Age of Adepts

The dark forest was deathly silent. Only an odd chattering sound remained.

A vast army of insects traveled within the Fantasy Forest. The roars of ferocious magical beasts fighting with magical mantises rang out every so often from the darkness in the distance.

The weak beasts were smart enough to run far away the moment they sensed the arrival of the swarm. Only those brainless magical beasts that lacked sharp instincts would ignore the strength of the swarm and charge out of their dens to ’defend’ their homes.

Sadly, they were fated never to return!

It seemed Lady Mary was not optimistic about this hunt. She had quickly cleared the battlefield once the fighting had ended and left with all her vampires. Bug Adept Billis was left behind and despite all of his efforts, clearing out the elven town still took up one and a half hours of his time.

Now, as he commanded the swarm to take away the three dozen elves he had specially selected, along with the troves of previous resources, it was difficult for him to move as stealthily as he had arrived. Thus, Billis had no choice but to march above ground, spreading the magical mantises around the perimeter to chase away and exterminate any idiotic magical beasts that couldn’t recognize the threat that he posed.

As the insect army quickly traversed a clear and shallow stream, Billis suddenly turned his head and looked back at the blazing battlefield in the distance.

Fifteen kilometers of obstructing forests made it impossible for him to see what was happening there directly, but the explosion of energy caused him to frown deeply.

So fast?

A commotion had started in the sea of fire less than half an hour since he had led the insect army away from Quel’Lithien. That could never be considered a good thing!

Billis had traveled fifteen kilometers in half an hour. Taking into consideration how dangerous the forest was in the night, there was no way an ordinary person could track down the insect army. However, Billis wasn’t so sure about this when they were dealing with elves.

The bug adept sensed the traces of energy fluctuations from a distance, and his face turned solemn.

To think he could sense the shockwave of the energy explosion from fifteen kilometers of forest away! It wasn’t hard to imagine how much fury was contained in that one attack of the enemy! Judging from the energy intensity, the chance of it being a peak Second Grade was seventy percent. There was even a thirty percent chance of it being a Third Grade.

It didn’t matter which it was. Neither were enemies that Billis could defeat at his current strength!

Billis wordlessly gave up a series of orders to every corner of the swarm.

Upon crossing the stream, the large swarm continued marching while a cluster of several thousand black beetles stopped. These beetles then started to prepare for an ambush on this side of the shore.

Billis even left behind a magical mantis for good measure.

The swarm hadn’t even made it seven kilometers away from the stream when the ambush found their prey.

Sadly, this prey was practically a berserk beast. She exterminated the ’tail’ that Billis had left behind almost instantly.

The other black beetles had died far too quickly. They were greeted with a shower of energy throwing spears before they could even charge out of their hiding spots.

Indeed, they were energy spears, not actual physical throwing spears!

These energy throwing spears were soaked with incomparably savage purple inner-power and would turn into terrifying energy explosions upon contact. The lithe and muscular female elf simply jumped into the air. The Spear of Vengeance that she held tightly in her grip merely trembled slightly as several projections of purple throwing spears shot into the swarm.

These beetles that Billis had hatched all possessed tough shells and could endure quite a lot of physical damage. However, they appeared inadequate before such savage and ferocious inner-power energy attacks.

The exploding energy spears had completely exterminated the over one thousand black insects before they could completely swarm out of their hiding spots.

Meanwhile, Billis also managed to rely on the eyes of the magical mantis hiding in the canopy to see the true face of the enemy, even from six kilometers away.

A female elf; a muscular female elf whose body would not lose to any male.

In particular, the dominant aura of that ferocious form as she leaped through the sky, tossed her throwing spear, and roared frightened even Billis.

Just as Billis was secretly spying on the enemy, the strong female elf’s eyes quickly swept across the area. An incredibly sharp, piercing, and furious gaze landed upon the magical mantis through the dense foliage.

Not good.

Billis immediately knew things were turning south. He quickly controlled the magical mantis and had it dodge.

But it was too late!

A wooden spear shrouded in violent purple inner-power cut through a hundred meters of woods under his terrified gaze and pierced right through the magical mantis, pinning it to a tree trunk. The savage inner-power attached to the spear instantly erupted, engulfing everything within three meters in a tide of purple.

Nothing remained of the magical mantis! Not even a corpse or a bone!

Billis’ body stumbled. He was almost directly affected by the purple tide that almost managed to reach him through the mental connection.

The enemy had actually killed an intermediate First Grade magical mantis in a single hit!

This terrifying reality caused Billis’ hairs to stand on end.

Third Grade; absolutely a Third Grade. In fact, it was even possible for her to be a Fourth Grade.

The insect army that was hauling the elven prisoners and resources immediately started stirring. Twenty-three magical mantises charged into the midst of the elven prisoners, quickly stabbing with their sharp scythe-limbs, piercing holes into the thighs and stomachs of the elves.

All the prisoners fell to the ground, grunting and screaming in pain.

For a moment, the entire forest was filld with their moans of agony!

Still, while the magical mantises had been extremely vicious with their attacks, none of them seemed to have caused the elves to die directly.

The magical mantises and the swarm abandoned all prisoners and resources after inflicting sufficient injuries upon them. They then charged into the dark forest without turning back.

Five minutes later, Spear of Vengeance Eijae charged into this part of the woods, still shrouded in a layer of purple light.

The scene that came into her sight caused her to pause for a moment before stomping her feet in absolute fury.

What cunning and sly and enemies!

The enemy would definitely not be able to flee too far if they brought the prisoners and the spoils along with them.

If the enemy had chosen to kill all of the elves, Eijae would only have increased the intensity of her pursuit, even as she boiled with even more rage.

Wasn’t it just perfect now? The enemy had left her with a ground sprawled full of critically injured elves. If she didn’t quickly attempt to save them, several of these elves might bleed to death here. However, if she were to stay here and rescue the injured, then the enemy would be able to escape her grasp at leisure.

Eijae angrily gritted her teeth. She wanted nothing more than to eat the enemy alive at this moment. Just then, a crisp and loud call came from the distant horizon.

As a veteran elven powerhouse, Eijae immediately broke into a smile upon hearing this call.

It was a hippogryph!

Eijae’s wrist waved, and a blinding purple light pierced through the canopy and shot straight up into the skies.

The bird calls quickly converged upon the spot with this clear signal as a guide.

A short moment later, the ancient tree above her shook as several lithe silhouettes descended from above.

”It’s Lady Eijae.”

”We found Lady Eijae.”

”The prisoners that were taken away are here as well! Everyone come down!”

Rustling noises rang out, and more forest elves leaped down from the trees.

These elves were clearly from Skywater City. They might not be very powerful, but their speed when riding upon the hippogryphs wasn’t much slower compared to Eijae.

Their arrival had helped Eijae deal with this tremendous trouble. At least she, the ’butcher,’ no longer needed to tend to a chore like saving the wounded.

”Leave some people behind to save the injured. The rest follow me to chase after those bastards!” Eijae roared furiously and immediately leaped up the canopy.

There, upon the canopy, several four-meter-long hippogryphs with bodies full of tough feathers were peacefully resting upon the branches. All these hippogryphs shifted uncomfortably upon seeing Eijae close in on them. Their eagle-like gazes focused sharply on this crass intruder.

The hippogryphs might be the tamed mounts of the elves, but they weren’t creatures that ordinary people could hope to ride. Hippogryphs were plenty hostile toward strangers that they weren’t familiar with.

Still, due to the urgency of the situation, Eijae had no time to stare down this bunch of ’livestock.’ She grunted, and her entire body was shrouded in purple inner power. The powerful aura of a Third Grade powerhouse was instantly invoked to suppress this rowdy bunch of beasts.

Her outline flashed as she leaped onto the largest and most muscular hippogryph of the flock.

”Go.”

The hippogryph was extremely unwilling, but under her cold and unyielding coercion, it had no choice but to kick off with its legs and beat its massive wings. It took the bird all it had to ascend to the skies, barely.

Those who were selected as hippogryph riders were typically light and slender elven girls. They also usually only wore light leather armor and carried bows and arrows. That was the only way to limit their weight to a range tolerable for hippogryphs. Meanwhile, the Spear of Vengeance was a barbaric person whose body could put to shame even the most muscular of males. Her body was also covered in all sorts of belts, shoulder knives, shortswords, throwing spears, daggers, and other melee weapons.

This particular hippogryph was in for a lousy time when such a severely overweight giantess with so many weapons rode upon it!

It flapped its wings painfully and tried to maintain its height, desperately gliding in the night sky.

Eijae seemed to be utterly ignorant of the calls of protests from the hippogryph beneath her; she just scanned the dark Fantasy Forest below with her sharp eyes.

All of a sudden she turned her head as if she had heard something strange in the forest.

She tugged at the hippogryph’s head with her throwing spear and the beast intelligently changed directions.

Eijae raised her throwing spear as they closed in on the position where the chattering sound was coming from. Blinding purple light instantly gathered on the spear. She roared furiously, and the spear shot downward at lightning speed, disappearing into the dark, dark forest.

”Die!”

The next second, a purple energy storm enveloped the entire forest.