Age of Adepts

The last month had been the most difficult of times for the Zambez Empire.

Most of the high-grade knights of the Empire were gathered at Dabyrie Highlands under the command of the powerful Fourth Grade Holy Knight Roland, besieging the tower of the evil witches.

Yet, at this moment, some more powerful and evil adepts broke into Henvic Plane and started ravaging the northern regions of the Empire.

These outsiders didn’t seem to belong to the same faction, as they immediately broke out into a wild and unrelenting battle against each other upon arriving. Compared to them, the natives of Henvic were far too frail and insignificant.

They would be destroyed in the apocalyptic fight if they even got close, let alone attempt to stop these outsiders. The man and the woman were both adepts from another world. Their reckless actions had already destroyed two border towns and created numerous no man’s lands in the Cedrac Mountains that no one dared approach.

Moreover, as the two adepts left the Cedrac Mountains and moved toward the inner regions of the Empire, the losses and casualties caused by their fighting started to skyrocket. Their actions even caused a disaster in the north of the Empire.

The source of the disaster was not Greem nor Katherine, but the Spirit of Pestilence.

As a small peak Second Grade Spirit of Pestilence, it could not participate in the fight between two Third Grade adepts. Greem rarely summoned the Spirit during the fighting in the day. He would only send it out at night to harass Katherine.

Of course, the only way the Spirit of Pestilence cold fight was through poison!

Spreading poison over the ground and air everywhere Katherine might travel through, poisoning the water sources where Katherine might rest, even poisoning the creatures that Katherine might hunt down for food; in essence, the Spirit of Pestilence was happy to spread plenty of biological poison and plague spores over anything that Katherine might come into contact with.

Unfortunately, Katherine was prepared. Her resistance to poison was also shockingly high. She never fell into a single trap laid by the Spirit. Instead, it was the common forest creatures that became unintended victims of the poison.

Those who were poisoned to death were of no consequence. However, some more resilient and stubborn forest creatures brought the plague spores out of the mountains with them, spreading the epidemic to an even wider area.

For a moment, the northern regions of the Empire were rife with the plague as it spread rapidly across the land.

During yet another lightless night, the two neighboring bonfires were the only source of illumination throughout the wildlands.

It was only the end of summer and the start of autumn, but the nights in the wild were already remarkably cold.

Greem sat by the fire, roasting the deer meat in his hand with expert technique. A crystalline amber sauce was slathered all over the meat, sizzling softly above the flames. Two drops of golden yellow oil dripped onto the bonfire below, causing some light crackling and popping.

The strange, doll-like Spirit of Pestilence sat quietly on Greem’s shoulder, propping its chin with its hand as it brooded in silence. Orbs of dark green light would occasionally rise from its palm-sized wooden body, circling several times before sinking into its body once again.

Greem was close enough to sense strands of strange energy merging with the Spirit of Pestilence every time the orbs of green light lit up. The Spirit’s energy aura would then increase ever so slightly.

In all honesty, this slight bit of improvement was utterly insignificant. Even Greem would never have detected such a change if it wasn’t for his soul connection to the Spirit and the detailed scans of the Chip.

However, even the weakest of energy would accumulate to a significant amount if it continued to pile on!

Greem had a pronounced feeling that the Spirit of Pestilence had been wildly gathering energy over the past few days to break through that sturdy Third Grade threshold.

The faint traces of energy that it absorbed came from the life forms killed by its poison.

Naturally, weak forest creatures like centipedes, lizards, and harmless snakes provided immensely weak life energy when they died to the plague poison. However, as the plague spread through the human kingdom, the life energy that the Spirit of Pestilence obtained immediately started to increase exponentially.

The strange life planar laws that applied to the Spirit of Pestilence meant that any living being that died to it would increase its power!

There was no doubt that the Spirit of Pestilence was the one who had benefitted the most from the past month. Greem had also started to develop his own style of combat after the month’s worth of training and fighting. It had been a reasonably beneficial experience for him, as well.

In comparison to them, Blade Princess Katherine was run-down and ragged!

Two hundred meters away from Greem’s bonfire, Katherine had also started her own fire. The two of them were squaring off against each other from a distance.

Due to some unknown reasons, Katherine still could not hunt down any large carnivorous or herbivorous creatures. As such, her diet consisted solely of rats, snakes, lizards, and other critters that could be found everywhere.

If one were to ignore the metal half of Katherine’s face and body, she was a petite and slender beauty. The shape of her face was beautiful, but her tightly-pressed lips were thin, like two sharp razors, and her eyebrows brimmed with biting, killing intent.

At this moment, she was resentfully glaring at Greem, who was enjoying his dinner in the distance. Meanwhile, she twisted her hands, snapping all the bones of the Black-Scaled Snake in her hands and causing all the fine scales to flake off like snow.

She stuffed the snake into her mouth and swallowed without even needing to chew. This two-meter-long snake was completely devoured in two to three seconds, with only an inch-long snake’s tail still quivering by her mouth at the end of it.

Katherine continued staring daggers at Greem and the wooden doll monster on his shoulder as she sucked furiously. Just like that, the last bit of the snake’s tails disappeared into her little mouth.

There was no one normal amongst those who could become Third Grade adepts!

The famous poison of the Black-Scaled Snake was no more than a joke to Katherine. Her inhuman stomach could even digest energy crystals when necessary. Thus, Katherine’s magical energy was quickly replenished after devouring the elementium crystal cores of two Second Grade magical beasts.

The purpose of eating living creatures was more to absorb their tissue structure to maintain her strange, half-human, half-machine body. Moreover, Katherine had to ingest a reconciling agent on a daily basis.

It was a black and viscous magical potion that was much like a lubricant for machines!

It was only through the biological activity brought about by this reconciling agent that mechanical adepts could prevent their human parts from breaking into conflict with their mechanical components. It was precisely due to their constant consumption of a potion as pungent as this reconciling agent that they had lost all sense of taste.

Mechanical adepts were utterly incapable of distinguishing between tastes!

In their eyes, food was only differentiated by its energy content and blood activity. There was no such thing as bitter, sweet, savory, sour, or spicy. While Greem still needed all sorts of fine cooking steps before he ate, the Blade Princess was different. Most of the time, she omitted these intermediary steps and directly swallowed her food alive.

Man and woman, the two Third Grade adepts silently faced off with two hundred meters between them, all while quietly adjusting their body conditions.

A new battle could erupt at any moment if the conditions allowed for it.

Two hundred meters was nothing to both of them. Katherine could cross that distance at full power in just three seconds, enough time for Greem to release a complete Third Grade spell. Meanwhile, the Third Grade elementium magical machine had been reduced to a ‘useless’ block of iron due to its horrendous speed!

Katherine would turn and run without any hesitation the moment Greem released the elementium magical machine.

At any rate, Greem and the elementium magical machine would have no chance of catching up to her with their speed.

Moreover, Greem had no intention of so easily letting news of the elementium magical machine being powered by a magic generator furnace get out. That was why he put on an appearance and hastily unsummoned the elementium magical machine once Katherine had fled, as if he was concerned that it would run out of energy.

It was only when Greem was feeling lethargic and required deep meditation to recover his Spirit that he would release the elementium magical machine for extended periods. The device could protect him and provide him with the time to rest in peace.

It was evident that this battle with the Third Grade mechanical witch was going to be a long and drawn-out one. Greem needed to ensure his Spirit and power were always at their peak. Blade Princess Katherine would also flee with all she had whenever she felt exhausted, finding a place sufficiently hidden and distant to rest and eat.

Greem had also tried sending low-grade wind spirits and earth elementals to track her, but they were always left in the dust.

When Greem attempted to lose Katherine while she was gone and recuperating, this half-machine witch would always manage to catch up without any effort, even across distances of hundreds of kilometers. It was almost as if she had a perfect grasp of Greem’s movements.

After a few consecutive attempts, Greem was utterly speechless. He gave up on his intention to lose the mechanical witch and started to focus his efforts on fighting.

Thus, this awkward situation where neither side could do anything about the other had emerged!

Peace? It was impossible when they belonged to different factions and bore conflicting missions on their shoulders.

Bathe in blood and battle to their deaths? As ambitious Third Grade adepts with great dreams and wills, neither Greem nor Katherine were willing to die in this dirty and lowly plane.

Both of them would abandon any advantage they had at the very first sight of the threat of mutual destruction when they fought. They would rather wait for the next opportunity.

They still had long lives to live and far too many beautiful things for them to enjoy and experience. There was no need to send themselves to an early grave over some resources and a mission.

Yet, while the two adepts were resting and eating as they stared at each other, an intangible chill ran across both their bodies.

It wasn’t a change in the environment or a disruption in magical energy, but a strange feeling in their souls that could not be described with words. It was almost as if…as if they were suddenly in the sights of some mighty creature. Their entire bodies and souls were subconsciously shrinking and quivering.

Dammit! This feeling again.

Nothing good happened whenever they got this feeling!

As expected, while the two Third Grade adepts cursed internally, a wave of human voices came from the darkness. Torches lit up. The sound of stomping hoofs rolled across like a storm.

The enemy had appeared!