Age of Adepts

Time instantly stopped!

The mechanical heart beating in Vanessa’s chest wildly pulsated and put out energy beyond her control. Violent and ferocious magical energy gathered quickly in her cold, stiff metal body. In the blink of an eye, it had reached the threshold of self-destruction.

There were unconcealable hatred and wild madness in Vanessa’s eyes.

Even though the project she had been planning for forty years had been shattered, she would be able to make that evil adept who dared to invade the Goblin Plane feel a trace of regret by killing this wicked woman before her.

It wouldn’t be much regret, and it didn’t need to be. Vanessa would be happy as long as that demon-like man could feel a trace of regret!

Sadly, while wild light flickered in her eyes, the entire world paused for a moment beyond the senses of her consciousness.

In truth, the world did not stop, and neither did the universe pause.

The only real change happened to that wicked woman’s speed!

When a person was thinking and moving at ten times–a hundred times–the speed of everyone else, then everything within their senses would feel slow and unmoving.

When the Third Grade mechanical heart in Vanessa’s chest suddenly went berserk and was on the edge of exploding, Mary abruptly went into her hypersensitive state.

In this state, everything around her suddenly became silent and frozen. Each person and everything within her vision moved in an extremely slow and distorted flow of time. Under such conditions, even the air itself suddenly became thick and sluggish. Mary would have to exhaust far more energy than usual while moving through the air in this state.

The only person who could move within this ‘static world’ was probably Mary alone.

Like a beautiful, noble lady walking through her garden, Mary elegantly stepped in front of Vanessa. She bent down and looked at Vanessa’s face, twisted with anger. She extended a finger and lightly tapped the princess’s heart, which was boiling and glowing red with heat as if there was a miniature sun contained within. Mary smiled.

The next second, a small and delicate dagger appeared in Mary’s hand, swiftly stabbing into the small gap in Vanessa’s metallic body.

The golden dagger flashed.

In just two seconds, Mary had managed to slice open and disassemble every single metallic component and connective node beneath Vanessa’s neck. It was as graceful as the movements of a skilled pianist playing the most beautiful song. The golden dagger then lightly picked and took out the still-beating mechanical heart.

It was at this moment that Mary finally withdrew from her hypersensitive state.

Without anyone realizing what had happened, Mary had appeared before Vanessa like a goddess. She grasped Vanessa’s head in one hand, and in the other, she had a strange metallic heart balanced upon her dagger. Vanessa’s metallic body collapsed to the ground and scattered like loose sand.

“—all!”

Vanessa did not seem to have noticed the abnormality around her and was still screaming out loud. However, when the last note dragged on for far too long, and the expected explosion still did not happen, Vanessa couldn’t help but fall silent and look around her in shock.

It was then that she realized, to her horror, that her body had been reduced to unrecognizable metal parts. Only her head was still suspended in the air in the enemy’s hand.

No, no, no. She still had a heart, a mechanical heart with Third Grade energy, now being toyed within in the hands of the opponent.

As for the self-destruction? Without the body’s support and the control of her consciousness, Vanessa could not control the heart remotely. She had only obtained it a year ago and was not compatible enough with it. As such, this mechanical heart, which had reached the threshold of self-destruction, was freely exposed to Mary’s nearly whimsical toying.

The energy within it quickly leaked out like a deflated tire, and the heart started to wither and shrivel visibly.

“Girl, how far have you gone down the adept’s path? You would try to pull such a trick before a high-grade adept with your power? Hmph! Remember, power is the only truth amongst adepts. If I don’t want you to die, then you will never hope to die!” After lifting Vanessa’s head to her eyes and berating her, Mary tossed her above to Deserra.

“I’ll leave the girl to you. Make sure to interrogate her and find out everything she knows.”

Deserra caught Vanessa’s head, and a vicious smile appeared on his face. He said, “Don’t worry, Lady Mary. I will make sure to extract everything in her mind!”

The losses inflicted by the goblin rebellion on the City of Machines were far too severe. It had ruined his reputation as the stationed adept. As such, there was no way Deserra would let the mastermind off easy now that he had her in his hands.

In all seriousness, this goblin rebellion had been more of a nuisance than an actual threat.

The goblins did not have sufficient power to actually resist or break free from the Crimson Clan’s rule. Their Secession Plan was fated to fail and would only draw the anger and ire of the Crimson higher-ups.

The reason the situation had devolved to this state was undoubtedly due to a much more well-hidden mastermind behind the scenes. Everyone knew who this ‘mastermind’ was. They simply lacked the evidence to accuse him at this point.

Having lost Vanessa, and with the other goblin nobles having fled, the Crimson adepts defeated the rebellion’s magical machine army in the blink of an eye.

At this moment, the state of the battle couldn’t be any more obvious. The ‘neutral factions’ hiding in the City of Machines could no longer sit still. They quickly emerged to maintain order and attack the rebels.

For a moment, the fires of war were everywhere throughout the City of Machines as magical machines belonging to both sides fought to the death in various districts and regions.

Meanwhile, Mary led the vampires forward and retook control of the central tower.

A short moment later, a massive projection of a woman appeared in the skies above the City of Machines. It was Mary, with a sweet smile on her face.

“Citizens of the City of Machines. Due to reasons that everyone understands, military rule and a temporary curfew will be imposed in the city. From this moment onwards, anyone that remains on the street will be our enemy. They will be attacked by the adept guards. All goblins must remain in their rooms and drive away any suspicious individuals until the rebel forces have been thoroughly rooted out. Anyone that fails to follow these orders shall be regarded as conspirators of the rebels and will be attacked by the adepts.”

As Mary spoke to the entire city, the fires of war in the streets were quickly extinguished. Almost every single adept got onto their hawkstriders and hurried back to their homes. That undoubtedly made the outsiders and rebels amongst them stand out conspicuously.

The three dozen vampire adepts flying above the city immediately knew their targets. They pursed their lips, screamed, and dove downwards.

A new battle quickly erupted!

Mary silently waited for news from Deserra in the central tower.

Soon, Deserra and Snorlax walked in with solemn expressions.

“How is it? What did you find?” Mary asked.

“Lady Mary, even though we do not have direct evidence, the memory fragments extracted from Vanessa’s soul reveal that that thing has indeed participated in the goblin rebellion. The large numbers of second-generation machines in the rebel army are reinforcements sent by that thing!” Deserra said as he gritted his teeth.

“Moreover, we have captured a few of the leaders of the rebellion. We have discovered signs of mental intrusion on all of them,” Snorlax added.

Mary tapped the table with her slender fingers. Her crimson eyes appeared to be rooted in thought. Finally, she spoke.

“The purpose? Can someone tell me what his purpose is? Is it to rely on these incapable goblin rebels to overthrow the Crimson Clan’s rule? I’m sure that fellow isn’t so foolish, is he?! What exactly is he planning by spending so much effort to aid these goblin rebels? Is he not afraid of infuriating Greem? Is he not afraid Greem will confront him?”

“My lady…” Deserra hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to speak the truth as it was. “I checked our inventory earlier. The losses of the central tower aren’t severe, but the sixty tons of Queyras alloy stored in our treasury…have vanished!”

Mary’s finger stopped in mid-air.

As one of the real leaders of the Crimson Clan, Mary knew quite well that the Queyras alloy was a core resource of the clan, used to forge the magic generator furnaces. Every magic generator furnace was a battleship or an army of high-grade magical machines for the clan.

They were of utmost importance to the Crimson Clan!

“Good, very good. It seems like that guy has made up his mind to challenge the clan’s bottom line. Good. That is simply delightful. I want to see how far he wants to take this!”

The vampire adepts quickly exterminated the rebels in the City of Machines.

Meanwhile, Deserra also took the opportunity to deal with conservative factions among the goblins, taking back into his hands full control of the magical machine military of the City of Machines.

Mary left Soros and the vampires in the City of Machines to help Deserra maintain control. She returned to the World of Adepts and quickly found Greem in Fire Throne.

Naturally, no one knew what went down between the two of them.

However, when the furious Mary relayed news of what had happened to Greem, nothing else seemed to occur next. It was like a massive stone had been thrown into an ocean, only for it to sink silently.

After leaving Fire Throne, Mary returned to the Crimson Clan’s new headquarters and stopped speaking about the matter entirely. Greem remained hidden in Fire Throne, secluded in his room.

The entire clan took no further action after quelling the rebellion as if they had no intention of pursuing the real mastermind.

As such, the days passed, just like that.