Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  While his head was within the Flame Fiend’s grasp and enduring the pummeling, the flesh around his thousands of wounds was wriggling and squirming in an attempt to heal his body. The tissue grew wildly, desperately trying to regrow the portions that were missing.

  However, all of its efforts went up in smoke and ashes beneath the vicious flames.

  The new flesh that regrew quickly turned black and burnt, the area beneath being reduced to ashes and scattering into the lava. This constant, continuous repetition of agony was the main factor driving Natagu towards insanity.

  It hurt way too bloody much!

  The serpentine adept had been washed berserk with pain. He forgot everything and only knew how to use everything at his disposal to inflict the same pain upon his enemy.

  The snake’s head had been pinned down and could not bite at the enemy, so the terrifying Eyes of Petrification blasted out two gray beams that swept around at everything nearby. Even the thick and flowing lava would instantly solidify when hit by the Petrification Beams, turning into solid chunks of rock.

  The two witches around them were still trying their best to attack Greem, all while avoiding Natagu’s out-of-control Petrification Beams. It was chaos on the battlefield.

  The serpentine adept’s thick and robust body continued to twist and tighten around the Flame Fiend of Terror, never loosening its grip even as the fearsome fire continued to pour off the Flame Fiend’s body. Moreover, as Natagu went berserk, his large body started to coil tighter and tighter, causing the Flame Fiend’s frame to creak at the pressure. It seemed as if he planned to crush the Flame Fiend to mincemeat.

  His slender snake tail flickered around repeatedly as a vicious whip, wildly lashing at the Flame Fiend’s spiked back, never stopping even after it was covered in cuts and blood.

  The two titans continued to battle in the depths of the lava, causing wave after wave of terrifying shockwaves to spread outwards. Rocks collapsed where they traveled, and the volcano itself trembled. The pool of lava howled and roared as the colossal force shockwave forced the molten liquid outward, sending them surging out of the crater.

  Looking down from the sky above, Gangsas Volcano was erupting!

  The majestic crater had lost half its side, and an overwhelming tide of red lava had surged out from below, where it cascaded down the uneven slope. Cracks had appeared all over the massive mountain. Raging currents of hot air burst forth from these ruptures, heating the very air itself.

  One could feel the pressing heat from thirty kilometers away!

  Gangsas Volcano had now turned into a blazing torch, staining half the sky with a terrifying crimson red. Thick black smoke rose into the air. Several still exploding boulders of flames shot out with the lava, crashing down from above like blazing meteors. These boulders created seas of fire wherever they landed.

  A party that had received orders and were hurrying to Gangsasa Volcano stopped at the edge of the fire.

  Several holy knights clad in distinct armor and formidable aura consoled the warhorses beneath them. Still, they could not get their mounts to take a single step forward.

  As they looked at the erupting volcano in the distance and witnessed the apocalyptic scene unfolding around them, all of the knights were horrified to their very core. An unconcealable look of terror appeared in their eyes that gazed toward the volcano.

  Was this the power of the adepts?

  Upending a mountain, shattering the earth, and igniting a volcano.

  A series of horrifying images and words rolled across their minds, but nothing could accurately describe their current feelings.

  Personally witnessing the might of the otherworldly adepts caused the hearts of many holy knights to tremble. Perhaps, just maybe, just possibly, even that Lord Holy Knight might not possess such fearsome power!

  They quickly wiped the thought from their minds the moment it appeared. They then lowered their heads and recited the Ten Precepts of the holy knights before finally recovering from their moment of shock and terror.

  “Thomas, return to the camp immediately and report everything we have seen here to Lord Ad Carrhae. He will decide what to do.” The one leading the party was a Second Grade Silver Knight, who quickly gave out an order.

  Without any disagreement or delay, the young holy knight whose name was called saluted and rode into the distance with his warhorse.

  Once their companion’s silhouette had vanished into the distance, the Silver Knight shouted, “Before our Lord’s new orders arrive, we will continue with our previous mission– to scout Gangsas Volcano. Everyone dismount and proceed. Now…”

  As he shouted, this group of eight Iron Knights led by a Second Grade Silver Knight leaped off their horses and allowed them to sprint back in the direction they had come from.

  They reorganized themselves slightly, taking out their shields before stepping onto the scorched earth under the leadership of the Silver Knight.

  On the other side of the volcano, a strange army was also silently advancing through the dense and primal forest.

  The formerly lively forest had now turned oddly quiet and peaceful.

  Every forest creature: herbivores, carnivores, predators, and prey were now hiding silently in their dens, curled into a ball and shivering in fright as if they were small critters that had met their natural enemies.

  The entire forest was without sound, except for a fast and soft shuffling noise.

  If a hunter were to venture into the forest now, he would find countless hideous figures sprinting past the trees.

  These creatures appeared like zombies, still with many human features on them. However, they crouched on the ground, rushing through the forest on all fours as they made straight for the blazing volcano on the horizon.

  Spirit of Pestilence Remi sat atop a particularly muscular plague beast. They charged out of the forest onto a cliff and stared at the blazing pillar of fire in the distance.

  Countless plague creatures shrouded in a green and yellow smoke sprinted in the vast jungle beneath and behind him. Despite their immense hatred and thirst for living beings, they passed by the dens and nests of the wild animals, never stopping to feast.

  They were all heading for the erupting volcano under the command of Remi.

  As for what they could do with their ‘weak’ bodies and ‘meager’ abilities in a battle of such scale? They would not think about such things, nor would they need to.

  As long as Remi gave the order, not a single one of these plague creatures would hesitate for a single instant, even if that order was to jump into the volcano and turn themselves into ashes.

  That was perhaps the scariest aspect of the plague creatures!

  …………

  While all these forces rushed towards the volcano, the battle at the bottom of Gangsas Volcano had reached a conclusion!

  Unexpectedly, the ones who were defeated were the more numerous hunter adepts.

  Greem was surprisingly powerful, and his sudden increase in Spirit had been the key that determined the outcome of the battle.

  After enduring in the flames and lava for fifteen minutes, the weakening of the Flame Fiend’s strength that Natagu awaited still had not happened. He gritted his teeth and endured for thirty minutes…forty-five minutes…three entire hours.

  Unfortunately, regardless of how he endured during the battle, he still saw no signs of his enemy’s strength weakening or failing. The brutality of their struggle was now etched deep in the mind of the serpentine adept.

  He no longer had the courage he first possessed, and his appearance was wildly different from how he had looked at the start of the battle.

  Most of his scales had fallen off from the boiling lava and burning fire. The raw, exposed flesh grew and burned away and grew again. Natagu had now expended seventy percent of all his energy. Twenty percent of that alone was used to stimulate the growth of his flesh.

  His twenty-meter long body was covered in scars and blood. Every time he traded
blows with the Flame Fiend, thousands of ruptures appeared on his body. The heat would immediately vaporize the spilling black blood before it had even traveled three feet from his body.

  One of his eyes on his proud serpentine head had been crushed, leaving only a black and empty socket. Most of his sharp fangs and teeth had been broken, while the forked tongue had been torn away, leaving a still-bleeding stump.

  Natagu, the serpentine adept, was in a most terrible condition!

  However, compared to him, Greem didn’t seem to be doing much better either.

  His seven-meter tall body was covered in gashes created by Natagu’s fangs. These wounds were shrouded by black smoke, the flesh within purple and rotting with a pungent stench. The sharp spikes on his broad back had been snapped completely. Black blood flowed down his body along with red lava.

  All his Lava Shields and Inferno Shields were shattered the moment they formed, crushed to pieces by ferocious spells just ten seconds after they were summoned. Even the magma armor on his body had crumbled to pieces, revealing the dark purple body beneath.

  The demonic power that a Second Grade Flame Fiend’s Heart could provide Greem was no longer sufficient to deal with a battle of such magnitude and brutality. At this moment, Greem was purely sustained by the boundless fire energy in the lava pool, using the power to heat his Burning Domain as much as he could to burn the hunter adepts to ashes.

  Finally, Natagu, the serpentine adept, could no longer endure the frontline with all his grievous wounds. He abandoned the battle and turned to escape!

  Chapter 985 - Leave No One Alive

  The party of holy knights carefully approached Gangsas Volcano.

  Though the height of the volcano’s eruption had passed, and the sky no longer appeared as if it was in the middle of an apocalypse, flaming boulders still occasionally burst out of the crater and crashed into the surroundings with a long, smoking tail.

  These boulders exploded wherever they landed, sending towering plumes of dust into the air as they crumbled into pieces.

  Since the holy knights were prepared, these boulders did not pose too much of a threat to them. If any of the stones got too close to the party, the Silver Knight would slash it to pieces with a Holy Light Strike. The shards of rock from the shattered boulder couldn’t threaten the holy knights yet.

  However, the party still lost two members while climbing up towards the crater.

  While traveling through an area of dense cracks and rifts, a sudden current of blistering fire engulfed two of the holy knights. By the time the flow of fire subsided, only two burnt corpses were left. They still had their armor, but their flesh and tendons had all been burned to pieces, reduced to ashes falling from the sky.

  The party had no time to collect the remains of their companions. They could only offer silent prayers before continuing on their journey.

  None of the holy knights knew what awaited them. They only knew that their party had to obtain information on those adepts. It was the only way to provide a reference for the higher-ups to make the right decisions.

  Yet, just as they reached the waist of the volcano, the mountain itself started to tremble and shake intensely.

  A loud rumbling sound came from within the belly of the volcano.

  Amidst the deafening chaos, a violent aura that caused their very souls to cower descended. They felt their vision blur and their heartbeats quicken. Their legs trembled so much it was hard to remain standing.

  Dragon aura! It was a dragon’s aura of might!

  The expression of the Silver Knight changed drastically as he quickly identified the source of this berserk aura.

  However, before he could turn to tell his companions anything, an earthshaking explosion rang out from within the volcano. The cone-shaped crater then started collapsing and falling downwards.

  Tons of volcanic rock, sand, dirt, and rumbling lava came rushing down from above at breakneck speed, flooding the entirety of Gangsas Volcano’s surroundings.

  This party of only seven holy knights did not even have time to scream before the unstoppable flood of blistering lava and dirt engulfed them. Three smoky figures came flying out of the crater during this apocalyptic scene, rushing into the distance without any hesitation.

  Aooooo!

  A long dragon’s roar abruptly rang out.

  A bright blue dragon whose body flickered with blinding lightning rose from the crater, a majestic Flame Fiend of Terror standing upon his back. A ferocious flaming tiger of shocking size could also be faintly seen in the splashing pillar of lava beneath them.

  The three silhouettes immediately switched trajectory and scattered in three separate directions as if they realized the pursuers were behind them.

  “The thunder dragon and I will chase the serpentine adept. You go and chase the psionic.” Greem shouted out loud from above Arms’ back.

  He had paid too heavy a price for this battle. He would be driven mad by his frustration if he let the enemy escape like this.

  “You are willing to let the old witch leave?” Cindral replied with indifference. His flame-like body could freely travel through the fires. It was more convenient than Greem’s Fire Teleportation, so he didn’t quite care who it was that he had to chase.

  “Hmph! She’s the unlucky one. Someone’s waiting for her where she’s running!”

  After a simple explanation, Greem stepped onto the thunder dragon lightly. Arms let out a roar and beat his vast dragon wings wildly. A furious gust rose beneath him as he turned into a blue lightning bolt, hurtling through the air after the ugly serpent with Greem on his back.

  “Hehehe, a Third Grade human psionic. Hmph!” Cindral let out a snort and walked through the empty air, his body quickly vanishing into the blazing flames.

  He silently reappeared in a sea of fire several hundred meters away. He glanced up at the witch, still flying above the forest a kilometer away from him and vanished once again.

  Benija hastily flew across the forest, furiously casting Spirit Wing, Fly, and Visual Avoidance upon herself as she did so. All of a sudden, she felt an unbearably savage heat swarm around her. Benija instantly knew she was in trouble.

  She looked behind her but found no enemy chasing after her. Still, she couldn’t shake that feeling of danger. It only made her more fearful and cautious.

  Without hesitation, Benija dove into the forest below. She took out a vial of purple potion and drank it, mysteriously causing her to transform into a small gray mouse. She stood up straight and looked at her surroundings before carefully diving into the bushes after seeing no enemies.

  A short moment later, Cindral silently leaped down from a nearby tree. He lifted his nose and sniffed the air for the enemy’s remnant aura.

  Psionics might not be great at much, but they were definitely one of the best at disguising and concealing themselves.

  Paired with their layers of mental magic, an enemy would have an incredibly challenging time tracking her. Without a visual or spiritual lock on her person, ordinary divination and tracking spells were easily misled by her mental suggestions.

  However, a flaming tiger was not a beast that could be compared to ordinary creatures!

  Cindral might not be able to smell the psionic nor the aura of her magic, but the fire energy that she had yet to dispel from her body did not escape his senses.

  The flaming tiger followed the fire aura and wandered through the forest, intermittently sprinting for several kilometers at once. Finally, he stopped in front of a tall, ancient tree.

  He stomped with his right foot, and a surge of bright yellow flames spread outward, burning all the dead and rotten leaves to ashes. There, beneath the roots of the tree, was a small hole the size of a fist.

  Cindral let out a cold snort of disdain. He opened his maw and let out a stream of fire into the hole. The terrifying flames filled the winding tunnel, causing steam and hot air to rise from several different exits within a hundred meters of the tree.

  He very
clearly heard a pained scream come from somewhere underground!

  A short moment later, the transformed Benija escaped from a hole covered in smoke. A massive fire claw pinned her to the earth before she could use her magic to disguise herself once again.

  Benija lifted her head in terror, only to see the terrifying maw of tiger growing larger and larger.

  …………

  Remi, who was leading the plague army in their advance toward the volcano, suddenly patted the beast beneath him and halted its movements.

  He paused for a moment to gather his senses as he quickly got a message from Greem.

  Mm? That old poison hag is coming this way?

  A cold smile full of malicious intent immediately appeared on Remi’s green face. He pouted slightly, and the plague army adjusted their trajectory, sprinting toward a specific spot in the forest.

  Remi’s plague army just happened to run into the old poison hag by a small stream. She was quickly traveling through the forest on her flying broom.

  To avoid being tracked by the enemy, Guinevere chose to fly as low as she could, traveling through the dense foliage of the forest. She might be slower this way, but she would be better hidden.

  In truth, she had never stopped looking behind her as she flew. She had never expected anyone to intercept her from the front.

  That was why her already ugly face turned even darker when she saw the strange creatures streaming toward her and Remi sitting upon the back of a giant Second Grade beast.

  She tossed several vials of potions down on the ground. These potions turned into strange poison voodoo beasts upon landing. Most of them had the might of Second Grade creatures. One of them was even a Third Grade Toxic Swamp Lizard.

  Remi paid no heed to these enemies. He snapped his fingers, and the hundreds and thousands of poison zombies lunged forward, instantly drowning the enemy with their fearsome numbers. Those Second and Third Grade poison creatures were soon covered in hordes of poison zombies, forcefully pinned to the ground by sheer numbers.

  Meanwhile, the First Grade wights and Second Grade Plaguebringer struck at the old hag.