Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  It was a fearsome battle that pitched one against a thousand. It was also a textbook example of brutal slaughter.

  These magical machines that had just walked off the conveyor belt all possessed the strength of a First Grade creature. When they grouped up and formed a complete system of combat, they were capable of displaying surprising power.

  There were no chaotic attacks or charges. There was no disorderly stampede and stepping out of line. All the magical machines were lined up into a regular army. They formed arrays based on their attack patterns and launched a relentless tide of offense against Thunder Dragon Arms.

  The ones charging at the very front were naturally the specially modified meat shields– the Chain Hands.

  They were a group of magical machines with reinforced metal plates and all of their ranged weapons removed. The only weapons they had were the grappling chain hooks fixed onto their thick cylindrical arms.

  They braved the thunder dragon's lightning storm and charged to his side.

  Though one-third of the Chain Hand machines fell during the assault, the rest successfully reached the thunder dragon.

  They formed a loose circle and raised their arms. A loud pop came from their arms as their big metal hands linked with fine metal chains launched towards the body of the dragon.

  While most of these hands bounced off of the scales of the dragon, some of them succeeded in catching the spikes on his back or some other parts of his body.

  These Chain Hands began frantically retracting their chains the moment they established a grip. They were struggling to drag the thunder dragon toward the ground.

  The other Chain Hands that had failed also retracted their chains and prepared for the next shot.

  It was through such crude and direct methods that Gazlowe kept Arms bound to the spot with only eighty machines. The Thunder Dragon couldn't push any further forward.

  The machines that had been specially modified with flamethrowers took this opportunity to step forward and attack. Several red pillars of fire crossed a distance of twenty meters and blasted against Thunder Dragon Arms' body.

  Even further away, the magical machines outfitted with several Goblin Shredders were slowly advancing. As they marched forward, a barrage of bullets fired from eight black gun barrels reaching out of their bodies. The flood of bullets clinked against the scales of the blue dragon before falling to the ground around the beast like a rain of metal.

  Some spider-type machines also clung to the walls and shot goblin rockets at the thunder dragon.

  Sadly, the suppression of the dragon by the machines was only an illusion!

  Once all of their means of attacks had been revealed, Arms unleashed a resounding roar, and a violent storm of lightning engulfed the entire battlefield.

  Intense powers of lightning ravaged the hall. Plasma even appeared in places with the most concentrated lightning. Beautiful blue arcs of electricity crackled between machines if they were even a little bit too close to each other.

  The machines closest to the Thunder Dragon himself couldn't defend against such fearsome and pervasive lightning, regardless of how tough their metal plates were or how many layers of magic resistant material they had painted on them. Moreover, most of the metal materials they were composed of were excellent conductors of electricity. That made it harder for the machines to endure the damage from the lightning storm.

  All machines within a thirty-meter radius silently collapsed. Only half of the machines in the fifty to hundred meter radius survived. On the other hand, most of the magical machines that were a hundred meters away were still fully-functional and at full combat capacity. Only a select few machines were unfortunate enough to have been struck down.

  Thus, a new wave of machines stepped upon their companion's remains and surrounded Thunder Dragon Arms once more. And once more, a violent lightning storm engulfed the battlefield!

  An energy explosion of this size could be utilized five more times with a Third Grade thunder dragon's energy reserves. However, Arms stopped after three such eruptions of power. He was in the Goblin Plane after all, where it was hard to recover magic.

  The rest of his lightning powers were required to defend himself; he couldn't afford to use his lightning powers in such an extravagant manner anymore. At any rate, the Thunder Dragon still had his muscular body and overwhelming strength, even without his destructive lightning powers.

  Thus, Arms folded his wings and dove down to the ground, engaging the machines in close combat.

  It didn't matter whether it was the sharp claws or fearsome fangs, the ferocious tackles, wing sweeps, tail swipes, or the dragon breaths. Any of the techniques that the Thunder Dragon used would cause tremendous damage to the magical machines.

  The intelligent assistance module and control modules inside the chests of the machines were destroyed with lightning under the Thunder Dragon's voluntary control. These machines turned into lumps of metal that had lost their soul.

  The Thunder Dragon committed a massacre in the midst of these magical machines, wrecking these frail constructs with various means of attack. However, it wasn't as if these machines were harmless rabbits. They used their durable bodies and frightening weapons of war, always managing to tear off a small scale from Arm's muscular body with each of their attacks.

  Even Arms started panting from exhaustion once these tiny wounds accumulated.

  However, at this moment, Second Grade Zaca led the eleven dragonborn warriors into the underground hall.

  Arms finally had a sliver of a chance to recover from his wounds with these subordinates as a shield.

  Destroying this endless horde of magical machines was only a matter of space and time with his power.

  Yet , at the moment where the battle had reached its peak intensity, both Third Grade creatures stopped all of their actions. They couldn't help but turn to look at the towering space furnace.

  Even they didn't dare to extend their mental consciousness into the space furnace with all the chaotic magic energy roiling within. However, for a moment back there, they seemed to have very vaguely sensed a strange explosion of energy inside the space furnace unlike the others before.

  This isn't good. The space furnace is about to go out of control.

  …………

  Greem pressed Alice against his chest as he quickly traveled through the flood of magic energy.

  The chaotic and disorderly magic energy was eroding the elementium flames that shrouded them with every passing second. Both of them would probably have been riddled with holes and turned into chaotic particles with no consciousness to speak of if Greem hadn't maintained a thin yet resilient layer of an energy barrier around them.

  Only Greem could have covered such a far distance and closed in on the space furnace while protecting another person. He was not just a Second Grade adept. He also possessed the support of endless energy from his Heart of Flames.

  When he sensed the spatial blackhole rumbling in the center of the space furnace, he immediately gritted his teeth and projected the last surge of fire energy in his body toward the black hole.

  Alice immediately wrapped her arms and legs around him when Greem's energy was exhausted. A profound and subtle surge of spatial energy enveloped the two of them.

  A silver flash of light appeared in the space furnace, and they disappeared from the spot.

  At the same time, the black hole inside the space furnace let out a belch, as if it had swallowed something it couldn't digest. The space inside the furnace started to turn chaotic and violent, even more than before.

  The energy in the space furnace might have always been in a chaotic state, but there was an order to that chaos.

  Total Chaos only existed within a ten-meter radius around the black hole. The strong spatial energies would suddenly become a great deal 'gentler' once they had made it past this area. Once the energy had left the core area and arrived at the edge of the space furnace, the initially violent space energy would have turned i
nto the less intense magic energy.

  Magic energy was still too chaotic and violent for magical creatures or adepts to absorb. However, it was the most suitable source of energy for the magical machines, which had no affinity to any specific element.

  At this moment, the space furnace's internal system of energy circulation had been severely damaged when a foreign elementium energy was introduced to the black hole.

  The space energy that had gone out of control rushed out of the core and crashed against the metal walls of the space furnace. The metal walls were sheared off, little by little.

  As the destructive space energies thrashed about in the furnace and repeatedly crashed against the metal interior of the furnace, a terrifying disaster descended upon the Steel Capital.

  Gazlowe, who had assimilated over ninety percent of the space furnace, became the first victim!

  The out-of-control space energy ravaged the space furnace. However, this felt as if someone was stabbing Gazlowe's brain with a knife and wickedly twisting the embedded blade.

  Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms also sensed something wrong with the situation. He immediately unfurled his wings and roared. He turned into a flash of lightning that bolted into the tunnels without even caring for the lives of his servants. He might not know what was in the furnace, but that didn't stop him from sensing the impending danger.

  That feeling of death was so clear in his mind that he was almost incapable of telling the difference between reality and illusion.

  Their master had suddenly run despite the fight leaning in their favor.

  Dragonborn Zacha might not have the same sense for danger as a Third Grade thunder dragon, but he had still sensed peril descending upon them. He also turned and ran without hesitation. He strode with all four of his muscular limbs, rapidly chasing after his master and heading away from the underground hall.

  An earthshaking rumble rang out from behind them not long after they started running.

  Then, a pulsing surge of spatial energy that struck fear into everyone's hearts spread out from the underground hall. It poured into the labyrinth of tunnels like a flood of energy.

  The entire Steel Capital was quaking at this moment!

  Chapter 542 Explosion Aftermath

  A flock of black shadows rapidly moved down a snowy mountain range.

  One of the members of the group suddenly stopped after they had made it beyond one of the shorter mountains. She shouted excitedly.

  "Something's happened!"

  A silvery gray metal ball was flashing in her old and wrinkled right hand.

  "Protect!"

  One of the larger silhouettes took off her black cloak, revealing Sofia's thick and muscular body beneath. She held a thick, black wooden staff in her hand and stood by Endor like an evil god of calamity.

  Mary unfurled her large bat wings and hovered in the air, quickly taking everything around them into view. Bug Adept Billis tossed Tigule away and allowed the goblin to drop headfirst into half a meter of snow. Billis turned into a buzzing cluster of black mist and circled Sofia and Endor.

  The thirteen sting scorpions started roaming about underground, looking out for potential enemies.

  While the adepts were making their preparations, the metal started glowing intensely. A stinging red light was mixed with the brilliant white, making it hard for any of them to stare directly at the ball.

  Spatial flux rippled in the air, and two adepts emerged from nowhere in each other's embrace, one male and one female. A tide of energy so massive that it was indescribable had also transported through at the same moment they appeared.

  Boom!

  A terrifying explosion. Everyone around Endor was blown away by the explosion's shockwaves. Bug Adept Billis was caught off-guard, and he was thrown over a hundred meters away, crashing into the snow.

  As the adepts got up from the ground to ask how the plan had gone, an even louder and more fearsome explosion echoed throughout the world.

  It felt as if the sky was collapsing, the earth was splitting, and everything was flipping over!

  This world was about to be destroyed.

  Similar thoughts arose in the minds of every adept.

  Pillars of smoke and dirt suddenly rose from the towering Steel Capital ten kilometers away from them. The violent spatial energy seeped into every corner of the Steel Capital and every inch of space. It clashed severely with the planar laws there, both of them wildly neutralizing each other.

  The clash between the space energy and the planar laws directly affected the structures on the surface of the Steel Capital. Even the main body of the city, hidden within the belly of the mountain, was caught in the destruction.

  The struggle between the two energies occurred almost simultaneously in every corner of the Steel Capital. The chain of explosions caused the mountain itself to tremble, shake, and fall apart.

  Large boulders tumbled down the slopes as mountain peaks crumbled and fell.

  The towering statues of goblin predecessors that stood in front of the gates of the Steel Capital weren't much different from the collapsing world around them. They too shattered and fell, sending massive stone blocks rolling down the mountain.

  The hundreds of thousands of goblins living inside the Steel Capital had all been slaughtered during the preceding immortality ritual. Thus, they no longer needed to endure another painful death in this disaster.

  As such, there were no pained cries and tragic howls of weaklings in this apocalyptic explosion!

  The vast stretch of mountains that extended for several dozen kilometers seemed to have its inner structure taken out from beneath it. It started to collapse to the ground. The scattering dust and snow couldn't even make it to the skies. They were broken down into unrecognizably tiny particles by the intense spatial energy from the mountain's core.

  Then another massive explosion sent all these radioactive particles spreading out in every direction through sheer kinetic force.

  For a moment, the entire sky turned crimson as blood.

  Mixed within this strange light were tens of thousands of unknown belts of light that cut the horizon into pieces.

  The Steel Capital was now history. The once tall and majestic metal structures had sunken into the belly of the mountain as the mountains themselves collapsed. When the thousand meter cliffs slowly fell to the ground, layer by layer, the last traces of the Capital were buried in the thick pile of rubble and dirt. It was a massive pile of destruction that stood a hundred meters tall.

  All the snow on the mountain had already been turned into vapor by the savage energies. In fact, the humidity in the air was so high that it started raining in some areas around the collapsed mountains.

  The adepts were still within the radius of the energy explosion when it happened. They instantly used their best abilities to escape outward.

  Greem had exhausted all of his energy in the underground. It was only thanks to Mary that he was able to fly across the canopy of the forest. Alice had also been shaken unconscious by the shockwaves. She leaned limply upon Endor as they flew across the sky on a broom. Berserk Witch Sofia was sprinting on the ground barefoot. Surprisingly, she was no slower than the rest of the adepts in the air when she ran at full speed.

  Tigule had no such ability. He could only be transported through the ground with Bug Adept Billis wrapping around him in mist form. However, the black mist had to emerge from the ground every thirty seconds to give Tigule a chance to breathe.

  Otherwise, Tigule would have already suffocated during the fifty-kilometer trip.

  The mountain continued to collapse as they ran.

  They had personally witnessed a towering mountain crumble into a bottomless abyss behind them. A gigantic pillar of dust chased after the adepts like a tsunami from the ocean, bringing with it tons of debris and dirt.

  That terrifying tide of energy only exhausted itself after fifty kilometers, and its speed finally started to slow down.

  The adepts took the ch
ance to find an unoccupied mountain to rest on. They silently watched the gray tide devour the earth and forest beneath them and continue surging forward.

  In the blink of an eye, the mountain that they were on had become an isolated island in the midst of a gray sea. A thick layer of energy dust had engulfed everything around them.

  It was no ordinary dust. It was energy dust that formed from the combination of space energy and the material substance of this plane. It possessed fearsome radiation, and ordinary creatures would die to the intense radiation when exposed to the dust, even if they hadn't suffocated in the first tide of destruction.

  No living creature could still exist within this land of gray dust that stretched as far as they could see. It didn't matter whether it was the powerful jungle predators or some fearsome flying hunters; none of them could escape from the damage of energy radiation.

  Several birds that had escaped from the nearby mountains were flying in the distant skies, tragically crying as they did so.

  Sadly, there was gray dust all beneath them. They couldn't afford to come into the slightest contact with this stuff.

  Some of the birds with weaker Physiques could no longer hang on after a short flight. They started to fly lower and lower. When their bodies finally touched that layer of radioactive dust that hovered in the air, they let out a bloodcurdling cry.

  The fearsome radiation caused their flesh to wither and their bones to melt. Their previously beautiful feathers lost their color at a visible rate. Sloughs of fat and skin fell from their body as if they were being shed off. The red muscles and organs within were exposed.

  The birds that had been caught by the radiation could no longer struggle.

  They drifted lower and lower, eventually crashing into the gray sea, tragically crying as they sank until everything fell silent.

  The adepts couldn't help but betray solemn expressions when they saw this happen.

  The outside was already this bad. The radiation in the core area of the explosion would only be stronger and even more terrifying!

  This massive explosion at the Steel Capital had probably significantly affected the entire Goblin Plane.