Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Hmph! It's finally time for me to make an appearance!

  Mary laughed sinisterly as she unfurled her wings. She turned into a red meteor as she shot towards the savage battlefield.

  A battle to the death between bugs and vampires was about to break out!

  Chapter 432 Evil Bugs Exterminated

  The six elite carcass beetles were an undefeatable existence within the woods!

  Their shells were hard and difficult to pierce. Their jaws could mince anything in their way. The waves of vampires wouldn't have been enough to fill their appetites if it weren't for their slow speed and lack of ranged attacks.

  Acteon didn't need to worry about his safety with the beetles guarding him. He could recklessly rain his fury upon his enemies. Acteon alone solely caused most of the chaos and destruction in the woods.

  However, the vampires were slowly figuring out a strategy to deal with these troublesome and slow beetles after such a long and drawn-out fight. The plan was to draw them out of the formation and isolate them!

  Large flocks of bats scattered around Acteon. They threw their bodies at him repeatedly to continually goad Acteon into striking them. The more powerful vampires then assaulted the formation and crashed against the carcass beetles' defensive line.

  If they managed to bait any beetle away from the defensive line, a vampire lying in wait would immediately draw the beetle towards the perimeter. Of course, plenty of vampires died in this process.

  The pressure that Acteon endured hadn't been immense when the battle had just started. He was able to spare a bit of his concentration still to call back the beetles who had been baited away from the vanguard. However, once the real battle erupted, the pressure of the battlefield kept him from keeping track of his carcass beetles.

  Even though the carcass beetles had been commanded to stay by his side to defend him, they would still act on their instincts at times. That was especially so when weak enemies they could kill in a single strike appeared in front of them. Again and again, the beetles the vampires tempted the beetles. Once a carcass beetle was drawn one or two dozen meters away from its companions was when the blood knights led by Soros struck.

  The shell of an elite beetle was very tough indeed. The low-grade vampires couldn't even scratch them despite their sharp fangs. However, the beetles were not immune to the blood knights who equipped runic weapons.

  Four crimson arcs of light flashed before the beetle. Its body that possessed the Physique and Strength of an elite adept instantly turned into a sacrifice under the crimson battle techniques. Its previously impenetrable shell was cut into four or five pieces. Purple and black blood splattered across the ground.

  When Acteon furiously slaughtered his way here with the other five carcass beetles, the four blood knights had already dived back into the swarm of bats. It was impossible to find them anymore.

  The disadvantage in speed made it impossible for the carcass beetles to catch high-grade vampires!

  The blood knight's savage crimson battle-techniques also compensated for the weak attacks of the vampires. It gave them the ability to slay isolated elite beetles.

  With Soros as their commander, the blood knights no longer charged headfirst at these carcass beetles. Instead, they borrowed the cover of the low-grade vampires, blood servants, and the vampire spawn, always moving about the perimeter and looking for a chance to strike. If things turned south, they immediately rejoined the outer edge and continued their harassment.

  The blood knights forcefully exterminated two elite beetles with this tactic. Acteon was so terrified that he no longer dared to let the four remaining beetles leave him.

  Acteon's weakness was exposed for all to see at this point!

  His slow movement speed was the most significant reason for his defeat.

  His principal means of defense were these resilient carcass beetles. Without them acting as meat shields, his own body of bugs was extremely frail. The reason his body was known to be an immortal body of bugs was due to the horrifying number of Evil Scorpions he had to reconstruct it with.

  However, all the evil scorpions he had hatched had died in the arduous battle against the vampires. Given that case, his immortal body of bugs was no longer true to its name!

  Any damage he now took would be reflected on his body. Without new scorpions to assimilate, his wounded body would have nothing to recover with; his injuries would only become increasingly severe.

  Acteon had a mind to escape and run away, but this meant that he would have to abandon these last four elite beetles he had.

  That was undoubtedly a painful choice for Acteon, who had not a single soldier left to his name.

  However, when Acteon sensed Mary's mental flux quickly closing in, he had to make a decision, regardless of how reluctant he was.

  He let out a sharp cry, and the four beetles quickly spread out. They rushed into the swarm of bats, instantly killing seven or eight unfortunate ones.

  Acteon grasped the opportunity his beetles had created for him. He transformed into a thick cloud of black smoke and drilled underground without hesitation.

  "Trying to leave?" Mary yelled from the skies, "Not that easy!"

  With a crisp snap, a blood arrow glowing with a dark red light shot into the dark dirt. The bolt exploded, creating a crater in the ground that was one meter in diameter in fifty centimeters deep.

  Having received Mary's orders, Second Grade Blood Knight Soros' muscular body appeared near the crater in a flash. He gripped his sword with both hands and plunged it downwards with all his strength. Even the hilt of the sword was almost embedded in the ground. That wasn't the end of it. Soros let out a savage howl as the blood energies throughout his body surged into the longsword.

  An even more violent and destructive explosion erupted!

  A black silhouette blew into the sky amid the rain of dirt, debris, grass, and storm of crimson energy. The figure was now exposed in front of everyone.

  "Forward, all of you. He must die here today."

  The old fox Vanlier roared from the sky. Hundreds of crimson figures lunged out from the forest and charged towards the shape in the air like moths to a flame.

  Meanwhile, more and more vampires and bats surrounded the four elite beetles. They used their lives and bodies to stand between the beetles and Acteon.

  Two battles and two completely different styles of combat exploded simultaneously!

  At this point, Mary no longer cared about the casualties among her weak subordinates. She had her horde of underlings stall the beetles, while the elites among the vampires were all called upon to assault Acteon. They attacked him with the stubbornness and intensity of a tide, assaulting him with wave after wave.

  It was still tricky for the vampires to damage Acteon's body of bugs, despite their sharp fangs and claws. The only ones that could threaten the adept's life were the four blood knights. Of course, there was also the Bloody Sorceress hiding in the flock of bats– Mary!

  A cloud of acid mist rose from the body of any vampire that ventured too close to Acteon and came into contact with the black smoke. Their bodies promptly turned into a pool of pungent liquid. Acteon's terrifying spells were cast with a wave of his hand and were like a fatal poison to the ordinary vampires. Fighting with Acteon was a suicidal act.

  However, several high-grade vampires commanded those vampires and blood servants. Their souls and bodies were entirely under control. They were practically dying for the sake of wearing down Acteon's strength.

  When his magic powers were no longer capable of sustaining such an exhausting form, Acteon had no choice but to reform his body of smokes back into his body of bugs. He started relying on his tough shell and ferocious claws to bite and tear at any enemies that closed in on him.

  The blood knights struck whenever Acteon attacked.

  However, strangely enough, Acteon's body could split apart and join together at will. The only First Grade blood knight that remained passed by Acteon. He had barely finish
ed his first attack when Acteon detached his right arm and threw it at the knight.

  This gigantic claw transformed into a mass of creeping scorpions in midair. They fell onto the blood knight's body like a hive of bees and swiftly engulfed the knight. What came next was the terrifying sound of crunching and biting, as well as mad shouts of pain from the blood knight!

  Pu.

  The bowstring's snapping sound rang out in midair. A crimson rain shrouded a large area and swallowed the swarm of bugs.

  The needle-like rain pierced through the struggling knight, pinning the hundreds of scorpions on his body to the ground along with him.

  When the rain of crimson light had all fallen to the ground, the blood knight and scorpions had all been reduced to pools of blood.

  Acteon's pained screech came from within the swarm of vampires!

  Mary paid the price of a single blood knight, while Acteon had paid the cost of a hundred scorpions.

  This price was nothing to Mary, who had already steeled her resolve. However, this was literally as painful as severing an arm for Acteon, who sorely lacked reinforcements.

  Even though Acteon tried his best to transform his body and grow a new claw, his mass inevitably shrunk in the process.

  This scene was like a war horn blown in the heat of battle. It instantly caused the vampires to go berserk!

  Soros, Windsor, and Delin were the three Second Grade blood knights that were left. They were like three incomparably sharp daggers as they melded into the crowd of vampires and continuously assaulted Acteon.

  Their runic blades infused with dense crimson energies always cut a deep wound on Acteon's body. A shroud of blood energy would then linger on the injury, preventing Acteon from healing it.

  Acteon was like a wolf with its back against a wall as it fought in the encirclement. A pale green and savage light gleamed in his eyes as he furiously attempted to strike these blood knights that had wounded him.

  "Mary…come out and fight me. You come out…"

  Acteon continued to taunt and shout as he waved his large claws in combat. More and more wounds appeared on his body.

  Finally, Acteon's body crumbled after yet another violent blow from Soros!

  Boom.

  The remaining magical energies in Acteon's body exploded into a massive cloud of smoke. Hundreds of black insects shot in every direction from the ensuing shockwave, flying so fast it was almost as if they were bullets.

  Even though there were plenty of vampires surrounding Acteon, they couldn't intercept all of these bugs.

  However, as the vampires were flying around in an attempt to intercept every one of them, Mary's slender body suddenly appeared at the border. She extended her beautiful hand and caught an ordinary-looking insect with her bare hands.

  She put her hands together, and crimson energy started to together. The power turned into a strange rune and entered the insect.

  Tssss.

  The strange insect screeched in pain before finally turning into a black beetle. Acteon's hideous bug face appeared on the shell and shouted at Mary.

  However, Acteon finally felt fear when he sensed the terrifying blood energies gathering in Mary's palm.

  "Let me go. Lady Mary, as long as you let me go, I will be willing to submit to you and obey your orders forever."

  For the first time, sorrow, fear, and despair appeared on Acteon's face. He desperately started fawning.

  "Hmph! I do not need an ugly subordinate like you." An expression of disdain appeared on Mary's pretty face. She clasped her hands together, and powerful crimson energy devoured the last of Acteon's consciousness as he howled in agony.

  Chapter 433 Tempering Spirit

  Fire Throne.

  Greem disappeared alongside the first floor's fire altar as energy surged through the tower.

  At the same time, a radiant Ring of Fire sprung up near the base of the tower where the sea of lava was. The viscous magma was repelled and pushed aside as Greem reappeared with the fire altar.

  Greem opened his eyes, and a blinding red light instantly filled his entire sight. Front, back, left, right, up, down; everywhere he looked was filled with boiling magma. This thick, semi-liquid substance seemed to be circulating like some unknown force was pushing it. It rumbled as it slowly but stubbornly flowed around Greem.

  This spot was twenty meters deep in the sea of lava. The horrifying heat had vaporized every bit of moisture in this place. The solid rocks had also been scorched into half-molten magma and dragged into this massive whirlpool of lava.

  Even Greem needed to erect his Ring of Fire to avoid being directly consumed by the magma. Greem's senses told him that this place was 900 to 1,200 degrees Celcius. Every ten meters deeper into this place would see a temperature increase of two to three hundred degrees.

  Even the immunity of Greem's flame body had a limit. Currently, he could only barely survive the heat seventy or eighty meters down. Any further, and the red-hot lava would burn even Greem.

  Of course, if Greem activated his first phase Flame Fiend Transformation, he could probably reach around a hundred and fifty meters. If he performed his second phase transformation, he could attempt to probe the bottom of this sea of lava. However, the second phase transformation only lasted for fifteen minutes. Trying to explore the chaotic and dangerous depths of the lava sea in such a short time didn't seem like a good idea.

  Thus, Greem suppressed his desire to go exploring and focused on figuring out the optimal way to temper his Spirit.

  Spirit Elementiumization!

  The term sounded straightforward, but it was challenging to achieve this result.

  In comparison, body elementiumization appeared to be extremely easy to accomplish.

  Body elementiumization only required the individual to be in an area rich with elementium. Then, they would draw upon an appropriate amount of elementium to continuously purify their body. The only problem with this particular process was the mastery of an 'appropriate' amount.

  One controlled the elementium such that they were just beyond the limits of the body's tolerance and used it to break down the body continuously. At the same time, the flesh should still be able to recover and make slight adjustments to adapt to the stimulation from the elementium as it did so. The internal structure of the body, as well as the organs, would then slowly move towards a state where they could coexist with the elementium. Meanwhile, the adept had to make sure that the elementium's destructiveness wasn't too far beyond their limits, to ensure that inflicted no permanent, lasting damage to their spirit origin.

  Thus, body elementiumization was the balancing of the body's regeneration rate with the destructiveness of the elementium. The purpose was to slowly and gradually improve the body's tolerance to fire elementium.

  In doing so, the body was able to contain a more significant amount of fire elementium, and therefore tolerate a higher amount of fire energy. The spells that were cast would naturally become much more powerful!

  The principle was the same for spirit elementiumization, but the techniques and methods were different.

  It wasn't going to be that easy for the elementiumization of Spirit!

  Greem crossed his legs and sat on the fire altar. He slowly gathered his Spirit and turned it into a thread. He then relied on the fire altar's subtle elementium connection with the surrounding sea of lava to slowly move the thread outside the Ring of Fire.

  Aaaaaah.

  Grem let out an intense howl of agony. His entire brain felt like it had been stabbed with a red-hot needle. It was so painful that his fingers had dug into his palms.

  His spirit was like the appendage extended by his soul consciousness. Extending it into the lava of thousands of degrees while unprotected by elementium spells was like casting a blazing spell right within Greem's soul.

  Greem grabbed his aching brain with both hands. The portion of his spirit that extended outside the Ring of Fire had vaporized in a flash of fire.

  Greem sat down fo
r several minutes to collect himself and adjust his mental consciousness. Then, he once again split out a mental appendage and willed it out towards the sea of lava.

  The same intense pain, the same intolerable agony. Greem felt like he had just put his hand into a boiling pot of oil. He could even hear the strange sound of flesh being burned to char by the hot oil.

  No! This wouldn't work!

  The terrifying heat of the lava was not something that his Spirit could currently tolerate. Without the protection of any elementium spells, his Spirit would instantly be burned to pieces the moment it left the Ring of Fire. There was no chance it could endure the heat.

  If his spirit couldn't even tolerate this heat, how was he supposed to temper it?

  It is flame outside of the Ring of Fire, but my affinity is for flame as well. Why is there such a vast disparity in the way my spirit reacts to them?

  Greem thought as he recalled the instant he had advanced to adept. He remembered that trace of the law's aura that had pierced through his soul.

  The fundamental technique of spirit elementiumization was the key to advancing to higher grades. That was why your ordinary books didn't contain related knowledge. The Sarubo had information related to this in their private collections. However, if Greem wanted to gain access to this information, he would have to sign some 'unnecessary' contracts with the elders.

  This scenario was what Greem was trying his best to avoid!

  Fortunately, Greem had managed to find some helpful information in the Tower of Fate. That was how he came up with the idea of using the fire altar as an auxiliary tool to temper his Spirit.

  Greem was moving in the right direction, but the specific path differed from person to person, depending on their physique and affinities. He still had to put in plenty of effort if he wanted to find the way that suited him!

  Greem tilted his head and thought for a while. He no longer tried to attempt anything with the same recklessness as before. Instead, he concentrated and started meditating.

  As his mental consciousness slowly descended into that intangible and fantastical state of meditation, everything around him vanished. Only the basic elementium that formed the underground world remained.