Age of Adepts

A deafening roar rang throughout the skies!

Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms beat his wings and soared through the air with the arrogance of an emperor descending upon his empire, bending slightly to look at the shadow cutting through the forest.

His emerald eyes were fixed upon the figure hastily fleeing into the distance.

Natagu had long since exhausted his bloodline power after the grueling and bloody battle at the volcano. He had been forced out of his serpent form and had reverted to an ordinary human. It also unavoidably reduced his Physique slightly.

Consequently, the wounds and pain that he could endure as a serpent became even more unbearable as a human!

Natagu quickly flew over the trees, still coughing up blood as he did so.

Purple-black blood wouldn’t stop flowing out of his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. His face was twisted in a vicious look, and his overall appearance could not be any more terrible. However, he could not be bothered about his image at the moment. All of his attention was focused on escaping the pursuit of the enemy behind him.

The damage to his origin powers was extremely severe, but the legendary fire adept chasing after him was not much better.

However, the fact that he had a Third Grade dragon as a mount already placed him in an extremely advantageous position in this chase. Even though Natagu knew that it was near impossible to escape the pursuit of a Third Grade dragon, his almost collapsed body and utterly exhausted Spirit gave him no courage to turn and fight the enemy.

Godammit! It was just an interplanar bounty commission he had taken on! He would be suffering tremendous losses if he failed the mission, but that was better than losing his life here.

He was severely injured, and so was the fire adept.

Natagu’s wished for nothing other than for the fire adept to succumb to his injuries first and call off the pursuit to treat his wounds. It was this ‘humble’ wish that kept Natagu fleeing with all he had, all while drinking as many potions as he could.

Unfortunately, as a bloodline adept whose primary ability was serpent transformation, Agility was not Natagu’s strong suit!

The Third Grade thunder dragon’s lithe and majestic figure finally managed to catch up and loomed above him. Despair slowly crept into Natagu’s heart.

Arms let out a long roar before lowering his head and releasing several dragon breaths down on Natagu. In doing so, Natagu was forced to move about in the air and dodge.

With every dragon breath, Natagu had to make a sharp turn in the air, changing trajectories to evade the violent lightning by a hair’s breadth. The blue sea of lightning landed on the forest below, turning into a savage lightning storm that disintegrated all substances within its radius into a fine dust.

Only some of the tougher and thicker trees that had lived for thousands of years could endure the violent lightning and remain standing after the destruction. However, their bark and leaves had all vanished without a trace, leaving only a smoldering trunk slowly burning from the flames created by the electricity.

If Natagu were still at his peak, he might have dared to transform into the Black Mamba to face the thunder dragon head-on. However, his body was now in tatters, his Spirit was drained, and his bloodline powers were exhausted to the very last drop.

Without his transformation, Natagu did not have the courage nor confidence to continue fighting against this prideful dragon. Even as he was being toyed with by breath after breath of humiliating lightning, Natagu still refused to turn and fight against the enemy.

He simply didn’t have the strength!

Unfortunately, though he wanted to avoid fighting now, the opponent clearly wouldn’t agree to that.

Having consumed Life Stock Solution and Spirit Recovery Potion, Greem’s wounds were far less severe than Natagu’s. Yet, even with the use of these two incredibly effective potions, Greem could only barely keep his wounds from worsening. Healing the damage was exceedingly difficult in his current conditions.

During the three hours of brutal fighting, he had essentially endured the violent attacks of two other adepts, all while fighting against the serpent. Though the unique environment of the volcano weakened much of the poison witch’s and the psionic’s might, three hours of constant attacks had still inflicted horrifying physical damage on Greem.

If it weren’t for the great Physique of the Flame Fiend of Terror, along with the excellent physical defense and magical resistance, he would probably have been reduced to mincemeat by now.

The more severe the damage he had suffered, the greater the anger that burned in Greem’s heart.

In the past, he might have given up on pursuing the enemy if only to treat his wounds fifteen minutes quicker. However, he had made up his mind today. At every possible cost, barring his own life, he had to make these enemies who had trapped him for so many years pay with their lives!

Blade Princess Katherine was still trapped underground, fighting with the elementium magical machine. She had no chance of winning.

Cindral was chasing the psionic. As long as he didn’t go easy, he was very likely to capture her.

Meanwhile, Remi was lying in wait where the old witch was headed. She would probably be caught in a terrible position as well. That said, even Greem had no idea how powerful Remi had grown since his advancement. He couldn’t be sure if Remi could capture the old witch.

However, Greem was confident that Serpentine Adept Natagu was dead!

When Greem joined in the battle from behind Arms, Natagu could no longer defend himself. He failed to dodge in time and was engulfed by a Vicious Fireball. By the time he escaped from the cluster of flames, screeching and hissing, half of his body had been burned black.

“Greem, don’t you dare push me to the edge.” Even in the face of death, Natagu could not change his vicious and confrontational personality. He hissed and threatened, “Are you sure you can endure my final counterattack if you were to force me into a corner?”

The only reply he got was another two Vicious Fireballs.

Now that his bloodline powers had been exhausted, Natagu could no longer transform into a Black Mamba. He could only hastily erect an elementium barrier and shield himself from the explosion’s violent shockwave.

The waves of fire engulfed the forest, turning the green vegetation and proud trees into black coal. Natagu stumbled backward, no longer as arrogant and prideful as he once was.

“Heirimogongs. Void Poison Fang!” Natagu had a vicious expression on his face as he raised his right hand and shouted.

A snake’s eye ring on his right little finger suddenly glowed with blinding light. The light pierced through the radiant fire and shot towards Greem. At the same time, Natagu opened his mouth and spat out a poison ball the size of an egg, which he silently fired toward Greem and the thunder dragon.

After firing this poison ball, Natagu’s energy aura abruptly fell to half of what it used to be. He couldn’t even be bothered to see the effects of his attack and instead stumbled away into the forest.

Even with his physical and spiritual condition below the warning line, Natagu’s robust Physique as a Third Grade bloodline adept still allowed him to sprint through the forest with the speed of a jaguar.

As he fled into the woods, Natagu continued to look back for his enemies. In his moment of carelessness, he tripped on a vine and crashed into an ancient tree. He pulled himself together and picked himself up by leaning on a tree trunk before continuing to escape as far as he could.

No one noticed that at the moment he grabbed the trunk to stand up, his left little finger fell off. The finger turned into an arrow and silently pierced into the trunk of the tree.

Yet, Natagu continued to stumble into the forest as if nothing had happened.

Flames erupted in the clearing of the forest, and Greem coughed as he walked out from the fire, just in time to intercept Natagu.

After a short and brief exchange of attacks, Natagu let out a wild scream, his eyes filled with blood. A fearsome halo of poison erupted outwards. To enhance the lethality of the poison halo as much as possible, Natagu even sacrificed his blood essence.

As the sickly green halo spread through the forest, all substances within one square kilometer, be they plant or animal, were reduced to a radioactive glowing green liquid the instant they came into contact.

Even with the Burning Domain to protect himself, the poison halo still managed to invade into the space around Greem. The dark red flames became sickly green as the poison advanced.

Greem let out a subtle grunt. He then used Sodden’s Holy Ring to quickly convert the powers of fire around him into holy power, setting up several layers of defense. It was only through the Purification powers of the holy light that he managed to defend himself against the poison.

After surviving the attack, Greem stood up straight and looked around him. He couldn’t help but be horrified.

Natagu had completely and utterly vanished. That terrifying poison had melted his body, soul, and his equipment. Meanwhile, all the plants within a square kilometer had turned into a bright green poison liquid, including the towering trees, vines, and bushes that covered on the ground. The entire area had been turned into a land of poison void of life.

Natagu self-destructed?

What a ruthless man!

Greem couldn’t help but exclaim, even as he was shielded by layers of holy light.

However, just as he was shouting at the death of a Third Grade adept, a statistic projected by the Chip attracted his attention.

[……Soul Completeness 63%……]

Hm? What was this?

The Chip had estimated the completeness of Natagu’s soul based on that one attack he had unleashed before his death. It was only 63%. That was odd!

Without the Chip’s data, Greem might have been stunned by Natagu’s decisiveness and ignored the oddities of his death. Given his personality and way of doing things, was Natagu the kind of warrior to sacrifice his own life to take down the enemy?

Given Greem’s observations over the past few years, Natagu was not only not a warrior, but an extraordinarily sly and wily adept with plenty of schemes and plots. If he genuinely had to die, Greem was certain that he would rather get on his knees and beg for mercy than commit suicide.

Given that to be the case, Natagu’s self-destruction now felt like more of a trick to hide the incompleteness of his soul.

Greem lifted his head and looked at the path where Natagu had traveled. A cold and dangerous light gleamed in his eyes.

Hmph! A 37% soul completeness was more than enough for a full revival when used with specific secret techniques!