That was why the flames were able to be sustained for such long periods of time, and why they were so hard to extinguish.
The apprentices in the tower started cheering when they saw the effectiveness of their attacks.
However, there was no time for Greem to rejoice. A commotion quickly stirred amid the beasts at the forefront.
A thick cloud of birds flew over the beasts and screeched as they charged into the cavern. They quickly got into formation and dove towards the tower.
Greem quickly scanned the birds with his Spirit from within the control hall and promptly dismissed their threat.
He didn't think too highly of them merely because of their numbers and their intimidating looks. If one were to look closely at the birds, they would see that most of them were common animals. Magical creatures like wyverns, thunder rocs, and griffins were a minority after all!
A red light flashed in Greem's hand. He mumbled under his breath, and an order immediately transmitted to the manticore leader.
A window on the third level of the tower abruptly opened, and nine adept-level manticores stormed out into the cavern. They didn't engage the flock of birds. Instead, they started circling the adept's tower.
Greem then gave the order, and the second wave of magma fireballs crashed towards the birds.
Much like the first wave of attacks, the potent spells brought about utter devastation to the birds. It didn't matter how savage a bird it was. As long as they got a single speck of lava on their body, they instantly burst into a cluster of flames and burned to ashes.
Only a few stragglers had been left alive fluttering in the air when the second wave of fireballs had settled.
The manticore leader took this chance and led the adolescent manticores to strike at the exposed flying magical creatures. The two teenage manticores beat their wings and started a slaughter among the ranks of the ordinary birds.
For a moment, the sharp calls of all sorts of birds mixed with the furious roars of the manticores!
Both parties clashed in the air near the tower, ferociously crashing and tearing at each other. A rain of bird corpses and blood fell towards the ground.
The manticores didn't dare travel more than a hundred meters away from the tower, regardless of how intense the fight became. This limit was a strict order that Greem had given them. Every time they were surrounded by too many magical creatures, they swiftly retreated into the defensive line of the tower. They would then use their claws to hang upon the walls as they rested for a moment.
If the magical creatures dared to pursue them, they would be greeted with a red-hot fiery magma fireball. Within a hundred meter radius of the tower, only the small and agile flying magical creatures could successfully dodge the fireballs. Massive beasts like wyverns were forced to use their wings to swat the fireballs away.
Naturally, in doing so, they had to use their tough bodies to endure the exploding rain of lava and the ensuing flame shockwave.
When the first wyvern and the first griffin finally fell from the air, the magical flying creatures no longer dared to get close to the tower.
Consequently, the manticores possessed far inferior numbers, but they were still able to wreak havoc with the protection of the tower. The number of flying creatures in the air was quickly plummeting.
Yet, the pestering of the birds had their intended effect. They had bought enough time for the horde to break through the wall of flame. Once again, they surged into the cavern like an unstoppable tide.
Chapter 412 The Dagger is Revealed
The lack of effective leadership during the early stages caused the beast assault to be chaotic and messy.
However, the arrival of the magical creature lords quickly brought organization to this unrestrained horde.
The wild geladas were thrown into the formation and assigned to dealing with the viscous lava. They broke off stalagmites from the ground and threw them into the lava pools to fill it up. They created a makeshift bridge of sorts, and the ravenous horde was finally able to rush into the hall.
This time, they immediately spread throughout the cavern, preventing the tower from once again sealing their path. The animals filled up the entire place like a terrifying tide.
A dozen magical creature lords slowly moved into the hall, escorted by their most trusted subordinates. They each took up an area in the caverns and started assessing the adept's tower that stood before them.
This structure was a mysterious tower made of volcanic rock.
It wasn't all that tall. In fact, if the lords were to judge the building by its size only, then it was nothing more than a small tower. Moreover, there didn't seem to be any elementium light emitted by the tower. There wasn't a defensive forcefield in sight either. Based on all these signs, the tower was likely an incomplete one that wasn't at its most powerful!
The magical creature lords couldn't help but rejoice at the sight of this. All their concerns were wiped away.
Human adepts were all frail, weak creatures. Their combat ability was several times weaker than magical creatures of the same grade. However, they were still able to snatch away piece after piece of the Black Forest from the hundreds of thousands of magical creatures that lived there and turn those pieces into a prosperous land that humans could live on.
Why was that the case?
Precisely because they had those accursed adept towers!
It didn't matter how many mortals that the magical creatures slaughtered. A human settlement would not cease to exist until they razed the adept's tower that protected to the ground. Hundreds and thousands of ordinary humans could die, and the adepts would simply move in more people from another area.
Slaughtering humans would never be an effective means of hindering the advances of the adepts. After all, the humans reproduced at a rate that no magical creature could oppose. They had to destroy the adept's tower if they wanted to sever the greedy hands extended by the adepts. That was the only way to truly exile the adepts from their territory.
However, to this day, examples of adept's towers falling to magical creatures were scarce throughout history.
There was a simple reason for this; adept's towers were too powerful!
They were like a tough tortoise's shell. The magical creatures had to endure a painful storm of spells and magic if they wanted to use their bodies to break the doors of the tower open. In such circumstances, the frailty and weakness of the human adept's body were hidden and irrelevant. In fact, remaining in their towers further amplified the strength and power of their magical abilities.
Thus, the morale of the magical creature lords significantly rose when they saw the weak elementium defenses radiating from the tower.
Tula pushed his thick and hairy legs as he slowly marched onto the battlefield. Every one of his limbs was like a sharp knife. His limbs stabbed right into the ground, regardless of how tough and hard it was, supporting his dense, massive body.
With the entrance of Tula, innumerable spiderites of all sizes surged out from everywhere. From beneath the ground, cracks in the walls, and even from the tall ceiling in the hall of lava.
Unfortunately, the adepts had sent out far too few guards. What forces they had were also fighting within a hundred meter radius of the tower. The vast army of spiders had no enemy to fight, and could only surge towards the looming tower.
More and more magma fireballs fired from the tower.
Every barrage of fireballs created a sea of fire across the entire cavern and successfully exterminated any enemy that it struck. The lava and the flames wouldn't extinguish even after the impact, stubbornly burning on. Every time the tower launched a new wave of attacks, another stretch of the cavern was turned into a sea of fire that no being could step foot in.
If the tower were allowed to continue its attacks, the entire cavern would blaze with fire in less than fifteen minutes.
While the beasts still ran around in an attempt to avoid the fires, twenty fire spirits composed of pure el
ementium charged out of the tower. They surrounded the tower and recklessly spit elementium flames at the enemy.
For a moment, manticores guarded the skies and fire spirits defended the tower on the ground. Ordinary beasts were slaughtered to death before they could even get near. The more powerful magical creatures, on the other hand, would be focused on by magma fireballs if they came too near.
Even creatures as strong as wyverns could only limp away in agony if one or two magma fireball hit them. Three magma fireballs hitting them at once would burn them to a crisp.
The magical creature lords personally witnessed a bold iron rhinoceros charge towards the tower and rip two fire spirits to shreds. Yet the very next moment, three or four fireballs crashed towards it. A massive hole instantly blew through its mighty and ferocious body. It struggled as it took a few more steps before falling to the ground with a cry of pain.
One side of its humongous body had been blasted away. The aggressive fire elementium had vaporized all the flesh, organs, and bones. Only a black mess of ash and burnt flesh remained on that half of its body.
"We won't get anywhere with these small fries!" Dana the Medusa frowned, "Wild beasts are scared of fire. As long as they keep up a ring of fire around the tower, they will be able to ward off most of the beasts. If they do so, we cannot exert the advantage of our numbers!"
"Let my children forge a path for you!" The one who spoke was the giant berserk gelada who had thick black fur all over its body.
It charged forward and started beating its chest, letting out a deafening roar as it did so.
Under his prompting, several dozen agile figures leaped out from the crowd and quickly closed in on the tower. Every time a magma fireball shot out of the tower, they would pick up a piece of rock from the ground and throw it at the fireball.
The splashing lava encompassed a large area after the fireball had detonated before hitting its target, but it was far less lethal to the beasts now. Several iron rhinoceros hurriedly formed a cleaning crew and crushed all the elementium fire spirits under cover of the geladas.
These Berserk Geladas that excelled at throwing projectiles had intercepted all the magma fireballs flying out of the tower!
Without the tower's support, the manticores in the air were slowly being pushed back.
A terrible and long howl came from the skies; two wyverns had surrounded an adolescent manticore. It plummeted from the air as it continued to bite at its enemies.
This was only the start!
TThe flock of flying creatures surrounded the manticores now that they had lost their earlier advantage. Both parties fought and bit and tore at each other ferociously. The wounds on the manticores gradually grew more and more severe. They had no choice but to return to the adept's tower.
Finally, without the manticores and the fire spirits holding the line, the horde could finally advance on this tall tower!
A thick, muffled boom rang out in the cavern.
All the adepts and apprentices within the tower could feel it trembling.
The tide of monsters surrounded the tower and squeezed out every single drop of ferocity and savagery they had within them. They crashed against the tower with their bodies and struck at its tough walls with all they had.
If this had been under normal circumstances, a dome-shaped defensive forcefield would have protected the tower. All invaders would first have had to break through this shield before they could touch the tower itself. However, this tower could not do so due to its lack of energy reserves. The best it could do was send all its elementium energy to all of the offensive arrays spread across the tower.
That was why this tower was utterly exposed and used the durability of the tower itself to resist the attacks of the horde!
Phew, phew, phew.
Several magma fireballs blasted and shattered the ground around the tower. The lava and fire devoured all life within a ten-meter radius of the impact.
Every wave of attack from the tower reaped the lives of over a hundred forest beats. However, the density of the beasts around the tower was only becoming greater after a dozen fireball barrages. If it weren't for the broad areas of lava and fire clearing out some space in the caverns, there would not be a single place for anyone to stand!
Greem stood within his tower. His spirit consciousness connected deeply with the entirety of the tower.
He looked from high in the sky and saw tens of thousands of beasts attacking the tower all at once. They dealt significant injury to the tower's structural integrity. Greem could sense cracks appearing on the outer layer of the stone wall. Alarms and sirens continuously went off in his mind.
Yet despite the danger and urgency of the situation, Greem remained as calm as ever!
His attention was not on these foot soldiers at all. He silently observed the magical creature lords. Only their actions concerned Greem.
The reason he had been so patient in waiting out and enduring the storm was so that he could bait these monsters onto the battlefield. It would be a shame if those guys weren't at the frontlines when he finally revealed his trump card!
Outside the tower, the horde's attack continued.
Countless beasts and magical creatures frantically dug away at the unyielding rock floor and the reinforced walls. They were trying to undermine the tower's foundation. A dozen iron rhinoceros, berserk geladas, and razors boars had gotten into a formation in front of the doors of the adept's tower. They wildly charged and threw themselves at the adamantium doors.
The dull hammering reverberated throughout the caverns. One could hear the savage and wild roars of the savage beasts every time they crashed against the doors.
Their morale and passion had infected the magical creature lords as well. The lords slowly moved forward and soon ventured within two hundred meters of the tower.
And this range was the best distance for Greem to trigger his trap! It was a distance he had already calculated beforehand!
Greem sensed the commotion outside the tower. He gritted his teeth and raised his right arm. A transparent magical crystal rested in his palm, flashing with strange lights.
Greem crushed the crystal!
Chapter 413 Unavoidable Battle
Adept's Tower, Energy Room.
Gargamel sulked as he dutifully performed his task.
It wasn't anything complicated. All Gargamel had to do was toss the mountain of beautiful magical crystals into the pool and watch as they turned into pure magical energy to be drained away by the tower's defense system.
His continuous efforts poured one hundred and forty thousand magical crystals into the elementium pool, but these crystals were quickly vanishing as the battle raged on.
It was fortunate that Greem hadn't activated the defensive forcefield. Otherwise, the thousands of instances of attacks per second would have been a fatal blow to the tower. The magical crystals here would never have been able to hold on for very long.
In light of this, Greem had decisively given up on the forcefield and relied on the tower's durability to endure the attacks from outside. Most of the energy was redirected to the offensive arrays instead. Magma fireballs were being shot out of the tower at every second, relentlessly clearing out the horde of beasts.
And every time Meryl and the apprentices concluded one round of a barrage, a layer of the magical crystals vanished from the elementium pool.
Even though Gargamel had already mentally prepared himself for the task, he still felt like a stray cat was scratching away at his heart when he saw the mountain of crystals slowly disappear. The feeling of pity and loathing at watching such wasteful use of money was unimaginable.
As a wandering adept, Gargamel had no fixed source of crystal income. He had always traded away his potions in exchange for what he needed. Moreover, he had to be extremely cautious in his dealings to avoid the attention and greed of clan adepts and other opportunistic 'wolves.'
That was why poverty was the most common trait of all wandering adepts!<
br />
This was the first time Gargamel had ever seen so many crystals. He felt the impulse to just run into the mountain of magical crystals and roll around. Naturally, his heart bled when he saw the magical crystals vanishing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Gargamel gritted his teeth and was about to pour even more crystals in the pool when the tower started trembling intensely. Half of the remaining crystals immediately vanished from the pool.
Operation All Will Burn has started?
Gargamel jerked his head up and tried to get a sense for what was happening outside through his control authority over the tower.
The tower continued to shake, but it was a whole different sight outside.
…………
This stampede that Tula had initiated included almost every single creature in a three hundred and fifty-kilometer radius of Plaguewood.
Their numbers were immense, but it was far from being inexhaustible.
At this moment, most of those animals had already been herded into the underground tunnels and caverns. Every single inch of space had been taken up.
Yet, just as the beasts were continuing to assault the tower, the sound of a tremendous explosion rang out from underneath Plaguewood. A massive fissure abruptly appeared on the earthen hill where Plaguewood stood. A thick pillar of dust and dirt was expelled a hundred meters into the air.
The sudden change in geography caused violent earthquakes, dislocation in the rock layers, and a destructive volcanic eruption.
Much of the intricate underground labyrinth started collapsing, and many more areas distorted and dislocated, sealed off by falling rocks and crumbling walls.
At the same time, the adept's tower started glowing brilliantly.
The crimson walls of the tower began to emit blinding scarlet light under the effects of an unbelievably dense concentration of fire elementium. A bright red light illuminated the entire cavern.
The floors around the tower's foundation turned crimson as they heated up. Countless cracks appeared on the ground. Terrifying flame streams of shocking temperature surged out from underneath, immediately blasting many beasts towards the ceiling of the caverns. By the time they fell back to the ground, they had already been turned into charred bones.
Age of Adepts c1-1513 Page 262