Age of Adepts

When Mary finally saw the returning Greem on the fifth level of Fire Throne, she instantly lunged and bit him viciously, just to let out all her pent-out frustration from the years of being beaten down by the Fabres Clan. However, her little tantrum turned into a ‘naked brawl’ which ultimately ended in a difficult but definite victory for Greem!

Since Greem had directly teleported to the top level of Fire Throne through the Tower of Fate, no more than five people in the clan even knew about his return.

Ever since she advanced to Third Grade, Mary had always believed herself to be Greem’s equal in various aspects. She thought that she would have no trouble leading the clan alone. However, after this period as the head of the clan, she fully understood the difficulties of a clan leader.

If you put all the Fourth Grade adepts of Zhentarim together, there would be a minimum of eleven or twelve of them. Each of these Fourth Grade adepts had founded their own clan or organization. However, if one were to make a proper count, they would discover that there were only five clans in Zhentarim that could be considered large-sized.

Why was this the case? The only reason was that developing and strengthening a clan would tie up far, far too much of an adept’s effort!

Many adepts’ intentions in establishing a clan were either to make a shelter for their blood descendants, or in hopes of making it easier to collect rare resources and magical items. They were not willing to spend too much effort and time on things other than the arcane. That was why establishing a large clan in the competitive central region of the continent was so immensely difficult.

That was particularly the case for clans like the Crimson Clan. They rose to power far too quickly, and they had gathered too many resources in their hands, threatening the territories and resource sites of other nearby adept clans while simultaneously lacking a true powerhouse to protect them. That was the real reason why the Crimson Clan had been caught in a constant state of war for the past hundred years!

For instance, the Sarubo Clan that Greem originated from might not have a Fourth Grade adept within the clan, but a Sixth Grade Great Adept was standing behind the scenes in the realms beyond. As such, no group would be so bothered as to find trouble with the Sarubo.

Though conflict and tension between surrounding adept forces persisted, the Sarubo Clan had never really faced a crisis that threatened their very existence, as the Crimson Clan had.

Yet, no more than fifty years later, the Crimson Clan was once again faced with an existential threat!

The Fabres Clan, as one of the five large clans of the central region, was led by a Fourth Grade adept and had as many as fifteen Third Grade adepts. To ensure that the Crimson Clan had no chance of turning the tables, they had forcefully summoned seven Third Grade adepts from the foreign planes they ruled, as well as from the realms beyond.

Dealing with the Crimson Clan with such a powerful force should have been an easy matter. After all, the Crimson Clan only appeared to have two Third Grade adepts on the surface. As for the massive flights of dragons that the Crimson Clan could summon from another plane? In truth, the Fabres Clan was completely unintimidated by that prospect.

The Crimson Clan had their own mercenaries made up of natives from other planes, but as a large adept clan, so did the Fabres Clan. Their mercenary force would only be stronger than the Crimson Clan’s.

As the line of battle slowly pushed toward Pinecone City, and the resistance from the Crimson Clan began spiking up in intensity, the famous subordinate armies of the Fabres Clan also started to make their appearance.

The first to appear was naturally the Frost Giant army.

One of the lesser planes that the Fabres Clan had conquered was a world of ice and snow. They had formed a powerful land force composed purely of Frost Giants from that plane.

Frost Giants were a winter variant of the giant species. They appeared like stout, muscular humans, though each of them stood at an average of five meters tall. They had frost-white skin and pale-blue braided hair.

Frost Giants also had genders, though both male and female giants were powerful warriors.

Some individually powerful Frost Giants might even master frost magic without any input or mentor, turning them into unusual frost magicians. The range of their magic might be narrow, but their spells often had shocking power and area-of-effect.

Fortunately, the chances of a Frost Giant Mage emerging in a Frost Giant tribe was still negligible. Of the five hundred Frost Giants fielded by the Fabres Clan, only seven of them were Frost Giant Mages.

However, when these Frost Giants stepped upon the battlefield, the pressure that the Crimson Clan faced increased exponentially!

It couldn’t be helped. Even though most of the Frost Giants were just ordinary warriors, they still knew the basic spells of Frost Armor and Freezing Gusts. In fact, the combination of these two incredibly simple spells and their raw strength made them more terrifying opponents than the Frost Giant Mages.

When five hundred Frost Giant warriors standing five-meters-tall, with towering physique and dense muscles, rushed onto the battlefield clad in freezing Frost Armor and bone-chilling gusts howling around their bodies as they waved their heavy enchanted battleaxes, the defensive line of the Crimson Clan was instantly torn to pieces.

The three-meter-tall magical machines stood in a row and unleashed their barrage of metal bullets at the wildly advancing Frost Giants. However, the warriors covered their faces and throats with their thick arms, ignored the stinging pain from the rest of their bodies as they charged at the machines. They roared in anger and swung their axes, smashing the magical machines into the air.

Large dents would instantly appear at the point of impact on the machines’ bodies.

Their solid bodies were crushed to pieces and came off like flakes of metal, revealing the wildling spinning components within. Fine cracks would also appear around the dent, extending all the way to the back of their metal shells.

Several magical machines fell apart in midair from the overwhelming force before they could even land!

The series of exploding magical circuits and the sudden destruction of the source of magical power caused the destroyed machines to erupt into giant fireballs, shooting tens of thousands of metal shards in every direction.

Due to their large size and physique, even a First Grade Frost Giant warrior had incredible strength that could match that of a Second Grade body-refining adept. In a direct confrontation, the magical machines could not even endure a single violent blow from a Frost Giant.

The Frost Giant army managed to break up the formation of the magical machines on the very first charge. They then quickly clashed with the magical machines at the second and third lines of defense.

The commanders of the Crimson Clan also went into a fury. Under their orders, large groups of magical machines charged out of their defensive lines and joined the chaotic battlefield.

Torrents of metal bullets stormed across the battlefield and blasted against the muscular forms of the Frost Giants. The Frost Armor that they formed around their bodies couldn’t fully protect every single part, but they made sure to cover their throat, heart, crotch, and armpits as tightly as possible.

The Frost Giants couldn’t protect the rest of their bodies and decided to stop trying, allowing the enemy to attack those places as much as they wanted.

The barrage of bullets rained down upon the giants. Some of the shots had their kinetic energy dispersed by the Giant’s dense muscles and deflected to the side. Some crashed into the Frost Armor, failing to injure the giants in the slightest and only managing to cause shards of ice to fall to the ground. Some managed to avoid the armor and pierce a giant’s tough, leather-like skin, embedding themselves into muscle-fiber and bone, though even these bullets were quickly shaken off as the giants strode forward.

The Frost Giants only had their Frost Armor blasted to pieces when three to five magical machines concentrated their fire. It was then that they would be riddled with holes in a storm of metal. Even so, the wounded giant would still roll on the ground howling for several minutes before finally dying.

That was more than enough evidence of the resilience of a Frost Giant’s life force!

The Frost Giant warriors did not have the strict discipline and formation of humans. They charged in groups of three to five, rampaging through the battlefield as they did on their hunts, freely slaughtering any magical machine that entered their range of attack. The magical machine army sent out a large number of melee magical machines. These machines held a shield in one hand and brandished a two-meter long steel sword in the other as they clashed with the giants.

The Archer machines scattered and traveled further away from the battlefield before using their roaring magic energy cannons and an endless stream of bullets to drown the enemy. Typically, five Archers had to continuously barrage a single Frost Giant for over three minutes to take it down. Meanwhile, the magical machines would have to endure the repeated assaults of the Frost Giants.

As a result, the magical machine army had to suffer casualties of seven to ten units just to kill a single Frost Giant.

While the Frost Giants occupied the firepower of the magical machines, the intermediate and high-grade adepts of the Fabres Clan stepped onto the battlefield under cover of the Frost Giant Mages.

Snowstorms that eclipsed the sun, violent and destructive lightning blasts, shadow spears shrouded in fearsome black smoke, magical fireballs of shocking power. With the protection of the meat shields at the front line, the adepts could unleash their offensive might to the fullest extent, delivering appalling losses to the Crimson Clan’s magical machine army.

However, the Crimson Clan was not to be outdone.

Loud steam whistled as the four hundred-strong Brutalblood Army of goblin machinist-sorcerers rushed into battle.

Compared to the bland and simple attack patterns of the magical machines, the machinist-sorcerers attacked by all sorts of means and with all kinds of weapons, making it a feast for the eyes.

The magic energy rifles equipped on the front of their machines unleashed magical energy beams of various colors, while the magic energy cannons equipped on their shoulders let out artillery fire without stopping as they marched forward. Alchemical flame of surprising temperature shot out of their outstretched arms, extending for dozens of meters and burning viciously.

A small platform on the back of the machines was also consistently throwing alchemical bombs and self-destructing devices to every corner of the battlefield.

A goblin machinist-sorcerer was practically a moving arsenal. They rumbled as they advanced, all while steadily opening fire at every moving enemy around them.

That heavy rain of bullets, that ferocious firepower, and that unstoppable aura of dominance instantly uplifted the sinking morale of the Crimson forces.