Age of Adepts

Greem stood up with some difficulty.

At this moment, he didn’t dare to change back from his Flame Fiend form at all. Otherwise, the severe physical damage he had suffered would instantly overwhelm his human body.

A purple abyssal flame rose from Greem’s indigo claw, which he pressed against the basin-sized wound on his chest. A muffled explosion rang out as the fire erupted. Surging flames ignited all over his body once again, driving away the poison energies lingering on the seventeen wounds all over his body.

If he had enough time, he could be more gentle and thorough with this maneuver. However, with the enemy right in front of him, he had to recover as soon as possible. Such a rough and crude method of treatment was his only choice.

After the poison had been driven out, Greem could finally put his twenty-two points of Physique to use. Not only did the small tears on his skin start mending, but the two wounds on his chest and below his ribs that nearly went straight through his body started healing. Numerous flesh tendrils grew around the injuries, wildly meshing together and pulling the wounds closed.

Regardless of the condition of his internal organs, at least the wounds on the surface had all healed. There were no weaknesses in his defense.

Meanwhile, the parts where his ribs had snapped in half were pulled back to their original positions by the muscle fibers as they tightened and pulled. Even though the fractures were still there, they were not a big issue for the moment with the layers of flesh, tendons, and muscle over them.

Greem channeled his magical powers as sweat ran down his entire body, stimulating the cells and tissues to regenerate at a rapid pace. He had managed to patch together most of the injuries on his person.

In just five minutes, Greem had managed to deal with all his wounds. Flames erupted from all over his body once again, as if he was perfectly unharmed.

At least it looked like that!

If Greem’s 22 points of Physique were already impressive, then Sanazar’s 39 points could only be more astounding. After the bloody battle from earlier, the surface of Sanazar’s body had already been reduced to crisp ashes.

However, as her bloodline powers surged through her body, she simply shook her form, and the thoroughly carbonized skin fell off to reveal the wildly growing flesh beneath.

Halfway through Greem’s own treatment, Sanazar had already completed her healing. All the burns on the surface of her body had vanished, once again covered by the revulsive slime that she secreted from her body.

Healing one’s wounds with magical powers alone; it was an ability unique to high-grade adepts!

As long as they still had stamina left, they could endlessly heal, heal, and heal some more. It allowed these adepts to maintain their peak combat prowess perpetually.

As a bloodline adept, Sanazar’s speed at healing her body was superior to Greem. In addition to her vastly superior magic and physical resistance, she had clearly obtained the advantage after the first round of battle.

After healing her body, Sanazar roared and lunged at Greem without any hesitation. Meanwhile, Greem was not done with his treatment yet. As such, he could only dodge the incoming attacks while hastening his healing.

The second battle between the two adepts immediately broke out.

The many adepts gathered before the magical screens couldn’t help but focus on the battle once more as the two titans on the screen clashed again. In particular, those adepts of different factions silently began to cheer for the fighter they favored.

“Lady Mary. Teacher…Teacher, he…” Meryl couldn’t help but start worrying for her teacher at this moment. “Teacher is an elementium adept. Why is he giving up his advantage and engaging that slimy catfish in a close fight?”

Mary couldn’t help but frown as well. It seemed like she had the same question.

Rather, it was Emelia, who was hiding by their side, happily eating golden peaches while glancing at the screen absent-mindedly, that couldn’t help but pout and said, “Of course it’s to wear the opponent down!”

“Wear her down?” Meryl couldn’t help but repeatedly mutter to herself.

“If it wasn’t to exhaust the opponent’s energy reserves earlier and faster, do you think our clan leader would run up for a beating?” Emelia, with her strange origins and unusual personality, clearly had a thorough and deep understanding of most things that others could not comprehend. She had always functioned as the ‘advisor’ and ‘strategist,’ even amongst this group of female adepts that she was close with.

Mary wasn’t as gentle as Meryl. She pinched Emelia by her soft and slender waist and threatened, “Hurry up and tell us what you can tell! Stop holding back and being such a tease! You leave me hanging again, and I’ll bite you.”

“Ayaya.” The poor girl winced in pain. She had no choice but to roll her eyes and reveal her thoughts as quickly as possible.

“The clan leader issued a challenge the moment he stepped onto the battlefield. It’s obvious that he wants to deal with the first opponent quickly.”

“This…we all know this!”

“What do you know…ow!” Emelia cried out in pain again. “Alright, let’s talk about this from a different perspective. If it were you, how would you deal with a Third Grade opponent who was as powerful as yourself?”

“Fight! Of course, I would fight intensely and without stop.”

“Right? As you’ve seen, these Third Grade monsters all have ridiculous defense and regeneration. It’s nearly impossible to defeat them in a single blow. Unless our clan leader is a Fourth Grade and can rely on an absolute power advantage to crush them, his only choice is to fight an honest battle of attrition.”

“Can’t he use technique to beat the opponent?”

“Heh, silly girl, do you think these Third Grades are all idiots? Once they realize they are at a disadvantage in a fight, they will either change tactics or change battlefields. There is no way they would allow the enemy an opportunity to suppress them for extended periods. If our clan leader uses guerilla tactics and takes full advantage of his elementium might, do you think this slimy catfish will keep fighting with him? She’s sure to run while fighting. There’s no way she lets our clan leader have the advantage on the battlefield for too long.”

Emelia put on a sly smile.

“When that happens, it’s sure to be a messy fight all over the place. One of them will be chasing the other, and the next moment the other person will be doing the chasing instead. No one would be able to gain the complete upper hand. If that were the case, then with the regenerative powers of Third Grade adepts, the fight would easily drag on for weeks and months. The clan leader probably doesn’t want that situation to occur, which is why he is intentionally betraying his weakness and keeping that woman fighting.”

At this point, both Mary and Meryl understood the situation.

They both knew very well what trump cards Greem had hidden up his sleeves. The elementium magical machine would probably have appeared if he were intent on fighting with all his might.

The fact that he was holding back on these trump cards probably had something to do with his current strategy.

In all of his past battles, the elementium magical machine was always the one charging at the forefront and wearing down the enemy’s reserves. It wasn’t until the enemy was exhausted that Greem would take over. However, this time Greem was treating himself as the cannon fodder and saving the elementium magical machine as the final trump card to seal the deal.

This decision and strategy were clearly beyond everyone’s expectations!

Still, could this really fool his opponent?

Sanazar was impulsive and rash, but not foolish. Even if she couldn’t glean it clearly, she could still figure out the outlines of Greem’s plan. That said, she got to have the advantage for free here. She might as well take it.

Who knew who was going to be the one to be shocked when both sides started revealing their hands!

…………

Compared to the gossiping on the Crimson Clan’s side, the Sarubo Clan’s party was a bit more lively and in higher spirits.

Every time the lithe and hideous dragon charged into the Flame Fiend’s Burning Domain and engaged him in another earthshaking round of fighting, the Sarubo Clan adepts raised their fists and cheer.

“Bite his throat!”

“Dodge the fireball…ah, what a shame.”

“Careful of his flame whip!”

……

As if they were involved in the fight itself, Second Grade Fügen as well as First Grade Keoghan and Am all trembled nervously and shouted through their teeth.

Almost as if their cheering had an effect, Sanazar maintained the upper hand on the screen, injuring the Flame Fiend all over and covering him in blood. In comparison, the damage she had received was far lighter compared to Greem.

Though it wasn’t enough to form a decisive advantage, it slowly tilted the scales in Sanazar’s favor.

It was already the fourth round of exchanges between the two of them!

Sanazar seemed to have seen the advantage present, as well as the chance at victory. As such, she refused to back off even as she suffered from severe fire damage. She no longer gave Greem any opportunity to step out of the battlefield to heal himself.

Both parties were inflicting damage on their opponent at every moment, while also enduring unimaginable attacks themselves. However, as long as the enemy received a heavier blow, then it would be considered a small victory!

With Sanazar’s 39 points of Physique, any attacks below 300 points of power could not even break her skin. Only attacks above 500 could leave behind a visible mark.

However, damage of this level did not count for much.

If the opponent’s attacks were slightly slower, then they would not even be able to inflict damage faster than Sanazar’s body could heal.

A Vicious FIreball of shocking power exploded on Sanazar’s body. The surging flames left a burn the size of a bowl on her body. However, when the shockwave faded, the burned area started to heal and vanish at a visible rate.

Perhaps that wound would be entirely gone by the time the fire energy faded entirely!

With her powerful Physique and tremendous resilience, Sanazar had the ability to drag the enemy into a bloody battle like this.