Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  The flames from Greem's staff and his Ring of Fire quickly dimmed, before being reduced to sparks.

  "Beep. Detecting unknown forcefield interference. Initial estimates suggest…"

  The information projected in his mind caused him to pause for a second. He uttered the name of an array, one word at a time.

  "Magic… Interference… Barrier!"

  "Good to see that you know your magic!" The forest spirit's phantasmal body slowly hovered in the cave. She phased right through a stone pillar and moved behind Greem, firmly sealing off his only path of escape.

  "This is a Magic-Interference Barrier specially prepared for you. I have adjusted it into a Fire-Interference Barrier. No fire spells can be successfully cast while in this cave. What's left of a fire adept once you strip him of his innate magic? Hahaha."

  Sabrina's expression soured at this moment.

  One adept was more than enough trouble. To think that an adept was working with a magical creature. Her fortune must have been the absolute worst to run into a situation like this!

  Meanwhile, Greem smiled at his enemies, even as Sabrina plunged into despair. A strange smile appeared in his eyes.

  "Are you sure a Magic-Interference Barrier would be enough to make me surrender without any conditions? If that's the case, what are you hesitating for? Come at me!"

  Greem's calm demeanor was beyond the forest spirit's expectations. Her pretty eyes shifted from Greem and fell upon Gargamel.

  "Don't worry. Greem is merely pretending to stay calm!" Gargamel waved the staff in his hand, "We set up this magic array together. There shouldn't be anything wrong with it."

  Gargamel summoned an elementium fireball. The dense fire elementium gathered in his palm. It dispersed and turned into waves of fire before it could form into a fixed shape.

  "Then you go ahead and capture him!" The forest spirit calmly said.

  "This… " Gargamel took a look at his frail body, then glanced at Greem's muscular figure. He shivered at the thought.

  A physical fight was out of the question!

  Gargamel chose to use his specialty without hesitation.

  He shook his staff rapidly. Every time he did so, a strange halo of light appeared around Greem. These halos contained various magical powders. They surged into Greem's body, carried along by the flow of magical energy.

  They were all reduced to ashes by a sudden explosion of flames from Greem's body.

  "Dammit! Didn't you say that he would no longer be able to cast any fire spells?" The forest spirit couldn't care less for her elegance when she saw this happen. She started cursing furiously.

  "No need to worry. It isn't a spell!" As expected of a veteran adept that had lived for two hundred years, Gargamel saw through the truth of the phenomenon in an instant, "He has already elementiumized his body. This is the innate ability of his body of fire. It isn't an active magic spell. The Interference Barrier cannot disperse this."

  "You are sure?" The forest spirit was doubtful.

  She might have been more powerful than Gargamel, but she was far less experienced than him when it came to magical knowledge.

  "Cough. Girl. Brat. Do you want to live or die?" Gargamel rolled his eyes and looked at Sabrina, "He can no longer use any spells at this moment. He's only a slightly fit man now. If you help me take him down, I'll help you treat your internal injuries."

  Greem snorted coldly and marched towards the forest spirit.

  "Stop him, Sabrina! Or I will make you die now!" Gargamel let out a hoarse yell and threw out two potion vials and two summoning stones.

  The potion vials smashed into the ground. Two storm elementals emerged from the viscous liquid. Two earth elementals, a hundred and fifty-centimeters tall, also climbed up from where the summoning stones had vanished.

  The forest spirit landed on the ground with a somber expression. Her legs turned into countless thorns and vines that dug into the ground, causing the ground to tremble. Earth and dirt overturned as thick vines dug underground like giant serpents. They quickly extended to the area beneath Greem.

  Sabrina stood right between Greem and the forest spirit as all this was happening. She gritted her teeth and hesitated for a moment before finally coming to a decision. Five robotic arms that reached as far as three meters in length emerged from her body and struck towards the forest spirit.

  "You deal with the summoned beings behind me. I'll deal with the forest spirit!" Greem looked at Sabrina with a severe look in his eyes. He opened his mouth and gave his orders.

  Sabrina turned her head in surprise. She felt a trace of relief when she saw Greem's calm gaze. She immediately turned to deal with the four summoned beings. Each one of them had pseudo-adept level abilities and were supported by Gargamel's spells and potions. It was definitely a challenging task for Sabrina to hold them back.

  Greem stepped forward and gazed at the quickly approaching forest spirit with cold eyes. He waved his hand and threw two golem cores to the ground. The Decayer and the Roaring Monster appeared before him. Two adept-level golems.

  Dong!

  A muffled boom. The Roaring Monster stomped with its thick stone leg the moment it appeared. Fine cracks appeared on the ground beneath it. The powerful shockwave was just in time to greet the vines extending towards them.

  Ugh…

  The forest spirit grunted. All the roots and vines she had extended immediately shrunk back and retreated.

  Half of the roots had been shattered and ripped to pieces. Green sap dripped onto the ground. Soon, a small river formed beneath her feet.

  The forest spirit flapped her hand in anger. Her left hand split into four vines and smashed apart the acid arrows that the Decayer had sent her way.

  "Haha! You guys are correct. I am a fire adept!" Greem chuckled, "Unfortunately, your information gathering wasn't complete. Apart from being a fire adept, I am also a golem summoner."

  This situation was only possible thanks to the two enemies. They had sealed away all fire spells but didn't entirely do away with the magic of other elements. It was unavoidable! If any basic wandering adept were able to set up a Magic-Interference Barrier that encompassed every single elementium, then array masters would have become the strongest adepts in the world. The conditions and requirements were too harsh to create an all-encompassing Interference Barrier.

  After all, most adepts only possessed long-ranged attacks. Once they lost their spellcasting abilities, they would die a terrible death when pit against a magical creature. Humans were far inferior when it came to a contest of their physical bodies. That was the main reason Gargamel and the forest spirit chose to set up this trap!

  Through the use of this Magic-Interference Barrier, that they could adjust to seal a single element, they had managed to kill three wandering adepts in ten years. Every time, Gargamel acted as the informant. He found out about the victim's innate magic, then employed the same excuse he had used to trick the enemy into the cave.

  Once the Magic-Interference Barrier tailored for the enemy was activated, the fight was practically over. Elementium adepts would have their combat skills reduced by seventy to eighty percent. What remained of their powers was insufficient to deal with the combined force of an adept and a magical creature. This combination was how they had managed to pull this trick off three times in a row!

  However, their plan had failed this time. Gargamel and the spirit had run headfirst into the tough steel wall that was Greem. It served them right!

  Still, the battle wasn't over. This forest spirit had the rare innate ability to drag people into their dreams. She had taken Greem by surprise when she cast this ability on him.

  A green nature-attribute halo emerged from her body and rapidly encompassed the entire place. Be it the elementium golems, the half-robotic Sabrina, or even the heavily defended Greem; they felt a wave of exhaustion take over their bodies. Their desire to sleep was overwhelming.

  Soon, they had all fell into their dreams!

  "Quick," T
he forest spirit yelled at the top of her lungs, "This fire adept's Spirit is way too potent. I can only restrain him for five seconds. Do it now."

  The forest spirit roared as she lunged at Greem. Thick vines lashed out at the fire adept. On the other side of the cave, Gargamel gritted his teeth and poured a vial of potion into his mouth. He then frantically charged towards Greem.

  Greem hadn't actually fallen asleep at this moment.

  On the one hand, the Ioun Stones that Alice had given him did their job. They raised his Spirit and neutralized part of the soul-controlling spell's effect. The forest spirit's spell was also a type of soul power. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been able to restrain the two elementium golems that never needed sleep!

  On the other hand, Greem's chip had managed to detect him succumbing to sleep. It emitted minor electric currents to stimulate his spirit consciousness and allowed him to recover from the state of drowsiness quickly.

  He might be awake, but he still faced the combined attacks of both Gargamel and the forest spirit!

  "Chip, do you have a solution?"

  "Beep. This Magic-Interference Barrier is only an elementary-level runic array. Host only needs to complete the Flame Fiend Transformation. The sudden increase in attributes will be more than enough to neutralize the elementium interference."

  "Then what are we hesitating for? Flame Fiend Transformation!"

  Greem yelled in his heart, and his body started to swell.

  Chapter 396 Soap Opera

  What did it feel like to witness a fire adept transform into a Flame Fiend right before your eyes?

  No one understood the feeling better than Sabrina!

  Just a moment earlier, a muscular young adept had stood beside her.

  The next instant, overbearing flames surged from within his powerful body as if there was portal to a fire elementium plane hidden within him. The wild elementium flames blasted out of every orifice. His eyes, his ears, his mouths, his nose, and even every single pore on his body radiated heat. The scalding fires forced Sabrina to retreat. Otherwise, she would also have been swallowed and consumed by this explosion of burning waves.

  Red flame shrouded Greem's body. A dominant will guided them and forced them into the shape of a delicate armor. Savage flames roared and roiled beneath this armor of fire. They mixed with black and red lava to forge a horrifying magma body.

  Greem's majestic figure continued to increase size as the fires billowed. Soon, he was twice the size of his human form. A smoldering magma hand grabbed at the forest spirit, bringing with it an endless cloud of fire as it whistled through the air.

  "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" The forest spirit cursed as she dug into the ground with her roots. She tried her best to stop her body's momentum while whipping her vine arms at the magma hand.

  The terrifying hand of magma clashed with the hand of vines. The sizzling sound of burning echoed throughout the cave.

  The forest spirit screeched and frantically backed away from the giant cluster of fire.

  Her forearms had turned to charcoal in a matter of seconds. Black ashes fell to the ground as she retreated.

  The towering Roaring Monster had also intercepted Gargamel.

  Gargamel had turned invulnerable to all poisons after drinking the Aggressive Poison Potion. His every blow and strike also carried lethal toxins and venoms with them. The toxicity of these poisons and venoms were so potent that even elementium creatures fell prey to it!

  Gargamel turned into a cloud of black smoke and hurriedly struck at the Roaring Monster from every direction. His black ghost-like hands would leave a black claw mark every time it touched the monster's thick stone armor. Stone dust fell from its body, blackened from the corrosion of the poison.

  The slime-like Decayer barraged Gargamel with a storm of Acid Arrows and Poison Halos. However, none of these attacks had any effect on the incarnation of poison that was Gargamel at this moment. The golem could only try its best to help the Roaring Monster intercept the adept.

  Sabrina, who had been cautiously fighting with the summoned beings, was immensely glad to see this turn of events, and it roused her spirit. Countless robotic arms and crescent blades emerged from her body, successfully slicing the two earth elementals into pieces.

  However, the two storm elementals still possessed pseudo-adept level abilities. Moreover, they had a fast flight speed and a fearless style of combat. It took all Sabrina had to hold them back and prevent them from interfering with the adept's battle.

  "Goddammit, Gargamel! What kind of monster did you bring back for me?" The forest spirit tried her best to avoid the thrashing fire whip as she moved around Greem's massive body, "Didn't you say that he was only an ordinary adept? Why can his Spirit rise so sharply to allow him to break through the effects of the runic array?"

  Gargamel waved his hand and deflected an acid arrow from the Decayer. He then held up a black shield and endured the heavy stone fists slamming down from above.

  The savage strength was still enough to blow him away. If it weren't because of the Aggressive Poison Potion's effects, he would have broken several bones. The potion's stimulating effects also caused his body's attributes to rise sharply. Even so, Gargamel had still taken damage. He coughed up black blood and appeared to have weakened.

  "Hang on a little longer," Gargamel took this chance to shout out to the forest spirit, "This is a temporary power boosting spell of his. Hang on until it ends and he…"

  Greem let slip a cold laugh. A human expression of disdain appeared on the face formed of fire.

  "Trying to drag it out until I revert from this form? Hahaha," Greem laughed without restraint, "Well then, I'll let you guys witness my true form!"

  Greem had only activated the powers of his magical tattoos during the earlier Transformation. He had not unsealed the Flame Fiend's Heart yet. The flood of fire energy from the heart every thirteen seconds was enough to allow Greem to sustain the Flame Fiend's Transformation perpetually.

  To crush these adept-level opponents as soon as possible, Greem unsealed the Flame Fiend's Heart without any hesitation. Finally, he began his second Flame Fiend's Transformation.

  This time, the surging abyssal fires were not limited to three meters around his body. Instead, they rapidly enveloped the cave, along with the Ring of Fire that suddenly emerged from his body.

  The underground cave was a place that Gargamel and the forest spirit had specially created to hunt down lone adepts. Consequently, it was natural that there wasn't too much space. Greem's Ring of Fire extended for a radius of a hundred and twenty meters. It enveloped everyone in the cave.

  Gargamel's violent poison body was immediately shrouded in flames. The terrifyingly hot fires ignited his long robes, showing that his magical defenses were no longer capable of keeping the flames at bay!

  The massive cave descended into a sea of fire. Even the forest spirit had no choice but to erect a green barrier and hurry towards the exit. The two storm elementals screamed as they were ripped into plasma and burnt to ashes within a mere five seconds.

  Sabrina shrunk into a corner, her face pale white. The flames surrounded her and formed a dazzling prison of fire. Amazingly, these flames seemed to be capable of differentiating between friend and foe. The raging streams of fire split near her and circled the prison of flame. They didn't harm her at all.

  Greem stood in the sea of flames like a mighty deity surveying his godly kingdom. Every spark of fire in this place was his eyes, and every stream of flame his body. Greem's form only stopped for a moment when he sensed the forest spirit fleeing the cave. His entire existence then teleported to the entrance of the cave.

  It didn't matter whether the forest spirit drew upon the souls she had assimilated or her powers of nature. She was utterly incapable of enduring the continuous burning flames that reached a hundred points in strength.

  However, just as she was about to charge out of the sea of fire, a towering body of flames arose out of nowhere. The flame giant stood
in her way and grabbed at her neck with its blazing magma hand.

  The forest spirit wanted to avoid the giant but suddenly felt her body tighten.

  Several chains of fire emerged from the sea of flames and completely bound her translucent body. The large magma hand grasped her torso as she tried to find a way to break free of her restraints.

  Sizzling sounds, thick black smoke, and a burning smell emerged from her body when the black and red hand touched her.

  This experience was no different from cruel torture by fire!

  After all, the forest spirit was ultimately a semi-tangible magical creature. Much of her translucent body evaporated in an instant. Her weak Strength didn't allow her to break free from Greem's grip. She howled in pain and anguish, but there was nothing she could do!

  "Let her go!"

  The sea of flames parted as Gargamel emerged from within, his face utterly black from some magical effect. A weird black smoke continuously billowed from his body, spontaneously extinguishing all the fires in a ten-meter radius around himself.

  He raised the prisoner in his hands and shouted at Greem, "You let Eva go, and I'll let this apprentice go!"

  Sabrina was limp in Gargamel's grasp. Her face had turned completely black. It was clear that she had been poisoned.

  "You intend to use an apprentice to trade for the forest spirit in my hand?" Greem laughed coldly and tightened his grip. The forest spirit once again started screaming in agony.

  A wicked and determined expression washed over Gargamel's sinister face when he saw his threats fail. He reached into the air and dragged the black cat out of the space.

  "Don't. Don't. Please don't..." The black cat seemed to have an idea of what Gargamel wanted to do. It struggled frantically in an attempt to escape, but, as Gargamel's accompanying beast, it was at his mercy.

  "Sarikas, barter of equal value."

  Black light flashed in Gargamel's hands as he quickly chanted the words of his spell. The black cat disappeared, supplanted with the poor forest spirit. A black cat had replaced the forest spirit in Greem's grasp!