Age of Adepts

The battle was brief and brutal!

After just fifteen minutes, Natagu could no longer keep going.

The environment here, the enemy’s spells, and the flames that steadily burned and ate away at his flesh all inflicted tremendous damage to him.

The scales on his body had already turned crisp and bright red from the heat. Most of the flesh beneath had also withered or been carbonized. Every time the serpent bit and tussled with the Flame Fiend, large patches of his scales and burnt flesh broke off from his body.

After transforming into a Black Mamba, Natagu was enhanced with a powerful halo of earth elementium and gained an indefensible soundwave spell, along with fearsome Eyes of Petrification. Yet, at this moment, as his neck was in the grip of the Flame Fiend and fists were raining down upon his head, he had a feeling as if he was about to die in very next moment as if he no longer had any more strength to spare.

While his head was within the Flame Fiend’s grasp and enduring the pummeling, the flesh around his thousands of wounds was wriggling and squirming in an attempt to heal his body. The tissue grew wildly, desperately trying to regrow the portions that were missing.

However, all of its efforts went up in smoke and ashes beneath the vicious flames.

The new flesh that regrew quickly turned black and burnt, the area beneath being reduced to ashes and scattering into the lava. This constant, continuous repetition of agony was the main factor driving Natagu towards insanity.

It hurt way too bloody much!

The serpentine adept had been washed berserk with pain. He forgot everything and only knew how to use everything at his disposal to inflict the same pain upon his enemy.

The snake’s head had been pinned down and could not bite at the enemy, so the terrifying Eyes of Petrification blasted out two gray beams that swept around at everything nearby. Even the thick and flowing lava would instantly solidify when hit by the Petrification Beams, turning into solid chunks of rock.

The two witches around them were still trying their best to attack Greem, all while avoiding Natagu’s out-of-control Petrification Beams. It was chaos on the battlefield.

The serpentine adept’s thick and robust body continued to twist and tighten around the Flame Fiend of Terror, never loosening its grip even as the fearsome fire continued to pour off the Flame Fiend’s body. Moreover, as Natagu went berserk, his large body started to coil tighter and tighter, causing the Flame Fiend’s frame to creak at the pressure. It seemed as if he planned to crush the Flame Fiend to mincemeat.

His slender snake tail flickered around repeatedly as a vicious whip, wildly lashing at the Flame Fiend’s spiked back, never stopping even after it was covered in cuts and blood.

The two titans continued to battle in the depths of the lava, causing wave after wave of terrifying shockwaves to spread outwards. Rocks collapsed where they traveled, and the volcano itself trembled. The pool of lava howled and roared as the colossal force shockwave forced the molten liquid outward, sending them surging out of the crater.

Looking down from the sky above, Gangsas Volcano was erupting!

The majestic crater had lost half its side, and an overwhelming tide of red lava had surged out from below, where it cascaded down the uneven slope. Cracks had appeared all over the massive mountain. Raging currents of hot air burst forth from these ruptures, heating the very air itself.

One could feel the pressing heat from thirty kilometers away!

Gangsas Volcano had now turned into a blazing torch, staining half the sky with a terrifying crimson red. Thick black smoke rose into the air. Several still exploding boulders of flames shot out with the lava, crashing down from above like blazing meteors. These boulders created seas of fire wherever they landed.

A party that had received orders and were hurrying to Gangsasa Volcano stopped at the edge of the fire.

Several holy knights clad in distinct armor and formidable aura consoled the warhorses beneath them. Still, they could not get their mounts to take a single step forward.

As they looked at the erupting volcano in the distance and witnessed the apocalyptic scene unfolding around them, all of the knights were horrified to their very core. An unconcealable look of terror appeared in their eyes that gazed toward the volcano.

Was this the power of the adepts?

Upending a mountain, shattering the earth, and igniting a volcano.

A series of horrifying images and words rolled across their minds, but nothing could accurately describe their current feelings.

Personally witnessing the might of the otherworldly adepts caused the hearts of many holy knights to tremble. Perhaps, just maybe, just possibly, even that Lord Holy Knight might not possess such fearsome power!

They quickly wiped the thought from their minds the moment it appeared. They then lowered their heads and recited the Ten Precepts of the holy knights before finally recovering from their moment of shock and terror.

“Thomas, return to the camp immediately and report everything we have seen here to Lord Ad Carrhae. He will decide what to do.” The one leading the party was a Second Grade Silver Knight, who quickly gave out an order.

Without any disagreement or delay, the young holy knight whose name was called saluted and rode into the distance with his warhorse.

Once their companion’s silhouette had vanished into the distance, the Silver Knight shouted, “Before our Lord’s new orders arrive, we will continue with our previous mission– to scout Gangsas Volcano. Everyone dismount and proceed. Now…”

As he shouted, this group of eight Iron Knights led by a Second Grade Silver Knight leaped off their horses and allowed them to sprint back in the direction they had come from.

They reorganized themselves slightly, taking out their shields before stepping onto the scorched earth under the leadership of the Silver Knight.

On the other side of the volcano, a strange army was also silently advancing through the dense and primal forest.

The formerly lively forest had now turned oddly quiet and peaceful.

Every forest creature: herbivores, carnivores, predators, and prey were now hiding silently in their dens, curled into a ball and shivering in fright as if they were small critters that had met their natural enemies.

The entire forest was without sound, except for a fast and soft shuffling noise.

If a hunter were to venture into the forest now, he would find countless hideous figures sprinting past the trees.

These creatures appeared like zombies, still with many human features on them. However, they crouched on the ground, rushing through the forest on all fours as they made straight for the blazing volcano on the horizon.

Spirit of Pestilence Remi sat atop a particularly muscular plague beast. They charged out of the forest onto a cliff and stared at the blazing pillar of fire in the distance.

Countless plague creatures shrouded in a green and yellow smoke sprinted in the vast jungle beneath and behind him. Despite their immense hatred and thirst for living beings, they passed by the dens and nests of the wild animals, never stopping to feast.

They were all heading for the erupting volcano under the command of Remi.

As for what they could do with their ‘weak’ bodies and ‘meager’ abilities in a battle of such scale? They would not think about such things, nor would they need to.

As long as Remi gave the order, not a single one of these plague creatures would hesitate for a single instant, even if that order was to jump into the volcano and turn themselves into ashes.

That was perhaps the scariest aspect of the plague creatures!

…………

While all these forces rushed towards the volcano, the battle at the bottom of Gangsas Volcano had reached a conclusion!

Unexpectedly, the ones who were defeated were the more numerous hunter adepts.

Greem was surprisingly powerful, and his sudden increase in Spirit had been the key that determined the outcome of the battle.

After enduring in the flames and lava for fifteen minutes, the weakening of the Flame Fiend’s strength that Natagu awaited still had not happened. He gritted his teeth and endured for thirty minutes…forty-five minutes…three entire hours.

Unfortunately, regardless of how he endured during the battle, he still saw no signs of his enemy’s strength weakening or failing. The brutality of their struggle was now etched deep in the mind of the serpentine adept.

He no longer had the courage he first possessed, and his appearance was wildly different from how he had looked at the start of the battle.

Most of his scales had fallen off from the boiling lava and burning fire. The raw, exposed flesh grew and burned away and grew again. Natagu had now expended seventy percent of all his energy. Twenty percent of that alone was used to stimulate the growth of his flesh.

His twenty-meter long body was covered in scars and blood. Every time he traded blows with the Flame Fiend, thousands of ruptures appeared on his body. The heat would immediately vaporize the spilling black blood before it had even traveled three feet from his body.

One of his eyes on his proud serpentine head had been crushed, leaving only a black and empty socket. Most of his sharp fangs and teeth had been broken, while the forked tongue had been torn away, leaving a still-bleeding stump.

Natagu, the serpentine adept, was in a most terrible condition!

However, compared to him, Greem didn’t seem to be doing much better either.

His seven-meter tall body was covered in gashes created by Natagu’s fangs. These wounds were shrouded by black smoke, the flesh within purple and rotting with a pungent stench. The sharp spikes on his broad back had been snapped completely. Black blood flowed down his body along with red lava.

All his Lava Shields and Inferno Shields were shattered the moment they formed, crushed to pieces by ferocious spells just ten seconds after they were summoned. Even the magma armor on his body had crumbled to pieces, revealing the dark purple body beneath.

The demonic power that a Second Grade Flame Fiend’s Heart could provide Greem was no longer sufficient to deal with a battle of such magnitude and brutality. At this moment, Greem was purely sustained by the boundless fire energy in the lava pool, using the power to heat his Burning Domain as much as he could to burn the hunter adepts to ashes.

Finally, Natagu, the serpentine adept, could no longer endure the frontline with all his grievous wounds. He abandoned the battle and turned to escape!