Age of Adepts

Tempest Keep.

Standing below the steep cliffs of the mountain, one could hardly see the extravagant palace in the clouds, even if they raised their heads and looked.

The seven-man party that included Greem had traversed multiple mountains and had finally arrived at this isolated peak. It would be another three thousand meters from here before they could reach the palace of the Fourth Grade dragon.

“We will be going ahead! Remember to act according to the plan.” Khesuna coldly said. She then raised her hand and summoned a Beginner Fourth-Grade corpse dragon to carry her and Felmyst to the top of the peak.

After seeing the Fourth Grade witches leave, Greem calmly said, “Arms, it’s about time we left!”

Arms, who was in his human form, was extremely reluctant, but he knew that they couldn’t dally any longer. Once the Fourth Grades started fighting, anyone near the battlefield would become victims of their fight. The main reason he had come along was the need to restrain the Third Grade emerald dragon beauty, Iritina.

Iritina had been staying in Tempest Keep all this while. Arms had not managed to lure her to a different place, regardless of what he tried. However, he had no choice but to try again, as today was the day when the Fourth Grade witches were going to try and capture the dragon. There would be no unharmed eggs in an overturned nest. If he didn’t come with the adepts, there was a high chance that Iritina would become a victim of this battle!

Thus, Arms let out a roar of unwillingness before his body started gaining in size. In just five seconds, he had transformed from a two-meter tall young man into a thirty-meter-long thunder dragon.

Greem, Mary, Zacha, and Tigule climbed onto his back and held onto the one-meter long spines there.

Aooooo!

A dragon roar rang out as Arms extended his twenty-meter-wide dragon wings and beat them with all he had. With a powerful kick from his hind legs, his large body rose from the ground with four people on his back. Arms hurried after the corpse dragon–now a tiny black dot in the distance–and ascended toward the peak.

To avoid prematurely alerting the security around Tempest Keep, Greem and the others were going to assault the Wings of Azure Skies in the most direct fashion.

The two dragons flapped their wings and lunged toward the palace at a straight angle, one after another. As a dragon’s flight speed was simply too fast, Greem could only barely hold onto the thunder dragon’s spine as he billowed in the wind like a flag on a pole.

Mary knew how to fly as well, which made her more well-adjusted in this scenario.

Zacha and Tigule knew neither how to fly or be blown in the wind. They could only hang onto the spines for dear life, shutting their eyes as they felt the chill winds whistle past their ears.

Since this peak was the private property of a Fourth Grade dragon, the entire road winding up toward the palace was guarded by many dragonborn. They were stationed in caves dug into the cliffs. Naturally, when they saw two dragons dash past their eyes and toward the palace, they started hollering and ringing their bells before gathering in groups and rushing to the top.

Without dragons to lead the way, the adepts would have had to fight their way to the peak from the very foot of the mountain. When that happened, the Wings of Azure Skies would have completed all of his defensive preparation by the time Greem and the others arrived, regardless of how slow his reaction could be.

Moreover, this was Lance, a plane of dragons!

Krille would never have imagined that two Fourth Grade powerhouses would have assaulted him so directly and confronted him at his palace itself.

Half of the three thousand meter cliff was traversed in an instant. Just as the two dragons broke through the cloud layer and continued upward, strange, shrill laughter came from the space around them.

“Careful, the wind spirits have come!” Mary had sharp eyes and reminded the rest of her group of the incoming threat.

Greem turned his head around and looked for the nearly transparent wind spirits as he tried his best to block the harsh gusts coming his way.

With the Chip’s elementium sight, Greem quickly found a few flickering green silhouettes around them.

Wind spirits were mutated wind elementium. They had an elementary humanoid form, and their entire bodies were made out of flowing green and white wind elementium. Due to their skill at riding the winds, they were difficult opponents where the air currents were the fiercest.

The speed of their flight was swift, and their bodies blended into the background, making it difficult for ordinary people to catch a trace of their movements. Furthermore, they rarely fought their enemies head-on. They preferred to use their high speed to stab their enemies with transparent wind spears.

A single strike and they would leave!

The adepts wouldn’t have been afraid of such attacks if they were on level ground. However, they were currently hanging onto Arms’ back and ascending upward. There weren’t very many techniques they could use to deal with the wind spirits in such a situation.

Above them, three wind spirits were trying to use their wind spears to knock the witches off the back of the corpse dragon. Sadly, they screamed, and their bodies dispersed the moment they even got close.

The fate of three of their companions terrified the wind spirits. They no longer dared to deal with the corpse dragon or the witches on its back.

Instead, they turned their eyes and dashed toward Greem and the rest.

Arms braced himself as a giant ball of lightning gathered in his throat. It seemed he intended to use a lightning storm to drive away these annoying things.

“Ignore them. Leave these things to me!” Greem patted the thunder dragon’s back lightly, and Arms dispersed the lightning and continued flying upward.

Greem tilted his head, and blue light flashed in his eyes. He quickly locked onto the seven wind spirits diving at them.

The next second, red light shot out of Greem’s eyes as two beams of burning Solar Rays swept across the sky. Where the laser swept past, the transparent wind spirits were revealed before turning into a chaotic current of air as they screamed in agony.

These wind spirits were First Grade at the very strongest. They had no other advantages apart from their transparent bodies and rapid movements.

If it were a different adept, they might try and protect themselves with area-of-effect magic to ward away attacks from the spirits. However, Greem was not all affected by the unadvantageous environment due to the Chip’s elementium sight. He continued to shoot out Solar Rays and turned the humanoid wind spirits into currents of hot air.

The four or five dozen wind spirits could only laugh or weave around them, but couldn’t fly close enough to Greem to do anything. For a moment, the two parties continued to fly upward while engaged in a stalemate.

Due to the interruption of the wind spirits, Greem and the other adepts were a step behind the witches.

By the time Arms landed on the top of the cliff, the corpse dragon and the two witches were nowhere to be seen. However, a bloody path of broken dragonborn limbs and scattered flesh extended all the way toward the elegant, extravagant palace.

If one listened carefully, they could vaguely hear the roars and cries of dragonborn warriors from the depths of the palace!

“They have fought their way inside! Let us guard the entrance then!” According to the original plan, the Fourth Grade dragon was the main target of the Fourth Grade witches. As the supporting forces, Greem and the others only needed to clean up the pawns.

“Iritina.”

Thunder Dragon Arms roared and prepared to charge into the palace, but Greem stopped him.

“Arms, it is a battlefield of Fourth Grades in there right now. Are you sure you want to take the risk of going in?”

“But Iritina is inside.”

“Don’t worry! Their target is only that Krille. I have already talked to the witches; they won’t kill Iritina.”

“But…”

“There are no ‘buts.’ You either choose to stay with us here and guard this place until the battle ends, or you charge in right now and mess up Lady Khesuna’s plan. Two paths, your choice!”

After stuttering for half a day, the reluctant Third Grade thunder dragon hung his prideful head.

“I’ll stay here.”

Greem finally let out a sigh of relief in his heart.

He had wanted to tie this Third Grade thunder dragon to his wagon from the very start. However, Arms had been an arrogant and prideful individual from the very beginning. He very rarely listened to Greem’s words and plans.

Greem had gone all out this time and used the threat of a Fourth Grade witch to suppress Arms’ will.

One should know that Fourth Grade Krille had several powerful subordinates under him. Apart from two Third Grade dragon lords, he also had a trusted Third Grade dragonborn servant.

The Third Grade dragons might be Krille’s subordinates, but they had their own territories in the surrounding areas. They would only arrive in front of Krille when summoned. As such, apart from Krille the Fourth Grade dragon, there was only Third Grade Emerald Dragon Iritina and a Third Grade dragonborn leader around Tempest Keep.

The reason Greem wasn’t willing to let Arms leave was that their team was probably incapable of dealing with a Third Grade dragonborn without him. Having Arms stay was for the express purpose of having him deal with the Third Grade dragonborn.

They didn’t have to wait for long. Half a minute later, a large group of dragonborn roared and stormed out of a camp to the side of the cliff, led by a muscular and powerful dragonborn leader.

When contrasted with the First and Second Grade dragonborn, the Third Grade dragonborn appeared to be particularly ferocious and strong.

Before it could shout out its first order, Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms roared and charged forward. His massive body crashed into the dragonborn’s, and he smashed into the ranks of the enemy while still fighting against the leader.

Arms was a massive creature thirty meters in length and a dozen meters in height. The Third Grade dragonborn leader might be greatly inferior in size, but his sturdy stature and scaled body turned him into a steel chariot himself.