Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Hordes of Ghost Nannies and Sludges rushed out from the mist from either side of the road only to howl as they fell beneath the swords of the holy knights.

  The battle might have been ‘intense,’ but the holy knights had not suffered a single casualty!

  The party that stretched for over one and a half kilometers suddenly stopped, trying their best to purify all these monsters and magical creatures rushing at them. However, while they were fighting with all they had, several incredibly large lizards emerged from the swamp.

  Dirt-yellow Petrification Beams shot out of their eyes. Several Iron Knights failed to dodge in time and were paralyzed on the spot.

  A visible layer of green and gray started to creep across their skin. Soon, even their eyeballs froze over as they turned into stone statues.

  The Giant Lizards lunged forward, biting the petrified holy knights and dragging them back into the swamp.

  The next second, the water and mud bubbled and splashed everywhere. The other swamp creatures swarmed towards the petrified holy knights, furiously biting and tearing at them as they dragged them deeper into the bottom of the swamp.

  The rope around the holy knights had been bitten off, rendering their companions incapable of saving them.

  “Bastards.”

  Several knights that witnessed this became overcome with anger. They brandished their swords and charged into the mud to fight with the swamp creatures.

  A single Iron Knight had no problem dealing with seven or eight Ghost Nannies while they were on solid ground. However, once they descended into the unique environment of the swamp, two to three Ghost Nannies were sufficient to toy with them.

  Thanks to the Giant Swamp Lizards, the swamp creatures were able to break through the defensive positions of the holy knights on several spots, dragging one holy knight after another into the swamp where they could not exert their strength.

  Chapter 1001 - Rain of Rotting Blood

  The witches had come!

  The witches were definitely behind all this trouble. Otherwise, given the swamp creatures’ abilities, they should never have been able to inflict even the slightest of casualties to the holy knights.

  The seven Gold Knights leading the army instantly understood what was happening. They took out their longswords and started casting large area-of-effect blessings. Several beams of majestic and holy light shone from the front of the formation to the very tail. Every single person’s body shimmered with a blinding and radiant light from within to without.

  All the swamp creatures were dark-attribute magical creatures. The dark energies within their bodies started boiling like acid when they entered the radius of the holy light, burning them and causing them to squeal in pain.

  The weakest of the monsters started to stumble when illuminated by the white light. Their entire bodies started rapidly melting as if they had been thrown into a pot of acid.

  Their evil souls that had now lost the protection of their sullied bodies were reduced to ashes by the pale white flames!

  For a moment, the advance of the swamp creatures had been halted.

  Shua. Shua. Shua.

  A series of holy lights continued to bloom around the knights. Any evil that was engulfed by the pure light was burned to ashes by the pale white fires. Both the Ghost Nannies hiding in the mud of the swamp and the incredibly resilient Sludges retreated from the holy light, revealing their true natures as lowly and fearful low-grade beings.

  Even the vile and pungent Poison Swamps themselves started to recede before the holy light. Two energies of different natures clashed with each other; divine power and dark energy both tangled and tussled with the other, devouring and neutralizing the opposing energy. There was no room for coexistence.

  Traces of black smoke rose from the swamp as the holy light continued to shine upon it, quickly vanishing as it was exposed to the infinite light. The once soft and loose ground of the swamp became firm and stable once again. It had now turned into a road that one could firmly walk upon.

  Naturally, all the monsters and magical creatures hiding in the depths of the mud has also been purified.

  The combined force of seven Gold Knights was not something that these lowly monsters could hope to survive! This single attack had exterminated half of the swamp creatures gathered around the holy knights. The survivors were all hiding where the holy light could not reach, cursing at these invaders with the most vile and foul language they knew.

  Meanwhile, in the deepest parts of the sinister Poison Swamps, a circular stone altar was slowly operating.

  A dozen strange silhouettes of various shapes and sizes stood around the altar, silently waiting for something.

  When the overwhelming divine power rose into the sky from the edge of the Poison Swamps, the snake-shaped dagger floating above the altar started to radiate several strange magical runes. A dense aura of evil that could not be dispelled lingered upon each and every one of these runes. The runes immediately caused a resonance within the Bloody Altar the moment they appeared. Even the entire Poison Swamps seemed to have turned darker and more sinister.

  “Seven sources of power. It seems like those seven Gold Knights have entered the Swamps!” A Deceit Witch with an old face silently sensed as her face lifted up to the brightly lit horizon in the distance.

  “Good. It’s time they tasted some pain themselves!” Another Deceit Witch cackled sinisterly.

  Many sisters of the Deceit Witches had fallen to the blades of the holy knights over the past few years. As such, all of the Deceit Witches present were extremely excited and delighted whenever there was a chance to exact their vengeance.

  “Let’s move out. The swamp creatures on the outside won’t be able to stall them for long! Before they reach here, let’s have them taste the pain of the Rain of Rotting Blood.” Third Grade Tess commanded with her hoarse voice.

  Five Second Grade witches each stood at a corner of the Bloody Altar, silently transferring their power into it. The Bloody Altar was connected with several mysterious arrays hidden all over the swamps. It started to project the powerful and evil energy it received outwards.

  It might look peaceful where the witches stood as if nothing had happened.

  However, everything had turned about at the edge of the swamps, three to four kilometers away from the altar. Calamity had descended, and the swamps had become a land of death where no life could remain.

  The already dark and depressing sky turned even bleaker.

  A gray aura of death and black powers of evil seeped out from the ground below, mixing into the dense and heavy mist in the air, weakening all light within the Poison Swamps even further. The knights were practically blind now.

  Pungent rainwater fell from the skies, splashing into red blooms when it crashed against the muddy ground.

  Many of the knights lifted their heads, only to be horrified to find that this was no ordinary rain, but blood that was filled with an aura of decay.

  When the blood landed on their armor, it immediately let out a sizzling sound, much akin to acid reacting with metal. If the blood landed directly on their skin, a heart-wrenching, stinging pain would shoot through their bodies as their skin would start to bloat and rot. The sound of rotting flesh could be heard from the wounds.

  If the victims were not treated with holy light, all the flesh beneath the skin would rot away. Even the bones that were protected by muscles and tendons would turn brittle from the blood rain before the entire body finally collapsed like a sandcastle.

  “Put up your holy light protections. Don’t let the blood rain touch your skin!”

  The high-grade knights shouted. Beam after beam of brilliant holy light started to rise through the ranks, engulfing the knights in a cluster of divine brilliance.

  The holy radiance around them purified the blood from the sky before it could reach the knights. The rain could no longer hurt them.

  “Forward…continue forward. We must leave this area of rain as soon as possible.�
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  Under the orders of the seven Gold Knights, the knights forcefully maintained their holy light and defended against the corrosion of the blood. They began to sprint forward on the just newly solidified ground. The sanctified ground started to loosen beneath the downpour of bloody rain. It almost appeared as if it was about to revert back into an evil and wretched swamp.

  Though the Rain of Rotting Blood had not managed to kill a single holy knight, it had effectively exhausted much of their holy power. Along the way, the seven Gold Knights had no choice but to maintain the divine magic Holy Radiance to protect the Iron Knights as best as they could.

  The Gold Knights might not be bothered by this amount of exertion, but they would probably start regretting their ‘recklessness’ once they slowly stepped into the inescapable webs that the witches had weaved for them!

  The same Bloody Altar.

  Witch Tess smiled coldly.

  “They have made it through the Rain of Rotting Blood. It’s up to the rot-poison voodoo beasts now! Liv, it’s up to you now!”

  “Don’t worry, Lady Tess! After the past few days of my ‘training,’ these voodoo beasts should be sufficiently strong. The holy knights are the perfect appetizers for them,” a witch whose face was so pale and stiff that it appeared like a mask replied. She then turned and mounted an unusually large Giant Lizard, charging into the mist and vanishing without a trace.

  Greem had seen everything occur over the past few days. He knew that this was a Second Grade witch who excelled at creating voodoo beasts.

  “Liv’s voodoo beasts may have been strengthened, but they still won’t be able to inflict much damage to the knights. You few, immediately activate the Bloody Altar and enhance the rot-poison voodoo beasts with Rend, Bleed, Slow, and the other magical effects to improve them further.” Witch Tess clearly understood that these voodoo beasts that had been created on such short notice were not much of a threat to the knights. As such, she intended to increase their lethality through other means.

  In all honesty, the construction of the Bloody Altar and the various mysterious arrays they had set up throughout the swamps were all due to the resources and materials that Greem had provided. Without these resources, the witches were like skillful chefs without ingredients to work with. Even with all the magical knowledge and schemes in their brains, they would not have been able to make up for the massive difference in numbers between them and the holy knights.

  However, with these additional little ‘tricks,’ the witches could quickly wear away at the knights’ power, bit by bit. Once the enemy was exhausted and mentally worn out, it would be their time to strike.

  The witches would not have been afraid of the holy knights before they lost their witch’s tower, regardless of how numerous the knights might have been.

  However, in their current situation, they could only rely on these tricks to balance the massive power and number disparity between them!

  As Third Grade witches that had lived for four to five hundred years, Tess and Italil had plenty of other tricks up their sleeves. Under their coordinated command, sinister spells and terrifying traps started to activate one after the other, causing the holy knights to suffer tremendous casualties and untold pain.

  As the main combatant for the battle to come, Greem naturally would not be participating in these harassment tactics. Instead, he silently nursed his mind and thought about all the things he would need to focus on in the final battle.

  The reason he had so passionately encouraged the witches to engage the holy knights in one final battle was to make sure to make a proper killing before he left. It would be difficult to return to Henvic to collect some holy light souls once he left.

  Moreover, given the barbaric slaughter that was about to happen, the Henvic Plane’s faith in the holy light would be significantly impacted. The order of knights would require at least one to two hundred years of accumulation to regain their former scale and glory.

  As such, knowing how rare of an opportunity this was, Greem had to try his best to maximize his rewards.

  His targets this time were those high-grade holy knights.

  If he could capture all the high-grade holy knights that had entered the Poison Swamps, it would be the souls of seven Gold Knights and over fifty Silver Knights. That number of souls should be enough to push his Spirit to the peak of Third Grade.

  This journey to another world had allowed him to collect such an incredible amount of holy light souls, while also allowing him to ‘unexpectedly’ obtain the corpse of the rare starbeast. No matter how he looked at it, this was an amazingly bountiful yield beyond even his wildest expectations!

  Chapter 1002 - Clan Battlefield

  The World of Adepts. Zhentarim, Ailovis.

  The adept war between the Fabres Clan and the Crimson Clan was still going on.

  As one side was a large clan and the other was only a medium clan that had just reached its current scale recently, the balance of power was extremely imbalanced. It resulted in the war breaking out within the territory of the Crimson Clan from the very start.

  The rapidly developing Crimson Clan had owned over eighty percent of the lands in the Ailovis Region at the start of the war. However, as the war progressed, the Crimson Clan gradually lost all their outer territories and resource sites. The clan’s military force had retreated to the center to defend the roots of the clan, consisting of Fire Throne and Pinecone City.

  It could be said that the Crimson Clan had utterly lost!

  According to the usual rules of adept wars, the Fabres Clan could stop the war now. They could send out representatives to the Crimson Clan to discuss the matter of reparations and territory division. Though the Fabres Clan couldn’t possibly obtain all of the Crimson Clan territories and resource sites, they should have no problem taking sixty percent of all their assets as reparations.

  Yet, strangely enough, even though the Crimson Clan had been forced back to their small land of origin, the Fabres Clan appeared to have no intention of stopping its advance. The adepts, apprentices, and worldly soldiers of both parties were fighting a difficult battle near Pinecone City. Blood flowed through the lands and the streets. Three cities belonging directly to the Crimson Clan had already been destroyed, each one of them hosting a population of thirty to fifty thousand people.

  Meanwhile, the Zhentarim Association, which had always been very active in their enforcement of regulations, were oddly silent in the face of these actions, despite the fact that they were severely violating the standard code of conduct for adept wars. It seemed like they were tacitly allowing the Fabres Clan to do this.

  The only reason this situation had occurred was due to the Fourth Grade adept standing behind the Fabres Clan.

  No one would dare to criticize the actions of a Fourth Grade adept.

  After all, on this strange land that was the Continent of Adepts, Fourth Grade represented absolute strength!

  No adept or organization was willing to stand in opposition to another Fourth Grade adept. Unless there were grudges that could not be resolved, fights between Fourth Grade adepts rarely happened. That was because all other adepts were far too weak when compared to Fourth Grade adepts.

  If two Fourth Grade adepts were to clash, they would have a tough time killing each other. However, destroying that which their opponent treasured and the clan that they had established could not be any easier.

  It was this concern that kept the Fourth Grade adepts in check.

  No one was willing to offend a well-established Fourth Grade body-refining adept for a newly risen clan with no background and no support. As such, the many clans and organizations merely watched as the war raged on in Ailovis. No one intervened or interfered.

  In fact, many small and medium-sized clans tried their best to win the favor of the Fabres Clan. They were willing to support them with resources and even volunteered to fight on the frontlines. Thus, faced with the overwhelming swarm of enemies, the Crimson adepts had no choice bu
t to retreat yet again, finally stabilizing the battle line one hundred and twenty kilometers south of Pinecone City.

  The reason the front halted there wasn’t because of the might of the Crimson adepts, but because of the Fourth Grade magical golem dragon.

  With the Fourth Grade magical golem dragon as the core military force, paired with a hundred goblin chariots, three Motherships, and thousands of magical machines, the Crimson Clan was consuming a shocking number of magical crystals daily to maintain such a massive army of magical machines.

  If it weren’t for the magic generator furnaces that solved the energy supply problem for the larger machines, the cost of the magical crystals alone would be enough to bankrupt the Crimson Clan!

  Even so, the goblin chariots and magical machines still required a tremendous supply of magical energy. With the clan’s land of origin right behind them, they could be active within a range of a hundred and twenty kilometers with every charge.

  If they exceeded this radius, the enemy could cut off the energy supply line.

  That would cause the last military force of the Crimson Clan to face the possibility of utter collapse and defeat. Of course, the overwhelming forces of the Fabres Clan weren’t happy to be stopped by the ‘tiny’ Crimson Clan. They frequently sent adepts to breach the battle line and get near Pinecone City. They spread poison, destroyed amenities and war machines, and slaughtered the citizens of the Crimson Clan. They committed all sorts of destructive acts, inflicting significant personnel and resource damage to the Crimson Clan.

  The Crimson Clan wasn’t willing to sit by and wait until their eventual death either. With Pinecone City as a secure and stable backline, they could give their all in the fight against the Fabres Clan.

  If the enemy adepts dared sneak into their territory to ambush, slaughter, and destroy, then the Crimson Clan was more than willing to lie in wait, slowly exhausting and wearing down the number of Fabres adepts. In particular, Bug Adept Billis, Mystique Emelia, Dragon Adept Meryl, and Mary’s vampires stood out with their performances.