Age of Adepts

Just as expected, Illhoof’s arrival alerted Greem and the others.

After all, they were all at Fourth Grade. They were the most powerful people within the material planes. Though there might be some variance in power between them, they had all put in incredible amounts of preparation into their personal defenses.

Greem, Holly, and Cherisha all sensed it when Illhoof appeared on the distant hill. They woke up from their sleep or meditation, their mental consciousness active once again.

No one knew when, but Greem had appeared in the air above the wooden house. He evaluated the ferocious monster standing atop the hill from a distance, nervous yet excited.

Disaster creatures were exceptionally terrifying opponents, even for a major plane like the World of Adepts. In particular, Scourge Lords that had lived for thousands, or tens of thousands, of years were all-powerful existences that were planar calamities.

Countless planar worlds that lacked the strength to defend themselves had their residents slaughtered and all their rare resources robbed from their lands. Even the planar origin required to maintain a world’s stability and development was extracted, leaving the planar world to collapse, disintegrate, and turn into ‘waste’ drifting through the endless space.

If adepts were leeches parasitizing the planar worlds, then the disaster creatures were army ants that ate and devoured everything in their way. Where they went, planes collapsed and species went extinct. Only the shattered remains of planar continents would slip into the space storms, where they would become home for galaxy wanderers.

Both parties were at the top of the food chain, but the difference in power and status was astronomical!

In strength alone, the adepts were jackals, while the Scourge Lords were tigers, rulers of an entire mountain.

It was precisely because of this that Illhoof dared to approach the adepts so brazenly.

As expected, Illhoof was wildly different from an ordinary plane creature in Greem’s magical sight.

Illhoof wasn’t all that large in size. He was only three meters tall.

That was already somewhat ‘petite’ for Scourge Lords, who easily measured several kilometers in height.

However, considering that he was only a clone of a Sixth Grade Scourge Lord, choosing a smaller and more agile body for a planar invasion was probably the more optimal choice.

Illhoof’s body resembled that of a mastiff. He had an aerodynamic body, four powerful limbs, and sharp claws at the end of each limb. However, Illhoof’s most prominent feature was his head.

Or rather, his lack of a head.

From the neck up, his head split off in four pieces, like the petals of a blooming flower. The edges of these ‘petals’ were filled with sharp teeth. A thick tentacle emerged from the center of the ‘flower,’ and a strange eyeball attached at the end of the tentacle was looking around.

The terrifying Illhoof stood at the top of the hill, his hind legs slightly bent and his body upright. The four petal mouthpieces were trembling in the direction of the adepts, while the eyestalk in the center twisted and gazed at them.

There was no greeting or even a declaration of battle. Illhoof simply straightened his body and let out a strange screech. Tens of thousands of creatures thundered from behind the hill as an army of mutated beasts swarmed at the adepts.

Scourge Lords truly had a unique way of greeting people!

To think he would start the battle without a single word.

If they could survive the attacks of his subordinates, they would have naturally won the qualifications to speak to him as an equal. If they couldn’t survive…well, weaklings had no right to negotiate or even a voice!

Greem’s eyes swept across the battlefield and quickly scanned all of the approaching beasts.

There was a great variety of these mutated beasts, each with unusual appearances. You could find creatures of any kind. There were eagles with the heads of lions among them, tigers with the bodies of deer and the claws of wolves, and many, many more. However, the majority of them were still ugly creatures that appear simply to be an amalgamation of flesh, where no single feature could be distinguished.

It was evident that these were mutated beasts whose life origins had been corrupted by the Scourge Lords’ twisted power. They could no longer regain their former appearance or consciousness.

A single word from the Scourge Lords, and these corrupted creatures would swarm and tear apart any enemy like irrational madmen.

The grades of these creatures ranged from First to Third Grade, but there was no hierarchy amongst them.

They had no formation, and they made no distinction between each of them. The group simply gathered together as a horde and roared as they charged the adepts.

Greem and Holly exchanged a look and instantly understood each other’s intentions. They also began to fight without any hesitation!

As the most powerful elementium adept among the three of them, Greem’s two-meter-tall body swelled to ten meters in the blink of an eye. He stood firmly on the ground with both feet, red flames smoldering around his body. Piece after piece of magical equipment started to appear around him in energy form.

Demonic Wall of Fire!

Meteor Shower!

Firestorm!

Even as his body was elementiumizing, Greem waved his fire coral staff lightly, and three powerful area-of-effect fire spells had been cast onto the battlefield.

The Demonic Wall of Fire erected a ten-meter-long and three-meter-thick wall of flames in front of the mutated beasts. Any creature that charged into the wall would have to endure nine hundred points of fire damage per second. The Third Grade mutated monsters might be able to survive this with their formidable Physique, but the First and Second Grade weaklings were finished. All of their magical elementium would ignite the moment their bodies came into contact with the fire.

They would turn into ashes in less than three seconds.

On the other hand, Meteor Shower caused a rain of meteors to crash down from the skies, creating a giant sea of flames wherever they landed. Shards of magma were also sent splashing upon impact. Meanwhile, Firestorm was a series of flame shockwaves that inflicted seven hundred points of fire damage to any creature unfortunate enough to be swept up in its radius.

There were five shockwaves in total, the fire damage of which stacked upon each other.

This compound series of attacks that came from the ground and the skies would not be sufficient against a Fourth Grade enemy. However, when used against a horde of low-grade creatures, it was as if a giant furnace had been created on the frontlines of the battlefield. Anyone that dared to enter that furnace would be instantly turned to dust before the combined might of three fire spells. They wouldn’t even have the chance to cry out in pain.

It was Greem’s first time fighting against a Scourge Lord. As such, he did not reveal all of his abilities.

Of the four significant magical fire effects that he had obtained, Greem only used the increased fire spellcasting range and increased fire effectiveness. Meanwhile, he also made sure to keep his trump card, the magnification crystal, properly hidden. He would not use it unless it was a crucial point in the battle.

Even so, as a Fourth Grade legendary fire adept, Greem’s terrifyingly destructive powers still put the other two adepts to shame. So fearsome were his attacks that it almost made Holly and Cherisha’s attacks look like lukewarm water.

Greem exterminated the three hundred mutated beasts sprinting at the forefront in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, Adept Holly quickly donned his astral armor amidst a beam of blinding starlight. He charged right into the middle of the mutated beasts and slaughtered them without any resistance.

The astral armor that Adept Holly wore was unusual. Every single punch and kick he used was far, far more powerful than what an ordinary metal golem should be capable of. Whenever he punched a mutated beast, strange starlight power would jump and leap across the bodies of other surrounding creatures, instantly causing them to explode into a mess of blood and flesh.

Meanwhile, due to the projection of starlight around Adept Holly, any creature that approached him would be stunned and lose all control of their body. The slightest delay in their movements would be more than enough for Holly to punch them to pieces with his ferocious metal fists.

It didn’t matter if they were First, Second, or Third Grade. There was only one fate awaiting the mutated beasts that tried to attack Adept Holly– death.

For a moment, Adept Holly was unstoppable, rampaging uncontested amongst the enemies while clad in his unusual armor.

However, it didn’t matter how fast he punched or kicked. He would never be faster than Greem, who slaughtered scores of beasts with a single spell.

Meanwhile, Cherisha showed no signs of releasing Mangus and transforming into their true two-headed form. Instead, she used her strange, powerful mental magic to enchant the mutated beasts, causing them to turn on one another.

These mutated beasts might have once been incredibly powerful monsters in their native planes, but they were as weak as sheep before these Fourth Grade adepts, who stood at the peak of the material planes.

With Adept Holly serving as an invincible tank for him, Greem did not need to worry about defense at all. Instead, he focused solely on being the destructive cannon that he was.

He turned into a ten-meter-tall fire giant and stood at the center of the village, occasionally tossing a fire spell at the frontlines to halt the mutated beasts’ wild advance. The monsters would thrash in his flames like blind men, unable to find a way out and eventually crumpling to the ground as they whined in agony and burned to a crisp.

Greem’s attack did not stop, but most of his attention was still focused on Illhoof, who remained on top of the hill.

Even when the battle was at its most intense, Greem still had one or two powerful fire spells readied and prepared. If Illhoof tried anything weird, he would hurl these spells at him without any hesitation.

Sytance Illhoof stood firmly at the top of the hill, looking down at the battlefield in silence.

His subordinates might be getting torn apart by the enemy and slaughtered by the hundreds, but he felt nothing at all.

Mere insignificant corrupted beings. He wouldn’t even bat an eye no matter how many of them died.

As long as he could take down that floating city, he could have as large a mutated beast army as he wanted. Numbers were not a problem.

The only thing he cared about now was how powerful these three adepts were.