Tula!

”I don’t seem to have any obligation to answer your doubts, do I?!” Greem’s mouth twisted in disdain before coldly speaking, ”Everyone knows the villains die by monologue. You had best die with your doubts still in your heart.”

Greem’s mental flux seemed to act as a signal. The Roaring Monster’s stone spikes, Unguja’s tri-elementium spells, the Decayer’s acid balls, and his own Fire Core Explosion all launched at the same instant. The fierce magic thundered across the hall like a typhoon, crashing towards Tula.

The entire party prepared the second wave of spells in tandem right after they had released the first one.

At the same moment the spells consumed Tula’s body, many spiderites climbed out from everywhere. The webs, the stalagmites, the pillars, the cracks in the walls. These spiderites swarmed towards the party from every direction.

At the same time, a shadow loomed from above. A large form crashed down toward the group from the ceiling overhead. Eight sharp limbs were like eight horrifying spears, whistling through the air as they stabbed at the party.

Enemy assault…