Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  "Dream on."

  The sudden swap in their dominant-subordinate positions angered Mary. Someone of her personality would never be willing to become a subordinate that another person could order around.

  Even with Greem's savage strength and raging flames around her body, Mary drew upon all her blood energy without any regards for her life.

  Greem sighed bitterly. He lifted a finger and formed an extremely concentrated cluster of flames at his fingertips. He then made drawing motions in the air around Mary.

  Zchwing! Zchwing! Zchwing! Zchwing!

  With the help of the Chip's elementium sight, Greem very cleanly shattered Mary's aid.

  The Shackles of Blood had been broken!

  Mary, who was already at her limits, let out a yelp in surprise.

  "They are all decent servants of yours. You should treasure them more and not throw them away in an inconsequential internal struggle. Er..." Greem had just finished lecturing and shifted his attention back to Mary. It was then that he realized the intense shockwave from breaking the Crimson Pact had caused Mary to lose consciousness. She was knocked out.

  Cough.

  Greem looked down upon the messy battlefield and the four unfortunate figures lying around it. He let out an exasperated sigh.

  "This battle was completely unnecessary!"

  Chapter 457 Night of Intimacy

  Her head was heavy.

  When Mary finally regained consciousness, she was inside a peaceful and quiet bedroom.

  The bed was soft, and the smooth bedsheets had a familiar scent to them.

  Mary opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the brightly lit ceiling.

  This was a stone tower. Naturally, the ceiling was made of stone as well.

  It was smooth, flat, and had a gray-white color with tiny particles of metal mixed within. Its unique appearance allowed Mary to identify its material with a single look.

  It was steelrock, an ordinary stone most commonly used for constructing tall buildings.

  While steelrock was a natural ore, it had the same hardness as magical alloy. If it weren't for its lack of elementium resistance, it would have been the perfect material to construct adept's towers with.

  At this moment, the elementium light in the room cast a tall shadow onto the ceiling.

  Mary tilted her head and immediately saw a familiar back at the side of the room.

  The sky outside the tower was already filled with stars.

  Greem sat by a narrow window.

  A black adept's robe rested on his shoulders, and his long crimson hair cascaded down his back. He was silently hunched over the study table, quickly copying or writing something down.

  Mary closed her eyes to sense her condition. Her withered pool of blood energy had recovered a little, and most of her wounds had vanished. Her skin had become as smooth as before. She licked her red lips; the sweet smell of blood lingered in her mouth.

  Mary licked it carefully. She could almost taste the unique spiciness of fire energy!

  In the next second, Mary opened her blood-red eyes as she appeared behind the tall silhouette without a word. She pushed apart his long crimson hair, stared at his white, radiant neck, and let down a greedy gulp.

  His plentiful energy aura made him the perfect prey for the starving Mary. A ghostly green light shone in the depths of her crimson eyes as her instincts kicked in. Two fangs protruded from her upper jaw as if they were about to pierce the neck.

  "You are awake?" Greem remained hunched over the table, quickly writing down line after line of magical runes. He didn't turn back as he spoke, "Come, take a look. This is a set of magical tattoos I designed for you. It should be able to increase your Agility by another one or two points once it's activated."

  Greem didn't seem to have sensed Mary's abnormality, only her presence. He started to explain the benefits of these magical tattoos to her without pause. Weirdly enough, his deep and calm voice allowed Mary to break free from the restlessness of her blood as if the words had some strange magical power. She once again regained a clear mind.

  "You defeated me." Mary calmly said.

  Greem stopped his explanation and fell into absolute silence.

  He really wanted to console her, but he knew that she would construe anything he said as pity from a stronger person. Thus, Greem could only maintain his awkward silence.

  "My subordinates?" Now that Mary was past her fixation on victory, she was finally concerned about her underlings.

  Even though she hadn't drained every last bit of blood energy out of them during the battle, that kind of exhaustion was still very likely to cause their bodies to disintegrate. In particular, the old fox Vanlier had wholly reverted to his aged and elderly appearance.

  "They are not doing very well, but they are vampires you created after all. As long as we give them enough blood treats, they can recover from any injury!"

  Mary's Spirit swept through the tower and saw everything.

  Her four subordinates were lying on top of several beautiful and naked girls in a room on the second level. They sank their fangs deep into the veins of the girls' necks. These pretty girls' eyes had all rolled into their heads. Their expressions were twisted and excited as if they were indulging in absolute pleasure.

  Several withered and wrinkled corpses were piled together in the corner of the room. Their blood had been completely sucked dry by the vampires; not a drop remained in them.

  Mary withdrew her Spirit in satisfaction and once again cast her attention towards Greem.

  "Tell me, what's with your powers? What happened to the Fire Lord? Why did it turn into the wind dragon you currently have? Also, what's with that wind dragon? Why did it have the aura of might unique to the dragons?"

  Mary felt like a stranger concerning all these things about Greem after such a long time apart. She couldn't wait to understand this mysterious man once again.

  Greem slowly started to describe everything he had experienced after he had left the Knight's Plane. The quick and short clan war. The mysterious and powerful Castle in the Sky. Alice's Battle of Fate. The Fire Throne he had constructed by himself.

  "Alice gave you that dragon crystal?" Mary abruptly asked.

  After so much storytelling, Greem thought that Mary's first concern would be about the clan or Fire Throne. He didn't expect the first question to be about the dragon crystal.

  "Yes!"

  "Dammit, did that little girl foresee something! Why else would she have given you a dragon crystal that you just so needed?" A red light flashed in Mary's eyes as she ground her teeth in slight annoyance.

  "Er," Greem was a little speechless, "I don't think even the Witches of Fate are that good, are they? This is like a whole year after. How could she have seen this coming?"

  "Hmph, this had to be the case! Otherwise, there was no way I would have been hit with the dragon's aura of might and lose."

  "……"

  "Say, do you think Alice could predict the conversation we are having now?"

  "……"

  The more Mary contemplated, the more she was convinced of her train of thought. A dangerous light shone in her crimson eyes.

  She immediately grabbed Greem by the collar and pulled him to her face. Their noses were practically touching, and their eyes stared into each other.

  "Hmph! I won't let that brat get ahead of me!"

  Mary's full, red lips sealed Greem's mouth.

  The candlelight continued glowing as Mary's slim and slender shadow slowly merged with Greem's.

  An odd and intimate sound started ringing out from within the room.

  …………

  The sun was high in the sky by the time Greem woke up from his sweet dream.

  He could no longer see Mary's form on the messy bed, but her scent still lingered on the bedsheets.

  Greem had sat up too quickly. He felt intense pain on his waist as if it was almost about to break. Apart from the pain, there was also lethargy and exhaustion
there. However, when he recalled Mary's wildness from the night before, Greem immediately felt an itch in his heart. An unsuppressible impulse rushed to his head.

  Greem made himself get out of bed with much difficulty and made a quick scan of the tower. Strangely enough, he couldn't find Mary. Her subordinates on the second level had also vanished.

  However, it wasn't as if he didn't find anything with his Spirit.

  Greem stepped forward. Violent flames flashed across his naked body, and the marks from last night's entanglement immediately vanished. Greem removed a set of clothes from the rack beside him as he walked past it and came to the wooden table. Mary's handwriting was on the parchment at the very top of a pile of writing materials.

  'I'll go talk to Alice!'

  Er… What was this? Was she going to assert her dominance, or to meet with an old friend?

  An expression of helplessness appeared on Greem's face as he held the parchment in his hands.

  Mary's straightforward and passionate personality deeply attracted him, but he honestly didn't know what to do with her recklessly indulgent actions. She had always been such a maverick, insisting on what she wanted to do. Most of the time, her actions came before reason. She had gone ahead and done such an important thing without first discussing it with him. Moreover, she had made it sound like it was the right thing to do.

  That caused Greem to be somewhat annoyed, but he immediately started fantasizing.

  His relationship with Alice was both formal and informal, with a dash of intimacy involved. It was different from his candid passion with Mary. What would happen when Mary and Alice collided together? Greem didn't know, but he wanted to.

  …………

  Far away over an empty plain, Mary was flying in the air. Vanlier, Soros, and the other two knights followed behind her.

  The traffic of travelers and merchants on the gray road beneath made Vanlier extremely thirsty; He desperately wanted to dive down and feast.

  However, what occupied more of his mind was the unusual behavior of his master. He beat his wings harder and closed in on Mary's side. Vanlier asked softly, "Master, where are we going?"

  "The northernmost end of the Continent of Adepts. There, you have the lands governed by the Northern Witches." Mary didn't know why, but her mood today was excellent. She didn't reprimand Vanlier for his chattiness and patiently answered his question.

  "Why are we going there? Master, didn't you just return to the clan? Does the clan allow you to run about as you like in this manner?" Vanlier mustered up the courage to ask.

  "Hmph! I just helped them win a plane war; I have ten years of vacation after returning. From now on, I am completely free!"

  "Then why are we going to the base of the Northern Witches?"

  "Seeing a friend!" Mary suddenly shouted in irritation, "A friend that's too full of herself!"

  Mary didn't give Vanlier a chance to ask any further questions. She flapped her bat wings, and her body dashed across the skies like a lightning bolt, leaving a red beam in the air. She soon disappeared from Vanlier's sight.

  "Master. Wait for me……"

  Vanlier rolled his eyeballs and quickly understood that his master didn't want him asking any more questions about that mysterious man from earlier.

  Thus, he shut his mouth, gritted his teeth, and tried his best to chase after his master.

  Five red lines drew across the sky and flew into the distance!

  Chapter 458 Mutated Queen Bug

  Greem was silently examining a black sphere inside the stone tower.

  It was the strange object that Mary had left behind along with her note, and Greem hadn't been able to figure out what it was after half a day.

  [Beep. Deep scanning process completed. Report being produced….]

  After a moment, a stream of data surged into Greem's mind. The black sphere's internal structure displayed in front of him. Greem couldn't help but shout when he saw the familiar cross-section diagram of the biological structure, "The Carrion Beetle Queen!"

  This black sphere wasn't an item; it was a living being. Moreover, it was a strange creature that had left a deep impression on Greem– the Carrion Queen Bug!

  Acteon's original talent and potential were extremely ordinary. There was no way he would have advanced to adept. However, his luck was reasonably decent. He had succeeded in assimilating a Carrion Queen Bug when he was still an apprentice. It was this unexpected yield that allowed Acteon to break through the limits of his talent and successfully overcome the threshold of becoming an adept.

  In all honesty, Acteon was a top-tier adept even among other First Grade adepts.

  Even veteran adepts would have had to run away from him if he had managed to raise an army of carcass beetles. After all, not every adept could raise a thousand-man army like Mary. Not every adept could use that army to wear down his beetles, and not every adept could bypass the swarm of bugs to strike at him.

  Sometimes, there was no solution against an army of carcass beetles paired together with Acteon's immortal body of bugs!

  However, now that the Carrion Queen Bug had landed in Greem's hands, it wasn't hard to imagine what had happened to Evil Bugs. To think that Mary had killed Acteon on her own in the Knight's Plane without any support from himself. Just the thought of how difficult and dangerous that had been sent shivers down Greem's spine.

  Now that Mary had left the Queen Bug in his possession, she was hinting that Greem could do as he liked with it.

  Just as Greem stared at the black sphere and started releasing a murderous intent, the black sphere moved and slowly opened up.

  It wasn't actually a black sphere. It was the Queen Bug curling it's body into a ball. The exposed black layer was only the Queen Bug's tough shell!

  Perhaps because it sensed Greem's murderous intent, or maybe it knew it could no longer hide, the Queen Bug had opened up on its own. It once again turned into a black beetle.

  It was a peculiar lifeform with a thick black shell. It had a pair of large rainbow-colored eyes on its head. Multiple, smaller compound eyes surrounded those two eyes. A lotus-like mouthpart was at the front of its head, and one could see the pair of knife-shaped jaws on the front.

  A dark black shell that gleamed with a particular brilliance was at the beetle's back. The chip's scans indicated that the shell was as tough as magical alloy. This kind of toughness was enough to endure a full-strength blow from a berserk swordsman. In fact, the swordsman wouldn't even be able to leave a scratch. Only blunt weapons could cause enough impact damage to the soft organs under the shell.

  Even though the beetle had multiple blade-like limbs on each side, it's tiny size probably made it hard for it to defend itself.

  While Greem silently assessed this strange Queen Bug, it raised its head and let out a sharp screech at Greem.

  [Beep. Detecting foreign lifeform requesting mental connection. Requesting instructions from host. Connect?]

  "Connect!"

  Greem's mind filled with innumerable noisy and foreign bug screeches.

  The tone and pitch of the screeches slowly morphed and adjusted until a clear stream of consciousness finally made soft contact with Greem's mind. A set of slightly incomprehensible mental projections were transmitted.

  "Protect……contract……live……"

  The Queen Bug wasn't human. Consequently, the way she thought and communicated was remarkably different from how a human would. Still, both parties were able to communicate via the use of keywords.

  "You want to obtain my protection by exchanging contracts?" Greem could only guess at the Queen Bug's meaning through the Chip's 'translation' of specific keywords.

  The Queen Bug nodded.

  "It's unfortunate. I really care about my human bloodline. I won't try and assimilate some strange foreign bloodline." A sense of disgust rose in Greem's heart when he recalled Acteon's ugly appearance.

  The Queen Bug's lotus-like mouthpart started moving even more rapidly as if Greem's no
nchalant attitude had terrified her. Her screeching voice was complete pollution of noise. Although the Queen Bug continued to screech without stop, Greem only heard three words through the Chip. Understand. Powerful. Obey.

  "I only keep servants useful to me. Ones like you…" Greem tapped the table lightly, looking at the Queen Bug in dissatisfaction.

  Adolescent carcass beetles or carrion beetles were adept-level magical creatures that lived in groups. Their shells were sturdy and durable. More importantly, they were capable of flight. With some slight modifications, they would be decent magical servants. However, their greatest weakness was their slow flight speed, along with their severe lack of long-ranged attacks.

  That caused them and their large numbers to be useless in a fight. It was easy for an awkward situation to arise, where the enemies couldn't beat them, but they also couldn't catch up to the enemy.

  The Queen Bug started shrieking even more frantically, like she was desperate to sell herself.

  Greem listened carefully for a while. He then closed his eyes and contemplated. Finally, he spoke.

  "I don't desire the kind of inferior immortal body of bugs that Acteon had. That is why I will never consider assimilating with you. However, I can refer you to a few other candidates. If you can assimilate with one of my subordinates, then I can allow you to continue living. Otherwise, I would have to wipe away the last marks left behind by Acteon on this world."

  The Queen Bug screeched and wailed for a long time before ultimately lowering her head in helplessness.

  "Since you've agreed, you should open up the defenses of your soul. I'll leave a soul contract with you." Greem struck while the iron was hot and tried to settle this potential aide in the shortest time possible.

  The Queen Bug might have been an intelligent lifeform, but she had no choice but to do as commanded in this situation. She cowered on the table and slowly opened up the defenses of her soul.

  Under the Chip's control, Greem's Spirit pierced into the core of the Queen Bug's consciousness like a hot needle. Greem's soul brand was left in there.