Age of Adepts c1-1513
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The magical machines stopped firing, and metal parts and pieces exploded like fireworks.
Chapter 829 - Beast God Temple
The orc berserker was slaughtering in a frenzy.
His mouth widened to reveal a wicked and contorted smile, not unlike that of a beast. The arms waving his axes had become much thicker, and his swelling muscles continued to squirm as the thick blood vessels beneath the skin twisted and turned.
A brutal yet explosive power started to surge wildly through his body with the blessing of some divine power. His mind was quickly washed of all rationality. He only wished to slaughter his way into the crowd and destroy everything that he did not like.
The silhouette of an orc raising a warhammer and shouting at the sky could be seen on the orc berserker’s now enlarged back. It was just like the image on the tribal flag.
The already ferocious orc warrior became even more unstoppable after obtaining the blessing of divine power!
His bare feet thudded against the ground with every step, leaving cracks and craters in the earth. The axes in his hands moved with every step. Not a single magical machine could endure the attacks of the Third Grade orc berserker and the terrifying slicing ability of those odd ripples.
In all honesty, the ripples the orc berserker was sending out weren’t a strange magical ability. It wasn’t a knight battle technique created with the combination of life energy either. Instead, it was pure, violent strength!
The orc berserker’s Strength was now at thirty-seven points. That was already a great and unstoppable level of Strength. At the very least, Strength of equal level could hardly be found within the plane.
As such, with every wave of his axes, the orc’s violent power would wildly press against the air at the blade of the axes. The air would then be compressed into visible ripples before spreading outward toward the enemy. This way, the orc berserker managed to create an alternate form of long-ranged attack using his superior Herculean strength, despite having no such long-ranged abilities of his own.
These ripples might not be able to reach far, but they were unstoppable, violent, and easy to use within two to three dozen meters!
He pushed forward, wreaking destruction and havoc wherever he went!
The First Archers were like matchstick men before the Third Grade orc berserker. They were blown to bits with the slight contact. They couldn’t even delay his advance, let alone stop it.
In the past, the First Grade magical machines had always been the ones to crush the enemy with their powerful strength and indestructible bodies. Today, they had become the ones being crushed by the orc berserker.
The entire battlefield was brutal and terrible!
The orc berserker might be in a frenzied and irrational state, but he still knew that his greatest enemy right now was the human adept in red robes, with red hair and black eyes. As such, even as he slaughtered the enemies around him, his body, enlarged to the point of contortion, continued to charge toward Greem.
A hundred meters was no more than seven or eight seconds to a Third Grade orc berserker.
In a single instant, he cut his way through the formation of Archers and arrived in front of Greem.
Seventeen magical machines lay down behind him, either split apart from the waist, shoulder, or even crushed to pieces. Not a single one of them remained intact.
A series of explosions rang out!
Ugh!
An axe whistled through the air and shot toward Greem, carrying with it four waves of air ripples, one horizontal and three vertical.
An attack of this level couldn’t be defended against with magical defenses.
That was the main reason why most spellcasters did not enjoy engaging fighters in close combat!
Most of the spells that spellcasters used were only a result of concentrating elementium power. That was the case even for single-target spells. When the spell hit the target and exploded, it was still considered a divergent and scattered force.
However, all fighting professions were capable of condensing their strength again and again. Even when they lashed out with their attacks, the power would not be scattered, and all the force would be gathered at a single point. This skill gave fighters the unique ability to penetrate and break through defenses far more effectively than spellcasters!
As a Second Grade adept, Greem’s magma shields might be able to endure two to three magical attacks from an adept of the same grade. However, they could not block a close-range strike of a fighter of the same grade.
When faced with the reckless strike of a Third Grade orc berserker, he teleported away without any hesitation.
Boom! A fiery explosion rang out.
As the halo of fire erupted, Greem’s towering body appeared in an empty spot a hundred meters away.
Mary let out a battlecry and turned into a crimson shadow, fast as a phantom, and engaged the orc berserker.
It was an ‘engagement,’ but in truth, the orc berserker was the only one attacking wildly; Mary was putting her all into dodging.
After increasing her power to advanced Second Grade and experiencing repeated run-ins with powerful enemies, Mary had already accumulated some strategies and techniques to deal with high-grade enemies.
The orc berserker in front of her might have thirty-seven points of Strength, but his Agility was no more than eighteen points. Such attributes might allow the orc to decimate First Grade creatures, but his wild attacks could not catch up to Mary’s agile form, with her twenty-seven points of Agility.
However, Mary had also tried countless times to strike with her corrosive blood claws as she circled the orc. She had no way of penetrating that invisible life forcefield around him.
In high-magic worlds, invisible forces such as Spirit and life could also form a terrifying force when they reached a certain degree of density. In particular, when life energy was significant enough to distort space and magnetic fields, an invisible life forcefield would be formed.
Mary could rely on her high Agility to avoid the orc’s clumsy and violent attacks while she was outside of the forcefield. However, if she were to enter within range of the orc’s life forcefield, any moment of hesitation or mistake could spell disaster for her.
With the offensive power of this Third Grade orc berserker, a single hit landed on Mary would crush her to bits and pieces. An attack like that might not be able to kill her instantly, but she was not willing to taste such horrifying pain!
The battle between Mary and the orc berserker thrust the battlefield into chaos.
All the Crimson adepts and magical machines had to dodge the violent air ripples that were flying all over the place!
One hundred meters away, Greem roared as three six-meter-tall Flame Fiends of Terror rose from the ground, once again becoming the focus of all combatants.
“Kill.”
Greem let out a deep roar and gave his order. The army of Archers and Shield Defenders charged forward from every direction and launched a charge at the final remnants of the orcs.
The large and ferocious body of the Third Grade thunder dragon was particularly eye-catching amid the charging machines.
Upon seeing this high-grade magical creature that should only exist in legends, the orc berserker’s frenzied will paused for a moment. His irrational mind showed signs of turning back in the face of the oppressive dragon’s aura of might.
However, the effect of the orcs’ barbaric and violent soul origin caused the orc berserker to remain enraged.
He roared furiously at the Third Grade thunder dragon before commencing a death charge toward Arms.
The battle finally concluded after thirty minutes.
As expected, the orc remnants were beaten down by the magical machines with many, many casualties. Once the final orc warrior standing before the temple was defeated, the battle concluded.
When Greem’s blazing body appeared before the temple doors, three frail and skinny orc shamans stepped into his path, shivering in fright.<
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A 1.8-meter tall orc shaman might be reasonably tall for a human, but they were as small as dwarves before giants when facing off against a six-meter tall fire humanoid.
Greem lowered his head, his bright-yellow burning eyes staring at the orc shamans in front of him. He spoke sarcastically with a loud and prideful voice, “A Second Grade and two First Grades; what is it? Do you intend to stop me with your puny bodies?”
The one day and night of praying had exhausted all the stamina and Spirit of the three orc shamans, but what truly made them despair was their inability to contact the great Beast God. It was almost as if they had been interrupted by some potent interference. They had already lost the necessary connection with the main temple in Pompes, let alone communicating with the great Beast God Aruger.
Without the blessing of the Beast God, the orc warriors’ strength in battle had regressed immensely. If it weren’t for the Beast God temple having stored a bit of faith power before the fighting, it probably would have collapsed in the fierce bombardment earlier.
Now, the only Third Grade orc berserk in the city lay in a puddle of blood. The Third Grade thunder dragon that had fought with it was covered in wounds as well, but it was recovering quickly with the careful treatment of the adepts. The other orcs had either died in battle or were maimed beyond recovery; they could no longer help defend the temple.
At this moment, the three of these old and weakly orc shamans were the only ones in Makren City who could stop the enemy from advancing!
“Evil invaders. As long as you leave this place, we can choose not to pursue your past misdeeds.” An orc shaman, as skinny and frail as an elderly human, shouted with all his strength.
Purple and black spots that came from aging covered his bony body. Just these few words had left him gasping for breath. The noise from his chest was like a squeaking old bellow.
One could tell that he wasn’t far from death just by looking at him.
However, the pride and glory of the orcs that surged through his body kept him standing before the flame giant, stopping the monster from walking forward with his own frail body.
“Pursue? Hahaha,” Greem laughed out loud as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world, “You might not have heard this clearly earlier, so I will tell you again. We aren’t here to invade your people.
“We are here to destroy this plane!”
As Greem’s loud voice rang in the hall, his blazing magma hand smashed downward.
Chapter 830 - Ancient Secrets
The once lively Makren City was now a stretch of ruins.
Apart from the stones and tiles that couldn’t be burned to ashes, all the wood of the buildings had been put to the torch in the great fire.
The magical machine army finally started searching for spoils under the commands of the goblin engineers once the fire had been extinguished and the temperature of the place had cooled down slightly. Greem did not involve himself in this process. Instead, he brought the Crimson adepts straight to the Beast God temple and started a careful, serious investigation of every inch of the land and every single pattern to be seen.
The power system of Strongwoods Plane was starkly different from that of the World of Adepts.
The orcs place more emphasis on unearthing the potential and explosiveness of the physical body. They believed in and followed the Beast God Aruger and, in turn, obtained large numbers of divine blessings from him. However, most of this divine magic was used to improve their Physique and sustained explosiveness. They were considered auxiliary blessings and could not be used as combat techniques.
Moreover, the orc shamans didn’t fixate on the acquisition of knowledge and techniques like the adepts did. Instead, they devoted themselves entirely to the praise and worship of Beast God Aruger. As long as they could win the favor of the Beast God, they could increase their grade through divine power and strengthen themselves through its use.
That was why the Beast God temples were the only way for orc shamans in Strongwoods Plane to communicate with and contact Beast God Aruger!
Greem and the others destroyed the temple in Makren City. No one in a hundred-kilometer radius of this place could obtain the divine blessing of Beast God Aruger. If the Beast God’s divine power did not empower the orcs of Strongwoods Plane, they would only be a group of slightly stronger beasts against the witches. They would no longer be of any threat.
If one were to think of Beast God Aruger as the source of their divine magic, then the Beast God temples were divine power relay stations. It was through the temples relaying divine power that the surrounding orc villages could obtain the chance to communicate with the Beast God using their own crude Beast God altars.
It was what was known to the adepts as the channels of faith.
These channels of faith worked both ways. They could gather the faith power of the orc believers and transfer it to Beast God Aruger. They could also feed back Aruger’s divine power upon his believers. The grander the altar, the broader the channel of faith.
The small Beast God altars of the orc villages could, at best, transfer First Grade power. The larger orc towns could transfer Second Grade power. Meanwhile, medium and small cities like Makren and Witherwater could only transfer power as high as Third Grade.
Throughout the entirety of the Orc Empire, including the main temple of Pompes City, there were only three large altars capable of transferring Fourth Grade power!
As long as the Northern Witches avoided these three areas and survived the first wave of retaliation from the orcs, they would have plenty of confidence in finishing this problematic mission of theirs.
As a veteran of planar invasion, Greem had a profound understanding of this entire process himself.
However, at the moment, he had devoted all of his attention and comprehension to the analysis and research of the Beast God temple before him.
If ordinary orcs were simple one-way receivers, then the Beast God temples were control and relay platforms capable of receiving and sending out power. Greem was genuinely fascinated by how a temple could be capable of such a feat.
If he could figure out the principles behind it, he might, with the help of the Chip, be able to gather the power of his subordinates or even his own power and send it all to another individual or another group of individuals.
Greem had once learned from a tome that a group of extremely special arcanists existed in a particular corner of the multiverse.
As spellcasters, they too were capable of freely casting spells, much like mages, adepts, and sorcerers.
However, the main factor distinguishing them from mages and adepts was their exceptional ability to gather power across many different individuals. They were able to share the most minute of power to all their allies and collect everyone’s strength for their use. That made spellcasting extremely easy for them and meditation much less difficult.
It was said that the greatest inventions of the arcanists were their two terrifying magical facilities: the magic pools and the spell pool!
The magic pools were just as they were named. They were unique facilities used to gather magical energy.
With these magic pools, the arcanists no longer needed to meditate and accumulate magic energy, nor did they need to spend year after year slowly improving their Spirit. All the additional magical energy from their daily meditations would be stored in these magic pools. When they fought against enemies, they could draw on the pure magical power of the pool through unusual methods.
The effects of the spell pools were similar. The only difference was that they did not store pure, chaotic magical energy, but formed and solidified spells.
The arcanists regularly stored spells that they did not require in their spell pool daily. They could then draw on these spells when needed. This way, they had all the magic power and spells they could ever need, turning every single arcanist into a terrifying spell cannon. They could wear down and exhaust any opponent of the same grade with their constant barra
ge of spells.
However, such arcanists also had a huge flaw. Their Spirits would always be lower when compared to opponents of the same grade. If the opponent managed to disrupt their soul connection with the magic and spell pools, then their power would instantly regress from a master of magic to a mere apprentice.
Consequently, to avoid being separated from their magic pools and spell pools, the Great Arcanists (Eighth Grade) put in the research and developed a strange arcane tower that could follow them around the world.
In such a manner, the Great Arcanists rapidly rose to become an exceedingly powerful force in the multiverse!
Sadly, these arcanists that loved knowledge more than their own lives ultimately fell at the hands of a certain powerful god. The great Arcane Empire that they had once established vanished just like that, leaving plenty of ancient ruins in the depths of various planes waiting for others to explore and excavate.
The reason they were defeated was all because of a mighty Goddess of Magic.
The Arcane Empire was prosperous and powerful then. To obtain magical apprentices with better elementium affinities, they invaded large and small planes under the rule of various gods with no discretion at all. They spread arcane knowledge as they wanted throughout these planes and cultivated magical apprentice as they liked.
Naturally, the powerful gods of the World of Gods were not happy with this and fought plenty of times against the arcanists. Unfortunately, with the aid of their many magical facilities and arcane towers, even the main gods had a hard time defeating the powerful Great Arcanists.
In the end, some arcanists even took their quest for knowledge to the extreme; they started to capture gods to research their secrets.
The World of Gods would not have been so furious if the arcanists had only been fighting over planes and believers against the gods. However, when the arcanists turned their eyes toward the gods themselves and started to dissect them as if they were lowly magical creatures, they became unprecedentedly furious!