A large group of magical machines and goblin chariots swarmed out of various spots under his command. They were to stop the adepts in the tunnels before they could make it too far away. Even more magical machines marched into the underground hall and started clearing up the remnants of the dragonborn squad.
Less than ten dragonborn scouts remained after that brutal battle.
The severely wounded Second Grade Dragonborn Zacha could only lead his remaining seven dragonborn scouts in a difficult retreat. They fought as they slowly stumbled backward and attempted to return to the planar hall to regroup with their master.
Sadly, while the magical machines were mostly delaying the enemies in the other two battlefields, Gazlowe commanded the machines to commit to bloody and savage extermination when it came to Zacha and his soldiers. All the remaining dragonborn scouts fell to the endless horde of magical machines in less than fifteen minutes. Dragonborn Zacha was also completely exhausted. He couldn't possibly escape from the surrounding of the magical machines now.
"Save him!"
Endor was protecting Alice as they moved in the group. However, Alice suddenly opened her eyes and gravely spoke to Greem when Zacha had fallen into a situation of certain death.
There wasn't time to explain anything in such an emergency. Greem immediately cast Fire Teleportation several times in a row without any hesitation whatsoever. He dove right into the fearsome battlefield filled with magical machines.
Dragonborn Zacha was indeed a powerful individual as a Second Grade himself. If it weren't for the exhaustion from his battle with Greem, and the delayed recovery caused by the Goblin Plane's environment, he would never have fallen into such an awkward position.
The magical machines might be able to trap the Dragonborn, but they couldn't stop the agile and mobile Greem.
Greem engulfed the battlefield with a Meteor Shower the moment he stepped foot inside. He successfully reached Zacha while the magical machine army was thrown into disarray.
"If you trust me, then do not resist," Greem gravely said as he fired a chain of fireballs to knock the magical machines away, "I can bring you out of here!"
Zacha gripped the electric spear in his hand tightly. He cautiously assessed this terrifying fire adept who was engulfed in a blaze of flames. He couldn't figure out what the adept's intentions were.
After all, they had only just been clawing at each other's throat. Now, the enemy was coming over in a friendly display of help? That... was confusing Zacha, whose brain capacity had a limit.
"You are an invader. I am an invader. Now, it seems both of us invaders have been tricked and toyed with by that bloody Gazlowe," Greem coldly said, "I will never allow such a formerly lowly creature to do as they will, not upon my dignity as an adept. So…"
Who knows which of Greem's words was the one that moved Zacha, but the dragonborn immediately tightened his grip on the electric spear. The muscles on his right hand bulged, and his veins could be clearly seen. A thunderous roar erupted from his mouth as he stood up on his hooves. Suddenly, a dense lightning power radiated from his body.
Greem's heart trembled slightly.
The Second Grade Dragonborn was almost at his limits, but even a faltering tiger was still an intimidating one. If Zacha tried to attack him with all he had, Greem would not escape unscathed, even with all the defenses he possessed.
He was an elementium adept after all, not a body-refining adept or a bloodline adept that fought with their physical bodies.
While Greem was frowning, Zacha's ferocious attack that had been building for a while finally descended upon the hall.
Suddenly, the entire battlefield was covered in blinding, brilliant clusters of terrifying lightning!
Chapter 538 Adept and Dragon
Thunderclouds rumbled as lightning flashed.
Second Grade Dragonborn Zacha was a soldier that mostly engaged in close combat, but the lightning power that he amassed with all his strength still reached a level that moved Greem.
Two hundred and eighty-three points!
That was a shocking number.
An attack of this level could allow Zacha to instantly kill any individual weaker than himself within a radius of a hundred meters. That mostly referred to any being of First Grade and below. Even Greem could be severely wounded if his defensive spells weren't all prepared.
As the rumbling lightning spread outwards, all of the magical machines collapsed to the ground. Bright arcs of electricity still crackled over their metal bodies. The powerful lightning blast had destroyed the control modules and energy circulation system within their bodies, resulting in multiple smaller explosions on the battlefield.
All the magical machines in view exploded into scattered bits of metal and robotic components. Only the machines at the edge of the lightning storm were barely able to stay in one piece. However, even they had lost their ability to fight.
Seventy-eight combat magical machines.
A full power attack from Second Grade Dragonborn Zacha had destroyed seventy-eight magical machines. That was a result that he could already be proud of.
However, all of Zacha's energy was exhausted after the attack. His muscular hooves could no longer support his massive body, and he slowly started to fall as he leaned against his electric spear.
Even a Second Grade like himself couldn't support such a brutal and reckless blow.
Far away at the entrance of the tunnels, a new wave of magical machines was charging toward Greem and Zacha, stepping upon the debris of the destroyed machines as they did so. They had yet to arrive in front of Zacha, but their violent barrage of bullets had already engulfed the Dragonborn.
The complete exhaustion of his lightning powers and the inability to rapidly absorb new lightning elementium from the air caused Zacha's blue scales to lose their luster. His scales were now dull and lightless.
Consequently, his defensive abilities also degraded. He was a genuine Second Grade dragonborn, yet grunted from being hit by ordinary metal bullets.
The Thunderstrike from earlier had clearly avoided the area Greem was in. Even though the wildly crackling tide of lightning had destroyed one of Greem's Fire Shields, he'd only had to endure a portion of the lightning aftershock. He was not hurt at all.
Greem took a few steps forward and stood by Zacha's side. He bent over and placed his bright burning hand upon the Dragonborn. A mysterious scene occurred!
The brilliant flames slowly started to spread from Greem's magma hand and extended toward every part of Zacha's body. Dragonborn Zacha's four odd eyes of two different sizes opened wide in surprise. The bright red flames were burning on his body, but strangely enough, he couldn't feel any pain from the fire at all.
It was almost as if…as if those flames didn't have any temperature!
However, his sharp instincts as a Second Grade dragonborn told him that these flames did have heat. It was only that the powerful human fire adept seemed to be temporarily allowing him to possess a strange state of immunity against fire through contact. This way, elementium fires of any strength would not be able to damage him!
The visible burning of the fire looked extremely slow, but in truth, the entire process took less than three seconds to complete.
The Fire Shields and Lava Shields around Greem also hovered over and helped Zacha block the barrage of bullets and goblin rockets. As the bright flames completely engulfed Zacha, a brilliant red light erupted in his vision. He immediately felt as if he had been thrown into a sea of fire. His sense of space had fallen into complete chaos.
However, this flash of red light departed as fast as it had come!
When the red light quickly faded away, Zacha was shocked to find himself moved from his original position. He had been teleported into the group of adepts along with the fire adept.
He could see that speechlessly savage and violent witch at the perimeter, beating on the magical machines with her thick wooden club. Every swing of her club would cause a dent in a magical ma
chine's head, and sometimes even destroy the machine. Only metal components and alloy shards remained on the floor.
Disregarding everything else, this berserk witch was a terrifying existence when it came to pure strength, even if thrown into the midst of First Grade Dragonborn. Even Second Grade Zacha would not be able to crush her in a matter of two to three seconds.
The other side of the adepts' perimeter was being held up by Bug Adept Billis' swarm.
A dozen sting scorpions the size of mastiffs roamed the battlefield, occasionally letting out earth spikes at the magical machine. These sudden spikes would probably have impaled ordinary creatures. In fact, it was possible that they were simply lifted into the air from all the earth spikes.
However, the heavy machines were entirely composed of tough, hard metal. There was no apparent weak spot anywhere on their bodies. As such, the earth spikes of the sting scorpions couldn't deal much direct physical damage to them.
However, these sting scorpions were displaying power beyond their own grade under the command of Billis. If one earth spike wasn't enough, then he would use two, or ten.
Focused fire from thirteen sting scorpions was enough to deal severe earth damage to all magical machines in a ten-meter radius. As the damaged magical machines struggled to escape from the forest of earth spikes, these sting scorpions would burrow and appear beneath them.
Then the sting scorpions would bite and tear at the bodies of the machines in a mad frenzy.
Once visible cracks started to appear in their bodies, the sting scorpions would dive inside. A magical machine would then collapse in a crackling explosion, wholly crippled and incapable of movement.
The ones fighting at the frontline were always these sting scorpions. Bug Adept Billis was hiding inside the defensive line formed by the sting scorpions, casually picking off the stray machine that had made it past.
However, the sting scorpions were still somewhat weak individually when compared to the magical machines. Their shells were also not as durable as the machines. As a result, all thirteen of them suffered wounds and injuries of various degrees after a long period of fighting. Their pungent purple blood had spilled everywhere.
Still, this didn't make them any less reckless when they rushed at the next magical machine in the line!
Mary and Endor had a much more comfortable time behind the lines with these two meat shields in front of them. They stayed by Alice's side and guarded her while using powerful long-ranged spells to attack the magical machines.
As a vampire adept, Mary was an agility-type assassin. Her expertise was not frontal attacks.
That was why she had no choice but stay inside the perimeter and fire arrows with her crimson bow, despite her normally assertive personality. She couldn't do much against this endless horde of enemies.
It was the same for Poison Witch Endor.
Her poison techniques and spells were utterly useless against a bunch of remote-controlled machines with no flesh or blood to speak of. She no longer had the same might that she had displayed when she instantly murdered a hundred goblin mechanics on the day she entered the Goblin Plane.
However, Endor also knew pretty decent and sinister spells apart from deadly plagues and poisons. Even the magical machines were not immune to her vast acid swamps and the corrosive arrows that she fired.
Moreover, all of her attacks focused on the lower half of the magical machines. All the machines that had their legs corroded by acid would become stumbling blocks for the others. It delayed the speed at which the machine army pressed toward the adepts.
In conclusion, the spells of the adepts were extremely varied. They could come up with entirely different plans of action in response to different situations.
The discipline and obedience of the adepts might be extremely lacking, but they made up for it by having adaptability that surpassed that of Zacha's dragonborn squad by several times.
That was also why the adepts had managed to hang on for so long despite having fewer numbers compared to the dragonborn scouts. Their chances of survival were also much higher.
As expected of a fierce and mighty Second Grade dragonborn, Zacha managed to recover in less than thirty seconds. He could now stand up and join the battle once more.
The perimeter of the adepts became even more stable and more difficult to break with Zacha's addition!
At this moment in the battle, the number of broken machines piling up outside the perimeter had reached a total of two hundred. It had gone far beyond Gazlowe's psychological bottom line.
If all of his magical machine reserves were exhausted, he would have to retreat. That was the case even if he was a Third Grade monster facing off against a ragtag group of First Grade adepts led by two Second Grade beings.
After all, who was it that made his reincarnated body that of a giant brain that only had the means to protect itself? It didn't have the unique combat techniques and abilities that normal Third Grade monsters should possess.
As the adepts gave their all to repel the attack of the machines, a thunderous roar echoed from a tunnel nearby.
The next moment, a dozen magical machines guarding the tunnel were blown away by a massive force. They flew across the sky like petals in spring. The four directly hit machines disintegrated in midair.
Shattered magical machine parts flew everywhere like a downpour of rain!
A powerful dragon seventeen meters long and covered with fine blue scales emerged from the tunnel as the magical machine army was thrown into disarray. He took to the skies and caught up with the machines in the air before using his fangs and slender tail to smash them to pieces.
The adepts present on the battlefield couldn't help but be mesmerized at the sight of the dragon's majestic movements in combat. Their hearts shrunk at the same moment.
A Third Grade Dragon!
And to make matters worse, a fearsome Thunder Dragon– dragons that were known even amongst the entire species!
The few adepts belonging to Greem's faction couldn't help but gather closer together. They got into formation and resisted that terrifying dragon's aura of might that pressed against them.
Chapter 539 Might of a Dragon
As natural rulers among magical creatures, the dragons were born with a unique and inviolable aura of might!
The first impression the Thunder Dragon gave to the adepts upon entering was an extremely invasive pressure.
Even the fearless Mary felt it harder to breath when standing near a dragon like this. After all, the dragon was a superior being higher up on the food chain. The vast mental aura of might and intimidation was not something that a puny vampire could endure.
Zacha, on the other hand, was a direct subordinate of this Third Grade thunder dragon; the dragon's blessing of faith protected him. He was holding himself together much better in the face of the dragon's aura of might compared to the adepts.
Dragonborn Zacha immediately bowed when the Thunder Dragon appeared. His two scaled front limbs bent as he kneeled on the ground and paid his most sincere respects to his master.
The other adepts gathered behind Zacha, their pale faces looking at this fearsome dragon shrouded in arcs of electricity. For a moment, none of them knew how to respond.
Some adepts had already secretly made preparations to escape at any time.
After all, they only had a loose companionship with Greem. They weren't bound with intimate contracts or anything of the sort. They didn't mind contributing their strength to Greem's cause when their goals aligned. However, no adept would sacrifice themselves like a loyal knight or warrior in the face of a hopeless battle.
Instead, they would scatter and fight for themselves! That was the response most appropriate to the nature of the adepts!
Even Greem had to retract the energy flux he radiated when faced with a tyrannical Third Grade being of a top-tier species. He withdrew his Ring of Fire back into his body and bowed slightly to pay his respects to the Thunder Dragon.
The
proud and mighty Thunder Dragon reared on his hind legs as he tore the remaining magical machines to pieces with his sharp teeth and claws. The dragon let out a loud and resounding roar as it beat its wings and cocked its head. It was only then that he landed on all fours. The Thunder Dragon strode toward Zacha with firm and steady steps.
"What's happened, Zacha? Where is your dragonborn scout squad? Who are these people? Why do I smell a repulsive magical aura on them?" Thunder Dragon Arms asked way too many questions at once the second he met with his subordinate.
He even lowered his body and sniffed Greem with his massive snout. He then let out a resounding sneeze. His huge amber eyes radiated a visible light that quickly scanned all of the people present.
True Sight!
That was an innate ability of higher-grade dragons. They could see through all illusions and deceptions of low-grade creatures and directly view the soul origin of these creatures.
That was why it was extremely, extremely difficult to cheat a dragon!
A lot of the stories spread throughout many planes about tricking dragons and fooling them were referring to unintelligent mixed-blood dragons or inexperienced whelps. Those self-proclaimed charismatic bards would probably be unable to utter even a single word if they were faced with a true adolescent dragon and its terrifying aura of might, not to mention being clever enough to lie and trick a thousand-year-old monster like that.
"Adepts. You are adepts!" Thunder Dragon Arms didn't need any introduction. He saw the soul origins of all the adepts with a mere glance thanks to his True Sight.
The adepts were powerful creatures that had long been infamous in the multiverse. They were almost as well-known as the dragons.
If the dragons were individually mighty lions and tigers, the adepts would be sly, sinister, and evil wolves. They wandered the space beyond their realm in groups, invading lower planes everywhere. Countless conflicts and battles had erupted between them and the dragons in many different places.
As the natural rulers of all magical creatures, the dragons were walking treasure chests. Their scales, blood, tendons, marrow, bones, dragon crystals, skin, claws. Absolutely everything on the body of a dragon was a treasure of extreme collection value to an adept.
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