Age of Adepts

It wasn’t usually too obvious, but the power of his name was put on full display upon a clan battlefield like this one.

The Crimson Clan was founded by Greem, to begin with. He, the legendary fire adept who rose to power in such a miraculous fashion, had deeply etched the name of the Crimson Clan in the hearts of every one of its members.

The Crimson Clan was Greem, and only Greem could truly represent the Crimson Clan!

It didn’t matter how badly suppressed by the enemy the Crimson Clan had been. It didn’t matter how horribly they had been beaten. It didn’t matter how many concessions they had made and how many resource sites and territories they had lost. When Greem appeared before everyone with his iconic body of flames, the emotions of the Crimson Clan members instantly ignited.

A thunderous wave of cheering soared into the skies.

Almost as if resonating with everyone’s emotions, blazing fire cascaded outwards from Greem’s burning figure, gathering into a luxurious crimson armor that covered his towering body.

Greem’s familiar and powerful voice boomed across the sky.

“Everybody, I am back!”

This simple sentence caused the entire battlefield to erupt.

The goblin machinist-sorcerers bathing in blood and fire on the frontlines, the goblin cannoneers firing away at the turrets on the goblin chariots, and the clan adepts gathering at the frontlines preparing for the slaughter to come; each and every one of them flew into a frenzy. Their eyes turned red, and they started shouting the name of the legendary fire adept with all their might.

It wasn’t just them. The applause was thundering within the command hall of the Motherships as cheers filled the rooms. In particular, Crimson leaders and commanders Gargamel and Meryl were having tears well-up their eyes and streak down their faces. They, too, started shouting with all they had.

It had been such a hard and bitter effort just hanging on!

Their past few months of painstaking effort, of staying at the very frontlines night and day, of enduring countless rumors and gossip behind their backs, and of shouldering such unimaginable pressure– what had it all been for? For the sake of awaiting their master’s return, for the sake of preserving the Crimson Clan’s power, and for the very sake of returning a still-intact Crimson Clan back to the hands of Greem.

When they saw that dear, familiar pillar of flames and that majestic figure standing in the sky, all their humiliation, frustration, and effort turned into warm tears and burst out of their eyes. Gargamel and Meryl could only express their delight and excitement with the most primal and intense cheering that they could muster.

Now that Lord Greem was back, they no longer had to bear such a heavy burden!

Even if Greem were alone and the enemy numbered in the tens of thousands, the hearts of the Crimson adepts still settled in an instant. They believed...no, they firmly believed that even in the most desperate of situations, even in the most difficult of battlefields, the legendary fire adept Lord Greem would undoubtedly lead them towards victory!

Greem stood high in the sky with overwhelming fire gathered around his body. His powerful and sensitive Spirit perfectly picked up on the intense conviction from the members of the Crimson Clan. From adepts to apprentices to the ordinary goblins, everyone was filled with unwavering trust and admiration for him.

This...was clearly the source of the power of faith!

This power didn’t usually manifest easily, which is why Greem hadn’t realized its existence, even when tens of thousands of such fine threads were wrapped around him. However, today, when the clan was faced with a crisis, all of the emotions hidden within the hearts of the clan members had been ignited and brought forth. That was why Greem could very clearly sense surges of a profound and unusual power being very remotely projected onto his person through the mysterious planar laws when he stood forward.

It mysteriously caused his majestic figure in the sky to become even more focused and substantial in presence.

The effect of this in the eyes of the enemy was as if the legendary fire adept was resonating with the world itself, even as he walked towards them. His entire being, from his physical presence to his spiritual presence, pressed towards them with a terrifying aura as if he had the very power of the world in tow.

It caused the members of the Fabres Clan to feel an inexplicable pressure within their hearts and minds. The will to battle that they had just managed to muster earlier couldn’t help but start wavering and trembling!

Naturally, the ordinary adepts and warriors did not feel this change too sensitively.

They only faintly sensed the aura of the fire adept growing stronger and his figure growing larger, while realizing that they had no chance of defeating this opponent. It was a vague and peculiar sensation to have, but it was directly etched within their souls and minds, causing them to believe firmly in this feeling as if it were a fact itself.

When the actual fight broke out, the ordinary warriors and adepts probably wouldn’t even have the courage to swing their weapons or cast their spells at Greem.

The morale and will of the Fabres forces instantly faltered and fell to a low!

“Dammit! That is the power of the laws! The fire adept actually managed to move the planar laws.”

“How is this possible? I am not hallucinating, am I?”

“Bastard! Isn’t he only Third Grade?”

The others might not understand what was happening, but the seven Third Grade Fabres adepts at the frontline felt everything and understood most perfectly what was happening.

The damned fire adept was actually compatible with the consciousness of the planar origin at this moment. He had managed to move a trace of the planar laws’ power, etching within the souls of their forces the thought of defeat.

According to what they knew, this should be a power exclusive only to those old, peak Fourth Grade monsters!

The power of the principles was a strange and mysterious force produced when the principles of the world were functioning.

In contrast, the power of laws was only an extension and manifestation of the power of principles. The power of laws was like human skin. The driving forces producing all the power were the bones, tendons, and muscles hidden beneath the skin, but the only thing that people could ever see was the skin that lay above these organs.

Only the powers of principles could represent the foundational power behind the function and structure of the planar worlds.

The principles of the world were always hidden from the senses of the lifeforms inhabiting it. Planar lifeforms would never have any chance of making contact with the principles without doing so through the manifestation that was the planar laws.

As such, to master the power of principles, one would first have to understand and master the power of laws.

It was only after thoroughly comprehending the power of the planar laws that an individual adept–one of hundreds of millions of lifeforms in a planar world–could hope to take a step forward and make contact with that profound and mysterious force that represented the very foundational principles of the world itself!

What the legendary fire adept was currently doing was borrowing the sudden explosion of belief from his clan members to move a trace of the power of planar laws.

It was somewhat ‘cheating,’ but it still undoubtedly punished the Fabres Clan and dampened their morale and will to fight. Should the Fabres Clan show even the slightest of disadvantage upon the battlefield, there was a chance that the ‘seed of failure’ sowed deep in the hearts of their clan members could be detonated, thereby causing unpredictable risk to the campaign.

Faced with this situation where only victory was allowed, the seven Third Grade adepts could not help but start cursing in their minds.

The adepts had tough and resilient minds. They could not possibly be too adversely affected by this ‘seed of failure,’ but the effect on the apprentice-level adept force and the subordinate armies would be immense. Should they lose some portion of the battle, it was very likely that these forces would start doing unbelievable things from the effect of defeat and their defeated emotions.

For instance: howling, causing chaos, thrashing about randomly, or even fleeing immediately.

Moreover, all of these actions could further magnify the pessimistic outlook of the other warriors, leading to even more severe consequences!

“Hmph! A parlor trick! They don’t have enough high-grade adepts. We will use our numbers to...” Adept Zam could feel himself panic slightly. He hastily shouted to bolster the morale of their forces. However, before he could even finish, changes started occurring behind the lines of the Crimson Clan.

Thunderous dragon roars could be heard from Pinecone City as eight dragons of various colors took to the skies and rushed towards the battlefield.

In the lead was Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms and Emerald Dragon Iritina, with several First and Second Grade subordinates they had just recruited from Lance following behind them.

At the same time as the dragons appeared, a massive portal appeared behind the goblin chariots, and a shocking number of magical machines swarmed out of it. In the lead was Split-Brain Gru, standing at four meters tall.

These subordinate forces of the Crimson Clan were clearly very disingenuous people.

They had ignored all the orders of the clan when Mary, Gargamel, and Meryl headed it. However, now that Greem had returned, they immediately arrived to reinforce the clan’s forces, even without any words of threat from the fire adept himself.

This snobbish, insincere behavior nearly made Mary fly into a fury on the spot. She had to breathe long and hard with all she could to suppress her anger. Otherwise, she might not have resisted the impulse to rush forward and give the dragons and Gru a wicked scolding.

That wasn’t the end of it.

Greem waved his hand and released the Third Grade elementium magical machine and Spirit of Pestilence Remi. The obedient old poison witch also stood silently behind Remi.

Spatial flux shimmered within the Mothership. A moment later, Alice appeared on the deck with staff in hand and eight Fate Witches behind her.

Even the Fate Witches were here to help the battle!

The hearts of the seven Third Grade adepts of the Fabres Clan sank even further at the sight of this. Adept Zam also fell silent in an instant.

Dammit! Their clan had still held the advantage in quantity and quality of adepts earlier, but in the blink of an eye, they had suddenly become the weaker party.

That...that was too unimaginable, was it not?

The high-grade adepts of both parties were all gathered now. They stood off against each other from across hundreds of meters, their burning gazes sweeping across the enemy. The shock and impact on the face of the Fabres adepts could not be wiped away.

Naturally, at the very front of the Fabres Clan were the seven Third Grade adepts. Every one of them was a veteran adept that had made their name a long time ago. They were far superior to the average Third Grade adept in both power and magical equipment.

Meanwhile, the Crimson Clan had Legendary Fire Adept Greem, Bloody Queen Mary, Fate Witch Alice, Magic-Breaking Assassin Oliven, Thunder Dragon Arms, Emerald Dragon Iritina, the elementium magical machine, Spirit of Pestilence Remi, and the old poison witch.

Surprisingly, the number of Third Grade adepts on the Crimson Clan’s side was superior to that of the invading Fabres Clan!