The might of the Flying Venom Dragon’s fearsome poison was capable of eroding even a massive golem entirely made out of metal, let alone these forests unprotected by any form of magic.
The adepts watching the screens were all horrified.
However, before they could let out a gasp, there was a loud explosion. A massive halo of fire erupted after the halo of poison, engulfing the dusty battlefield in a vast sea of fire.
The poison clashed with the fire, neutralizing each other as best as they could. The forest had been entirely destroyed. Not even the smallest of lifeforms could be seen in the vicinity, nor a single plant.
“This…this is…the power of the strongest Third Grades?” A young adept who was watching the fight alongside his clan members stuttered, his entire being in shock and terror.
The other adepts did not speak.
Only the Second Grade adept in their clan spoke in a solemn voice, “This is hardly them at their strongest. They are still enduring planar suppression right now. It should only be around half of their actual power, I believe?”
The other adepts were terrified and shocked into silence.
They continued to watch the screen as the two titans rolled over and razed an entire cliff to the ground. It was a tall cliff, standing at over thirty or forty meters and peeking out of the forest itself. Towering trees snapped and fell over wherever they went, either turning into ashes or a poison swamp. Large swathes of greenery disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Such terrifying might was only half of their actual power? Then how did they look like when they fought with all they had?
As low and intermediate-grade adepts, they did not have the necessary experience and worldview to understand or analyze the battle happening in front of them. As such, they could only assess the action based on the visuals and intensity of the fighting. However, such an extreme and massive battle would not fool the eyes of the high-grade adepts of Kerslin. Their method of assessing the fight was very different from an ordinary adept.
“Hasn’t Greem always been a smart person? Why is he so unwise today? To engage a bloodline adept like Sanazar in an up-front fight…” A Third Grade adept of the Association smirked, disdain written all over his face.
“Truly. He’s an elementium adept, and instead of using his fire spells, he’s fighting with his bare hands. Hmph! I think he’s gone mad!” Someone beside quickly piped up in agreement.
“He’s not scheming anything, is he? Why do I feel like Sanazar hasn’t gotten the upper hand yet?” Finally, someone voiced their doubts.
“Hm? Something’s wrong. The fire adept’s offensive power is a little unusual!”
“You just noticed it? I’ve realized his base damage has been a little too high for a while now. Have you guys discovered it? His fire magic is accompanied with a trace of white light every time he attacks. What is that?”
“That seems like…like light elementium!”
“That’s strange. Doesn’t Greem have fire specialization?”
“That’s nothing to gawk at. It might be some ability from his equipment!”
……
The Association adepts might be cruel with their words, but between all of them, they analyzed everything happening on the battlefield with perfect clarity.
While they calmly examined the battle, several Fourth Grade adepts gathered in an arcane hall in the higher levels of Kerslin Castle were also calmly observing the fight through the light projection.
“Sanazar’s a little impulsive.”
“Yes, she still has too much confidence in her venom dragon’s body. She’s completely forgotten that her opponent has two items in his possession that counter her and her abilities.”
“Oh? What else is there apart from that strange ring?”
“Through some of my more secretive channels, I recently learned that the kid had upgraded his Soul Equipment to Third Grade, allowing it to manifest as the Spirit of Pestilence. Do you think he fears Sanazar’s poison with the Spirit of Pestilence protecting him?”
“I still think that the key to victory lies with the ring. There is simply no solution to that pure light elementium that can ignore both physical and magical defenses. Without the appropriate means to defend against it, the light elementium alone would be enough to wear Sanazar down.”
“Kerala, you couldn’t have forgotten to prepare Gallow any equipment to defend against the light elementium, could you? In my opinion, Sanazar probably can’t defeat Greem.”
“Nicolas, you seemed to have forgotten the decision we made together. All fourteen adepts of the Association agreed that we would raise Greem to Fourth Grade and recruit him into the Association such that he can replace us in…— well, since we have already decided to let him win, why would I go to the extra effort of making Gallow more well-prepared?”
“Hmph! I just don’t want that brat to get too arrogant. It wouldn’t be late for Gallow to give him a thorough beating before conceding!”
“……” Adept Kerala fell silent for a moment before finally speaking, “I understand Gallow’s personality. He is prideful. I am afraid he won’t hold back. If I do give him Purpleblood, he would probably fight Greem with all he had. When that happens, the situation will no longer be in my control.”
Apart from Greem and Sanazar’s battle, the fight in another region of Bluesea Plane was also being projected onto their screen. Scarface Gallow and Medium Adept Dante had also met up and were now engaged in a chase across a vast plain.
Both of them were peak Third Grade adepts, but judging by the situation, Scarface Gallow had the absolute advantage and was chasing Medium Adept Dante all over the place. Dante could only rely on the Third Grade spirit he had summoned to secretly and sinisterly ambush Gallow to relieve the tremendous pressure he was enduring.
Dante was truly a fearsome medium. The Third Grade spirit he had summoned flew all over the place, hiding in all sorts of locations and making it impossible to guard against. If Gallow hadn’t turned his body into the unusual Immortal Body, he would already have died to the countless assassination attempts by the spirit.
However, the strongest move of Dante’s Third Grade spirit was undoubtedly ‘Possess’!
It allowed the spirit to charge into an opponent’s body and take control of them for a brief moment. It might be an incredibly brief instant, but even that one instant would be lethal in a battle between Third Grades.
The vicious pierce wounds on Gallow’s forehead and chest were the two most significant pieces of evidence of this!
Scarface Gallow lived up to his name as an undying monster. Even after his heart and forehead had two large holes pierced into them, he could still chase after the enemy with his sword in hand. The magical sword in his hand also seemed to have some sort of strange power. It caused a portion of Dante’s intangible body to vanish permanently wherever it made contact.
Supposedly, Dante’s intangible body could recover from any physical damage just by going ethereal. However, when faced with Gallow’s unusual sword, the parts of his body that were cut off could not regenerate again.
After this happened twice, Dante did not dare to touch the magical sword again!
If he couldn’t win in a direct confrontation, then he would make it a chase.
Dante took full advantage of his rapid movements and dragged Gallow in a circle around the massive field. At any rate, there was still plenty of time remaining for the battle. He could freely exhaust Gallow’s stamina and retaliate once he collapsed from exertion.
It was the most common tactic that elementium adepts employed against powerful bloodline adepts!
While Scarface Gallow and Medium Dante were busy with their chase, tens of thousands of kilometers away in the depths of the forest, Greem and Sanazar’s battle raged on.
Compared to the massive gulf in power between Gallow and Dante, Greem’s and Sanazar’s strength was nearly equal. The only difference came in the form of melee combat techniques.
As
the two of them tussled with each other, Greem suffered from having a less resilient body. His close combat attacks also inflicted far less damage than Sanazar’s poison fangs and claws.
Fortunately, with the aid of the Chip’s combat assistance system, he was able to dodge several violent strikes from Sanazar, while giving her a beating with the holy light damage from Sodden’s Holy Ring.
When the two of them finally broke apart after a particularly violent exchange, the first round of the battle finally came to its end.
Greem leaped a kilometer away with Fire Teleportation. He looked at the badly burned Flying Venom Dragon before gritting his teeth and turning to treat the wounds on his body.
The bright yellow flames around him had now been stained with a layer of green. Even Greem’s own body was now covered in patches of black, purple, and green. Sickly-green liquid flowed out of dark sores on his skin, leaving a deathly pungent odor in the air.
Chapter 1036 - A Bloody Battle
Greem stood up with some difficulty.
At this moment, he didn’t dare to change back from his Flame Fiend form at all. Otherwise, the severe physical damage he had suffered would instantly overwhelm his human body.
A purple abyssal flame rose from Greem’s indigo claw, which he pressed against the basin-sized wound on his chest. A muffled explosion rang out as the fire erupted. Surging flames ignited all over his body once again, driving away the poison energies lingering on the seventeen wounds all over his body.
If he had enough time, he could be more gentle and thorough with this maneuver. However, with the enemy right in front of him, he had to recover as soon as possible. Such a rough and crude method of treatment was his only choice.
After the poison had been driven out, Greem could finally put his twenty-two points of Physique to use. Not only did the small tears on his skin start mending, but the two wounds on his chest and below his ribs that nearly went straight through his body started healing. Numerous flesh tendrils grew around the injuries, wildly meshing together and pulling the wounds closed.
Regardless of the condition of his internal organs, at least the wounds on the surface had all healed. There were no weaknesses in his defense.
Meanwhile, the parts where his ribs had snapped in half were pulled back to their original positions by the muscle fibers as they tightened and pulled. Even though the fractures were still there, they were not a big issue for the moment with the layers of flesh, tendons, and muscle over them.
Greem channeled his magical powers as sweat ran down his entire body, stimulating the cells and tissues to regenerate at a rapid pace. He had managed to patch together most of the injuries on his person.
In just five minutes, Greem had managed to deal with all his wounds. Flames erupted from all over his body once again, as if he was perfectly unharmed.
At least it looked like that!
If Greem’s 22 points of Physique were already impressive, then Sanazar’s 39 points could only be more astounding. After the bloody battle from earlier, the surface of Sanazar’s body had already been reduced to crisp ashes.
However, as her bloodline powers surged through her body, she simply shook her form, and the thoroughly carbonized skin fell off to reveal the wildly growing flesh beneath.
Halfway through Greem’s own treatment, Sanazar had already completed her healing. All the burns on the surface of her body had vanished, once again covered by the revulsive slime that she secreted from her body.
Healing one’s wounds with magical powers alone; it was an ability unique to high-grade adepts!
As long as they still had stamina left, they could endlessly heal, heal, and heal some more. It allowed these adepts to maintain their peak combat prowess perpetually.
As a bloodline adept, Sanazar’s speed at healing her body was superior to Greem. In addition to her vastly superior magic and physical resistance, she had clearly obtained the advantage after the first round of battle.
After healing her body, Sanazar roared and lunged at Greem without any hesitation. Meanwhile, Greem was not done with his treatment yet. As such, he could only dodge the incoming attacks while hastening his healing.
The second battle between the two adepts immediately broke out.
The many adepts gathered before the magical screens couldn’t help but focus on the battle once more as the two titans on the screen clashed again. In particular, those adepts of different factions silently began to cheer for the fighter they favored.
“Lady Mary. Teacher…Teacher, he…” Meryl couldn’t help but start worrying for her teacher at this moment. “Teacher is an elementium adept. Why is he giving up his advantage and engaging that slimy catfish in a close fight?”
Mary couldn’t help but frown as well. It seemed like she had the same question.
Rather, it was Emelia, who was hiding by their side, happily eating golden peaches while glancing at the screen absent-mindedly, that couldn’t help but pout and said, “Of course it’s to wear the opponent down!”
“Wear her down?” Meryl couldn’t help but repeatedly mutter to herself.
“If it wasn’t to exhaust the opponent’s energy reserves earlier and faster, do you think our clan leader would run up for a beating?” Emelia, with her strange origins and unusual personality, clearly had a thorough and deep understanding of most things that others could not comprehend. She had always functioned as the ‘advisor’ and ‘strategist,’ even amongst this group of female adepts that she was close with.
Mary wasn’t as gentle as Meryl. She pinched Emelia by her soft and slender waist and threatened, “Hurry up and tell us what you can tell! Stop holding back and being such a tease! You leave me hanging again, and I’ll bite you.”
“Ayaya.” The poor girl winced in pain. She had no choice but to roll her eyes and reveal her thoughts as quickly as possible.
“The clan leader issued a challenge the moment he stepped onto the battlefield. It’s obvious that he wants to deal with the first opponent quickly.”
“This…we all know this!”
“What do you know…ow!” Emelia cried out in pain again. “Alright, let’s talk about this from a different perspective. If it were you, how would you deal with a Third Grade opponent who was as powerful as yourself?”
“Fight! Of course, I would fight intensely and without stop.”
“Right? As you’ve seen, these Third Grade monsters all have ridiculous defense and regeneration. It’s nearly impossible to defeat them in a single blow. Unless our clan leader is a Fourth Grade and can rely on an absolute power advantage to crush them, his only choice is to fight an honest battle of attrition.”
“Can’t he use technique to beat the opponent?”
“Heh, silly girl, do you think these Third Grades are all idiots? Once they realize they are at a disadvantage in a fight, they will either change tactics or change battlefields. There is no way they would allow the enemy an opportunity to suppress them for extended periods. If our clan leader uses guerilla tactics and takes full advantage of his elementium might, do you think this slimy catfish will keep fighting with him? She’s sure to run while fighting. There’s no way she lets our clan leader have the advantage on the battlefield for too long.”
Emelia put on a sly smile.
“When that happens, it’s sure to be a messy fight all over the place. One of them will be chasing the other, and the next moment the other person will be doing the chasing instead. No one would be able to gain the complete upper hand. If that were the case, then with the regenerative powers of Third Grade adepts, the fight would easily drag on for weeks and months. The clan leader probably doesn’t want that situation to occur, which is why he is intentionally betraying his weakness and keeping that woman fighting.”
At this point, both Mary and Meryl understood the situation.
They both knew very well what trump cards Greem had hidden up his sleeves. The elementium magical machine would probably have appeared if he were intent on fighting with all
his might.
The fact that he was holding back on these trump cards probably had something to do with his current strategy.
In all of his past battles, the elementium magical machine was always the one charging at the forefront and wearing down the enemy’s reserves. It wasn’t until the enemy was exhausted that Greem would take over. However, this time Greem was treating himself as the cannon fodder and saving the elementium magical machine as the final trump card to seal the deal.
This decision and strategy were clearly beyond everyone’s expectations!
Still, could this really fool his opponent?
Sanazar was impulsive and rash, but not foolish. Even if she couldn’t glean it clearly, she could still figure out the outlines of Greem’s plan. That said, she got to have the advantage for free here. She might as well take it.
Who knew who was going to be the one to be shocked when both sides started revealing their hands!
…………
Compared to the gossiping on the Crimson Clan’s side, the Sarubo Clan’s party was a bit more lively and in higher spirits.
Every time the lithe and hideous dragon charged into the Flame Fiend’s Burning Domain and engaged him in another earthshaking round of fighting, the Sarubo Clan adepts raised their fists and cheer.
“Bite his throat!”
“Dodge the fireball…ah, what a shame.”
“Careful of his flame whip!”
……
As if they were involved in the fight itself, Second Grade Fügen as well as First Grade Keoghan and Am all trembled nervously and shouted through their teeth.
Almost as if their cheering had an effect, Sanazar maintained the upper hand on the screen, injuring the Flame Fiend all over and covering him in blood. In comparison, the damage she had received was far lighter compared to Greem.
Though it wasn’t enough to form a decisive advantage, it slowly tilted the scales in Sanazar’s favor.
It was already the fourth round of exchanges between the two of them!
Sanazar seemed to have seen the advantage present, as well as the chance at victory. As such, she refused to back off even as she suffered from severe fire damage. She no longer gave Greem any opportunity to step out of the battlefield to heal himself.
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