Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Aoooooo.

  The undead mummy was more like a monster that had been brought back to life from hell. Blinding red light suddenly shone out of its eye sockets, and its unnaturally twisted and wide open jaw caused its entire face to look wrong.

  However, it didn't matter how much the mummy tried to struggle. It would never be able to escape Greem's blazing fingers.

  "Beep. Lifeform information collected.

  "Withered Corpse: Spiderified Undead (Low Grade). Advanced Apprentice Level. Fearless and possesses corpse poison. Strength: 1.4 | Agility 1.1 | Physique 2.1 | Spirit 0.4"

  Greem no longer needed to hold back now that he received the chip's notification. The flames on his hand swelled and instantly reduced this howling corpse to ashes.

  The flames didn't die out immediately. Instead, they spread to the tree behind the corpse.

  Layer after layer of spider webs had wrapped around the tree. However, at this moment, all that had turned into the best fuel for the fire. Six seconds after Greem's blazing hand made contact, and the sixty-meter tall tree transformed into a giant torch.

  Flames licked everything around the tree as the fires danced and caused the dry tree to crackle in the blaze. Innumerable spiderites of all sizes fled from the tree. The Spider Forest lived up to its name.

  While Greem hadn't seen a single lifeform when he entered, Spider Forest did have spiders. All those spiders were hiding within the trees and underground. With that bizarre layer of webbing obscuring spiritual senses, it was almost impossible for outsiders to detect their existence.

  Soon, almost four hundred frightening corpses howled and hurried towards Greem from every corner of Spider Forest. They were treating Greem as the only enemy here, lunging at him from every angle.

  Unguja leaped to pounce on a withered corpse, pinning the body to the ground. He then used his sharp claws to smash the corpse's chest and head instantly. Unguja's three heads weren't idle either; a chain of wind blades, fireballs, and acid balls shot out in succession, blowing corpses to bits.

  For a moment, not a single withered corpse could get near Greem!

  Unguja's power was not to be underestimated. He was a magical creature leader as well. Even though he hadn't displayed excellent performance in the Battle of the Magma Hall, it was because Greem had never given him the chance to do anything.

  Now that Unguja faced a bunch of Spiderified Undead that were far inferior to him, he demonstrated the full extent of his agility and the ferocity of his triple-elementium attacks. With Unguja opening a path in the front, Greem could focus all his attention on manipulating fires. He tossed fireballs here and there, lighting up all the ancient trees along his way and turning them into torches that scraped the sky.

  As a safety measure, Greem had left the manticore outside the valley to keep watch. He had stormed into Spider Forest with Unguja alone. With nobody to contest him, Greem became increasingly ferocious and reckless with his spells.

  The so-called Spider Forest was only a stretch of the Black Forest that had been slightly twisted and modified by spiders. It was only about two to three kilometers deep. An entrance to a cave revealed itself to Greem and Unguja as they fought against the endless horde of withered corpses and spiders.

  This place was the entrance to Spider Cave; Spider Forest was no more than a hunting area that Tula had developed.

  Greem could see no other color but white in this place.

  White webs wrapped the trees, and several layers of webbing covered the ground as well. It was almost as if the two of them were walking in an alabaster sea. The sickly white color was everywhere.

  Even the Three-Headed Demon Hound Unguja couldn't do anything about this home territory of the spiders.

  He could refuse to enter, or he could endure these torturous webs.

  Even Unguja would accidentally run into a sticky web if he fought in an environment like this. And if that happened, Tula would probably be able to slice him into several pieces before he could even remove himself from the web!

  Hmph.

  Greem snorted coldly. He snapped his fingers as a fire rune immediately entered Unguja's body. He then activated his Ring of Fire without any hesitation.

  This environment slightly suppressed the hundred-meter-radius Ring of Fire, but it had an excellent ignition effect. All spiderwebs within twenty steps of Greem suddenly burst into flames. The sticky webs on the ground slowly vanished to reveal the black dirt beneath.

  "Come on. I can sense Tula inside the cave."

  Greem strode forward without any hesitation and entered the cave ahead of Unguja. A shiver ran down Unguja's spine, and he quickly shouted, "Wait for me, master!" He then chased after Greem with all he had.

  A blazing sea of fire slowly spread towards the depths of Spider Cave!

  …………

  Spider Cave.

  This pitch-black underground cave didn't show a single ray of light.

  Several strange green lights shone in this deathly silence.

  It was only when these strange lights flashed that one would, to their surprise, discover that they were the compound eyes of some massive creature.

  Demon-Hunting Spider Tula moved its body anxiously. It silently sensed for the intense vibrations transmitted through the web underneath it.

  An enemy had arrived!

  Tula didn't even need to see for itself. Already, the terrifying silhouette of the Flame Fiend appeared in its mind.

  These accursed adepts! They wouldn't even give it a chance to take a breath. How dare they recklessly break into this Spider Cave that it had managed for hundreds of years.

  Hmph! The Magma Hall was your home field. You burned all the cannon fodder I threw at you there. However, this Spider Cave is my territory. Since you dared to approach this place, I will let you die here!

  Tula's eight hairy spider legs shook the spiderweb beneath it with a certain rhythm as it cursed internally. Several messages were sent in every direction without any sound. The various strange creatures hiding in obscure corners of the spider den started moving.

  A small tear appeared in the giant white cocoon in the corner of this hidden cave. Dana's pretty face was visible as she let out a sorrowful and angered scream.

  However, the tear on the cocoon was quickly sealed by Tula the next second.

  Tula dragged its severely wounded body and walked over to the cocoon. It produced fine threads from its abdominal sac, then used its eight legs to slowly turn the cocoon and wrapped another layer of webbing on the outside of the cocoon.

  "Stop resisting. The eggs have been implanted in your body. In just another seventeen hours, my newest children will hatch inside you. It is a great honor to become the food and host of my children. Then, they will simultaneously possess the innate talents of magical spiders and medusas. They will become my most reliable subordinates."

  The distinct laughter of spider-like creatures rang throughout the sinister cave. Mixed within the laughter was Dana's muffled howls of agony.

  …………

  The dark shadows extended all the way forward. The narrow roads wound about here and there, and not a single trace of light shone in this place.

  However, as Greem continued forward, the darkness was dispelled. The blazing fires illuminated everything.

  Greem had thrown out two golem summoning cores after he entered the spider den, summoning the Roaring Monster and the Decayer. The Roaring Monster stood at the forefront; its tall stone body made it the perfect meat shield to lead the way. The Decayer followed in the rear. Its silent movement hid its presence from most other creatures.

  The golems were protecting Greem and Unguja in the middle. They swiftly and unhesitatingly ventured their way toward the depths of the underground.

  There were winding paths and forked roads everywhere. Without an experienced guide, a newcomer would never be able to find the correct way in this labyrinth.

  Strangely enough, Greem seemed to know everything about this spider den. He mad
e his way towards Tula's lair picking the shortest routes without any mistakes.

  This ability undoubtedly frightened Tula, who was hiding deep underground. It could only send out the mutated army of spiders it had been hiding in reserve.

  "Enemies have arrived." Greem reminded softly.

  The Roaring Monster held its footsteps. It plunged both of its hands into the dirt below and quickly created a colossal stone sword for itself. The sword was large, heavy, and filled with rough and uneven stone spikes! It was the perfect weapon for an overbearing monster like itself.

  The chittering sound from the other end of the tunnel hadn't ceased. Greem threw a fireball in that direction and immediately illuminated the flood of odd spider magical creatures.

  The next second, a storm of shadow arrows, acid balls, bone spikes, and spiderwebs shot at the party.

  The Roaring Monster used its massive body to block over eighty percent of the attacks. It then swung its large sword and charged forward, roaring as it did so. There was no space for it to rampage in this narrow tunnel. That was why the Roaring Monster injected a significant amount of earth elementium into the stone sword in its hands every so often.

  The stone sword would split apart to shoot out hundreds of stone spikes, surrounding everything in front in a barrage of stone spikes.

  It didn't matter whether the stone spikes impaled the enemies' heads or abdomens; these attacks were lethal to all the creatures within the radius of the stone spikes. Most of the time, these mutated spider creatures weren't even as big as the stone spikes being fired at them!

  Chapter 421 Spider Hall

  The battle in the tunnel was vicious!

  Neither party had room to dodge. Everything was a matter of raw firepower.

  Greem had the Roaring Monster on his side as a shield. The continuous supply of earth elementium ensured that the Roaring Monster could fight on endlessly. Even if the number of spiders was a little overwhelming, they could do nothing about the three-headed demon hound attacking from behind.

  Greem followed behind Unguja and the Monster, casually lighting up everything in the tunnel that got in his way. It was only when the chip deemed a specific spider corpse of research value that Greem would take the effort to bend down and pick it up.

  Meanwhile, all the opportunistic magical creatures that had secretly trailed behind Greem's party and followed him into the cave had been devoured by a mysterious enemy in the pitch-black darkness.

  At first, the only ones standing in Greem's way were small and large spiders of various types. There were tarantulas the size of Tibetan mastiffs that walked along the walls of the cave as if they were on flat ground. You had small and stout jumping spiders with thick and powerful legs designed for leaping. You even had evarcha spiders that spit poison and hunted from a distance.

  These monsters looked odd and had hideous faces, but they were still spiders. It wasn't just spiders that came swarming out of the darkness when Greem made it a hundred meters deep though. More and more spiderified creatures were appearing.

  They were the same as the withered corpses back in Spider Forest. Even though they were of different species, they became part of the spider army once the spiderites infested them.

  Spiderified wolves, apes, kangaroos, ogres.

  There were only limits to your imagination, not to the types of spiderified creatures!

  Even Greem's confidence and calmness had slowly turned into concern as he slowly fought his way deeper. Unguja, on the other hand, was furious. He hadn't stopped cursing at Tula for a single second.

  It was only now that Unguja understood why, every so often, a significant number of magical creatures went missing from the Black Forest. It seemed they had all been caught by Tula and turned into these sacrificial pawns.

  The magical creatures that Tula caught couldn't possibly be all that strong. Not to mention, their powers would further deteriorate when they were turned into spiderified creatures. However, just their recklessness and fearlessness made them a most annoying soldier.

  Other magical creatures had senses and intelligence. They knew how to avoid harm and pursue pleasure. They would have known whether to fight the Roaring Monster head-on or retreat if they couldn't resist it. They would have known how to leverage the geography to better stall the enemy's attack. However, these spiderified creatures knew nothing of death. They insisted on charging at the Monster and Unguja, even when faced with a fierce barrage of attacks.

  In doing so, these creatures had nowhere to run.

  The Roaring Monster's stone spikes and Unguja's chain of tri-elementium spells riddled them with holes the moment they entered their attack radius. However, these spiderified creatures would always fire one last shot before they were blasted to bits.

  If it was only one or two of these wild creatures, the Roaring Monster might have been able to endure the attacks. However, when it was hundreds or thousands of spiderified creatures surging at the Monster, it was a whole different story. The storm of spells was enough to severely damage the Roaring Monster, no matter how weak the individual spells were.

  Even Unguja was howling in pain from the barrage of enemy spells. He continued to fire off wind blades, fireballs, and acid balls with all his strength.

  Finally, after enduring this painful journey, and once they had exterminated most of the spiderified creatures, a new enemy appeared.

  These were strange magical spiders as big as bulls. They had the black bodies of spiders and eight hairy legs, yet the torso was a humanoid one. Thick black hair grew all over their upper bodies. These creatures each held a pair of sharp knives in their hands. They climbed on the walls and the ceilings, quickly jumping out from the darkness like fierce tigers.

  The Roaring Monster's stone sword shattered several times in a row. The rain of stone spikes gouged plenty of holes into the torsos and abdominal sacs of these strange spiders. Yet they continued their fearless charge and vicious attacks.

  The damaged Roaring Monster was finally unable to take it anymore. Its stone armor shattered into debris, and its elementium body became exposed.

  However, it was not the time for the Roaring Monster to bow out; they hadn't even seen Tula yet.

  Greem grunted and advanced. A bright red fire halo blasted outward, and all the strange spider creatures that came into contact with it stumbled backward clumsily.

  Flame Halo of Repulsion!

  Greem took advantage of the spiders gathering together in one spot. He raised the Blaze of Destruction in his left hand as a precise Scarlet Firestorm exploded in the middle of the monstrosities.

  Even though Greem hadn't transformed, the unanticipated energy merging process from the last battle had significantly improved his fire spells. They now dealt a shocking one hundred and thirty points of damage.

  Attacks of this degree were no longer something that ordinary magical creatures could hope to take on with their basic magic resistance!

  At the same time that the flame waves devoured these spider creatures, they came stumbling out of the fire, yelling in pain. While they did make it out of the blaze, they were unable to extinguish the elementium flames on their bodies.

  Some magical spiders rolled around on the ground, hoping to use the wet mud to suppress the flames. Others rushed towards Greem, trying to drag the adept to his death along with them.

  The ones trying to smother the flames were never able to extinguish the stubborn flames no matter what they did. In fact, the fire had even spread into the insides of their bodies. Their muscles, tissues, and organs slowly burned away. The ones that rushed Greem had barely charged into his Ring of Fire before the multiple layers of fire reduced them to ashes without reaching him.

  Greem slowly walked ahead, using his magma fireballs to open a path by blasting away the spiders, then roasting them to death with the Ring of Fire. The tunnel filled with violent flame shockwaves and the screams of spiders wherever he went.

  Of course, there was the unique acrid smell of burned f
lesh!

  Finally, after blasting away the last strange humanoid spider, Greem's party set foot in the sinister cave hidden in the depths of the underground.

  "You have finally arrived!" A massive black form crouched inside the darkness. Its ghostly green eyes flashed and blinked, casting hateful gazes at Greem.

  Greem's Ring of Fire acted like a gigantic lantern in this place. It immediately illuminated this vast hall.

  This big hall was composed of gray and brown layers of stone. Stalagmites and stone pillars littered the ground, while stone spikes and stalactites hung ominously from the ceiling above.

  This place was the same as outside. Sticky white spiderwebs covered every single spot. Stuck in these webs were several white cocoons of various sizes. Judging from how they were pulsating, all of these cocoons had living beings trapped in them.

  A dense field of eggs covered the floor in the corner of the spider hall. Every time an egg broke, a weird fist-sized spider crawled out from within before disappearing into the web below.

  The king of this domain, Demon-Hunting Spider Tula, crouched upon a massive spider web. Its mountainous body was riddled with holes of various sizes. Countless spiderites crawled in and out of these wounds as if they were trying to mend broken armor.

  Its abdominal sac had shriveled up, and a disgusting and sour liquid continuously dripped out of what seemed like its anus.

  The monumental battle earlier had been tough on Tula. Its injuries would not have recovered that quickly if it hadn't devoured the three or four of its descendants that possessed adept-level powers.

  Its pride as a magical creature lord didn't allow it to run when it saw Greem arrive in pursuit. It could only sit here and stare at the cruel bastards that had broken into its palace with hate in its eyes.

  "Nice. Very nice," Tula's wicked mandibles sent sparks flying everywhere when they clashed together as it spoke, "I am very curious. This should be the first time you are visiting my spider cave. What method did you use to make it through the labyrinth that I created without any mistake? How did you find this place?"