Age of Adepts

The swarm of insects descended.

The forest had turned into a sea of bugs by the time the magical knights registered their presence.

At a single glance, every inch of the forest floor was covered in the squirming figures of the black insects. As more and more burrows started to appear, more and more terrifying insects emerged from below. The myriad of insects screeched and attacked the Bloody Spears madly.

For a moment, the entirety of the forest ringed with deafening elementium explosions. The bright flashes of fire, frost, and poison could be seen everywhere. Mixed in with the explosions were bone-chilling chattering noises, as well as the magical knights’ battlecries.

The only thing left apart from those sounds were the tragic death cries of unfortunate knights!

The magical knights were not inexperienced or rookies in the least. All of them had endured the painful trials of combat and faced death in person. However, when tens of thousands of fearless bugs swarmed toward you and drowned you beneath their creeping legs with sheer numbers, it was unimaginable despair that washed over you. The feeling of ten thousand bugs sinking their teeth into your body and slowly gnawing your flesh to bone was not something that any sane mortal could endure.

It had only been fifteen minutes since the start of the battle, and already seven magical knights had been lost to the endless swarm of insects. They became struggling humanoid figures beneath the thousands of insects.

The bug adept, Billis, didn’t seem to have any intention of showing himself either. He remained in the shadows, continually sending insects to attack the knights. Meanwhile, the captains of the Bloody Spears were occupied by several dozen unusual insects with various abilities.

Among these insects were the magical mantises (First Grade) who were fast, stealthy, and possessed lethal scythe-like limbs. There were also the Voidreavers (Second Grade) who could travel freely through space and whose attacks could rend space itself. And then there were the Slayers (Third Grade), with razor-sharp limbs and incredibly hard carapaces.

Several of these Third Grade Slayers were fighting Gallow and keeping him busy.

These Slayers didn’t appear too different from the black beetles running rampant in the woods. However, they had sleeker bodies, tougher carapaces, and sharper limbs. What was even more terrifying was their extreme flying speeds with their four pairs of wings.

Their sharp claws and lightning speed made their attacks extremely dangerous.

Scarface Gallow might be able to execute the Voidreavers as if they were no more than chickens, but even he had to be careful against the Slayers. These insects could cleave a giant pillar of metal in half with their limbs; they were not to be underestimated.

After all, as many as five Slayers were currently fighting against him!

An individual Slayer was only at beginner Third Grade. Supposedly, they shouldn’t be able to threaten Gallow, who was already at peak Third Grade. Unfortunately, the way the insects fought was starkly distinct from the way adepts fought. It made them much more dangerous than an ordinary adept.

At the very least, no adept would ever have the ridiculous idea in their minds to kill themselves just to inflict damage on an opponent. Neither would they ever trust their companions completely.

That resulted in Gallow being unable to kill even a single one of the Third Grade Slayers, despite being powerful enough to crush any of them in single combat. Still, the main reason for him being reluctant to endure some damage to kill these insects…was because that damned bug adept was still hiding nearby. He was simply waiting for him to become injured!

From the very start of the battle, Gallow could sense a spiritual flux around the insects. It was very subtle and faded in and out of reach. A closer examination would yield the conclusion that this spiritual flux was not a complete, independent spiritual consciousness, but an amalgamation of the countless tiny insect consciousness.

It was precisely this unusual characteristic of the Spirit that made Gallow unable to pinpoint Billis’ actual location. Put simply, Billis had very likely used a magical technique to scatter his consciousness across every single one of those insects.

In doing so, there was no ‘true body.’ Anyone who wished to kill Billis would first have to exterminate all of his insects!

The battle between the two forces started to escalate in intensity and ferocity.

Perhaps sensing that neither the Voidreavers nor Slayers could do anything to Gallow, Billis immediately changed his attack plan.

Hundreds of First Grade magical mantises gathered from all over the woods. They charged towards Gallow, high upon his horse. Meanwhile, the five Slayers and thirteen Voidreavers fled away from Gallow, turning their sights onto the Bloody Spear’s ordinary members.

The effect of this simple change in strategy was shocking!

The offensive power of the five Slayers couldn’t be more obvious against the ordinary magical knights. Their figures flickered like the wind where they passed by, leaving the knights with their armor shattered and knocked off their mounts.

Without the mobility of their horses, the knights immediately became targets for the swarm. It didn’t matter how they swung their swords or what spells they cast; they could not stop the advancing horde.

In the blink of an eye, black beetles were already crawling all over their body.

From a distance, much of where the knights had been standing had already been swarmed by the insects. It was hard to see the knights themselves now.

Crack, crack, crack!

An unbearable gnawing sound continued to echo through the battlefield.

The knight adepts that were caught by the insects had no chance of escaping. They could only struggle with all their strength and endure the waves of agony from all over their bodies. Their elementium shields were crushed to pieces, their black armor torn apart, and countless smaller insects dug into their armor and their flesh, tearing their way between bone and flesh as they devoured all they could.

The adepts could feel their flesh, bones, organs, and veins being chewed away amid the nightmarish gnawing sound around them. Not everyone could experience such despair.

Most of the knight adepts that were caught by the insects would go mad from this sensation. They simply self-destructed when they realized they were doomed.

When the battle reached its peak, explosions could be heard all over the forest, quickly followed by a rain of pungent insect pieces and blood. Of course, not a trace of the knight adepts’ bodies could be found.

Knight adepts were not truly official adepts, after all!

From a certain perspective, they were only adept apprentices that had grasped a certain degree of elementium power. They were then able to unleash power equal to an actual adept with their magical armor, magic weapons, and special training.

However, the consequence of such training was a lack of depth in magical knowledge compared to proper adepts. That made them lack flexibility and, thus, means of survival.

An adept army like this was unstoppable when slaughtering ordinary planar natives; it significantly compensated for the adepts’ lacking numbers. In the face of terrifying enemies such as these, their chances of escaping alive were infinitely close to zero.

Fortunately, as they were trained en masse, their deaths weren’t too devastating a loss to endure!

After all, there were too many weaklings in the World of Adepts who did not have sufficient talent to advance to become official adepts. If these pseudo-adepts were willing to walk down this path of modification and enhancement to become special adepts, they could, to some extent, enjoy similar treatment to their genuine adept counterparts.

It was the fundamental reason why there could be so many adept armies!

This place was a remote forest only fifteen kilometers away from the Swamp of Tragedies. It was also the hiding spot that Gallow had chosen in preparation for the ambush ahead.

Unfortunately, the Crimson Clan had somehow managed to discover their tracks, which led to their current predicament– encircled by Bug Adept Billis.

Surrounding a powerful army of the Dener Clan with the might of one person alone.

Only a few adepts could possibly achieve such a feat!

After resisting for an entire hour and understanding that they could not win, Gallow finally gave the order to retreat. Only seventy of the once three-hundred-strong army of knight adepts managed to withdraw from the forest. Among them were Gallow and Rezai, the commanders, as well as the one dozen Second Grade captains.

Such grievous losses were worthy of being called a thorough defeat!

However, now that the Crimson Clan was aware of their presence, they would not be able to leave so easily.

They had barely stepped out of the forest when a dark shadow covered the skies above.

The Mothership Versailles was already standing in their way.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

The ground rumbled as gigantic three-meter-tall magical machines crashed into the earth. They ignited their buffer rockets only ten meters away from the ground, causing them to deposit small craters into the ground when they landed. They emerged from the holes, their metal gears creaking and grinding, and their black cannons pointed at these defeated rats.

“Put your hands on your head, knees on the ground. Surrendered enemies will be spared!”

“Put your hands on your head, knees on the ground. Surrendered enemies will be spared! Resist, and you will be terminated with extreme prejudice!”

A mechanical voice blared on the battlefield. The magic energy cannons on the magical machines started to charge up. Bright blue light gathered within the weapons, the roaring sound faintly resembling thunder and just as terrifying.

A gigantic magic energy cannon also reached out from under the mothership, silently charging up as well. The giant cannon’s energy compressed into a massive ball of blue light, the intensity of which was absolutely horrifying.

Naturally, this giant cannon’s target was Scarface Gallow, who was still practically unharmed at this point!