Age of Adepts

Greem coughed as he emerged from the thick, black smoke.

The surging tide of insects pulsed around him, the silhouettes of high-grade insect generals fading in and out of view.

“It’s a misunderstanding, just a misunderstanding,” Greem hastily explained, “A little accident happened during my experiment. There haven’t been any enemies. It’s all alright. You can all leave now!”

The Crimson adepts naturally had a hard time believing Greem’s explanation.

However, if their clan leader had already given them the order, their only option was to obey.

The energy charging within the giant magic energy cannons aboard the Mothership dissipated, and the Crimson adepts riding on flying magical beasts returned to their camps in an orderly fashion.

Arms, still crackling with glowing lightning, landed beside Greem, his entire body as large as a hill. After communicating with Greem briefly and confirming that there were no problems, he finally scattered the electricity and dispelled his aura of might. He then walked over to the Golden Plaza and went back to sleep.

The tide of black insects around Greem also gathered together, reforming into Billis, dressed tightly in his black robes.

It was then that Kerala and the Fourth Grade adepts finally flew up to Greem. They had arrived earlier than anyone else, but as they were not actual members of the Crimson Clan, they could only watch from the sidelines for the moment.

“Lord Greem, there’s nothing you need us to do, is there?” Kerala stepped forward and examined Greem curiously.

Everyone here was one of the most powerful adepts in this world. Some of them might be stronger than the others, but they all had an incredible breadth of knowledge and experience.

They could tell that Greem had been electrocuted and shocked by lightning judging from the burn marks on his body. However, given the severity of the injuries, the electrocution had been little more than a prank. That was because an attack like this could only make a mess out of Greem’s appearance, instead of being able to inflict any sort of injury on him.

If someone truly intended to assassinate Greem, they would never use such a pointlessly weak attack.

Even so, the color had faded entirely from Mirva’s face. His hands, hidden under his robes, were even trembling.

It was no wonder that he was so terrified. In that moment, should a conflict have broken out, Annemdor Academy would have been reduced to an artifact of history in a matter of seconds. The offensive power demonstrated by the Crimson Fleet made even a Fourth Grade adept like Mirva frightened to the very core of his being.

“Lord Greem,” Mirva stumbled forward.

There were many Fourth Grade adepts here, but no one would look down on Mirva for the moment of ‘weakness’ he was showing here. It was simple. This place was where all of Mirva’s trusted subordinates and family lived. If a battle did indeed break out, his clan would disappear in the blink of an eye.

It wasn’t just Mirva. None of the other Fourth Grade adepts here could bear the heavy loss of an entire clan’s extermination. Most of them had no hopes of advancing any further. Their clan and family were everything.

Fire blazed around Greem, and a large red robe was instantly draped over his body. He looked at the frightened Mirva apologetically and looked around at the other adepts as he said, “It’s no big deal…it was just a little backlash from my experiment. It hasn’t injured me at all. It’s quite late now. I think we should all return to our rooms and rest! We can talk tomorrow if there are any matters you wish to address.”

Since Greem had already said that, everyone else could only leave and return to their rooms.

That said, most of them probably wouldn’t be able to get a good, peaceful rest after what had just happened.

In truth, Annemdor Academy was a microcosm of what was happening across Zhentarim.

The entirety of Zhentarim had, in fact, been intimidated by Greem’s power as a pseudo-ultra-powerhouse. They might be reluctant to bend the knee, but they did not want to throw their lives away in a battle against Greem either.

Thus, Zhentarim and all its clans and adept towers had swallowed their disapproval and submitted to Greem’s power!

Due to the lack of time to improve their relationship, this new alliance of clans was hardly united. Most of the alliance members were also very hesitant and would not truly obey Greem with all they had.

Under such circumstances, it was crucial that Greem remained as powerful as he was!

As long as he remained the most powerful individual in the Central Lands, he could intimidate the opportunists and push them in the direction that the Crimson Clan’s revolution was working toward.

That was why Greem could not collapse nor fail at any time!

The moment he revealed weakness, this pack of wolves would turn on him.

Fortunately, Greem’s power was currently far beyond those of the Central adepts. The only opponents that could truly threaten him now did not exist within the Central Lands, but .yond……

Greem returned to his room, escorted by Billis.

Greem stood straight before he left and stared into the far eastern horizon.

There, a purple star close to the horizon glowed brightly, catching his attention.

Greem took a deep breath and suppressed the frustration that had risen in his heart.

Just a moment earlier, a mysterious chill had appeared out of nowhere and surged through his body. He could sense that this was a warning from the planar consciousness, conveyed through the fire laws he had mastered.

Danger from the east!

That was where the Adept’s Association was!

Could they still be unwilling to admit defeat even after Cerveris’ loss? Were they planning to send out someone new to find trouble with him?

Greem was no diviner, after all. He might have had some sense of danger before it arrived, but he could not extract more detailed information through the formless law powers. He would typically contact Alice during these occasions and obtain her genuine opinion.

However, he had also just recently ‘angered’ her. It would be best not to count on any advice from her for the time being.

Greem shook his head. He could only do his best to defend against any ambushes that would be coming his way.

…………

The instant Greem had felt that sense of danger was the instant Adept Gloria returned to the Adept’s Association through a portal.

The Tower of Observation, the seven hundred and twenty-first floor.

A light blue portal shimmered in a stone room, pretty ribbons of light drifting from within. The ribbons of light wandered through the room. Every time they came into contact with the stone wall, a spacetime barrier would glow around it.

The ribbons of light would retract and continue drifting listlessly around the room.

The Fourth Grade adepts waiting outside the room glanced at the light ribbons with fear and wariness in their eyes.

That was because these ribbons of light were the rumored time fluctuations. They often existed in the boundaries between two planar worlds of different attributes.

These light ribbons might look pretty, but they were horribly dangerous things.

Time fluctuations flickered in and out of existence as tens of thousands of years passed in a single second for them. The flow of time in these fluctuations was different from the rest of the universe.

Living beings dragged into these time fluctuation would be affected by the different flow of time. They might be frozen in time, trapped forever in that instant of time fluctuation. They could be swept into a backflowing current and revert to their selves at a certain point in their pasts, or experience ten thousand years in a single second, their short lifespans drained completely and being reduced to bones.

It was precisely because of the chaos and unpredictability of time fluctuations that planar creatures avoided them at all costs.

Even Fourth Grade adepts were likely to die if they wandered into a time fluctuation without preparation.

That was why these higher-ups of the Adept’s Association were so on edge at the sight of these drifting time fluctuations around the portal. They were fearful that something wrong might occur with the spacetime barrier on the walls.

An energy storm suddenly stirred in the teleportation room. The cerulean long-distance portal started to shake violently. Waves of spacestorms blew into the room through the blue portal. If it weren’t for the arrays in the room, the teleportation room and Tower of Observation itself would be ravaged by these spacestorms.

When the trembling of the portal finally reached a peak, purple light flashed all over the room. A humanoid figure passed through the gate and appeared in the room.

The purple light appeared to be the manifestation of some sort of unusual law. It not only kept the energy tides at bay, but was even able to protect its owner from the time fluctuations.

A short moment later, the humanoid figure managed to find their footing. They stepped out of the teleportation room and appeared in front of the other Fourth Grade adepts.

“Gloria, you’ve finally returned!” The one standing at the forefront of the group to greet the new arrival was naturally Domnhall, who was in charge of all the Association’s matters.

“Welcome back, big sis!” A petite girl threw herself into the arms of the glowing humanoid. Her tone was light, and it was obvious that they were intimately acquainted.

The other three Fourth Grade adepts nodded as well.

“Welcome back, Lady Gloria!”

“Welcome.”

While everyone was exchanging greetings, Maztan’s hoarse voice rang out from the tunnel in the distance.

“Gloria’s back, Gloria’s back…my darling, come here and let me have a look. Let me see if your skin has turned rough from all the spacestorms out there.”

Everyone’s faces turned dark upon hearing Maztan’s rude words.

Gloria had just dispelled all the spacetime turbulences lingering around her, as well as the protective purple light. Her face turned absolutely vicious and ugly.

The next second, she cast aside the sister in her arms and punched Maztan right in his big ugly face, blowing him into the stone wall. She then stomped on him viciously.

Dong!

The entire Tower of Observation trembled at the impact.

Everyone’s eyelids couldn’t help but jump slightly.

As usual, Maztan was utterly fearless and reckless, while Gloria was just as violent as always.

With this violent woman’s return, the Association would probably be quite ‘lively’ for the foreseeable future!