Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

Even though the one they caught in their web was not the knights' leader that they had expected, it was still a Second Grade knight after all. No one dared to drop their guard. Instead, they immediately used their most ferocious attacks as they had planned on before this.

  Six adepts and six single-target spells instantly consumed Meusel's form.

  After the first wave of attacks had been completed, everyone quickly shifted positions, preparing their second wave of attacks as they did so.

  It was an utter fantasy to try and kill a Second Grade knight with a single wave of attacks, especially with the limited might of their attacks. Everyone was already prepared to grind the radiant knight to his death!

  As expected, a brutal flame blade slashed forward, staying close to the ground and slicing right past Greem's side with millimeters to spare, before striking a row of large trees behind Greem and setting them on fire.

  The next second, Meusel charged out from the swirling elementium vortex with his energy shield in front of him.

  Adept Hyde sprinted forward in response to Meusel's charge.

  As the only mechanical adept (a branch of esoteric adepts), he had to be the meat shield when no body refining adepts were present.

  As the two quickly approached each other, Hyde's thick mechanical left arm started to vibrate slightly before a dome-shaped energy shield appeared in front of him. His mechanical right arm, on the other hand, suddenly started to rotate rapidly, turning into a deadly awl, shooting towards Meusel's chest.

  The skin on Hyde's back split apart silently, and six spinning round discs the size of a palm flew out from within, slicing towards his opponent's ribs from both sides of his body.

  Adept Hyde deserved to be called a mechanical adept specializing in close-quarters combat. It was just the start of the fight, and he already had a complete and continuous set of attacks.

  Chapter 212

  Hyde's tricks were utterly useless before a Second Grade knight.

  Without even using his knight battle techniques, Meusel shattered the spinning blades with simple slashes before slashing horizontally at the awl flying towards his chest.

  Oddly enough, the sharp awl shattered on contact. It instantly split into several dozen tiny spikes, shooting towards every part of Meusel's body.

  If it had been any other day, such a simple attack would not have even grazed Meusel.

  Today was not Meusel's day.

  Meusel roared and charged through the barrage with his sword before him. He rushed at Hyde and slashed at his energy shield.

  With just a single heavy slash, the energy shield shattered and blasted Hyde into the woods behind him.

  Meusel let out a muffled grunt as four bright red spots of blood appeared on his body. Those accursed spikes kept spinning even after they had dug into his flesh. Moreover, they kept letting out some sort of strange poison, numbing the flesh near the wounds.

  Meusel slapped his chest heavily. Under the pressure of that violent force, the four spikes shot out of his body. Sticky white pus came out of Meusel's wounds along with the spikes, leaving a trace of a bitter almond smell in the air.

  Meusel performed a simple treatment for his wounds and prepared to charge over to kill that accursed adept. However, all of a sudden, something tugged at his legs, as a patch of thorny vines reached out from beneath the ground. There was a terrifying snake's head at the end of each vine, biting at the knee guards on his legs.

  Meusel raised his head, his gaze instantly landing on the adept near the edge of the forest whose actions closely resembled those of a wooden puppet. The adept was standing slightly right beside a tree. Both of his feet were buried under the earth, while his hands were plunged into the trunk of the large tree. One could vaguely hear the gurgling sounds of something being sucked.

  The surrounding adepts took advantage of the opportunity provided by Marionette restricting the radiant knight, letting out their fiercest attacks without hesitation.

  Acteon, who was not far away, raised his right palm. A black hole suddenly appeared on the middle of his pitch-black palm as countless terrifying flying bugs buzzed and flew out from within, swarming towards the radiant knight. A dozen abnormal beetles with black shells, green wings, and odd spots on their backs silently hid within the swarm of bugs.

  Mary did not charge forward recklessly when faced with a Second Grade radiant knight. Instead, she unfolded her wings and flew into the air, drawing her crimson longbow into a full moon, as the savage and ferocious blood energies instantly reached their peak.

  Schwing! A crisp crack rang out.

  The arrow left the bowstring!

  Meanwhile, above the air, a bright white lightning pillar as thick as a bucket blasted down. Its target was also the radiant knight who was stuck to the ground.

  Almost instantly, Marionette had restrained the enemy and three adepts had let out ruthless attacks, plunging Meusel into a dangerous situation.

  Faced with simultaneous attacks from both the front and behind, Meusel raised high the runic sword in his hand. He waited for the energies in his body to gather to their limits before shouting and thrusting the sword deep into the ground.

  The next second, the murderous and unstoppable runic energies seeped into the ground and exploded!

  What kind of might did the all-out explosive attack of a Second Grade knight possess?

  Greem, who was standing fifty meters behind Meusel, instantly saw a patch of red through his elementium sight. All sorts of energy calculations projected by the chip rose exponentially, as blaring warning alarms rang continuously.

  However, these abstract calculations and data were insufficient to capture or describe even one ten-thousandth of what Greem was seeing before him.

  The ground was shattering. The forest was shaking. The entire sky turned a slight shade of crimson…

  Cracks as fine as spiderwebs quickly spread outwards through the ground, with the runic sword as the epicenter. The speed they spread at was obviously incomparable to the few thick, large, and wide cracks that struck fear into everyone's hearts. Numerous alarming fissures with no bottom in sight quickly extended outwards in a haphazard fashion. Wherever it spread, the large trees collapsed and the ground gave way, as gigantic dust pillars repeatedly blasted into the sky!

  On the ground, a violent ring-shaped whirlwind had swept through the area, flattening everything on the ground like an invisible razor. Countless grass roots, dirt, and withered leaves were swept away by the whirlwind, blasted into the woods nearby.

  There were no longer any trees, grass, or plants in a hundred meter radius around Meusel, just a bare patch of land. Even a layer of dirt had been blown off from the surface of the earth. A hundred meters away, countless towering ancient trees fell outwards in a ring, perfectly showing the world the terrifying energy contained within a Radiant Knight’s fearful blow.

  No one's attack could break through that defensive layer under such a destructive shockwave. It was only when the violent energy slowly started to dissipate that things could be seen.

  The tight formation they had formed around Meusel was now utterly scattered.

  The slender Mary was obviously not known for her strength and she was blown far away by the first wave of energy. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Acteon was not much better. He having trouble standing up and was forced to transform into his bugman form in order to anchor himself to the ground with his numerous pairs of arthropods. Even the flying bug minions he summoned had all been sliced and diced by the wind. Only the dozen carcass beetles struggled and gathered together, forming a shield of bugs and protecting him from the impact of the following force shockwave.

  One had to note that at that very moment, besides the violently flowing air waves, there were also countless force shards within the shockwave. Force shards that were comparable to sharp weapons hid within the tide-like energy waves and were sufficient to cut any being caught within them to pieces.

  Marionette, who endured most of the
force attacks head on was in an even worse condition. Not only had all the roots on his legs been severed, even his body that was exposed above ground had been riddled with cuts and holes. Just counting the visible wounds, there were three or four penetrating wounds that went right through his wooden body. The other, more minor wounds were even more numerous.

  Marionette's life force instantly fell to its lowest after having received such severe injuries!

  Yet at the moment, the domineering Meusel had just drawn his sword from the ground. He stood straight with his muscular body, looking at the adepts’ poor condition as a contemptuous smile appeared on his face.

  "You rats that only know how to hide and run, now I'll… ” Meusel's voice thundered like lightning. However, he couldn't finish his sentence. His expression suddenly changed as he coughed out purple, black, and pungent blood from his mouth.

  The next moment, even his body started to shake a little.

  The adepts had good vision and instantly saw some things that resembled pieces of broken internal organs within the blood.

  "Kehkehkeh… " A cold and sinister laugh rang out from a distance, with a little metallic ring to it, "You knew that this patch of woods had been covered with terrifying viruses, and yet you still dared to draw runic energies so violently into your own body? As expected, the ignorant are the most courageous! Now you feel the backlash from the energy, don't you? How about it? How many more attacks like the previous one can you launch? The more energy you draw upon here, the quicker you die. Kehkehkeh… in my opinion, you are better off lying down and waiting for your death!"

  Metal clanged as a mechanical figure pushed aside the dust and branches on his body and rose from beneath the ground, striding towards Meusel, who was leaning on his sword.

  The remaining adepts had appeared nearby, one after another, tightly surrounding Meusel.

  "Do it!" With Hyde's loud shout everyone attacked, and another wave of relentless attacks devoured the knight's body.

  …………

  A kilometer away, Charles, who had just led everyone through the heavy siege and was currently resting in an area with few trees, suddenly stood up and gazed in the direction behind him.

  He felt a powerful and ravaging energy signature exploding there!

  Yet this signature was so familiar that it caused him put a name to it almost unconsciously.

  "Meusel!"

  With how powerful the Second Grade knights were, they would not usually use such a wasteful energy explosion. This type of energy blast might appear to cover a large area, but in truth it consumed tremendous power to generate and was highly inefficient. It was far inferior in terms of lethality when compared to the concentrated knight battle techniques!

  Only the spellbreaker knights that had barely mastered the utilization of energy favored this sort of grand knight battle technique. The radiant knights, on the other hand, knew that a flame shockwave that covered an area of ten meters was far weaker than a simple yet concentrated slash.

  Meusel was a veteran radiant knight. There was no way he didn't understand this. Yet he still committed such an amateur mistake. This either meant that he was up against enemies that outnumbered him, or that he was no longer able to control the energies within his body!

  Regardless of which it was, it was obvious that he was in a dire situation!

  "You lead the army and continue forward. I'll go and bring Meusel back!" Before his wild shout had even dissipated, Charles had already disappeared.

  A strange pair of energy wings appeared behind Charles, giving him the ability to fly across short distances. Tall trees whistled past his body, the dense branches hitting his face and body as he flew by.

  He had already directed most of his energy to the wings and no longer had any additional strength to protect himself. Thus, he kept his eyes opened with all his strength, clumsily adjusting his speeding body and trying his best to avoid the trees. He no longer had any strength to avoid the dense branches and vines, and could only endure them with his tough body.

  A distance of a kilometer was quickly covered with the ability to fly.

  A short moment later, the barren battlefield appeared in his vision.

  Meusel crouched and shrunk his body on the half-collapsed hill, trying his best to defend against the spells flying at him like a thunderous storm from all around him.

  Fire, lightning, blood arrows, wooden spikes, sharp awls…

  Terrifying spells of all variety rained down on Meusel's body. They were on the verge of riddling him with holes and turning him into a human strainer.

  Charles, who was watching all this happen before him, roared violently. His energy wings folded slightly, and instantly he landed besides Meusel. He waved his large sword, and a terrifying force blasted outwards, annihilating all the attacks around him in a brilliant scarlet sword radiance.

  "Meusel, hang on, I'll… "

  Charles waved his longsword with one hand, shattering one spell after another that shot towards him, and grabbed Meusel with his other hand, trying to charge out of the battlefield.

  However, before he could finish his sentence, something sudden occurred.

  Chapter 213

  Ever since he had charged into the battle, Charles had already prepared himself for all kinds of situations.

  He would never dare to look down upon the cunning of adepts.

  Unfortunately, what had happened now was beyond even his imagination.

  He… was attacked by Meusel!

  Meusel's eyes were wide open, but his gaze was not focused. Tears of blood streamed down from the corners of his eyes as an odd growl came from his throat. The bright radiance of energy shone from his hands as they plunged deep into Charles' waist. Some unknown substance was continuously being injected into Charles.

  Charles endured the intense pain and put his left hand over Meusel's chest. The dense light of concentrated energy quickly gathered on his hand. He just needed to expel the power and he would easily be able to shake off Meusel's attack.

  However, when he looked at Meusel's familiar face, and felt the weak heartbeat beneath his palm, Charles hesitated.

  This was an old friend he had known for over forty years after all!

  Even though he had been manipulated by the evil adepts and became their accomplice, his fire of life still hadn’t been extinguished after all. If Charles actually blew him away with an energy blast, Charles would probably personally extinguish Meusel's last flickers of life with how weak he already was.

  Tears couldn't help but flow down Charles elderly face when he thought of this. His palm pressed against the chest of his old friend and started to shake!

  Meusel had probably lost a long time ago. The scene of the adepts surrounding and attacking him earlier was probably an act they put up in advance. All of it, every single bit of it, was just to draw him in!

  It was only now that Charles saw everything clearly.

  The feet of his old friend Meusel had been pierced by a patch of wooden thorns and spikes and fixed to the ground, while seven or eight strange translucent threads rising from the ground had pierced multiple parts of Meusel's body. This was most probably the reason for Meusel's loss of control over his own actions!

  Moreover, several unknown substances were continuously entering Charles' body with Meusel's hands as the funnel. Some of these were microorganisms, wildly devouring his flesh and organs, while others were unknown curse halos, unceasingly exploding within him and quickly weakening his body and mind.

  Besides all this, the evil adepts around the battlefield were not holding back at all. One after another, powerful spells fell upon him like raindrops with no regards for Meusel, their ‘ally’.

  In his one moment of hesitation, the downpour of spells had already flooded him and Meusel.

  The violent elementium explosions and the mad and chaotic elementium tides erupted without end in that one small area, turning the entire place into hell on earth. Even a Second Grade radiant knight could
not endure elementium corrosion of such power!

  As Knight Charles let out a pained roar that shook the forest, and charged out of the energy storm vortex like a mad tiger, the only thing he still adamantly held onto in his left hand was Meusel's broken body.

  Indeed, after that wave of ferocious attacks, the radiant knight Meusel, who was already on the brink of his death, reached the end of his life. His heart had stopped. Meusel's body, having lost the protection of his energy shield, was riddled with holes and corroded everywhere by the violent elementium tide, depriving him of his human shape.

  Not just Meusel, even Knight Charles was in a terrible condition currently!

  His left eye had been blasted away and blood surged out from the large, bloody, and gaping hole that was left. His body looked like it had just been dragged out from a mincer. Deep and terrifying wounds could be found all over his body.

  The moment he charged out of the energy vortex, he let go of his runic longsword and stabbed his right arm into his own waist. Bam! The sound of a muffled explosion rang out, as a small energy explosion released within his own body. Purple and black blood flew everywhere, along with shattered and shredded meat.

  When Charles drew his bloody hand out from the gaping wound on his waist, he was holding between his fingers a strange beetle that screeched incessantly.

  Even though the strange bug had been temporarily stunned by Charles' energy explosion, the moment it left Charles' body, it immediately started to move again. It screeched continuously while biting at Charles' hand.

  Charles let out a battlecry and tightened his grip. The strange beetle was finally unable to endure the strength of a Second Grade knight, instantly crushed into a pool of blood.

  Deep in the forest, Evil Bugs Acteon suddenly let out a muffled grunt as the strange beetle died.

  It was clear that the death of this carcass beetle larva had also inflicted some backlash on him.

  The sudden show of strength from Charles had also made the wounds on his body even more unbearable. The flesh on his ribs had almost been blasted away by the energy that exploded in his body earlier. He stumbled about for a bit before finally falling to his knees.