Age of Adepts

Blazing hot flames surged out of the Flame Fiend’s magma hands and ceaselessly assaulted Xenia’s Divine Shield. The fire quickly turned into a prison of lava and trapped the god messenger within. At the same time, the magic energy cannon that had remained silent all this time started charging up again. Overwhelming magic energy of shocking intensity began to gather within the barrel. It was clear that a new round of attacks was forming.

If the Flame Fiend’s attacks were said to only cause Xenia to frown, then the charging of the magic energy cannon utterly terrified her.

She had yet to recover from the fear of the horrifying shot earlier.

She had relied entirely on the Moonlight Goddess’ Divine Shield to endure that blast. Now that the divine power within the Divine Shield was almost exhausted, she had no guarantee of survival when being hit by the same attack, even with her ability as a Third Grade god messenger.

It was a trap.

It was a death trap that the enemy had set up and waited for her to enter willingly.

Xenia instantly went mad after understanding what had happened.

The Divine Shield she had cast earlier had already drawn out all of the divine power stored within her body. She was now entirely depending on the small stream of divine power being sent to her via the channels of faith to sustain her combat efforts. After all, this was not the central mountains. It was just way too far from the main temple. Moreover, there were no large moonprayer altars nearby. Trying to use this structure to recharge the faith channels was impossible.

That was why it was challenging to send divine power from the holy kingdom to the main temple and then send it to Xenia via the channels of faith, even with the Moonlight Goddess’ full support and generous exhaustion of divine power.

Even sending divine power was an arduous task, let alone transmitting an entirely formed divine magic!

That was why the individual combat power of the god messenger would often vary tremendously based on her location.

Jintha’Alor Camp was far away from the central mountains. It was situated at the edges of Garan Continent. This severely limited Xenia’s ability to fight. If the battlefield could be shifted to someplace near the central mountains and the main temple, then Xenia’s combat power would easily rise by three to five times.

At this moment, Xenia did not have such conditions. As such, the Third Grade god messenger immediately erupted with all her power when seeing the meticulous trap that the enemy had prepared for her!

The next second, hundreds and thousands of blinding beams of rainbow light burst out of the lava prison forged of steaming flames and red-hot lava. These light beams composed of divine power mixed with moonlight and suddenly spun intensely, instantly cut the lava prison into pieces with their terrifying slashing power.

As the Flame Fiend of Terror was too close, it was also pierced by the rainbow lights and cut up into pieces.

Xenia strode out of the rising sea of fire and shards of magma, staring murderously at the magic energy cannon that was rapidly charging.

She let out a sky-shattering screech as a chilling beam of moonlight, more concentrated than any before, projected down from the round moon in the sky. It struck square upon the most focused spot of the cannon energy.

Xenia instantly teleported away from the ship after completing this resentful strike of hers. She slowly reappeared somewhere in the skies a quarter of a kilometer away.

Behind her, the magic energy cannon that had been destroyed by the moonlight suddenly lit up with a blindingly intense light. A chain reaction of explosions was quickly triggered. If one were to calculate the power of the magic energy cannon based on the previous shot, the destruction of the gun this time would blow the flying ship into a massive firework of steel.

Xenia had just escaped the flying ship and was confidently waiting to enjoy the sight of rare and beautiful fireworks. However, the next moment she turned back in shock and realized that the flying ship was still floating two hundred meters above the canopy, perfectly unharmed.

Though the chain of magic energy explosions occurring on its deck was flashy and loud, the intensity of the energy was hundreds and thousands of times less than what Xenia had estimated it to be.

This...what was happening?

Just as she was stuck in her deep confusion, Xenia’s body trembled. She lifted her head and looked toward the round moon hanging in the sky. She didn’t know when, but a large cluster of shadow as black as ink had already obscured the moon.

The intimate channel of faith that she had always been maintaining with the Moonlight Goddess had also been severed!

The face of an old lady, so excited that it was distorted, formed from the cluster of shadows in the sky. She yelled with her sinister and hoarse voice, "Kehkehkeh. Damned religious hack, you didn’t think that I would secretly sneak back, did you?! Now that I have obscured the moon and cut off your connection with that shitty goddess, let’s see what’s left of your abilities! Weren’t you sending me packing earlier? Come, come; let me see if you are still as powerful as before. Kehkehkeh."

The voice seemed to be that of Third Grade Dark Witch Uzzah!

A ferocious round of attacks had just been unleashed. The divine power sent over by the goddess had been completely exhausted. Now that the only faith channel had been severed, Xenia could no longer replenish her divine power.

There was no way she could continue this fight against same-grade powerhouses of another world with her energy reserves!

Having quickly understood this, Xenia immediately knew things were going south. However, before she could even try and escape the area, a violent tide of thunder and lightning that engulfed the skies had already exploded.

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

Jintha’Alor was utterly ravaged after the great battle.

The adepts had only been robbing in the earlier battle and weren’t setting fires or razing any structures. That was why most of the elven structures in Jintha’Alor camp were completely untouched, though their contents had been emptied. Now, after the more intense battle against the god messenger, the camp naturally had to endure the destruction from the shockwaves of the battle.

Disregarding the elven structures, even the mountain upon which Jintha’Alor resided had started collapsing from the intense attacks. With the massive changes to the structure of the mountain itself, this place had become tattered and wrecked; it looked nothing like it used to.

Henceforth, the name of Jintha’Alor would no longer exist!

After the intense battle, the flying ship dragged its broken body and escaped toward the sea, having done some basic maintenance and repairs on its internal damage.

The damage to the flying ship in the battle this time was undoubtedly extremely severe. The vessel was no longer able to fly high above the clouds to avoid the eyes of the elves. Moreover, with the thick black smoke trailing for several kilometers behind them, it was difficult to remain in hiding.

Still, they were fortunate enough to have taken down Jintha’Alor and defeat the temple guards sent by the Moonlight Goddess. There was no longer a military force that could pose a threat to the flying ship within several thousand kilometers of Jintha’Alor.

As for the elven villages and towns hidden all across Fantasy Forest? Their meager garrisons were no more than trash before the joint forces of the Dark and Fate Witches. There was no need to even speak of those who were foolish enough to attempt to intercept the ship. If the position of their villages were exposed, the witches would only need to send out a single squad that could easily exterminate them.

That was why the flying ship was not harassed or attacked by any elven squads, even as it dragged its broken body into the distance with a long tail of smoke behind it.

Countless resentful eyes peeked out from between the trees, silently staring at this giant metal ship arrogantly passing through their lands. The hate they had for these evil invaders undoubtedly ran deep into their very bones. Still, to avoid drawing trouble to their village and companions, they couldn’t do anything but stare furiously at the enemy as they passed.

When their side was clearly weaker than the opponent, there was nothing they could do about the situation!

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

Garan Continent, Central Mountains.

Main Temple of the Goddess of Moonlight.

At this moment, the main temple had been thrown into complete chaos.

News of the defeat at the frontlines had blown up amongst the followers of the Goddess the instant it got back.

The tide of furious and angry requests for battle alerted both the priests of the temple and even the Goddess’ kingdom in between the layers of the plane.

The fury of the Goddess naturally terrified the elven priests serving her. They all gathered in the main temple and silently listened for the newest word of their Goddess.

The Moonlight Goddess wasn’t the chief deity of the elven pantheon, nor the one that held absolute authority.

In the end, the one that held the most widespread faith in Garan and amongst the forest elves was still the chief elven god, Saoirse. If one were to be brutally honest, almost all forest elves were faithful followers of Saoirse.

It was only the elves that wanted special holy blessings from the gods that would choose to believe in the other elven gods as well.

For example, most elven archers would choose to follow Marco, the God of Archery, in addition to Saoirse. This way, they would be able to obtain his blessings and enhancement in the field of archery. Elves who didn’t like to be bound to rules and didn’t join the army–choosing instead to roam the continent–would prefer to follow the God of Rangers, Eisner. This way, they would be able to obtain improvements in agility and gain exceptionally graceful movements.

The druids, on the other hand, all believed in Yurga, the Heart of the Forest.

Some female elves who enjoyed beauty and desired romance might choose to believe in the God of Luck, Visenna.

Given all this, the Moonlight Goddess could only provide her followers with some stealth ability during the night as well as some improvements in combat power at night. That was why the Moonlight Goddess was not considered a powerful deity in the elven pantheon.

The elves who chose to follow the Moonlight Goddess were numerous, but very, very few were fanatics that would be able to select the Moonlight Goddess as their only belief.

That was why the loss of the only God Messenger Xenia was an unbearable loss for the Moonlight Goddess’ temple!

In this way, even the Moonlight Goddess herself could not continue sitting peacefully within her god kingdom.