It wasn’t just scalpels and tweezers that were being used. Alice even used axes and saws on the operation, tools that ordinary people used to fell trees.
The sound of a hacking axe could be heard over and over in the large room, along with the chilling sound of a grinding saw. It would make anyone close their ears in horror.
Due to the repeated battles that Greem had engaged in, most of his injuries reached deep into his wounds and bones. As such, the treatment was complicated.
For instance, Alice even had to cut open Greem’s chest and hack away all the ribs in the way with an axe to reveal his beating heart.
What a strange human heart this was!
Underneath Greem’s ribs was a mass of dark red tissue. Inside the chest cavity, a strange heart the size of a human head beat, connected to the surrounding organs with countless blood vessels.
The surface of the heart was covered in numerous strange magical patterns. These patterns were twisted, shattered, and even squirmed, making for a truly unusual sight.
This thing was no longer an ordinary heart. No, this was a magical heart. In fact, it was a Heart of Principles that brimmed with law power!
The reason Greem had such overwhelming fire power apart from the two Fifth Grade artifacts was due to the incomparable strength of this Heart of Principles.
Chapter 1307 - Troublesome Laws
At this moment, the Heart of Principles had been contaminated by foreign law energies!
The dark-red beating heart seemed to have been visibly stained a dark gray color.
That was Cerveris’ curse energy!
Until this energy was removed, the contaminated Heart of Principles would not be helpful to Greem.
“Lucia, do you see the gray parts? Hurry and cut them out! Be careful not to let the gray parts touch your skin. Otherwise, with your Physique, there is no way you can survive the curse power.”
Lucia’s hands trembled slightly.
How many times in the dead of the night had she woken up screaming, haunted by the memory of that colossal, terrifying flame giant at the moment right before her death?
Now, that giant was lying in front of her, and she had an enchanted scalpel with which to slice his heart. If her hand were to slip and stab the heart slightly, could he still live?
For some reason, this thought took up the entirety of Lucia’s mind the moment it appeared. Her whole mind was filled with this ridiculous idea and insuppressible impulse. On the other hand, the Fate powers that she had been studying for all these years were subtly warning her not to do so!
In the past, the emotional Lucia would have given in to her feelings and did what she wanted to do. However, after being surrounded by the Fate powers for so long, even she had unknowingly gained the habit of following the will of Fate and having it decide everything for her.
If Fate was giving out warnings to her, it must have foreseen something bad for her. What could that be?
Lucia wondered silently, her hand showing no signs of hesitation at all. Like the most precise machine, she accurately and correctly incised and removed pieces of gray flesh from the heart before disposing of them.
Incisions of this kind undoubtedly inflicted tremendous damage to the Heart of Principles, but that was still better than leaving it in a situation of turbulent laws for an extended period.
Greem might be unconscious, but his 34 points of Physique still gave him tremendous regenerative powers. The hole where the flesh had been cut out healed at a visible rate. Countless flesh tendrils reached out from the muscle fibers around the wound and meshed together.
It was almost as if every strand of tissue and every bone in Greem’s body had a mind of its own. Truly, every high-grade adept was a monster in every sense of the word!
They were monsters, both in biology and in mentality!
Lucia was working her hardest to help Alice with the operation. When she finally straightened her back and wiped the cold sweat off her head, she came to a sudden understanding.
The destruction of the Arcane Empire was not the doing of any one individual or entity. It was a certainty in the development of civilization!
For a civilization or empire to ascend to greater heights while it was not yet ready would only attract countless predators’ attention and malice. These invasions were not decisions made by one or two individual predators, but the natural result of countless civilizations coming into conflict and devouring each other.
The flame giant had been incomparably powerful in her eyes, a mighty, omnipotent existence that could destroy the world with a single wave of its hands. However, in other predators’ eyes, he was probably no more than one of the weaker ‘scavengers’!
That was why it was only a cowardly act for her to have directed all her resentment for the Arcane Empire’s death onto him alone. That was because she didn’t dare to challenge the many powerful existences that were actually responsible for the invasion. She didn’t dare make enemies out of entire worlds. She had compressed all her hatred and agony and projected them onto the one concrete enemy before her.
The more she understood the reality of the situation, the greater Lucia’s suffering became!
The kind of courage required to declare war against entire worlds and planes and against the powerful beings that had invaded the Arcane Empire was not something that a mere Second Grade arcanist and First Grade adept that had found herself in a foreign world could ever muster.
However, even though she might not have the power required to exact her vengeance, she could still scream as loud as she could in her heart. If she didn’t even have the courage to shout out in anger at her enemies, then what exactly was the point of her existence, of her commitments!?
Greem gradually woke up from his coma as the foreign law energies were slowly removed from his body.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was quite an unbelievable sight: a young and pretty girl whose eyes were burning with the fires of vengeance shouted at him, “Once I’m powerful, I will challenge and defeat all of you!” Having said that, she turned and ran out of the room.
Greem’s mind was powerful enough to process all the information in front of him.
He could very clearly see that the girl’s clothes, hands, and even face were covered in blood from the operation on him. Her young and pretty face was also somewhat familiar to him.
Greem was barely able to lift his head amidst all the confusion. He ignored his open chest cavity, ignored the numerous gouges in his body, and looked towards the bloody and exhausted Alice.
“Don’t look at me. Even I can’t tell that girl what to do.” Even as worn out as she was, the sweetest smile still appeared on Alice’s face when she looked upon Greem.
“It’s been hard for you! Go, take a rest. Leave the rest to me,” Greem looked at Alice, sorry for what she had gone through, and consoled her.
Indeed, high-grade adepts like him had plenty of means by which to regenerate, as long as the enemy had not destroyed their soul. However, given his current grade and the severity of his injuries, this recovery process could take upwards of decades or centuries.
It was simple- high-grade adepts had basically developed their physical potential to its limits. The healing potions that could have healed any wounds in the past were barely effective on them now. Ordinary injuries could scarcely leave a trace on their bodies. However, any lasting damage would often be law injuries that could not be fully cured.
Now that Greem was conscious again, he could take over his own treatment. It would undoubtedly be an extremely long and expensive process!
“Chip, perform a full-body scan immediately and lay out the corresponding treatment and recovery plan.”
[Beep. Order received. Full-body scan in process.]
Soon, a three-dimensional projection appeared in Greem’s mind. The Chip indicated all the severely injured parts of Greem’s body in dark and light red–and there were a lot of them–while a series of treatments and recovery
plans were listed to the side.
Greem looked at the numerous red spots on the projection as well as the long list of resources required for his treatment. He sighed. He had no choice but to revise the clan’s development plan and leave a hundred-year period for him to recover.
It couldn’t be helped. The injuries Greem had sustained were too serious!
It was fortunate that he had won this war. Otherwise, it might have taken him a long three hundred years to recover fully.
…………
Graybear Hill, the Giant’s Castle.
As a worldly territory that had been in the Gaia Clan’s possession for several thousands of years, the Giant’s Castle was a famous place in the Central Lands and, perhaps, even the World of Adepts.
Ever since the ancestor of the Gaia Clan unexpectedly discovered the well-preserved corpse of a Titan in an abandoned ruin out in space and successfully extracted its bloodline, the Gaia Clan had undergone a meteoric rise. They became the most powerful bloodline clan of the Central Lands, known throughout the World of Adepts.
Unlike elementium adepts, bloodline adepts and particularly bloodline clans were reliant on their bloodline’s purity and growth potential. However, these two factors were the most problematic factors to control.
The greater the potential of the bloodline, the more difficult it was to produce offspring. That was the central dilemma that troubled all bloodline clans, preventing them from developing any further. They might all possess incomparable individual combat prowess, but they were repeatedly unable to grow into significant organizations due to the limited numbers of their members.
Mornashen Gaia might be the most powerful individual in the Central Lands, but there were no more than seven other bloodline adepts in the Gaia Clan who could be considered powerful aside from him. It was practically a single line of succession. Even the slightest unexpected incident could cut the legacy of this bloodline clan short.
That was why Mornashen Gaia represented absolute authority in his clan, as well as the unrelenting barrier that stood between the clan and their enemies.
Today, the Giant’s Castle was shrouded in a fog of worry.
That was because Mornashen Gaia had been injured!
The clan leader could be injured! If anyone had ever made such a joke in front of the Gaia Clan members, they would have laughed and punched them in the face. However, this joke had become a bloody reality today, and the members of the Gaia Clan couldn’t help but become anxious.
In a hidden room inside the Giant’s Castle.
Two middle-aged adepts, one male and one female, stood in the middle of the room with concerned expressions. Mornashen Gaia lay on the bed, propped up on his back against the back of the bed.
“Alright, alright, it’s just a few small wounds. Look at your faces,” Mornashen might have returned injured, but he appeared as composed as ever. It was as if he wasn’t bothered in the slightest. “Right, speaking of which, what was the conclusion of the battle after I left?”
“My lord, the conclusion was completely unexpected!” The middle-aged male adept had a solemn expression on his face still. He strode forward and reported, “The legendary fire adept managed to defeat Cerveris after you left and forced him to flee the battle.”
“Oh?” Mornashen’s expression changed. He slowly straightened his body. “So, you mean, the Crimson Clan has won!”
“Yes, my lord! According to the observers we left behind, Adept Kerala switched sides at the last moment and helped the Crimson Clan against Freed and the others. It was a complete victory for the Crimson Clan. All the Fourth Grade adepts fled back to their homes, and most of the forces they left behind have become captives of the Crimson Clan.”
Mornashen couldn’t care less about the details. He had fallen into deep thought. The two core members of the Gaia Clan could only silently bow and exit the room when they noticed this.
“The world’s about to change.”
After a long while, Mornashen sighed to himself.
There was no one else here now, so there was no need for him to put on an appearance anymore.
Without his bloodline power actively suppressing his injuries, three clusters of golden flames appeared on Mornashen’s resilient body, crackling as they burned.
Damned Greem! How were his fire laws so troublesome to deal with?
The powerful clan leader of the Gaia Clan cursed in his heart. An expression of pain and regret appeared on his face!
Chapter 1308 - A Storm Stirs
Zhentarim, inside a hidden burrow.
It was a well-concealed location deep underground and one of a dozen secret shelters that the Adept’s Association had established in the Central Lands.
The entirety of the burrows was a labyrinth with winding corridors connected to five of these secret shelters. All sorts of precious resources and materials were stored in these shelters.
At this moment, the burrows were filled with howling cries of agony!
Cerveris tossed and turned in his smoke form inside the largest and most luxurious rooms in these burrows. Occasionally, his twisted and ugly face formed in the black smoke and let out a ghastly cry. The face would then be blasted into scattered smoke by a sudden eruption of golden flames.
Several Third Grade adepts from the Adept’s Association were gathered in a corner of the room, quietly discussing a method of treatment for this ultra-powerhouse. However, before they could come to a conclusion, their ears were filled with a sharp and stern howl.
“Bastards, you are all bastards. The Association cultivated all of you at significant cost, yet none of you can get rid of these fire laws. Tell me, what’s the point of keeping you fools around?” Cerveris reverted to his human form, panting laboriously on the ground. His entire body was covered in scorch marks, making for a pitiful sight indeed.
However, Cerveris immediately started begging instead, “Hurry up…have you all still not come to a conclusion? Hurry…all of you, hurry up…that bastard’s fire laws are about to act up again.”
Before he could finish speaking, another flash of fire appeared from within Cerveris’ scrawny frame, erupting in a warm and fiery blast. His body was instantly blasted into tiny pieces before regathering into a single cloud of smoke.
“Four fire laws. At least four fire laws are all entangled together in him,” The Third Grade elementium adepts had helpless looks on their faces. They could not do anything about this problematic situation before them.
Law powers could not be removed employing ordinary herbs or potions. It required the use of equivalent high-grade powers. There might be potion masters, enchanters, alchemists, and summoners here, but none of them could do anything about the law powers, which only Fourth Grade adepts had mastered and could control.
Eventually, Cerveris managed to endure this new round of eruptions from the fire laws. He reformed and screamed out wildly, “I am leaving for the Adept’s Association. Hurry up and open a portal for me. I want to leave now.”
The Association adepts looked at each other. They had no choice but to work together and open up a portal to the east of the continent. Cerveris hurried through the doorway, practically scrambling and crawling as he did so.
Once the portal had shut, one of the more composed middle-aged adepts frowned and said, “Now that Lord Cerveris has left, what should we do about the Central Lands? We have basically declared open hostilities against the Crimson Clan. If—”
“So what if it’s open hostilities? What is he going to do? Bring people and knock down our doors?” Another male adept spoke up resentfully.
“That just might be a possibility. If they do come knocking down our doors, we can’t allow all the forces that the Association has left here in the Central Lands get caught in one fell swoop. I suggest…that we all go into hiding separately. The entire Central Lands branch is to go incognito!”
“Seconded!”
“Agreed!”
“Very well, that is what we will do then. Everyo
ne split up and prepare!”
The Association adepts immediately erupted into mists of various colors and vanished from the room once their discussion had concluded.
…………
The Battle of Stoneshard Valley sent tremors throughout the Central Lands, not unlike an apocalyptic earthquake.
The rise of an ultra-powerhouse had also thoroughly ignited the pride and passion of the Central adepts.
Countless adepts moved around, looking to obtain more information on the historic battle that had come to pass. Numerous versions of the events of Stoneshard Valley were born as gossip and rumors spread around. However, every single version shared a similar trait– they had the same protagonist. That protagonist was none other the greatest adept that had recently come to power in the Central Lands– Greem.
Greem might be a Fourth Grade fire adept, but he still required a long time to train and improve before he could become a peak Fourth Grade adept.
However, that did not stop everyone else from passionately pushing him onto the throne of the strongest adept in the Central Lands.
Ultra-powerhouse. The Central Lands.
For the first time in history, these two words were closely connected.
The significance of this was only genuinely felt by the Central adepts, who had endured discrimination and condescension from adepts of the other lands.
From now on, the Central Lands were no longer a desert of talent. It was no longer a helpless collection of loose sand. It had become the fourth organization that could compare to the three major organizations.
Almost every single Central adept apart from those of the large clans were excited about this change!
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