Age of Adepts

To be fair, the magical machine squad wasn’t weak at all.

The strength of each member could at least rival that of a veteran adept. Their leader, Tigule, even possessed the power of a Second Grade adept. However, while their strengths were visible, their weaknesses were even more apparent.

The ones that piloted these machines were all goblin mechanics that had undergone arduous training. However, there were still far too many blind spots when they were cooped up in those narrow and tiny cockpits. There was a limit to the range of the lens’ vision. Moreover, the goblins were far too weak. They were often incapable of enduring a casual blow by the adepts the moment their metallic shell was pried open.

However, what limited the strength of the machines the most was their lack of alloys forged from magical metals.

They had created the machines with the toughest substance on the Goblin Plane– Krathor Alloy. This alloy was exceptional when it came to its toughness and flexibility. Unfortunately, it was far too weak when resisting magic!

The Goblin Plane lacked magical creatures. As such, there was no reason for them to invest large amounts of resources into researching an exceptional magical metal alloy. That caused the magical machines to be easily penetrated by the adepts when dealt too many magical attacks.

All these factors added together was what resulted in the utter defeat of the magical machine squad right now.

Tigule was pretty powerful, but he lacked the means to limit and restrain the adepts.

The crimson-armored female adept with bat wings seemed to be weak, but her movement speed was so fast that Tigule paled at the sight of her dashing around; Tigule would have had no chance of killing her. Even if he raised his speed to its limits, he would only trail behind her dust.

The evil adept that manipulated the insects, on the other hand, was sly and very alert. He would explode into a mass of scorpions whenever Tigule tried to get close to him, escaping in every direction. Tigule might have been able to kill some of the bugs with his flamethrower, but that didn’t seem to have any effect on the bug adept.

Before long, the escaping scorpions would gather in another spot to form the likeness of the adept. The adept would then command his swarm to devour another magical machine.

The leader of the evil adepts, that enemy shrouded in flames, was an extremely difficult opponent.

The Fire Teleportation that occurred at three-second intervals allowed him to appear anywhere on the battlefield at any time.

He seemed to have given up on directly killing the members of the magical machine squad. Instead, he turned to using his rapid repositioning and immensely powerful fire attacks to break the energy shields around the machines. The magical machines that had lost their barriers were then thrown to the other two adepts with the use of his giant flame hand. The fire adept solely concentrated on cracking the hardened shell of the nut.

The members of the magical machine squad continuously decreased under the adepts’ excellent teamwork.

Tigule’s eyes were opened so wide their corners were nearly splitting apart. There was nothing else he could do but rage as he frantically chased after the adepts.

The means of combat available to the Metal Goblin that Tigule piloted was plentiful. It had goblin rockets and missiles for ultra-long range fights, boomshooters for long range, flamethrowers for midrange, and iron fists for melees. Such strength would have made him qualified to fight even a Second Grade magical creature.

But using these tricks to deal with several evil adepts that had made their way across planes to get here?

Their techniques were still too singular and straightforward. The goblins still had far too limited means with which to threaten the adepts.

Just as Greem and his party were brutally slaughtering the magical machine squad, the floating vessel in the sky slowly approached the battlefield.

Numerous goblins were furiously watching the ’live stream’ of evil adepts murdering their companions through several large crystal lenses in the combat preparation hall.

The atmosphere in the hall erupted as they watched the magical machines piloted by their companions being taken down by the adepts before the machines were pierced through and the goblin mechanics themselves killed!

Several hundred goblins shouted furiously, begging their commander to allow them to engage in combat. These goblins were all elite goblin mechanics that the Goblin Empire had trained.

”Wait, wait, wait. What are we still waiting for?” A goblin mechanic that had died his hair blonde jumped onto a table. He roared angrily, ”Our companions are being slaughtered down there. We have several hundred of magical machines here. We might not be able to take them in a one-on-one fight, but all of us together could take them down just by sheer virtue of numbers. That being the case, what are we still waiting for?”

”Yea… why won’t you give us the order to engage?”

”We request to engage in combat.”

Sharp voices shouted and yelled in the combat preparation hall. Their suppressed emotions from earlier flared up once more.

”These are the orders of Prince Lord Gazlowe!” Ship Captain Toltoy fixed his uniform and coldly spat out.

It was almost as if a cold gale had blown past the hearts of the goblins. The riotous hall fell into a deathly silence once more. All the goblin mechanics sat down quietly, no longer daring to make a commotion.

At the moment, the name of Gazlowe was like a totem of the Goblin Empire. It was a symbol; a symbol that represented the future of all goblins, and the hope of the Goblin Empire rising to even greater heights. That was why the goblins had no choice but to sit down and await their orders in humiliation when they heard this name, even if they still didn’t comprehend the actions of their superiors.

…………

Inside a room at the heart of the flying ship.

Old Prince Gazlowe was observing the battle below with a fervent passion.

Gazlowe showed no signs of sympathy or sorrow despite the magical machines serving him being ravaged and bullied by the adepts. Instead, he displayed excitement and insanity as he watched the various fire spells, the destructive female adept, and the strange bug-manipulating adept.

He had cast aside his ugly white trenchcoat since becoming a prince. However, the goblin multipurpose detection glasses he wore on his right eye hadn’t been taken off.

At the moment, he was watching the combat styles of the adepts with immense interest, while using various instruments to measure the energy levels of the adept’s attacks.

The old goblin would gasp again and again when the shocking values were projected onto his monocle.

In particular, when his monocle locked onto the fire adept, he found that every single spell that the opponent cast would always be at the limits of the instrument’s measurement capabilities. The values that rolled across his monocle were a bloody crimson.

”Toltoy, prepare the goblin artillery. I want to see how what heights of power these adepts can reach!” The old goblin picked up a golden horn and yelled into it.

”Understood, Lord Prince!”

As the order was given, the metal plates at the bow of the flying ship split apart. A black cannon barrel one meter in diameter emerged. As the ship trembled, immense amounts of magical energy transferred from the engine room into the goblin artillery. A terrifying and blinding black light lit up in the barrel of the cannon.

The old goblin controlled the cannon from his room and slowly aimed the crosshairs at the fire adept. The old goblin could very clearly see the fire adept lift his head through the large lenses in his room. The adept’s deep red and blazing eyes clashed with his own eyes over the one-kilometer distance.

”Taste my goblin artillery, intruder!” The old goblin let out an orgasmic cry and furiously smashed the crystal button on his table.

Weng! A muffled boom.

The massive floating vessel rocked as a blinding black pillar of light shot towards Greem at the speed of lightning.

Greem had detected the abnormality in the sky a long time ago.

The powerful magical energy that gathered above him was like a rising black sun. It was hard even to ignore its existence.

Greem pushed away all his enemies with a Flame Halo of Repulsion before straightening his body and lifting his head to see what it was the enemy intended to do.

It was a cluster of pure magical energy that still retained the violent and chaotic nature of magic from the space beyond the plane. It was probably the spatial energy extracted from a space furnace.

Judging from this, the flying ship above them must have a steadily functioning space furnace at its core.

The goblins had no affinity for elementium control. As such, it would be hard for them to convert the spatial energy into unusual spells of various forms. Consequently, they could only gather all this spatial energy and use it in this extremely crude fashion of firing it.

However, spatial energy possessed destructive and chaotic traits. It caused tremendous amounts of damage to the stable elementium energy inside the adepts. The goblins’ means of attack might seem simple and crude, but the might it possessed was by no means small.

Greem looked on as the black sun lit up in the barrel of the cannon. He watched as the ship shook intensely. He even watched as the black pillar of light shot towards him, targeting his chest.

The black light wasn’t all that fast, but the spatial energy was clearly damaging the elementium balance of the plane. The space of the plane started to tremble and ripple wherever the black light went. The crackling sound of the chain explosion of elementium energy rang out in the air.

The black pillar of light that initially had a diameter of no more than one meter had expanded into a massive column with a twenty-meter radius when it was halfway to its target. By the time it reached in front of Greem, the radius of the pillar of light had reached as far as a hundred meters. The power of the attack per unit area within the pillar of light reached upwards of a thousand points.

Not temperature, but a thousand points in terms of energy damage!

Greem’s heart trembled, and he teleported to the maximum possible distance with a single Fire Teleportation. Mary, who was at the edge of the pillar of black light, extended her wings and escaped at a speed that the naked eye couldn’t catch.

That put Bug Adept Billis in a tight spot, with his lack of mobility spells.

His body fell apart, and he turned into a swarm of bugs that burrowed into the ground. The one dozen sting scorpions frantically gathered on him and formed a multi-layer bug shield above him.

However, a spatial energy attack of over a thousand points was not that easy to take on.

The next second, Billis paid a terrible price for his arrogance!