Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  His body looked unharmed, but everything inside was in complete disorder. All his flesh, bones, tendons, and organs were no longer in their original positions. Instead, they had reformed in random places inside his body.

  That wasn’t the most horrifying part. More concerningly, every piece of his flesh and skin had been polluted with twisted and mutated principle power. If it weren’t for the Tome of Corruption and the Orb of the Fire God protecting his soul from the chaos, Greem would have already transformed into a mutated monster devoid of all reason and rationality.

  Fifty kilometers away, Seventh Grade God of Slaughter Garon extended his hand and grabbed the axe returning to him. He could sense the life aura that had reappeared fifty kilometers away. His brows furrowed, and an expression of shock flashed on his face.

  “Not dead? How could it be? A mere Fifth Grade adept managed to escape my principle attack? Impossible!” Garon was flabbergasted.

  Given his prowess as a Seventh Grade true god, killing a few low-grade adepts couldn’t be any easier. No accidents should have occurred. That was why he hadn’t been paying too much attention when he threw the axe out earlier.

  He hadn’t even been concerned when the adept merged with the principles.

  That was why Garon couldn’t help but be surprised when the adept’s soul aura reappeared. By the time Garon tried to lock onto the adept’s aura again, the little bug had already escaped his range.

  Garon couldn’t help but become frustrated at this unexpected turn of events.

  Dammit! These insects from the adept civilization are sly indeed. To think they could escape with their lives.

  Garon’s expression became dark.

  Just then, the incredibly weakened chief priest of the orcs walked out from the temple behind him, barely supporting himself with a wooden staff. He got onto his knees fearfully.

  “O’ Great Garon, it is I who was incapable, who could not stop the adepts’ attack, that forced you to descend in your true form. This is my fault. Please, cast your divine judgment down upon me!”

  Garon did not turn around. Instead, he surveyed the ravaged landscape of the central mountains. The assault by the Great Adepts had brought about unimaginable calamity to this holy land of the orcs.

  With his overwhelming divine will, Garon could only sense the withering life auras all around the orc temple. It would be fortunate if half of the three hundred thousand orc elites of this mountain survived this incident.

  The orc elites living here were all his loyal believers!

  As one of Garon’s only seven faith worlds, such a loss was monumental. It would almost certainly affect his provision of divine power.

  If these were ordinary times, he could easily make up for this loss. However, they were currently at a crucial point of conflict against the adepts. A weakening of his divine power was not a good omen!

  Garon’s expression didn’t change as he said sternly, “This isn’t your fault. It’s a scheme of the adepts. They are currently sieging Plane Pandar. I only hurried here while we had some time to rest. I need to return promptly now. Hurry up and put together forces to expel the remaining adepts. Remember, you must defend the temple. I will leave my projection here for the moment.”

  The orc chief-priest hastily got onto the ground and acknowledged the orders.

  Plane Pandar. That seemed to be the origin world of Enus, the God of Hatred!

  If anything were to happen there, it wouldn’t just be a matter of losing one or two clones for Enus. It would be a significant incident. Enus himself might die, and his god kingdom might fall.

  In that case, the Great Adepts’ assault of Plane Mutas seemed more like a diversion now!

  Chapter 1497 - An Unbearable Sight

  Greem’s current condition wasn’t very good!

  In truth, his current condition couldn’t even be described with simple words like ‘good’ and ‘bad.’

  At this point, not only had his body, flesh, and bones been mutated, but even his fire principles had turned into an absolute mess. He was an unbearable sight to behold.

  He stumbled his way back toward the camp, all sorts of strange mutated flesh continually peeling off from his body and crashing toward the ground. When the mutated flesh landed, it transformed into principle mutants of various shapes and forms, regardless of what substance it assimilated with.

  The mutants’ appearances, existence, and forms were utterly different from planar creatures. They looked like ugly monsters whose genetic sequence and bloodline had been mixed and synthesized randomly. However, they all possessed unusual and extraordinary principle abilities.

  Greem continued to stumble forward in the air, all the turbulent and chaotic principle power within him being suppressed by the Tome of Corruption. Moreover, he had to rely on the Orb of the Fire God to protect his soul and prevent the chaos of the principles from spreading there.

  It made his behavior increasingly uncontrollable!

  Compared to his initial arrogance upon arriving on this plane, Greem looked terrible now.

  It seemed like his horrible condition had attracted the orc powerhouses as well.

  Halfway through his journey, Greem was stopped by an orc berserker radiating a vicious and savage aura.

  It was a warrior who stood three meters tall. His body was unusually muscular, his head bald, and his neck so thick and short it practically disappeared into his shoulders. He wore rhino hide armor on his body and swung a giant mace.

  The orc started roaring loudly while standing in Greem’s way.

  “Evil adept, weren’t you all arrogant when you arrived? How did you end up like this? Haha! Now let I, Daguru—”

  Greem didn’t know what else he wanted to say after that.

  Too lazy to talk to a musclehead like this one and concerned he would be surrounded if he stayed for too long, Greem unleashed the Halo of Rot without hesitation.

  A dark green halo wrapped around the berserker. His skin and hair began to melt like heated wax. Jade-green clouds of poison smoke started to leak out of his body rapidly as he crashed from the skies.

  The orcs were still too lacking in the protection of powerful equipment. It didn’t matter what kind of damage hit them; they had no choice but to endure it with their tough bodies and stubborn wills. However, there was no way the orc could have withstood a Fifth Grade principle poison spell.

  The orc berserker was knocked out of the sky before it could make a move and was instantly sent to death’s bed.

  That had been an advanced Fourth Grade orc powerhouse!

  The orcs were a combative species that would never retreat unless fear was beaten into them.

  Not long after Greem had exterminated an orc berserker, another orc intercepted his path.

  It was an orc sword-saint this time— a peak Fourth Grade individual.

  An orc like that would be a famous individual in Plane Mutas!

  Even this orc did not fare better at Greem’s hands. A single Berserk Eye blasted forward, killing the peak Fourth Grade sword saint.

  It was important to note that the average intensity of an attack from a beginner Fifth Grade Great Adept was 15,000 points. Meanwhile, the Berserk Eye that Greem had gone to great lengths to prepare could achieve a horrifying 32,000 points of power.

  An attack of this level would be enough to kill an unprepared beginner Fifth Grade Great Adept, let alone this mere peak Fourth Grade orc!

  The cost that Greem paid was the loss of his right eye. It exploded into chunks of flesh, leaving behind a bloody black hole where it had once been.

  At this point, the orc powerhouses of Plane Mutas finally understood the untraversable gulf of power between them and their enemy. Even if the opponent was no more than a significantly weakened Fifth Grade Great Adept, killing him still wasn’t an easy matter.

  At the very least, a peak Fourth Grade sword saint had been worth no more than a right eye!

  The other orc powerhouses immediately ceased their restlessness af
ter the sword saint had been instantaneously murdered. None of them dared lift a finger anymore.

  Thus, Greem was able to stumble his way back to the adept camp.

  The atmosphere inside the camp was extraordinarily tense now.

  A few members of the adept party nervously tested and prepared the long-range interplanar teleportation array. Meanwhile, Sixth Grade Great Adept Briel and Fifth Grade Rick stood in the middle of the camp, constantly surveying their surroundings for any changes.

  All of a sudden, Briel’s expression turned into one of shock. He turned to look toward the distance.

  Soon, Rick sensed something as well. An expression of shock and disbelief flashed across his face.

  “Didn’t you say that Garon himself locked onto Greem? Then…how do you explain this?” Briel asked sternly.

  “He…I…this,” Rick was also confused. He couldn’t help but stammer, “My lord…I…I really did see Garon lock onto him. As for how he managed to survive that, I have no idea!”

  While the two of them quickly and subtly conversed with each other, a black speck appeared on the distant horizon. It flew chaotically in the air, rising and falling, swaying until it was above the camp. It then simply crashed to the ground.

  “Lord Greem seems to be very heavily injured,” A Fourth Grade female adept screamed and immediately extended a hand to catch Greem.

  A muffled boom.

  The impact from the fall caused another piece of flesh, the size of a thumb, to fly off of Greem’s face. The flesh landed in the still-burning bonfire.

  The mutated principles shimmered as the flesh instantly merged with the flames. The next second, a strange monster that looked like a fire pudding had been created.

  It was a ball of liquid fire, enveloped by a translucent membrane. The flames inside it roared and tackled about violently, occasionally surging out and unleashing terrifying flames of intense heat.

  “Fire slimes? No…fire slimes are utterly insignificant monsters. There’s no way there could be one at Third Grade. What exactly is this creature?” Rick couldn’t help but mumble to himself.

  This little thing could be considered a Third Grade creature just from the flames it spat out. However, none of the spiritual flux unique to intelligent creatures could be sensed in its intense fire principle aura.

  A non-sentient principle mutant?

  Perhaps incapable of sensing the tremendous difference in power, or possibly lacking a sense for danger, the newly created monster immediately attacked every adept around it.

  Moreover, its attacks contained a minute hint of fire principle power.

  It was faint, but it was undoubtedly, and without mistake, the real thing!

  Briel grunted and shredded the fire pudding into sparks with a twist of his Spirit. He then lifted his hand, drew a large rune in the air, and shot it into Greem’s body.

  Strangely enough, the moment the rune entered Greem’s body, all the berserk principle power inside him came to a halt. It had been suppressed like a lizard sealed in amber.

  Now Greem could finally open his eyes somewhat. He looked at the Sixth Grade Great Adept and said in a soft voice, “My gratitude, my lord!”

  Even though he was incredibly curious how Greem had managed to escape the orc temple, Briel couldn’t really ask any more questions after seeing Greem’s condition. He waved his hand. “The failure of the mission wasn’t because of us. It was because of the opponent’s power exceeding the limit of what we could possibly have dealt with. It’s good that you were able to escape alive. Whatever else we have to say, we can save it until we return to headquarters.

  “Don’t worry. The mission only failed because a Seventh Grade god appeared in his true form. Headquarters cannot pin the blame on us. Just focus on recovering once you get back!”

  Greem nodded weakly and shut his eyes. He then began to deal with the turbulent principle power in his body slowly.

  Mission failure, with a casualty count of two Great Adepts.

  Such a terrible defeat and loss were a tremendous responsibility, even for a Sixth Grade Great Adept.

  Briel and Rick were forced to attend a mission review with the higher-ups of the headquarters upon returning to Boulder Fortress. Meanwhile, Greem was given special treatment by virtue of his injuries. He was spared from any further ‘torture’ and returned directly to his room to rest.

  The mission this time had screwed Greem terribly!

  Not only did he not obtain any rewards for his mission, but his body had also been devastated to a horrible extent. He was indeed only that one step away from death.

  Moreover, foreign principle contamination of this sort was a complex problem, even for principle adepts. There was no other way to treat this problem than to extract the foreign principles one by one and replace them with fire principles.

  Detonating this body and reforming a new one was a completely ridiculous notion.

  All the foreign and mutated principles were rooted within his adept origin and starbeast bloodline. To give up on the foreign principles was to give up on everything he currently possessed. Greem had no choice but to work slowly and carefully, recovering bit by bit.

  Of course, Greem was also incredibly upset and obsessive over the reason for their failure in Plane Mutas. He didn’t know what mistake it was they had committed that had ultimately led to the Seventh Grade God of Slaughter appearing in person.

  However, after a secret visit to Great Adept Sarubo, he vaguely obtained an answer to his question.

  At the same time that Greem and the others failed their mission in Plane Mutas, a violent raid unleashed in another planeworld had been a smashing success. God of Hatred Enus’ origin plane had been destroyed!

  The God of Hatred had managed to escape the jaws of death and had fled into the god kingdom of another orc god. However, his grade had fallen from Fifth Grade to Fourth Grade, turning him into a mere demi-god.

  There was far too much information contained within this news. Even Greem couldn’t help but zone out for a moment when he heard it.

  Of course, he could also taste the hidden implications and unspoken politics contained behind it all!

  Chapter 1498 - The Final Banquet

  The deaths of two Great Adepts to dethrone a Fifth Grade god.

  It was quite an unimaginable thing to think of, but it was also the bloody reality.

  There were no rookies among those who could advance to Fifth Grade and step beyond the planar barriers. These Great Adepts were adept elites who had emerged from bloody competition above the corpses of millions. Unfortunately, even they were still pawns that could be tossed aside for the schemes and plots of their superiors.

  It was just a matter of whether they were worth the sacrifice!

  God of Hatred Enus might have been fortunate enough to escape as a demi-god and avoid death along with his god kingdom. But after falling to the level of demi-god, he lost most of his divine power as well as his ability to create clones and projections.

  He would have to show up in his Fourth Grade true form if he wanted to join the battle. Of course, his chances of dying if he appeared on the battlefield were almost a hundred percent.

  If he chose to hide, Enus might be able to raise himself to his former glory with what followers remained in his faith worlds and with several hundred years. However, to maintain the divine power requirements of his followers across several worlds as a demi-god was unfeasible. He would have to borrow power from the other orc gods, turning him into a black hole of divine power.

  That was why in the battles to come, Enus would not only be of no aid to the orc pantheon but would even severely weaken them.

  That was because he was too weak now!

  He retained part of his divine authority, divine virtue, and divinity as a demi-god. Consequently, he was little more than an unprotected cake in the eyes of both the adepts and the other gods.

  If they weren’t in the same pantheon as him, the other orc gods would probably have torn h
im apart and devoured him alive!

  Meanwhile, after the severe injuries Greem sustained, he had no choice but to keep a low profile and hide in his room. He began the painful and challenging journey of recovery. It was fortunate that he had protected his soul with the Orb of the Fire God when he was contaminated by the shattered principles, preventing them from reaching his soul.

  Otherwise, his journey as the legendary fire adept would have come to an end. He would lose all hope of any further advancement!

  Even so, Greem’s injuries were still unusually grievous.

  He spent three entire years recovering in the Boulder Fortress before recovering to his strength before the battle.

  This period of recovery also caused him to exhaust all of the divine virtue he had obtained earlier.

  He used most of the divine virtue to repair his body, damaged by the mutated principles. A small amount of it went to nourishing the starbeast bloodline. Greem also realized that the battles of ultra-grade adepts were no longer the same as those of low-grade adepts. Gone were the endless stalemates and days of going back and forth.

  The battles of ultra-grade adepts were more frightening and intense. Victory and defeat were often decided in one or two moments.

  Great Adepts would have to possess sufficient hidden aces and abilities. These were the only things that could grant them even the slightest initiative in the cruel and savage battles they had to face. If they were constantly suppressed by their opponent, turning the tides would be near impossible.

  When Greem once again came to the station hall, he immediately drew the attention and welcome of the Great Adepts. Even Great Adept Gerritsen, who had always been relatively cold toward him, pulled him to his side and started talking passionately with Greem.