Age of Adepts

Sadly, while the orc commander’s idea was good, he had tragically run into Greem and the adepts.

With their surprising number of eyeball machines, the battlefield was practically transparent to them!

It didn’t matter how perfectly the orc wolfriders and warriors had hidden. They could not possibly hide from the life sensors of the eyeball machines. They were a large cluster of blinding red dots hidden in the forest and the plains. Unless the commander of the magical machine army was a blind man, there was no way he wouldn’t have seen this.

The traps that the orcs had prepared ahead of time were laughably childish once they were aware of it!

The orcs could only attempt to use strategy to make up for the difference in military might. However, these orcs were single-minded barbarians who only knew how to brave a storm of attacks and rush to the enemy’s side. They didn’t seem to have much strategy or tactics to speak of.

Consequently, the battle of Andorhal once again proved the might of the adepts and the superficial strength of the orc tribes.

Any individual in the orc army would be an excellent soldier, be it in terms of Physique or combat ability; they were leagues above human soldiers. Unfortunately, the weak and the strong were reversed when they were dealing with the magical machine army of the adepts who had invaded their world.

The indestructible ones were the enemies, while the weak and frail were them!

The battle only lasted for three hours.

The orc commander who saw no hope of victory rang the horn of retreat. The orc warriors could only reluctantly swallow this bitter fruit and drag their broken and battered bodies into the distance, running without looking back.

As this was a battle in the plains, the magical machine army had no means of pursuing the orcs once they scattered.

The ferocity of the magic energy cannons and the dense attacks of the magic energy rifles were what staved off the flood of orcs. Given the situation, the magical machine army dared not disrupt their own formation and spread out to capture these defeated enemies. If they were to be ambushed by orc powerhouses during this process, the magical machine army would undoubtedly suffer tremendous losses.

Moreover, the purpose of this attack wasn’t to kill orcs but to destroy their altars and temples. That was the most crucial element of the mission!

The magical machine army was ambushed by a squad of orc powerhouses when they entered the city. In total, they lost thirty magical machines in the ensuing combat. However, these Second Grade orc warriors were still severely injured by the barrage of beam attacks from the Archers.

Strongwoods Plane lacked magic-resistant equipment. These orc elites only wore leather armor made of the fur and hide from high-grade magical creatures. Though such armor still had a certain degree of magic resistance, it could not endure the ferocity and frequency of the Archers’ attacks. When the orcs charged into the ranks of the machines to exact their violence, the Archers cared not for friendly fire. They continued to unleash their magic energy beams on the orcs at the fastest rate possible.

The orcs could still endure such attacks for as long as thirty seconds.

However, how many machines could they possibly destroy in these few seconds?

Not to mention, there were still a significant number of Shield Defenders in the ranks of the magical machines. These combat machines held steel tower shields in their hands and specialized in close combat defense. If they were able to box off the orc powerhouses, then what awaited the orcs would be a barrage of energy beams and magical spells of frightful power.

The Spirit of Pestilence might not be all that lethal on the battlefield, but its ability to spread plague and diseases was second to none.

The Spirit of Pestilence had taken the opportunity of the battle earlier to spread out plague spores while the orcs were retreating. The spores had now attached themselves to the defeated orcs.

When the orcs escaped to the surrounding villages, the plague spores would also be brought to the various orc settlements. That was when the Spirit of Pestilence would show its true might!

Meanwhile, the Stitch Ghost Golem was a strange existence similar to spirit beings. It was undoubtedly the bane of the orc warriors.

Its peculiar body sewn from cloth and rocks allowed it to be unharmed by any physical attack. Meanwhile, its three ghost guards could directly attack an enemy’s soul; the orcs’ strong bodies were utterly useless before it. In fact, it made them more susceptible to the Stitch Ghost Golem’s techniques, making it easy for the Golem to invade their bodies and turn them into soul slaves.

A large amount of high-quality flesh on this battlefield also caused this group of paranormal beings that feasted on meat to become all the more savage and vicious.

The Stitch Ghost Golem was a terrifying spirit roaming the battlefield while the three howling ghost guards circling it occasionally charged into the body of an orc warrior. If the possession failed, then the ghost guards would burst forth from the orc’s body as specks of white light and quickly search for the next target.

If the possession succeeded, the orc warrior would become a slave of the Ghost Golem. He would turn the weapon in his hand and start wildly attacking the companions around him. Once the soul slave died, his soul would be brought back by the ghost guard to be devoured by the Stitch Ghost Golem.

With the three ghost golems slaughtering on the battlefield, the aura on the Stitch Ghost Golem grew increasingly stronger. It seemed very likely that it would advance on the battlefield.

In all honesty, after such a long time following Greem and all the countless battles they had been involved in, it was time for them to advance as well. Otherwise, they would not be able to keep up with Greem’s incredible advancement speed!

Mary and the others easily conquered Andorhal.

For some reason, no Third Grade orc powerhouses were present in this battle. The few remaining Second Grades tried in vain to rely on street warfare to slow down the advance of the magical machine army. Unfortunately, they were met with the combined attacks of Mary and Tigule.

It wasn’t until Andorhal had been conquered and all surviving orcs and shamans had been exterminated that Greem slowly emerged from his chariot.

He obtained yet another tribal flag from this battle, along with many new orcish runes.

These things were enough for him to continue with his research during the upcoming trip!

The third orc city was known as Gordunni and was two hundred kilometers away from Andorhal.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until Greem and his army arrived at Gordunni that they realized the city had been completely evacuated. Not a single orc was visible anymore.

What happened to the first two orc cities had already spread to Gordunni.

The number and strength of the orcs in this city could not compare to Makren or Andorhal. As such, the orcs knew themselves to be powerless and had no choice but to take their families with them and flee into the wild. However, what they didn’t realize was that Greem had sent the Spirit of Pestilence out everywhere during his journey here. Plague spores had been spread in every orc village or town along the way, polluting the water sources there.

Greem had even intentionally released a large group of orc prisoners, making sure to leave deeply hidden plague viruses in their bodies before they left.

As long as they fled back home to their orc settlements, the orcs there would also experience a plague of terrifying scale in a month.

Greem’s only reason for doing this was to massacre the orcs and reduce their population as much as possible. That would affect the orcs’ faith system and was a preparation made in anticipation of the upcoming final battle of the plane.

Greem wasn’t the only one to do this either!

Every single witch force out on missions had received similar tasks to spread plagues and viruses. The witches had no intention of conquering this place, after all. They might as well go all-out with no reservations.

With the crude healthcare system of Strongwoods Plane and their pathetically low numbers of shamans, treating the orcs and avoiding this calamity was no more than wishful thinking.

The civilization of the World of Adepts clashed with the civilization of Strongwoods Plane, and it ended in an overwhelming beatdown. If the Beast God hadn’t been backing the orcs, then the Northern Witches would have easily made the Strongwoods orcs submit, turning them into a source of slaves for the witches.

However, now, the witches were trying to forcefully destroy the plane to establish dominance and make an example out of their enemies. Every single lifeform living in Strongwoods Plane would experience an inescapable calamity in one month, turning into one of countless vengeful spirits across the universe.

As for how to destroy a plane? Greem only had vague ideas of how to do so. He knew that one had to destroy the plane’s planar origins. However, he had no clue about the specifics. That was a secret closely guarded by the high-grade witches, and Greem had no chance of gaining such knowledge.

Either way, it definitely had something to do with the blood ceremony the Death Witches were currently preparing in Witherwater City!

As the witches did an excellent job of keeping their secrets, the Orc Empire had yet to realize their abnormal actions. They simply continued to amass forces and prepared to contact the Beast God for a final push to expel the evil witches, much in accordance with the typical flow of planar invasions.

How could these foolish orcs possibly know that the witches weren’t even here to conquer them? They were here to destroy them!

The witches out on missions took advantage of the orcs’ hesitation and struck everywhere, destroying all their cities and temples within five hundred kilometers of Witherwater City. This way, the orc army would first have to deal with this five hundred kilometer of no man’s land and a terrifying plague zone, even if they managed to push back against the witches.

This move alone allowed the witches to turn the gathering orc army into a useless force.

It seemed the Orc Empire had no other means to stop the Northern Witches now, apart from gathering all of their orc powerhouses into a formidable strike force. Only these orcs of Second Grade and above could pass through the plague zone and arrive safely at Witherwater City.

Ordinary orcs would die by the number without any hopes of even reaching the city walls.

After destroying the three orc cities and Beast God temples, Greem unhesitatingly led his magical machine army back to Witherwater City. He couldn’t wait to arrive and look at the preparations of the Death Witches.

How exactly were they going to achieve the destruction of an entire plane?

After eleven days, the magical machine army led by Greem was the first to return to Witherwater City. Their results in battle were so glorious that they obtained a personal audience with Death Witch Leader Khesuna.

There, inside the city, in a vast orc council hall, Greem and Alice met the Fourth Grade witch who they had not seen in a long time!