As Gangsas Volcano was located in the center of the Zambez Empire, the commotion there could not have gone unnoticed by the rulers.
However, as if they were blind and deaf, the Empire pretended not to see or hear the commotion coming from the volcano, regardless of how much of chaos the adepts caused. In fact, large groups of imperial soldiers even evacuated the civilians staying near the volcano and turned the entire area into a restricted zone.
Of course, their explanation for the evacuation was that Gangsas Volcano had entered a period of frequent activity. Only some of the higher-ups of the Empire and some high-grade knights were privy to what was happening at Gangsas Volcano.
Allowing a group of foreign adepts to fight as they wanted within the land they ruled sounded embarrassing. However, considering that the scourge of witches in the southwest had yet to be eradicated, the leaders of the Empire and the holy knights unanimously agreed that it was not wise to involve the adepts as well.
Thus, time passed by just like that, one day at a time.
Five days…ten days…one month…two months…three months.
On the twenty-fifth day of the eleventh month of the calendar, six months after Greem and the others had arrived in Henvic through the wormhole, the witch’s tower at Dabyrie Highlands finally collapsed.
Greem had caught wind of this news through Remi, who had been wandering around the Empire.
Ever since Greem gave him the order to move about freely, Remi had chosen to wander the borders of the Zambez Empire, occasionally raiding a village to maintain and increase the number of his plague zombies.
Over the past half-year, Remi had raised a plague army of over one thousand zombies. Unfortunately, a large target often attracted attention. The holy knights were quick to descend upon the undead horde.
Remi was ill-suited for direct confrontation, to begin with. He scrambled away in terror in front of the holy knights and their Purify spell as quickly as he could. There wasn’t even a need for a Third Grade Gold Knight to persecute him. He led his last remaining one hundred elites into the forest and raided the local magical creatures of Henvic Plane.
There were none amongst the magical creatures who were capable of using Purify as the knights could. As such, Remi was like a fish in water and quickly rebuilt the scale of his plague army.
With an endless source of new soldiers, Remi established the vast forest as his base, occasionally emerging from the forest to harass nearby human towns to train his servants. In just two months, Remi managed to create a Second Grade plague subordinate subservient to him alone– the Plaguebringer.
A Plaguebringer was a strange sort of creature that excelled at concocting, creating, and spreading plagues. Their individual combat ability was nothing worthwhile; they were even weaker than low-grade poison zombies. However, they had the ability to create plague spores endlessly and could also adjust the magical traits of the spores based on the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy.
This ability made them Remi’s best helpers when it came to managing and expanding the plague army!
Most of the time, a Second Grade Plaguebringer would be able to quickly raise a decent plague army without Remi’s help if left in a region bountiful with life.
These Plaguebringers all appeared exceptionally hideous on the outside.
They had sickly, dark-green skin covered in viscous slime. All sorts of blisters swelled and throbbed throughout their bodies, green and yellow plague viruses breeding within. Every time one of those blisters popped, a lethal plague was released into the air.
One could say that the terrifying yellow clouds permanently hung in the air wherever the Plaguebringers traveled. The plague would forcibly modify all lifeforms infected by the yellow clouds. Those with weak Physiques would be decomposed and turned into even more plague spores, while the stronger ones might be modified into hosts of the virus if they survived the process.
These hosts were the low-grade poison zombies!
These plague creatures that had been created with a furnace forged of tens of thousands of native lives started to become stronger and more elite as more and more incidents of slaughter were committed across the land. Groups of holy knights, imperial soldiers, militia, mercenaries, and all sorts of local armed forces; Remi’s plague army fought to the death with these enemies in various towns, villages, plains, forests, and swamps.
The weak were eliminated, and the strong remained, growing and evolving ever stronger through their slaughter!
One could responsibly say that all the plague creatures that survived in this environment became elite leaders of the pack. There were even ruler-class plague creatures that had evolved four to five times.
It was this army of plague creatures that allowed Remi to become a massive threat at the northwestern border of the Zambez Empire. If it weren’t for the Deceit Witches occupying so much of the Empire’s forces, there would probably be high-grade knights arriving to hunt him down.
However, on the twenty-fifth day of the eleventh month, Remi’s good days came to an end.
The witch’s tower that stood upon Dabyrie Highlands fell before the Fourth Grade Holy Knights. All the Deceit Witches stationed there took to the winds, scattering in every direction like a pack of stray dogs.
Remi immediately sent Greem the news via their soul connection before leading his army deep into the forest, not showing himself again. If he dared to continue lingering within the borders of the Zambez Empire, the next to persecute him would include those terrifying Fourth Grade Holy Knights.
These were existences that even his master didn’t dare provoke. It was best that he avoided their wrath!
During the past six months, Greem had been tragically blockaded within Gangsas Volcano by the four hunter adepts. With the volcano behind him, the four hunters didn’t dare rush in to find trouble with him. Yet, on the flip side, Greem didn’t dare to take a single step out of the volcano either.
This frustrating standoff between the two parties continued!
Upon hearing that the witch’s tower had fallen, Greem finally calmed down from his constant restlessness to push back the four hunter adepts. He hid deep in the volcano and went into seclusion.
Since he could not beat his enemies, nor leave the volcano, any further fighting had lost all its meaning. He might as well calm down, take his time, and see how long these damned bastards were willing to wait it out.
To Greem’s surprise, these four hunter adepts were unexpectedly resilient.
They kept close guard of the volcano crater, always keeping at least one adept on guard. Meanwhile, the other adepts hid in their campgrounds to rest or go to a nearby human town to purchase food and water.
Though a Third Grade adept’s need for such things had been driven down to an unbelievably low extent, food and water were still a necessity for their lives.
These four hunter adepts had intended to force Greem out of the volcano with his lack of supplies, but they never expected how much fire dragon’s meat Greem had carried with him in his storage ring. If Greem was frugal with his eating habits, the meat could last him for as long as ten years.
Greem also carried a Wand of Conjure Water with him. There might be very little water that could be conjured in the lava cave, where fire elementium was at its densest, but it was more than enough for his consumption.
Thus, the two parties continued their stalemate, one outside the volcano and one inside!
…………
Since Greem’s path of retreat had been cut off, he stopped thinking about it.
Instead, he took this rare chance of seclusion to conduct his projects. He hid in the cave and once again severed a piece of his soul, which he placed into the soul-gathering crystal.
This action caused his soul aura to weaken abruptly!
According to the Greem’s estimations, Greem’s souls had shrunk by nearly one-third, severely affecting his combat prowess.
However, the higher the risk, the greater the reward!
The soul-gathering crystal was filled with hundreds of soul consciousnesses that were now insentient clusters of pure, holy light. Greem’s split-off soul was like a tiger among sheep when placed into the crystal. It could devour all of that unowned holy light power.
Greem’s split soul consciously devoured the holy light of the Iron Knights first. Once it had gotten stronger, it slowly started to attack the holy light of the Silver Knights. Its final target was naturally the only golden holy light contained within the crystal.
While his split soul devoured the holy lights, Greem actively initiated another fight to conceal his abruptly weakened soul, sending the large army of fire creatures he had amassed to assault the enemy’s camp.
However, Greem’s ‘abnormality’ couldn’t escape the powerful senses of the psionic adept. The four hunters disagreed on their plan of action when faced with the fire adept’s suddenly weakened Spirit.
Blade Princess Katherine and Psionic Adept Benija both believed that the fire adept had caused the weakness in his soul due to his own mistake during meditation. They wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to attack. Meanwhile, Serpentine Adept Natagu and Poison Hag Guinevere agreed that this was a trap that the fire adept had set to lure them in.
Otherwise, which Third Grade adept’s soul would suddenly weaken for no proper explanation!?
It wasn’t their fault for being too suspicious and skeptical of what they were seeing. After all, no adept would be as daring as Greem to sever his soul with the precarious situation he was in.
If his opponents were rougher and more compulsive, they would have charged right into the pool of lava. Greem would then have immense difficulty fighting them off in his weakened state.
However, the daredevil Greem had slowly gotten to know the traits and personalities of the four hunter adepts over their past six months of ‘interaction.’ After the Chip performed some in-depth analysis of their characters, Greem found the courage the commit to this near-suicidal act.
Very fortunately, he bet correctly!
Chapter 980 - A Long Five Years
The World of Adepts, the Tower of Fate.
Alice dragged her exhausted body out of the astrology hall. She had just set foot out of the room when the little fairy Helen came flying in her direction.
“Unbelievable! Unbelievable! That bad woman is here again.”
Helen spun around Alice’s body three times before pausing in front of her with a pout on her face. She then waved her hand and cast Lifebloom and Energy Restoration on Alice. The former restored life and stamina, while the latter restored Spirit.
With the two spells, Alice only needed half the time to recover completely from her exhausted state. It was an incredible boon for the adepts, who treasured their time above all else.
The reason elementium fairies were valued so highly by the adepts was precisely because of such abilities!
Bad woman?
Alice paused for a moment, but she quickly understood that Mary had arrived.
Since Alice was the owner of the Tower of Fate, Mary could not break into the higher levels of the tower without her permission.
Even though she was exceptionally exhausted, Alice still dragged her sore and tired body down to the third floor to meet the furious Mary.
“What in the world are you guys doing? Where has Greem gone?” Upon meeting Alice, Mary impatiently asked, “Right now, Zhentarim’s Fabres Clan, Entom Clan, and Dener Clan have all come knocking on our doors, naming Greem by person and calling him out to resolve the issue of tension at the clan borders. These clans are all led by a Fourth Grade adept. We can’t just fight and beat them like before. We have to have Greem decide if we are to go to war or seek some sort of agreement.”
Mary stayed inside the clan over the past few months to manage all these complicated and complex clan matters. She was already fuming with frustration. Gargamel and Meryl were handling all the internal clan matters perfectly, and the clan’s development was going well. However, the Crimson Clan was still caught in a vortex of a power struggle with several outside forces, and the external challenges it faced had not decreased at all.
In fact, with the appearance of multiple high-grade adepts within the clan, the external pressure they faced was only growing larger. A dark and thundering storm was very much brewing outside their gates.
Disregarding everything else, the Crimson Clan had experienced several dozen cases of tension and skirmishes at the border of their territories. Either some nobles had been assassinated in Crimson territory, some nobles neighboring Crimson territory had started wars over small incidents, or some organization had accused the Crimson regions of sheltering an escaped convict.
These matters were usually only worldly matters and did not involve the clan yet. However, when so many troubles and incidents occurred at the same time, it drew the attention of Gargamel and Meryl.
It was important to note that it had not yet been forty years since the Crimson Clan’s last adept war. They had beat the alliance of five clans and forced them into retreat during that war. Now, some outside force had once again set their eyes on the Crimson Clan!
Mary gave an order, and the goblin forces subordinate to the Crimson Clan quickly sent back information.
This time, those who had set their eyes on them were no longer small clans and organizations. Instead, they were large adept clans who could cause the entire Zhentarim Area to tremble with a single stomp of their feet.
The Fabres Clan, the Entom Clan, and the Dener Clan.
These well-known names were like pearls amidst a pile of glass marbles in Zhentarim, the center of the continent. They were incomparably famous and glorious clans.
There were hundreds and thousands of adept clans in the Central Region, but no matter how they fought, how they rose, how they killed, and how they fell, the ones who remained at the top was still the same five major clans. Fabres, Entom, and Dener were three of these five clans.
Now, they had their eyes set upon the Crimson Clan. As one of the only two Third Grade adepts of the clan, Mary instantly felt tremendous pressure upon her shoulders.
She might excel at fighting and slaughter, but she was not an expert at resolving complicated human relationships and working under the complexities of treaties and negotiations. As such, Mary ordered Dragonborn Zacha and Bug Adept Billis here and there to use their ferocious martial force to intimidate wave after wave of enemies.
However, the worldly nobles and low-grade adept clans were only the fangs and dogs sent by the masterminds behind the scenes to harass the Crimson Clan. Chasing them away was not cutting off the black hand that loomed behind in the shadows.
If the Fourth Grade magical golem dragon hadn’t been protecting the Crimson Clan, then some of these clans would probably have jumped the gun and declared war!
It was these concerns that caused Mary to want Greem back in the clan more urgently.
Unfortunately, she knew nothing; she only knew that Alice had stopped by Fire Throne awhile ago, after which Greem had vanished mysteriously. She had absolutely no idea of Greem’s actual whereabouts.
That was why she had furiously hurried to the Tower of Fate to demand Greem’s location from Alice.
Alice only had a vague idea of the difficult situation that Greem had been caught in on Henvic Plane. However, she didn’t dare so quickly reveal such information to Mary, simple as it was.
After all, she was still continuously monitored by that ‘powerful nemesis’ of hers!
Alice might have trouble knowing more about what was happening in Henvic without clues, but that woman would have an even harder time than her as well. However, if Alice were to reveal anything she knew, she would not be able to stop the enemy from seeing her trump cards through the developmental patterns of the ‘world lines,’ even if she were to conceal the truth with her Fate magic afterward.
It was the strange and odd nature of a battle between Fate Witches!
Alice could only vag
uely tell Mary that Greem had been temporarily trapped in another plane, but was unharmed and would naturally return after a short wait.
Such unclear information obviously couldn’t sate Mary’s anxiety. However, she knew that Greem had always trusted and respected Alice’s choices. Thus, she suppressed her burning anxieties and frustrations and stormed away from the Tower of Fate.
Alice remained silent in the meeting hall for a short moment before returning to her room with a resentful sigh.
…………
In all honesty, the duration and difficulty of this standoff far exceeded Greem’s expectations.
Five years. Five long years had been waste on this rural otherworld.
During these five years, Greem had tried countless times to charge out of the lava pool and fight the four hunter adepts to the death.
However, regardless of what he did, he still could not injure any of the adepts severely. Similarly, the four hunter adepts had enormous difficulty killing Greem as well.
The two parties continued to battle each other, breaking out into a vicious fight every few days. It then became a fight every few weeks, then every few months. The tension between the two lessened with each passing day, both knowing that they could not do anything about the other. In the end, the periodic battles they had become less of an actual fight and more of a workout that they did every once in a while to relieve their boredom.
Greem had created a small lab, having been trapped at the bottom of the volcano. Sometimes, when he forgot the time in his busy work and neglected to show himself for one or two months, the four hunter adepts would be the ones to come knocking on the volcano crater.
The two parties went back and forth in this manner. In the blink of an eye, five years had passed at Gangsas Volcano!
Over these five years, Greem might have been brought to the brink of mental and spiritual exhaustion, but Natagu and the others were not doing well either.
As a bloodline adept who considered himself to be exceptionally talented, these five years stuck in Henvic was no less than torture.
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