Age of Adepts

He had kept feeling as if the Goblin Plane didn’t live up to its name. The strength they were displaying was far too weak.

As a small-sized plane, the power systems of the Goblin Plane were several times weaker than the Knight’s Plane. There had at least still been a Fourth Grade Dragon Knight in the Knight’s Plane. Yet, Second Grade magical machines like Tigule’s were already considered top-tier combatants in the Goblin Plane.

Greem didn’t really understand the situation. He had intended to observe a little longer to obtain an explanation. And at that moment, when he saw that black pillar shoot towards him, Greem instantly understood the core strength of the Goblin Plane.

Dammit! The opponent had invested most of their efforts into the path of ’magical energy’!

Greem possessed the ability to exit the battlefield quickly. Naturally, he had the leisure to think about all these complexities. However, Bug Adept Billis, who had remained in the black pillar of light’s area of effect, instantly became the most tragic victim of the battlefield.

Two other magical machines had remained in the radius of the black light, much like Billis. They had rapidly started melting the instant they came into contact with the black light. The machines collapsed like melted candles before being entirely vaporized.

Billis was still tunneling downwards. Sadly, the speed at which he tunneled clearly couldn’t compare to the speed of the black light.

The scorched earth that had remained after the fight was melted away by the black light. It had managed to expose Billis, who was now five meters deep underground. The fifteen sting scorpions formed into a black shield layered over Billis’ head, but they had barely managed to shield him from the direct blast of the black beam.

However, the terrifying elementium chain reaction still unavoidably affected him!

The spatial energy destroyed the delicate elementium balance within Billis’ body, turning the orderly elementium into chaotic and ferocious energy. The energy shield that Billis had erected immediately ignited and exploded like a barrel of oil lit by a spark.

The adepts might pride themselves as evil beings that tended towards chaos, but at their core, they were still beings of order that originated from a plane. Chaotic and unbridled spatial energy was no different from poison to them. Only overwhelming strength of the soul could prevent spatial energy from interfering and destroying the elementium energy within an adept’s body.

However, Inner Light was something that only Fifth Grade adepts were capable of.

Perhaps this was the main reason the World of Adepts had set Fifth Grade to be the prerequisite for stepping out beyond the plane!

Billis could not possibly use the Inner Light that only Fifth Grade Great Adepts had access to. He could only try to maintain his energy shield to the best of his abilities, while desperately attempting to tunnel himself out of the area of the black light.

Tragically, just half a meter away from the edge of the black light, one sting scorpion above his head exploded. It could no longer endure the corrosion of the spatial energy. A thin ray of the light shone upon Billis’ body.

The very next second, Billis’ immortal body of bugs boiled and fell apart.

The tens of thousands of dispersed scorpions fought with each other to escape from the radius of the black light, but they were all entangled by the scattered spatial energy at the very same instant, causing them to explode into a splattered mess of flesh and blood.

It wasn’t over yet.

Before all the blood could even land on the ground, it was vaporized by the ferocious energy and vanished without a trace.

After Bug Adept Billis had suffered his tragic death, the fourteen sting scorpions that had formed the shield immediately scattered and started to run for their lives. They paid an unbelievable toll of five lives to make it across that short distance of half a meter.

The remaining nine sting scorpions quickly gathered in an area a hundred meters away after escaping from the black pillar of light. The ground there split apart as the earth turned. A new swarm of bugs emerged from underground and reformed into Bug Adept Billis’s likeness.

Compared to earlier, the body that Billis had gathered this time possessed a much weaker energy aura.

It seemed that the accidental death from earlier had severely damaged Billis’ soul origin.

The black pillar of light persisted for another sixteen seconds before gradually dissipating.

It had utterly ravaged the location. The geography had been destroyed, leaving only a shocking scene behind.

The black pillar of light might have vanished, but it left behind a terrifying crater. The crater had a radius of nearly a hundred meters and was a dozen meters deep with walls as smooth as marble.

For a moment, both parties involved in the battle–the goblins and the three adepts–were wholly mesmerized by the frightening power of the black light. They stared at the crater with fear in their eyes, unsure of how to continue.

The Metal Goblin that Tigule piloted kneeled by the crater, its massive metal hands digging deep into the earth. The sorrow and pain in his heart overwhelmed him.

A mere half an hour of combat, yet all one dozen of his close companions had died, just like that. Moreover, even their corpses hadn’t remained after death. Their bodies had vanished with the descent of the black light.

Yet, the one that wiped out every last trace of their existence was actually the goblin cannon fired by their own people!

Such an impact almost caused Tigule’s spirit to collapse. He could no longer muster the courage to battle.

Greem lifted his head and once again cast his eyes upon that floating ship. Even though he was like a rabbit in front of an elephant when compared to the ship, he remained fearless and unfazed. In fact, it almost seemed like he was eager to go up and investigate for himself.

Before he could realize that thought, over a hundred small black dots emerged from the floating ship. They quickly dived towards the battlefield.

Greem’s ultra-long ranged sight allowed him to see the true nature of the black dots perfectly.

Combat magical machines!

Over a hundred magical machines!

Moreover, judging from their external designs, they were all bird-type machines that could fly.

Greem’s heart trembled and finally dispelled the idea he previously had.

This was not their world. It was the world of the goblins!

As an intruding Second Grade adept, Greem still needed to maintain caution and respect for the enemy when facing a native army composed of elites.

That was why Greem was the first to run, without any hesitation.

The three adepts demonstrated all sorts of tricks as they frantically escaped into the woods. The black dots in the sky were like a swarm of bloodthirsty wasps. They buzzed as they pursued the adepts.

The massive flying ship also rapidly turned around and trailed after the robots, but slowly disappeared into the horizon as it trailed behind.

No one could care for the heartbroken Tigule right now. He opened his cockpit with grief painted across his face. He leaped onto the ground and stumbled across the battlefield in search of the corpses of his companions.

Regardless of how thoroughly he scoured every inch of land in a two and a half kilometer circumference, he could only find the broken machines of two of his companions. Tigule personally dragged his companion’s deformed corpses from the machines and buried them with tears streaking down his face.

The other companion’s corpse had already exploded into bloody paste and chunks of flesh. Tigule didn’t mind the filth. He gathered every drop of blood, every strand of flesh, and every piece of meat, before stuffing it all into his mouth, crying out loud as he swallowed everything in a single gulp.

For some reason, Tigule’s green eyes turned blood red after doing all this. A dense aura of bloodthirst radiated from his body.

He unhesitatingly charged into his cockpit and closed it. The three-meter tall Metal Goblin raised its arms and let out a heart-rending roar. It then strode into the forest.

............

The pursuit in the forest was still ongoing.

Billis and Mary had already shaken off the enemy completely.

Mary’s speed was too much, even if the magical machines in the skies had two additional wings. Bug Adept Billis, on the other hand, was extremely proficient at stealth and hiding. He only needed to burrow into the ground, and the goblins would be incapable of finding him with their crude technology.

That was why they had all vanished from sight a long time ago. Only Greem alone remained.

Greem didn’t mind this situation at all.

Billis and Mary were only First Grade. Recovering their magic in this shitty low-magic plane was an arduous task. They needed to go into hiding after a fight to recover.

On the other hand, Greem was utterly different.

With the pounding core of fire in his chest, nothing could stop Greem from taking fire energy from the fire elementium plane, even if this plane was void of any elementium. Consequently, Greem would almost never run out of power as long as he limited the intensity of the battle to a certain level.

As Greem strode through the forest, he occasionally used fireballs to open a path ahead. Meanwhile, he kept a close eye on the magical machines circling the skies.

These fearless fellows were like flies that had smelled the odor of rot; it was impossible to chase them away no matter what he tried. They maintained a tight tail on Greem, diving down and attacking him whenever they found a suitable opportunity.

One could see a pile of smoking machine wreckage every three kilometers on this path that Greem had escaped through. The location of the crashes might be different, but all the machines shared the same trait. That was... none of the goblin mechanics in the magical machines had survived!

Greem had already figured out the combat method and means of attack available to the machines after the previous battle. When he struck, his counterattacks were always sharp and brutal.

A chain of three exploding Magma Fireballs would shatter the energy defenses, and then only a single piercing ’gaze of death’ was needed.

Greem was only firing Solar Rays. However, in the eyes of the goblins, they were undoubtedly terrifying ’gazes of death’!

The moment the energy shield covering a machine broke, a thin beam of red light would shoot from the evil adept’s blazing eyes, piercing right through the location of the cockpit. The ray of light wasn’t even as thick as the little finger of a goblin, but it possessed fearsome fire energy.

The Solar Rays would release terrifying fire energy the moment they came into contact with the body of a goblin mechanic.

Thus, if one investigated all the machines that had been struck with the gaze of death, they would not find any corpses within, only a pile of ashes.

The goblin mechanics flying in the sky faced an enemy that could easily kill them while being almost impossible to kill himself. They all felt a deep chill from the depths of their hearts.

Greem’s frightening strength had intimidated them and sent their morale crashing down into a valley.

Just then, a rumbling roar came from the woods behind.

Greem stopped running and teleported onto a tall cliff. He looked back at the forest behind him.

Ancient trees along a path were snapping and falling. Even the trees near them trembled and shook. From a distance, it seemed like a horrifying monster was making its way through the sea of threes.

Crack! The two ancient trees nearest to Greem fell, and a somewhat familiar metallic silhouette appeared in Greem’s vision.

So it was him!