Age of Adepts

The previously unstoppable First Grade Crimson adepts quickly received a critical impact. Defending adepts in several regions were defeated beneath the attacks of Second Grade magical creatures, with a few deaths cropping up here and there.

However, with their impeccable teamwork and countless magical items, most of the Crimson adepts still managed to escape the evil claws of the magical creatures while escaping back into the fort, terrified and covered in wounds.

The Second Grades of the Crimson Clan stood before the tall tent in the center of the fort. They looked at each other, nodded, and charged onto the battlefield.

They were only testing the clan adepts after all. It would not be worth it if a large number of the adepts were to die at the hands of the Second Grade magical creatures. Thus, with the appearance of the Second Grade magical creatures, the Second Grades of the Crimson Clan also joined the battle.

Zacha was wearing fine wind indurium armor, holding the lightning spear in his left hand and the Frozen Mallet in his right. He let out a roar as he charged out of the fort, running straight into the duo of the Second Grade flaming tiger and wind eagle.

Though they were all Second Grades, and the beasts had the numerical advantage, their power wasn’t on the same level. Zacha’s powerful Physique allowed him easily defeat any of them even without his arsenal of powerful magical weapons. Now that he was armed to the teeth, he was more than a match for two opponents of the same grade.

The Flaming Tiger King was a vicious and savage beast, but it was inferior to Zacha when it came to size. It let out a roar as it fired a Tiger Roar Bomb from its bloody mouth. The tiger then leaped away and started running around Zacha, hoping to catch his back open for an opportunity to attack.

The Tiger Roar Bomb was a variant flame ball. It turned into a red fireball the moment it left the tiger’s mouth, shooting toward Zacha’s chest.

Zacha did not dodge or avoid the attack at all. He stood tall as a swift flash of blue lightning shot out from his lightning spear, running straight into the fireball. Wild lightning and crimson fire clashed in the air, erupting into a blinding cluster of flame and lightning storms that ravaged the area.

A wind vortex shot out of his wind indurium armor, engulfing Zacha’s body and protecting him from the wandering elementium storm.

The unharmed Zacha would not let the flaming tiger king continued its barrage. His gigantic body moved through the fire and thunder, speeding toward the opponent. Zacha’s heavy footsteps left strange dragon-like prints in the dark earth as he thundered across the ground.

Zacha shouldn’t have been able to catch up to the tiger with his speed. However, his armor gave him increased movement speed, allowing him to turn into a blue blur as he kept close pursuit on the tiger. Zacha charged through a horde of beasts, crushing countless unfortunate creatures beneath his feet.

The Second Grade wind eagle circled in the sky. Whenever it discovered any weakness from Zacha, it would let out a cry and dive down from the air like a white-green wind missile.

However, it had an absolute disadvantage against the powerful magical weapons in Zacha’s hands.

It didn’t matter whether it was the lightning spear or the Frozen Mallet; its frail body could not endure attacks from either of these weapons. It was still fine when the eagle fired some wind blades from the skies, but when it got close to Zacha, it was at risk of being hit by the weapons. Any slight graze from that weaponry meant severe injuries and broken bones.

After just five rounds of fighting with Zacha, the Second Grade wind eagle was hit in the claw by the mallet.

It not only disrupted the Windwing spell protecting the eagle and churned the winds into chaotic currents. It also caused the bird’s claw to break with a loud snap.

The wind eagle beat its wings with all it had, dispelling the frost power spread across its body. It then barely avoided the follow-up lightning chain before taking to the sky once more with an agonizing cry.

While the wind eagle was tussling with Zacha, the flaming tiger turned into a ball of fire and arrived at the dragonborn’s side. The two of them started fighting, engaging in a horrifying melee fight seventy meters in front of the fort walls.

The Flaming Tiger King was a vicious and cunning individual as well. It had intentionally avoided Zacha’s tough armor when attacking and instead focused its attacks on his quadrupedal lower half where he could not defend so well.

Tiger claws shrouded in red flames left black scorch marks when they cut across Zacha’s tough dragon scales. The fire also caused his lower body to sizzle as it burned and cooked.

Unfortunately, while its attacks barely broke through the dragonborn’s scales, the tiger itself was hit by rapid chain lightning.

Bzzzz!

A powerful and numbing electric current surged throughout the tiger’s body, turning its fur black.

Before it could drive out the numbing sensation from the shock, Zacha endured the pain of his wounds and stood up straight. The heavy mallet in his hand smashed down heavily upon the tiger’s skull.

Dong! A muffled boom rang out.

Mixed with a loud impact was a crisp cracking sound.

The Tiger King let out a pained howl, but its head had been split open. The purple-black blood that spilled forth was frozen into shards by the frost powers of the Frozen Mallet before it hit the ground. The Flaming Tiger King was frozen into a blue ice sculpture, stuck in its previous stance.

Before the Tiger King could respond, Zacha’s second and third hammer strikes landed on its head once again, unrelenting and unforgiving.

The tiger was frozen in a layer of ice crystals, before being smashed to pieces, before getting frozen again and smashed free once more.

The Flaming Tiger King was furious, but all its anger could only be contained within its body. It could not even let out a roar as the berserk dragonborn smashed its head to pulp, coating the ground with its brain matter and ending its life with a gruesome death.

After killing the enemy with one swift series of attacks, Zacha lifted the tiger’s corpse with his lightning spear and threw it into the fort. It was then that he pulled himself together and started swallowing multiple vials of healing potion as he reassessed the battlefield.

The skin that had been burned by the fires quickly shed as black dust. The fresh flesh beneath it quickly healed and scabbed before being covered by newly grown scales.

In a fair fight and void of all his weapons, Zacha’s power was only about equal to the Flaming Tiger King. He might have been able to suppress the tiger with his superior Physique, but defeating it would have been much more difficult.

Much less torturing the tiger to death in such a dominating fashion, as he just had!

One of them was wearing three to four pieces of Second Grade magical equipment, while the other was utterly unequipped and was only fighting with tooth, claw, and instinct. The difference in combat power was so vast that it was unbelievable.

Looking across the battlefield, one could see that each and every Second Grade Crimson adept was able to deal with multiple magical creatures of the same grade due to their tremendous combat power and magical equipment.

In particular, Tigule’s Second Grade Goblin Shredder was an unstoppable killing machine. Three Second Grade magical creatures were simultaneously attacking it, but none of them could break through the machine’s tough metal shell.

Meanwhile, the wildly spinning disc and chainsaw in the Shredder’s hands would leave beasts inches from death if the weapons even slightly grazed their bodies.

Engaging in guerilla warfare against the Shredder?

Godammit! The storm of bullets from the Shredder gave the three magical creatures an immense headache!

It didn’t matter whether their movements were agile and flexible, or slow and clumsy; Tigule would simply barrage them with bullets and rockets after locking on.

The three magical creature lords finally understood what tragedy and pain were when they ran into this stubborn metal can. There was nothing they could do at melee range, and moving themselves to a distance only made them targets.

They circled the Goblin Shredder, desperately dodging left and right, but their bodies were still slowly riddled with holes from the constant hail of bullets. If it weren’t for the innate savagery emanating from their very souls as magical creatures, they would probably have tucked tail and ran a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the blood knights and blood elves were excellent butchers on the battlefield.

As long as the magical creatures could not kill them instantly, they would be able to wear them down slowly through their bloodsucking attacks.

For a moment, countless magical creatures ran all over the battlefield as a rain of bullets flew across.

Several Second Grades fought ferociously in the middle of the horde, unconcerned for their own wellbeing.

The horde avoided them wherever they went, and all the beasts and magical creatures ran as far as they could. Not a single one of them wanted to be anywhere near the battlefield of these Second Grades.

With the Second Grades fighting amongst each other, the battlefield was left to the First Grade adepts and magical creatures once more.

Both parties clashed beneath the walls of the fort, engaged in an intense fight.

At this moment, a strange roar came from the depths of the Black Forest.

All the Second Grades on the battlefield stopped fighting and looked in that direction. A powerful aura rose from that place, almost as if it was a massive and unstoppable wave surging toward the battlefield.

Third Grade!

It was a Third Grade!

The Crimson adepts didn’t need to pay attention to know what was coming. Their expressions transformed tremendously as, for the first time, they lost confidence in their victory in this war.

Third Grade. To think they had a Third Grade magical creature lord standing behind their backs.

This terrifying reality drained the color from everyone’s faces. The high morale from all the fighting up until now crumbled in an instant.

A row of towering ancient trees at the edge of the Black Forest snapped in half in front of the adepts’ concerned looks, revealing the terrifying magical creature behind them.

It was a giant, brown-gray meatball, eight feet in diameter.

Its body was covered in uneven scales the color of metal.

A bloody mouth could be seen at the center of the ball of meat, taking up half of the body and filled with sharp fangs. A massive vertical eye was above the mouth but not yet opened. Seven or eight snake-like tentacles extended from the meatball like braids. A strange eyeball could be seen at the tip of each tentacle, closing and shutting constantly.

These eyestalks had tough skin, and faint whipping sounds could be heard as they moved through the air.

A Beholder. This Third Grade magical creature lord that had just appeared was actually a Beholder!