Age of Adepts

How powerful had he become, exactly?

It was a question that Greem had always had in his mind since a long time ago.

The enemies he had faced in the past had always relied on strategies or negotiations or guerrilla tactics, leaving Greem with no opportunity to unleash the full extent of his powers. Moreover, his powers were always in a dynamic state of change and rapid improvement. He still lacked a standard for comparison of sufficient substance. Thus, he could not accurately weigh or assess his actual combat prowess in detail.

Today, God’s Son Mietzel had become the whetting stone by which Greem could prove himself.

Once the lich transmitted his intent to cooperate to Greem’s mind, he unleashed his most ferocious and unrelenting attack without any hesitation.

Countless dark red spots suddenly appeared on the battlefield. An endless spout of fire energy surged forth from these spots. The fire energy did not disperse. Instead, it gathered wildly around Greem, manifesting in the form of a fearsome flame giant that stood over a dozen meters tall.

In truth, every single higher-being was capable of realizing the gigantification of their bodies through the concentration of energy. However, without a powerful and constant supply of energy to sustain this form, the gigantification would only be a waste of power and a weakening of one’s defenses. It hardly ever brought about any benefit to combat.

Most higher beings would choose a body of appropriate size to host their consciousness. A suitable body was one that could maintain a dynamic energy balance while maximizing the owner’s combat ability.

Lich Kanganas’ first thought upon seeing Greem gigantify his body was scorn. He looked down on Greem as foolish and arrogant, utterly ignorant of the fact that an appropriate size was the best way to maximize one’s powers. However, when his sharp spiritual senses detected the wildly beating Heart of Principles in Greem’s chest, he had no choice but to change his mind.

A Heart of Principles of such power indeed required a massive body as a host.

Kanganas could sense the fist-sized heart beating madly, continually pumping out an overwhelming and terrifying amount of fire energy. If Greem’s manifested body were too small, this amount of fire energy would be a burden on his body.

“Fire…fire, I need more fire!”

The tall, fierce flame giant raised his head and let out a deafening roar upon appearing. He then waved his hand and cast out a halo of flame that engulfed an area of over a thousand meters. The halo was so large that it encompassed the entire battlefield, catching Mietzel, Kanganas, and the dozen large buildings around them in its fury.

Where the halo of flame passed by, houses collapsed, and the earth cracked. A raging sea of fire devoured everything under the heavens.

The wild and untamed flames licked away at the bodies of the two Fourth Grades furiously. It burned through their defensive forcefields, burned through their magical shields, and lashed at their actual bodies.

Kanganas was not much affected by this. He had the body of a lich, after all. He was unburdened by frail, useless flesh and tendons. What remained of his body was a skeleton, most of the bones of which had been turned into unusual magical weapons. He was not at all afraid of such an unconcentrated energy attack.

However, Mietzel was still a human of flesh and blood.

If you took away his divine halo and divine powers, his body was incredibly frail in comparison to a Fourth Grade lich.

When the fires brimming with the power of laws burned Mietzel, he screamed out loud. He had no choice but to activate the only remaining divine spell sealed within the Libram of Wisdom.

Hierro’s Blessing!

Shimmering divine power flowed across Mietzel’s tall and slender body, shielding him from all attacks from the outside. Even the wounds he had sustained prior to this quickly vanished in radiant light.

Lich Kanganas waved the small bone staff in his hand. Three death arrows fired at Mietzel but were instantly dissolved by the divine light around him. They had no effect at all.

Dammit. What powerful defensive ability.

Still, above all else, the most annoying thing about this divine spell was the fact that it had restored Mietzel to his peak condition.

An immovable, restored Mietzel.

Even the cold and heartless Lich Kanganas couldn’t help but feel his skull hurt at the sight of this.

“This divine spell is exhaustible. Our attacks might not be able to break it, but they can run down the divine power required to sustain it!” While Kanganas hesitated, unsure of whether to continue his offense or to resort to harassment to buy time, Greem’s deafening voice boomed once again.

The next second, a two-meter-thick flame shockwave cut across the hundred-meter distance and washed over the Mietzel’s unmoving body. The violent flames clashed with the brilliant divine power, causing wave after wave of energy storms to emanate from the center of the conflict.

Lich Kanganas had not been paying close attention to the subtle energy changes around Mietzel during his probing attacks earlier. Now, upon seeing Greem’s spell clash with Mietzel’s shield, he finally picked up on them.

The energy of the indestructible divine radiance had indeed weakened slightly after Greem’s attack. That meant the two of them could exhaust this divine spell entirely by neutralizing all of its energy.

Kanganas was immediately invigorated by the hope of victory. He roamed around Mietzel, desperately trading shockwaves of death energy for divine spells against Mietzel. Meanwhile, having had his ability seen through by Greem, Mietzel would not sit still and wait for his death. He started to try his best to break through the enclosure.

Unfortunately, the massive flame giant Greem had transformed into was standing right on the perimeter. It didn’t matter which direction Mietzel ran in, Greem would always appear in his path and knock him back with his large, blazing hand.

With the lich and the adept sealing his path of exit, Mietzel could not break through at all, no matter how hard he tried. Again and again, he was repelled. The divine defensive spell around him was gradually turning dimmer from the attacks of the two casters.

While this spell was still active, neither Kanganas nor Greem could do anything to Mietzel. However,  it wasn’t hard to imagine Mietzel’s fate the moment the defensive spell was exhausted.

At this point, Mietzel had given up on all thoughts of escaping. He started to use the last remaining time afforded him by his shield to attack Kanganas and Greem with all he had.

Every one of his attacks shook the earth and sent tremors through the air. They were all powerful and destructive.

Divine spells of surprising offensive power spilled forth from the Libram of Wisdom without end, engulfing an area of a thousand meters in the terrifying light of divine radiance. Kanganas and Greem were knocked around by the divine light. They had to dodge, all while gritting their teeth and retaliating with all they had.

Gray death magic, black negative curses, pale bone spears, and Greem’s ferocious storm of flame shockwaves. All of these attacks mingled together, clashed together, neutralized each other, ravaged the battlefield, and turned it into a death zone where no other living being could hope to survive.

Holly and the two-headed siblings stopped a thousand meters away from the battlefield. They looked upon this hell-like battlefield with horror. There was no concealing the shock and fear in their hearts.

Naturally, having fought all the way here alongside Greem, they were all well-acquainted with Greem’s might.

However, they were still shocked to see Greem’s might at his peak, when he was fighting without holding anything back.

They had some idea of Greem’s prowess, but they had no idea that he was already powerful enough to be equal to a lich and a god’s son!

Disregarding everything else, Lich Kanganas alone, despite being intermediate Fourth Grade, was more than a match for most Fourth Grades. That was because of his skeleton, which rendered him immune to most low and intermediate-grade spells. It was the same for Mietzel. The presence of the Libram of Wisdom allowed him to fight even advanced Fourth Grade powerhouses on equal ground.

Yet, a god’s son of such power had actually been forced to death’s door by the combined power of Greem and a lich.

It caused the two adepts to further dismiss and dispel any past or future thoughts of making an enemy out of Greem!

The terrifying commotion caused by the three individuals had naturally drawn many opportunistic predators towards them. However, when they saw Lich Kanganas on the battlefield, they quickly cast away all thoughts of intervening in the affair. All of these individuals hurried away as quickly as they could.

Mietzel might not be all that well-known as a god’s son, and Greem had no reputation to speak of, but Lich Kanganas was infamous as an ace of the Alliance of Liches. He was a horrifyingly formidable as an opponent.

To avoid attracting unnecessary trouble, all those who believed themselves too weak to antagonize the Alliance of Liches had no choice but to give up on this battlefield and turn elsewhere to find easy pickings.

There were over seven or eight such battlefields on the slowly crashing city.

As such, there was no need for them to be concerned that there was no prey to be found!

“The floating city is about to crash!”

No one knew who it was that shouted out loud, but these words caused the otherworldly invaders to realize the unfavorable conditions of their fight immediately.

However, they were all incredibly invested in their battles and were all nearly at the key moment where victory and defeat would be decided. Even if the floating city were to break down and disintegrate in the very next moment, they would fight on until the end.

The divine radiance around Mietzel was already dim and nearly lightless. Yet, he continued to attack his two enemies with all his power, silently waiting for his opportunity to arrive.

Finally, as he hung on desperately to the last vestiges of hope, the floating city crashed onto the plain.