Age of Adepts

Greem blasted away with his Boots of Ash without hesitation after emerging from the pillar of fire. His body had just moved from his prior position when an incomparably violent blade of light caught the pillar of fire and cleaved it into countless sparks.

Greem’s body of flames stepped upon the uneven pile of corpses and quickly dodged about the battlefield. Two blinding streams of fire spread out around his back like a cape of flame. He deftly dodged around in the narrow space with the pushing power of the fire jets, avoiding all of the sword lights that Gallow sent at him.

If Greem were running with his feet alone, his twelve points of Agility would not have allowed him to escape the slashes, even if he were to run as fast as he could.

However, with the use of his magical powers and his mind, Greem was growing increasingly skilled at controlling the flames. He came up with this new means of movement that was compatible with his skills.

After creating magma armor with his flames, he could manipulate violent fire energy to shoot out of small holes on the back of it, driving his entire body to glide forward explosively.

Greem had even ordered the Chip to spend a vast amount of time and computing power to design a whole new magma armor for him for this express purpose. The unique aspect of his magma armor wasn’t its defensive protection, but the small holes that were spread all over the middle and surface layers.

Greem could adjust the angle and direction of his glide by changing the path of the jet stream and the hole from which the flames were expelled without moving his body.

At the moment, Greem’s body moved in a strange fashion. He faced towards Gallow while several dozen streams of red flames of varying thickness, force, and shades of color shot out from all around him.

He moved through the air quickly and in strange ways that seemed to defy the laws of motion. Even as the black blades of light swung all around him and seemingly cut off all paths of escape, Greem remained unfazed and easily dodged the attacks after a few rapid turns.

Naturally, the berserk Gallow would not give up on this rare chance at a ‘fair’ duel with Greem. He stomped against the corpse mountain, every step leaving behind a bloody crater as his body rushed toward the fire adept at a shocking speed.

Extreme Strength was everything!

Gallow might only have seventeen points of Agility, but his thirty-nine points of ferocious Strength allowed him to have bursts of speed that could rival Mary, who had thirty-seven points of Agility.

The only difference was the amount of control in their movement. Mary could easily change her trajectory and direction of motion even when moving at such speeds, fluently and without causing a mess. Scarface Gallow, on the other hand, relied on raw strength. He had to exert an even greater burst of strength to barely stop his uncontrolled movement.

Thus, as Gallow slashed and leaped with violent force, the blood, flesh, and strangely-shaped limbs flew everywhere from this massive twenty-meter tall mountain of corpses.

The two Third Grade adepts started a chase in this horrifying and sinister environment, assaulting each other with wild blades of light and torrents of invisible flames.

Meanwhile, the elementium magical machine stood a kilometer away, bombarding Gallow rapidly with a ray-beam shot every seven seconds. Even though Gallow was moving and running without stop, the magic energy ray beams were always locked onto his back.

The 350 points of energy intensity might not be able to burn a hole through his body, but they could still leave a small scorch mark the size of a fingernail on his back. More importantly, the elementium magical machine knew how to time its shots to Gallow’s movements. Gallow’s quickly moving body would be interrupted by an attack whenever it was a key moment in catching up to Greem, causing him to lose his best opportunity to attack.

A single beam would leave a small scorch mark. Two beams, and there would only still be a small scorch mark. However, as these ray beams continued to rain down on Gallow, the small scorch marks started to gather together to become a massive wound that even he could not ignore.

After all, what rested in Gallow’s chest was not his original heart, but the withered heart of a Fallen Emperor. Gallow might not die if an attack hit that heart, but it would most definitely wear away at his endless supply of death aura.

He had no choice but to dig his feet into the corpse pile. A terrifying and bloody ditch, one meter deep and two meters wide, was carved into the corpses before he finally managed to stop his insane momentum. It allowed him to dodge the next magic energy beam that was fired at him.

However, in the one instant that Gallow stopped moving, Greem’s eyes gleamed as a layer of invisible flames immediately engulfed Gallow’s body.

Gallow, who had thus far remained untouched even after being bombarded a dozen times by Greem’s Vicious Fireballs, let out a grunt. A violent shockwave blasted from his body and blew away this layer of flames.

It had only been two seconds since the invisible flames surrounded Gallow.

However, when Scarface Gallow scrambled out of the fire, a good half of his body had already turned black and charred. It was almost as if the excellent magic resistance that he prided himself on had vanished for that one instant.

“This...this isn’t holy light?”

An old voice asked in surprise in the higher-up’s room in Kerslin Castle.

“It’s not holy light! In my opinion, this should be holy fire formed from assimilating a portion of holy light power,” An equally old voice sighed and said in a low voice, “There is already a semblance to principle fire in his flames now!”

“That said, his control over this principle fire is clearly very limited. As long as he can’t lock onto the position with his vision, this slow-acting fire will have difficulty burning Gallow,” A crisp female voice interrupted.

“Indeed, you might be right. But...can Gallow remain as calm as before after having seen principle fire for the first time?”

“......”

Far away from the musings of the Fourth Grade adepts in the World of Adepts, Scarface Gallow couldn’t help but fall into a state of panic and shock.

All this while, he had been able to reign undefeated due to his wild Strength and the shocking resistance of his undead body. With these, Gallow could endure attacks from Third Grade elementium adepts and only suffer insignificant damage.

However, like a warrior who had been hiding beneath his sturdy armor, the sudden disappearance of his protection had destroyed his psychological sense of security, more severely so than the massive wounds that had just been inflicted on his body.

Gallow wore extremely rare magical equipment on his person. It was the Sun Vine, that was capable of absorbing elementium damage.

However, the layer of invisible flames from earlier clearly didn’t belong to the realm of light elementium magic, but fire magic.

Scarface Gallow’s undead body’s fire resistance might not be sufficient to allow him to be immune to fire, but it was pretty close to that. How could his skin have been burned to ashes by the invisible flames?

That...was simply beyond Gallow’s expectations!

It was precisely his overconfidence in his magic resistance that caused Gallow to hesitate for half a second at that moment, allowing the invisible flames to engulf him. Those two seconds of fire had successfully burned away Gallow’s confidence. He no longer dared to let the legendary fire adept attack without restraint.

Hesitating, and concerned about any more attacks, Gallow no longer pursued as wildly and brazenly as before. He continued chasing after Greem, but constantly dodged and avoided the attacks coming from him and the elementium magical machine.

In doing so, his chances of catching up to Greem decreased considerably!

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

Greem was quickly running away.

Just now, he had managed to activate the new fire spell that the Chip had simulated– Origin Fire!

It was a principle fire that combined the holy light’s characteristic of ignoring magical resistance and defenses. Greem should only have been able to master this fire after advancing to Fourth Grade.

However, with the aid of the Fourth Grade Sodden’s Holy Ring, he could successfully unleash the fire after a series of complicated and inconvenient energy conversions.

Unfortunately, the instant he successfully managed to cast Origin Fire, his Flame Fiend’s Heart withered by a great deal!

The Flame Fiend’s Heart was the heart of a Second Grade demon that Greem had transplanted earlier in his life, after all.

The Flame Fiend’s Heart had provided Greem with endless fire energy over the years, allowing him to trump one powerful enemy after another. However, with every step Greem took towards greater heights, the Second Grade Flame Fiend’s Heart gradually stopped becoming a source of strength. Now, at the peak of Third Grade, it was even dragging down the progression and improvement of his power.

Take what happened earlier, for instance. The Origin Fire’s demand for fire energy had gone beyond the limits of the Flame Fiend’s Heart. The sudden torrent of flames that coursed through Greem’s body exceeded the capacity of the Flame Fiend’s Heart, burning the heart in the backlash.

If Greem’s body was a wooden bucket, then the Flame Fiend’s Heart was the short plank in the bucket, dragging down Greem when he wanted to unleash his power. If the fire energy surging through Greem’s body exceeded a certain level, he would harm his own body even as he injured the opponent.

It was at this very moment that Greem realized, more than ever, that this body of his was in dire need of changes!

However, regardless of how concerned and anxious he was about the issue, it was something he had to deal with after the fight. Greem still needed to face the formidable Scarface Gallow with all his strength right now.

After all, if Gallow were able to hit him with all thirty-nine points of his Strength, no number of elementium shields would guarantee his personal safety.