Age of Adepts

Mary attracted the starbeast’s attention the moment she appeared.

As Fourth Grade creatures, both had an extraordinary sense for the aura of threat radiating from each other. However, starbeasts were predators that roamed the depths of space; planar creatures were no more than prey in their eyes.

The only question was how powerful the prey was and how difficult the hunt would be!

That was why the starbeast launched a ferocious attack at Mary the moment it sensed her presence.

The starbeast was ten-meters long, its body long and narrow. It had sharp fins near its mouth, along its back, and on both sides of its body; it resembled a deep-sea ribbonfish. However, it was far more vicious, ferocious, and ugly in appearance.

The most powerful trait of this starbeast was its ability to devour magic.

Its seemingly ordinary and smooth black body possessed an unusual energy forcefield. The forcefield could disrupt any spell structure, reverting it into chaotic, unsequenced magic energy. It could then devour this magical energy and convert it into its own power to attack the enemy.

Just this one ability alone made it a natural predator of all elementium adepts!

However, it was a mistake to believe it was weak at melee combat simply because of its ability to devour magic. Its long and pointed snout, as well as its smooth and sharp fins, were lethal, anti-magic weapons when propelled by its tremendous speed. This starbeast was far more powerful than an ordinary planar creature, even in melee combat.

This fish-like starbeast had excellent speed and anti-magic capabilities. Meanwhile, Mary was known for her Agility. When these two opponents that both relied heavily on their speed clashed, it made for a fight that you could not see.

In every sense of the phrase, it was literally a fight you could not see!

The fish and the adept were like two flickering phantoms chasing each other through the sky, only leaving faint afterimages behind them. The two of them chased and lashed at each other, using everything within their means to tear a piece of flesh off of each other. The ferocity of the battle could match any war you had ever witnessed.

Human adepts primarily relied on magical weapons, tools, scrolls, potions, and wands in battle. Even though the adepts could cast powerful elementium spells with their power, opponents of the same grade would typically give them no time to chant and cast their spells.

That was why Mary abandoned all means of attack that required casting. She only used simple and fast physical attacks. Her magical abilities manifested Stinger’s three enchanted effects– Rend, Bleed, and Sharpness.

As expected of a blood adept, Mary built all her offensive strategies around inflicting wounds to the enemy. As long as the enemy was wounded and bleeding, she would be able to become stronger and stronger through battle.

In the end, her opponent would realize, to their horror, that they were basically fighting against their own blood. No matter how they attacked and injured Mary, they would only be exhausting their life force.

It was the might of the adepts and what made them such formidable opponents!

The starbeast also only realized this fact after a while.

Its primary ability was the ability to devour magic, after all. Its exceptional speed was only relative to other creatures. Against an assassin blood adept like Mary whose trade was Agility, its speed was utterly unimpressive.

It was only slightly inferior in speed, but that made all the difference!

The starbeast was already insanely fast, but it was still just a little bit slower than Mary. This tiny difference in speed was enough for Mary to run circles around the starbeast, toying with it as if it was no more than a plaything in her palm.

After five minutes of fighting, Mary remained untouched, while three deep gashes had appeared on the starbeast’s body; the injuries were deep enough to see its bones. The starbeast’s unusual skin might have the ability to deconstruct spells and devour magic, but it lacked in physical defense.

The starbeast flew into a rage, seeing as it could not catch up to Mary and had been injured. It could clearly sense traces of blood energy dissipating from its wounds as its life force slowly drained away.

Meanwhile, blood energy was surging around its opponent. It seemed like she was slowly leeching away at its life force through its wounds.

The starbeast wasn’t a fool. It instantly changed tactics upon realizing the situation.

With a flick of its long tail, it distanced itself from Mary’s crimson form. Once it was a sufficient distance away, it opened its mouth, and a pungent black arrow of poison shot toward Mary.

If I can’t beat you in close combat, then I won’t!

The starbeast seemed to be able to function as half a caster after distancing itself from Mary.

At the very least, its poison arrows possessed many magical attributes, including corrosion and lethal toxicity. Ordinary planar creatures would easily succumb to these attacks.

“Hmph! If you’re playing for real, then I suppose it’s only fair I show you my true power!” Mary chuckled and turned into a bolt of red lightning, dodging the poison arrow and lunging at the starbeast.

The starbeast did not attempt to flee or dodge at the sight of this. It simply coiled around itself, protecting its body with its fins and tail as it fired another poison arrow at Mary.

“Kerslin, suppress its Spirit for me!”

“Yes, my lady!”

Mary and Kerslin maintained the most intimate of mental connections through a hidden frequency. The instant the starbeast decided to go on the defensive and attempt a counter-attack, Mary gave her first order to Kerslin.

The next second, a sinister spiritual fluctuation surrounded the starbeast. Two tremendously powerful spiritual consciousness tugged at each other. Kerslin was trying to drag the starbeast’s consciousness into his Nightmare Domain. Naturally, the starbeast struggled with all it had, attempting to break free of the spiritual suppression.

A victor was instantly decided. Kerslin was defeated, and the starbeast had won. However, the starbeast’s Spirit still stalled for a moment, causing a slight delay in its movements.

This tiny delay was more than enough time for Mary!

The blood energy in her body was raised to its limits. Her body, which had still been visible as multiple afterimages, turned into a single crimson thread that shot straight through the starbeast’s body.

Its defense was unsuccessful!

A strange cry resembling that of a cow echoed throughout the battlefield. A massive hole abruptly appeared in the starbeast’s body as its blood splattered outward like a fountain.

A massive, gaping hole had been carved in the center of its ten-meter-long body. Black blood rained down on the ground along with bits of flesh here and there.

Despite having sustained such terrible injuries, the Fourth Grade starbeast wasn’t dead yet. It endured the pain and fled into the distance.

Judging by how fast it was flying through the air, its speed had hardly been affected by its wound.

Thunderous cheers erupted from the adept towers below.

“Escape? You wish,” This was the first time Mary was fighting in the magic surge. She could not accept it if she did not return with spoils in hand. She unfurled her wings and prepared to give pursuit.

However, the next moment, Adept Andrew appeared in front of her silently, standing in her way.

“Don’t be in such a hurry, Lady Mary!”

“Move, or I will look for you when the prey has escaped!”

“Don’t worry, Lady Mary. I have already mobilized the Winged Dragon Force,” Andrew smiled, but his eyes betrayed fear and respect. “The starbeast has been heavily injured. The Winged Dragon will suffice in finishing it. The defense of the mega-rift is critical and rests upon you. Leave it to us to hunt down the prey! Don’t worry. I assure you that the head of the prey will be presented to you before the end of the day.”

As if on cue, a dozen black dots rose from a tower in the distance. They roared as they chased in the direction of the starbeast.

These were mixed-blood Third Grade winged dragons with Third Grade adepts as their riders. They were quite a formidable force.

“Hmph! Remember to send the prey to my castle when you’ve caught it. Its ability to devour magic is quite unusual. I will have to do some proper research on it!” After reasserting her dominance, Mary put away her wings and dashed out of the sky in a crimson flash, disappearing into a strange tower protected by the numerous war towers.

Andrew stood silently in the sky after watching Mary leave.

The mega-rift above him was still swirling restlessly, unleashing waves of spacestorms every so often. An ordinary person would have been reduced to dust in less than three seconds here.

Even an adept would have to erect multiple elementium shields around themselves if they wanted to move freely across a battlefield like this.

Only high-grade adepts like Mary or himself could keep the spacestorm at bay through their life forcefields and have unimpeded movement.

Meanwhile, starbeasts were like fish in water in this harsh environment that most would consider a land of death. Not only did they feel no pressure from the spacestorms, but they could also draw on the ebb and flow of the tide and use them as weapons.

High-grade adepts only tolerated the environment, while starbeasts thrived in it.

This slight distinction magnified the difference in power between the adepts and the starbeasts!

Andrew was a bloodline adept. He could transform into a giant lizard with tremendous defensive ability, a strong jaw, and a fearsome petrification ability.

While he would have an easy time repelling the starbeast, it was nearly impossible for him to stop it from escaping. If the starbeast were slightly craftier and had fought a guerilla battle against Andrew, he would have been forced to leave the radius of the tower’s support. His chances of victory would have plummeted even further.

A starbeast like that, capable of rivaling his own power, had been severely injured at Mary’s hands. Moreover, it seemed like Mary had not been fighting with all her strength. It made him even warier.

Andrew knew that many factors, including innate talent and magical equipment, could create a gap in power between adepts of the same grade. Still, to watch an extremely young adept grow to a level where even he could only look up to……

It made Andrew incredibly dejected and emotional as an adept that had lived for seven hundred long years.