Age of Adepts

The blade-discs spun furiously as the winds blew violently.

Blade Princess Katherine fighting at full force was like a metal hedgehog, spinning wildly around Greem. Her sharp metal hand blades caused Greem’s Inferno Shields to loudly crackle as they struck over and over.

Meanwhile, the metal blades spinning around her were slicing into Greem’s defensive spells as well. An Inferno Shield with over three hundred and fifty points of power was reduced to cinders in less than three seconds.

Fortunately, Greem had created seven of these Inferno Shields all at once. Thus, he barely managed to hold on until he cast the next spell.

Due to the existence of the planar suppression and the difference in planar laws, the instant-cast spells of the past now required two to three seconds of chanting and hand gestures to activate. That was why elementium adepts were at a natural disadvantage in close combat, with far less fluid and natural movements compared to Katherine’s mechanical magic.

Flame Pillar!

A Flame Pillar smashed outward with Greem as the center, the stone tiles beneath his feet rapidly softening and melting from the extreme heat. Soon, the tiles had turned into flowing magma.

Even with her resistances, Katherine did not dare to fight Greem within such ferocious flames.

Her athletic body abruptly flickered forty meters away and avoided the most concentrated region of the Flame Pillar’s power. Meanwhile, her bright, silver right hand opened wide with the palm pointed at Greem. Her fingers moved slightly, still controlling the five spinning metal blades in the air.

These five metal blade-discs were made out of an extraordinary material. They were unaffected by Greem’s elementium flames and continued to tackle and slice at his last two remaining Inferno Shields.

Greem let out a cold grunt and pointed with his hand. An Inferno Wall suddenly rose between him and the Blade Princess, separating the stone bridge into two halves. He let out a battlecry and transformed into a five-meter tall Flame Fiend. His hand of magma reached into the air and grabbed two of the metal blades.

Though the metal blades had been restrained, they were still rampant and ferocious weapons with a tremendous capacity for harm.

The blades continued to spin and shudder wildly, even in his hand of magma, as if they were trying their best to escape.

Greem couldn’t care for the intense, cutting pain from his hands. He put both palms together as barbaric fire energy surged toward the two metal blades. The two silver blades started to turn red from the flood of such violent fire energy, but they remained just as active as before.

Greem let out a yell and clapped his two hands together with all he had. The two red-hot metal blades ran into each other with tremendous force.

A loud snap rang out as thin cracks finally appeared on the blades. They disintegrated into shards of metal smaller than a finger.

Katherine also let out a grunt from the other side of the Inferno Wall. It was obvious that her Spirit, which had been attached to the metal blades, had also been damaged from the destruction.

Upon realizing that Greem had the ability to destroy her blades, Katherine made the three remaining blades quickly move away and avoid his catching hands.

While Greem seriously dealt with the attacks from the three spinning blades, flames suddenly splashed from the Inferno Wall. A silver metal spike pierced through the wall and ran through his left shoulder. The metal spikes had actually been aimed at Greem’s heart. He had only managed to avoid the lethal attack by dodging just in time.

Greem let out a howl in agony and raised his hand to destroy this metal spike as he had done with the metal blades. However, a tearing sound rang out as the metal spike pulled out of his wound like a fish, ripping a nasty gash in his arm as it did so.

Red lava immediately flowed from the wound, dripping onto the sturdy stone bridge below and burning large holes into the material.

It was then that Greem noticed a finger-thick silver chain attached to the end of the spike. The Blade Princess Katherine had controlled the metal spike through this chain.

Katherine promptly lunged the moment the seven-second-long Inferno Wall ended. She slashed with her blades, stabbed with her spikes, or weaved around with her hand blades. Her mechanical body was like an armory of its own, having undergone so many modifications. All sorts of strange offensive weapons could shoot out and appear at any time and from any position.

Compared to an elementium adept, all her attacks required no chants or no elementium molding. They fired at her mere thought, and each and every one of them was incredibly powerful. A weapon that could be collected by a Third Grade mechanical adept and placed within her body could not possibly be a mediocre product!

It didn’t matter whether it was the metal blades, the metal spikes, or even her hand blades. All of them glowed with magical power, clearly enhanced and reinforced with all sorts of anti-magic capabilities.

Piercing. Slashing. Sharpen. Reinforcement. Armor Penetration.

Almost all offensive effects that Greem had heard of were on the Blade Princess’ magical weapons. If it weren’t for the accumulation of all these devastating effects, the metal weapons would never have been able to pierce Greem’ layers of Inferno Shields and magma armor to harm him, regardless of how sharp and durable they were.

One had to admit that most of Katherine’s abilities truly countered elementium adepts.

The modification through mechanical magic had allowed Katherine’s own magical resistances to reach a shocking level as well. Moreover, she had obviously and intentionally improved her fire resistance for this trip. Consequently, Greem’s area-of-effect fire spells were almost entirely useless against her. Only reinforced single-target fire spells could pose a threat to her!

Moreover, her powerful anti-magic and defense-penetration abilities caused most of Greem’s defensive spells to be ineffective. There were many times where Greem had to use some desperate means that harmed even himself to force Katherine away.

It had not even been fifteen minutes since they had started fighting, but it was already turning out to be a grueling and painful fight for both sides.

Katherine was burnt all over and gasping for breath, while Greem’s magma body was littered with cuts and wounds, with him appearing in faltering spirits.

Greem had also discovered some problems with his abilities through this fight.

Some problems that he, as a high-grade adept, needed to take note of!

Compared to low and mid-grade adepts, high-grade adepts–particularly combat adepts or hunter adepts that specialized in murder as Katherine did–no longer pursued fancy spells with demonstrable and immense power. Instead, they preferred fast, concentrated, and more rapid means of death.

During his battle with Katherine, Greem had only seen her repeat the same few methods of attacking. He had never seen her cast an area-of-effect spell that required any chanting or handsigns. All of her attacks were simple, direct, barbaric, and violent in the sole pursuit of instantaneous explosive power and unpredictability in its offense.

Greem was not used to such a style of combat at all. There were quite a few times where he had to endure Katherine’s attacks as he squeezed out a powerful high-grade spell. It undoubtedly gave the opponent even more chances to attack him!

Greem didn’t even dare to cast Fire Teleportation in his battle against Katherine. The half-second pause in his actions was enough of a window for the mechanical adept to strike him three times. Moreover, Greem couldn’t be sure that the short distance of the Fire Teleportation would allow him to break free from Katherine.

If she had a means of tracking short-ranged teleportation, Greem would pay a heavy price for attempting to do so!

As Third Grade adepts from another world, both of them experienced terrifying planar suppression, and their powers had been affected to some extent, large or small. Even so, the battle between the two adepts still left a devastating impact on this beautiful and peaceful Lakeside Town.

Wave after wave of flame shockwaves that radiated outward, one magma fireball after another, seas of fire that spread with the wave of a hand; all of these horribly damaged the small town.

Stretches of residential homes were ignited by the splashing Magma Fireballs, engulfing the entirety of Lakeside Town in a sea of crackling fire. The townsfolk cried out loud as they fled in every direction. A flame shockwave swept by, and everyone instantly collapsed, reduced to unrecognizable charred bones and dust on the spot.

They might not have been the targets of the adepts, but the shockwaves created by the reckless battle between two Third Grade adepts were enough to obliterate the entire town.

Neither of the two adepts was at their peak. As such, the offensive power they had wasn’t sufficient to instantly defeat the other. Thus, after a difficult battle, Greem chose to retreat without any hesitation.

Using the high-grade Fire Dragon’s Breath stored within his pendant, Greem forced back the Blade Princess and quickly summoned a Flamegate. Hundreds of fire creatures immediately swarmed out and rushed at Katherine.

Though these fire creatures could not harm her, they could keep her stalled on the other side of the bridge. With this short time Greem bought for himself, he chanted his spell and used FIre Teleportation to flee the battlefield.

The enraged Katherine swung her spinning blades, executing most of the fire creatures in a single slash before charging across the stone bridge and smashing the Flamegate into oblivion. This way, the fire creatures lost their source of reinforcement and became much easier to deal with.

The Blade Princess couldn’t be bothered to deal with the summoned creatures. She walked to a spot on the battlefield and picked up the metal particles left by the destroyed blades before tracking Greem in the direction the fire aura had vanished.

Having lost their target, the remaining fire creatures started to wander in the flames that were burning wildly in Lakeside Town.

The sea of flames spread wherever they went, turning all things into ashes and the entire forest region around the town into a zone of death where nothing living dared set foot!

At this time, the two otherworldly Third Grade adepts had shifted their battlefields to new grounds. They started a massive game of tag across the depths of the Cedrac Mountains.