Age of Adepts

The area outside grew silent once more as the vampires zoomed into the depths of the cave.

Adept Fügen hesitated for a moment before bringing Am along and landing on the ground.

The appearance of the Second Grade dragonborn clearly disturbed him. He couldn’t help but stare into the black cave as he fell into deep thought.

”Sir, Greem might be aided by a dragonborn, but that dragonborn is no more than Second Grade. They still have no chance of victory when faced with Third Grade Lord Haines. What are you worried about now that the outcome has been decided?” Am gathered his courage to offer a few words of consolation.

”Hmph. What do you know!” A big frown appeared on Fügen’s wrinkled old face, ”Why did that Greem come out for if he didn’t have any chance of winning? He wouldn’t have had anything to lose if he just hid within the tower and ignored the provocations of the enemy. He chose to come out for a frontal fight. There’s something in this... I keep smelling a conspiracy behind this.”

”You mean…” Adept Am opened his eyes wide in disbelief.

He had lived in Fire Throne for several decades now. In the end, it was no more than an elementary adept’s tower. It wouldn’t have been so popular if not for its location right near the Black Forest, which granted it rich magical creature resources.

As one of Greem’s disciple adepts, Am was very well-acquainted with this adept’s tower. He had investigated all the magical facilities apart from the few restricted areas. He hadn’t found anything abnormal or noteworthy.

It had been rumored a while ago that his teacher had organized an invasion of another plane. He had no specific information as he was not involved in the affair. However, it was true that a few of the tower’s core adepts had gone missing.

Meryl, Sabrina, Billis, Endor.

Those people hadn’t shown up again since vanishing from the tower. Greem and Mary, on the other hand, appeared two months after their disappearance. Am didn’t pick up on any abnormalities from their behavior either.

The only event of note would be the sudden incident that occurred in the sealing room half a month ago. All adepts had been temporarily banned from using the sealing room. The event hadn’t drawn much attention from the stationed and staying adepts, as the uses for the sealing room was extremely narrow.

Even Am might not have noticed this tiny detail that did not affect his life if he wasn’t a cautious person.

Now, it seemed the ’incident’ of the sealing room was only a facade. The truth was probably the presence of something new in the room!

Dragonborn?

Did Greem break into a kingdom of dragons?

Am’s body quaked while he was fantasizing. He was almost thrown off balance.

Am quickly snapped out of his daze and realized that it wasn’t him having lousy footing; the earth itself was rumbling and shaking intensely.

The formerly flat ground suddenly started swelling before his eyes, as if an earth dragon was tunneling beneath them.

It was almost as if a giant beast had dug into the ground as was furiously struggling and digging. The earth started to crease and crack before completely breaking apart. Numerous bottomless pits and hills of dirt surfaced before crumbling and falling apart.

A pillar of dust that stood at a hundred meters tall erupted from the fine cracks, instantly devouring the market and camp around Fire Cave.

Am could vaguely hear a resounding dragon’s roar from underground.

He must have heard wrong. There were no dragons near Fire Throne!

Just as Am was doubtfully looking about, Adept Fügen’s eyes widened. It was like he had seen a ghost.

Am might not be able to come to a definite judgment, but a Second Grade adept like Fügen couldn’t possibly be mistaken.

The eruption from underground wasn’t a large scale spell being cast by Fire Throne. Instead…

Another ear-splitting crack rang out at the entrance of Fire Cave while Fügen was still caught up in shock.

Tons of magma rocks and endless dirt and sand were blown into the air by a surge of resounding force. Two creatures of massively different sizes shot into the sky amidst the obscuring dust, battling as they flew.

The gray cloud of dust couldn’t hide the crimson marks from Third Grade Marquis Haines activating his Hellsblood Ghostclaws. The extremely dense blood energy was enough proof of Haines fighting with all he had.

Even so, Haines’ Ghostclaws still couldn’t break through his opponent’s layers of blue dragon scales. The blinding and fearsome lightning on the surface of his opponent’s body simply dispersed the corrosion and blood poison effects that came with his Ghostclaws.

Haines beat his wings and flew while rapidly dashing and weaving with irregular movements to avoid the terrifying strikes from the enemy. Bites, lunges, wing attacks, tail lashes, and horrifyingly quick dragon’s breath.

A loud, clear, and intimidating dragon’s roar reverberated through the skies. The fearsome dragon’s aura of might hit Haines right in the face. His body froze for a slight moment and was instantly devoured by an overwhelming tide of lightning.

Half a second later, Haines let out a tragic shriek. He dragged his charred body out of the lightning and escaped into the distance. Haines no longer dared to stay for even a moment longer. The blood energy in his body erupted as he turned into a crimson shadow, instantly vanishing from the spot.

Haines’ terrifying opponent reared his neck and let out another loud roar in the direction he had fled. Only then did he beat his large dragon wings in satisfaction and freely circle the skies.

Those wicked dragon’s horns, gleaming fangs, the clearly defined body. Powerful claws, a pair of full dragon’s wings, and that eight-meter long spiked tail. The prideful Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms proudly flew among the blue skies and white clouds, showing to this mysterious world his intimidating and majestic body.

It was only after he had happily made three rounds in the sky and dispelled his low spirits that Arms noticed the two human adepts below him. They had their heads raised and mouths agape, watching him in complete shock.

Hm? Why are there still two insects here that haven’t been chased away?

It seemed as if the two adepts wanted to say something, but Arms couldn’t care less. He absolutely hated adepts anyway. The next second, a terrifying thunderstorm engulfed the two human adepts and threw them a couple of kilometers away.

Hmph! I can’t kill you, but it won’t be a problem if I give you a bad time, will it?!

Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms slowly landed as he wickedly thought to himself.

Stones clattered and rolled around as Arms gracefully landed on the ground.

The battle underground had been a brief one, but Fire Cave had already been utterly destroyed by the battle between the two Third Grades. The ground was scarred and marred everywhere by the signs of their struggle. The heat from underground continued to rise in the form of steam, mixing with the dust in the air and making it hard for anyone to breath.

The hole created by the fight between the vampire and the dragon had already been covered by the stones and dirt that had fallen back down. Arms would have to dig with his claws or wait for the fire adept if he wanted to return underground.

Arms sat upon the ruins, continually raising his neck to look around at the land around him.

That wicked fire adept even made him cut off the path of retreat of the other vampires, apart from just chasing away their leader.

Having a great Third Grade thunder dragon such as himself act as a lowly assistant? This was an insult to the great thunder dragons! However, he had no choice but to endure the treatment in the face of that precious Dragon Pledge Gemstone.

Arms grumbled furiously while using his vast Spirit to scan for all abnormalities within five kilometers.

All of a sudden, he straightened his body. His amber eyes stared at a pile of stones a thousand meters away from him.

Arms tilted his head slightly, and as if he had heard something, he took to the skies with his lithe and muscular body. Arms then dove downwards with an unstoppable aura.

Dong! A muffled boom rang out.

The pile of debris was crushed into dust under the claw of the dragon. The vampire that had just dug his way out of the ground was instantly stomped into meat paste.

Oops. That was a little too much power!

Arms couldn’t help but be shocked for a moment. He remembered that the fire adept wanted them alive.

The dragon raised his claws and licked the pieces of meat stuck on it.

Seems really weak. Must be a First Grade vampire. That’s not my target!

Arms sighed in relief and casually returned to his original spot, continuing to keep watch.

Where could the vampires escape with a Third Grade thunder dragon sealing their only way out?!

The vampires invading this time were all core members of the Vik Family. They were all powerful and possessed plenty of experience and battle techniques. As such, Greem didn’t send his subordinates to deal with them. Instead, he cooperated with Dragonborn Zacha and searched for the vampires in the disconnected magma tunnels of the cave.

It was the home base of Fire Throne, after all. He sent a horde of magical Fire Eyes out, slowly finding the escaping vampires one by one.

Pitting the Second Grades against First Grades made things extremely easy, not to mention the fact that there were two of them. No vampire could escape from them the moment they were discovered. They were all beaten within an inch of their life before being bound with anti-magic chains and thrown back into Fire Throne.

After a thorough search, Greem finally managed to corner his most important target, Second Grade Vampire Leicester, in a tunnel a mere ten meters away from the surface.

After a casual and bloody battle, Leicester’s leg was stabbed by Zacha’s electric spear. The vampire was utterly shocked, with even his hair turning into an afro. It was then that Greem dragged him back to Fire Throne.

With Leicester in hand, Greem couldn’t be bothered with capturing the other Second Grade vampire. He immediately used a Flamegate to bring Arms back to the tower and proceeded to cut off all connection to the surface.

With the cover of the collapsed Fire Cave, it was time to have Fire Throne go dark for a while!