Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  Chapter 1465 - Devastation

  By the time Greem arrived at the battlefield, the fighting was already over.

  Rotten trees and a dozen times the number of voodoo beast corpses lay strewn across the vast forest. Most of the bodies had been shredded to pieces or smashed into indistinguishable messes of flesh and blood.

  The battlefield had been roughed up. You could see odd-shaped corpses and signs of elementium devastation everywhere.

  Greem wore a skin-tight leather suit. An intricate cloak decorated with purple and black patterns wrapped around him. Two strands of his dark red hair fluttered outside his hood, making him appear all the more handsome and dashing.

  Greem stepped upon the scorched and smoldering earth as he walked across the battlefield.

  He walked for another few kilometers and finally saw a large cave under the cliff, hidden under dense foliage and vines.

  It was a dark and lightless cave.

  The passage into the tomb extended downward at a slope. At a single glance, it was impossible to see where it ended.

  The adepts walking at the very front had already put up illumination stones on both walls of the passage. The soft white light dispelled the darkness and illuminated every inch of ground at their feet.

  Along the way, you could see terrifying remnants left behind by detonated magical traps. The adepts’ steps rustled as they walked. The ground was covered not only in dust and sand, but also plenty of white bone dust.

  Soon, Greem arrived at a small cave.

  This room was somewhat larger than the passage before. As such, a lot of other things could also be seen. There were incomplete pieces of dragon skeletons, as well as even larger pieces.

  Everywhere, remnants of a bitter battle could be observed on the ground and walls. Several Third Grade bone dragons had already been torn into pieces by the vanguard force and scattered all over.

  Greem even saw a completely dissolved skeleton in a corner of the room. The skeleton was soaking in a puddle of viscous and pungent green liquid, slowly being corroded and eaten away.

  Judging by the skeleton’s appearance and how the bone dragon had been disposed of, this was the work of Remi!

  Greem casually picked up a thick, one-meter-long bone. Blue light from the Chip flashed in his eyes, and he was able to obtain the bone dragon’s attributes.

  [Beep. Third right-rib of a low-grade bone dragon.

  Hardness: Second Grade.

  Flexibility: First Grade.

  Magic Resistance: Second Grade.

  Elementium Density: First Grade.

  Initial estimates suggest that the bone dragon was a Second Grade White Dragon in life. The dragon likely had low intelligence, and its breath was likely a frost breath.

  [Furthermore, the technique used in crafting the bone dragon is extremely simple and crude. The craftsmanship is at the level of an apprentice. Due to imperfections in the craftsmanship, the bone dragon lost all of its magical abilities from life. Over 40% of its former combat power was also lost.]

  Er, it seemed like the Chip’s appraisal of the dracolich’s craftsmanship was pretty poor!

  It made sense too.

  An isolated dracolich without a source of new knowledge would have to start from scratch. It would have to investigate, experiment, and attempt everything by itself with no external aid. It was only understandable given the circumstances.

  Greem casually tossed aside the bone and led his elite subordinates to the end of the cave. Three identical passages were arranged in a row here, and three strange runes were written with bones on top of the passages.

  A young adept was stationed in front of the entrances. He hastily came over and paid his respects when he saw Greem arrive.

  “Have they gone in already? How’s the exploration going?” Greem asked casually.

  “My lord, Lord Remi took the middle path, while Adept Garr took the left path. Adept Tasir took the right path. We have not received a report from any of them yet!” The young adept replied respectfully. The adept’s face had flushed red at being able to talk with an ultra-grade Great Adept in person. It was apparent he was incredibly excited.

  Greem glanced at the passages. A powerful spiritual fluctuation rippled outward and instantly filled all three of the passages. It was searing hot, restless, faintly berserk, and seeped with a distant hint of pride and nobility. That was how his Spirit felt!

  His Spirit ignored the walls and the presence of any defensive forcefields. It transmitted throughout the passages like an overwhelming flood and directly passed by the other adept parties, who were making slow progress forward.

  The massive magical restrictions there were triggered, and a cold, desolate spiritual flux erupted, forcefully stopping Greem’s Spirit in its tracks.

  “I don’t care where you are from, guest from another world. Please, leave! This is the tomb of dragons, where the ancient dragons rest. None other than dragons are allowed to visit…whatever your intentions, please turn back!”

  Two powerful and massive spiritual consciousnesses clashed within the tomb. The conflict’s tremendous force had nowhere to go and spread out through the walls, causing the entire place to tremble and dust to fall from above.

  “Leave? Heh, I will naturally leave once I’ve stripped this place empty. However, when I leave, I do hope you, sir, will be willing to follow me. I am quite lacking in capable subordinates at the moment, and you seem suited to serve me,” Greem laughed as he strode into the winding corridors.

  Seemingly provoked by Greem’s arrogance, the desolate Spirit consciousness let out a roar. It had gathered all of its Spirit power and lunged at Greem.

  “Hmph! You dare!” Greem grunted furiously as his searing will erupted without restraint, crashing right into the approaching consciousness.

  Dong!

  An intangible shockwave rippled out on the spiritual level, enveloping every adept and living being within the tomb. No matter where they were, no matter what their grades was, their bodies trembled and their Spirits shook when the spiritual ripple reached them. Blood streaked down from their eyes, noses, and ears.

  Some of the adepts below Second Grade even fell unconscious on the spot!

  Even the Fourth Grade adept following behind Greem had to grit his teeth to endure that unbearable spiritual shockwave.

  “Fifth…Fifth Grade. You’re…Fifth Grade?” Naturally, with this kind of unrestrained spiritual clash, it was always the weaker one that suffered. Greem’s Spirit was already so strong and concentrated that it could manifest in actuality. How could a peak Fourth Grade dracolich hiding in a remote corner of the world possibly compare to such power?

  It was at this moment that the dracolich finally felt Greem’s true power in its entirety.

  Fifth Grade…to think the invader was a Fifth Grade Great Adept!

  No matter how much the dracolich regretted its actions right now, Greem simply continued walking toward the depths of the tomb.

  The dracolich’s hoarse voice did not die down. A short moment later, its voice could be heard again. “Who are you, bastard? Get out of the dragon’s tomb.”

  A few loud disruptions could be heard in the mental message, and the dracolich’s spiritual fluctuation suddenly weakened. It then screamed, “Impossible! How is even your contracted servant a Fifth Grade…I’ll kill you!”

  The spiritual flux ended abruptly here, replaced with Remi’s sinister mental message.

  “Master, I’ve beaten down the dracolich. You had better hurry over to take a look!”

  Oh? If this dracolich could pique Remi’s curiosity, it was certainly no ordinary creature. Greem hastily rushed over to the depths of the tomb out of curiosity.

  Greem passed through a strange gray barrier and arrived within an alternate dimension independent from Plane Gere.

  This place was the true dragon’s tomb!

  The sky was gray within this massive space and filled with the cold and sinister aura of death. The ground was black and
the earth saturated with death energy, turning the whole world into a place of death.

  If you took the earth here and spread it in any other grave, the corpses there would slowly transform into high-grade undead.

  Hundreds of dragon skeletons were scattered all over the place.

  The size of these skeletons varied. Some were only a dozen meters long, while others were as massive as mountains, stretching far into the distance and out of sight. They might be of different tribes, but their corpses and souls had been buried here in death.

  That was why the death energy here was so wild and intense that it rendered even Greem speechless!

  Perhaps sensing the appearance of a living being, the death energy within the tomb began to grow restless. Clouds of gray mist occasionally transformed into the appearance of a raging dragon, which would release chilling dragon roars.

  The entire tomb seemed to have turned alive with Greem’s appearance!

  A dracolich crouched in the center of the tomb atop a square bone altar, seemingly bent over in pain. Its tattered and rotten bones had cracked, and several joints were covered in a slimy green liquid, causing it to be unable to move at all.

  The dracolich was still struggling within the green mist. However, it could not escape the strange creature sitting on top of it– Remi, the Spirit of Pestilence.

  Was this the dracolich that had clashed directly with his Spirit earlier?

  Greem couldn’t help but take a few more interested glances at the dracolich.

  It was a pureblood dracolich!

  From its appearance alone, the dracolich looked like a giant lizard standing upright. Its curved spine made it only two meters tall in height, and it had a dark bone tail dragging along the ground. Its skull was hidden in the mist, making it difficult to see its true face.

  Dracoliches were powerful spellcasters whose physical ability had regressed in exchange for amplified Spirit.

  Unlike ordinary liches, dracoliches were mostly made of dragon bones. Consequently, they retained much of the dragon magic that they possessed in life. Even though their undead body could not actually wield Dragontongue magic, it still allowed the dracolich to master most dark magic through its own power.

  Curse magic, death magic, shadow magic- as long as it was a type of magic powered by negative energy, the dracolich could easily wield or master it!

  Unfortunately, this unusually powerful high-grade undead dragon had now become Greem’s prisoner. It no longer had hopes of escaping.

  Chapter 1466 - Mysterious Light Array

  The massive dragon’s tomb had now been completely taken up by the adepts who had crowded in.

  A few skirmishes were still occurring on the outside.

  These tomb guardians and dragonwraiths that had just awakened might be lofty, invincible existences to an ordinary graverobber, but they were little more than undead hindrances for the well-prepared elite adepts.

  Soulcatcher, Bind Spirit, Anti-Undead Barrier, Anti-Magic Forcefield, Protection From Evil- as elites, these adepts had plenty of methods with which to deal with these unintelligent antiques that had been sleeping for the past thousands of years.

  If all these special measures were ineffective, they could simply top it up with their ordinary spells and finish the job. However, for the sake of maximizing their profits, none of the adepts would ever obliterate these guardians or turn them into tiny pieces. After all, their valuable body parts were equivalent to mountains of magical crystals.

  Greem was savoring the main course, and these adepts that had followed him here naturally got to enjoy whatever he left behind for them.

  The scale of this dragon’s tomb was quite impressive.

  This space had a radius of around a dozen kilometers, and several hundred dragon skeletons had been buried here.

  Some of the skeletons were only half-buried, their bones showing signs of corrosion from the passage of time. Other skeletons had merged entirely with the rocks and boulders, turning a white-gray color. However, without exception, their skeletons all radiated incredibly dense death energy within this mysterious space.

  The tomb guardians formed from their bones, and the dragonwraiths formed from their souls became the main obstacle to the adepts’ looting.

  The adepts took out Soulcatching Wands and Spiritbinding Scrolls in a practiced fashion and quickly bound all the dragonwraiths in elementium chains. They then carefully placed these dragonwraiths into soul crystals or soul jars.

  Meanwhile, the rampaging tomb guardians could only be knocked apart by the body-refining adepts or rendered inactive by the numerous layers of Anti-Undead Barriers and Anti-Magic Fields. Every time a tomb guardian fell apart, the adepts would break out in loud cheering. They would quickly pick up and put away the high-grade dragon bones left behind.

  Greem left the adepts to collect their spoils while he and Remi circled the small, ten-meter wide dragonbone altar and evaluated it.

  For some reason, Greem had a strange, restless feeling in his heart. It was almost as if he had forgotten something important.

  As a Great Adept, there was almost no chance his senses were off. If he was feeling or sensing something, it meant that something harmful and inauspicious was almost definitely brewing right beyond his immediate knowledge. However, Greem had not practiced divination and could not ascertain the source of this unknown danger.

  Whatever this impending calamity was, it was definitely triggered by the exploration of the dragon tomb. The dracolich was undoubtedly responsible to some extent!

  Greem picked up the dracolich, whose limbs had almost fallen off from Remi’s poison. He stared right into the dracolich’s ghostly green eyes and warned sternly, “Brat, don’t try anything funny, or I’ll—”

  Greem’s voice came to an abrupt halt before he could finish. A warning from the Chip rang out in his mind.

  [Beep. Detecting faith beacon deep within the target creature’s soul.]

  A faith beacon?

  Greem’s thoughts moved, and information regarding the subject quickly flooded his mind.

  Faith beacons were a unique means of spatial coordination. It was also a mark by which a god traced their devout followers. Through a faith beacon, a god would be able to sense the condition of their believer across trillions of kilometers.

  If the believer were to die unexpectedly, the faith beacon would automatically turn into a faith channel and transport the believer’s soul to the god kingdom.

  It was an automated process that could not be interfered with!

  If anyone attempted to withhold the believer’s soul, they would quickly draw that god’s attention.

  Under ordinary circumstances, no one would offend those powerful gods just for the soul of a measly believer. However, there were many times where killing an individual and extinguishing their soul was a necessity, out of consideration of concealing certain secrets.

  Even though Greem had no intention of killing this dracolich to seal its mouth, he was still surprised by the fact that it had a faith beacon within its soul. It was almost unimaginable.

  After all, dracoliches were existences that were firmly beyond the realm of the living; they were bonafide undead beings. Such taboos were strictly forbidden, even amongst the dragons.

  Under ordinary circumstances, large dragon tombs were managed and protected by specially appointed dragons. There would also be corresponding dragon magic set up within the graves to prevent the appearance of undead dragons. Undead dragons like dracoliches and tomb guardians would only ever appear in neglected and abandoned dragon tombs.

  If a dracolich had risen from this dragon tomb, then the place had definitely been abandoned by the dragons. However, if that was the case, how was the faith beacon inside the soul of this dracolich to be explained?

  Would the dragons ever be willing to accept the faith power of an undead dragon?

  Peculiar, wicked, and absolutely inexplicable.

  “Evil adept, prepare to suffer the rage of the drag
ons! Cinquera will never forgive you,” The dracolich might have lost all ability to resist, but it continued to stare with its ghostly green eyes as it cursed. The name that it brought up caused Greem to pause for an instant.

  Cinquera…what a familiar name! Right, that was the name of the female dragon who was a loyal follower of Night Dragon Faluzure. She was an infamous evil dragon throughout the multiverse.

  If she were the dragon backing this dracolich, then it would explain everything!

  While Greem was engrossed in thought, an emergency warning came from the Chip.

  [Beep. Detecting abnormal location signal…Signal source: the dragonbone altar!]

  What?

  Greem’s heart tightened when he heard this. He raised his right hand, instantly gathering tremendous fire energy and smashing it down upon the small altar.

  A crunch could be heard as the dragonbone altar collapsed entirely.

  The shattered bones scattered across the ground, revealing a small but intricate array within. The mysterious array flickered with white light. It was transmitting an unknown signal to space according to some profound frequency.

  Greem’s gaze turned sharp, and he let out a furious grunt.

  “Quite bold, aren’t you! To think, you dare to try such tricks before my eyes. Hmph!”

  Having said that, Greem extended his hand. Bright-red flames ignited along his hand and grabbed at the mysterious array. However, to his surprise, the blazing hand did not come into contact with anything at all. It was almost as if the magical array was only an illusion with no actual physical existence. The burning hand moved through the array several times but could not damage it in the slightest.

  Was this array really just an illusion?

  Greem himself was the first to dispel that thought from his mind as the signal that the Chip sensed did indeed exist.