Age of Adepts

The ice palace, on top of the mysterious platform.

Starspirit Tulas was still diligently analyzing the mysterious patterns carved onto the platform. However, he had no choice but to put this task on hold when he was halfway through.

It couldn't be helped. The dragon had returned!

The brutal battle between the fire adept and the dragon that Tulas had been expecting did not happen. Or rather, it was over too quickly. As a result, Tulas was now stuck on the platform as the dragon returned before he could find the entrance into the hidden passage.

Even Tulas felt his heart quiver with sympathy when he saw the skeletal ice dragon emerge from the mist.

It was in such a terrible condition!

Ever since it forcibly converted itself from an ice dragon into a skeletal dragon, all of Nax's scales and flesh had vanished. The dragon only had its steel-like skeletal frame and those horrifying massive bone spikes on its spine.

What filled the space between its bones and its chest cavity was bright blue ice energy. The blue ice energy completely filled up the dragon's chest and skull, even causing strange, flickering ice runes to form on the bones' surfaces.

A layer of translucent ice crystals covered every inch of Nax's bones. To attack Nax's body itself, you would first have to penetrate its forcefield and shatter that layer of frost.

It was only possible to injure the skeletal dragon if you were able to break through these two layers of primary defenses!

However, while Nax remained within this frost-filled palace, it practically had a limitless pool of power to draw upon. It could freely use the devastating power of ice energy.

This place was its lair and its home!

No Fourth Grade creature could possibly defeat Nax in this palace of ice while it possessed the Ancient Reliquary of Deep Winter.

However, there were always exceptions!

The only thing that could beat an ultra-grade artifact was another ultra-grade artifact!

Nax, who didn't dare carry the Ancient Reliquary on its person and relied only on the ice energy within, naturally lost instantly against Greem, who had two ultra-grade artifacts on him.

Terrifying golden flames burned furiously on the dragon's body. It didn't matter how it beat at the flames or gathered ice energy; it simply couldn't extinguish the fire. Golden fire and blue frost clashed wildly over the dragon's body. They thrashed and rampaged wildly against each other, almost causing all the energy in the dragon's body to go into unrest.

This once elegant, proud, holy, and magnificent Skeletal Ice Dragon Nax was now half-engulfed in flames and half-covered in ice. The two unusual law powers fought with Nax's body as the battlefield, its life and energy as the fuel viciously lashing at the opponent.

Meanwhile, with every clash, they exhausted more and more of Nax's already waning life force.

Nax was practically blinded from all the smoke and fire. It stumbled its way back to the mysterious platform.

What the dragon needed most at the moment was the aid of the reliquary.

Only the pure and plentiful ice energy within the reliquary could put out the stubborn flames burning on its body. However, when it approached the platform, it instantly noticed that damned starspirit trying to decipher the magical protection array.

Nax was on the verge of madness.

Even though Nax had been badly injured by the fire laws, it still possessed its mighty Strength and incomparable Dragontongue magic. It would never be afraid of a cowardly 'thief'!

Nax opened its maw, and a strange breath of ice and fire rolled towards the blue ball of light.

Dammit! How did the dragon return so quickly?

Tulas cursed to himself as void energy flickered in his body. Several void energy shields appeared in front of him, blocking the breath of ice and fire.

It wouldn't have been much if the breath was composed only of fire and ice. These shields formed out of void energy could perfectly defend against elementium particles of any attribute. However, the two law powers attached to the dragon's breath were what was most scary about the attack.

The laws wildly destabilized the void energy as they continued to tussle between themselves.

The void energy shields shattered into stardust with a clear crack as the dragon's breath concluded.

The next second, Nax opened its scorched maw wide and snapped at the starspirit's mysterious and beautiful body.

Dammit! Law powers of two attributes, and two severely conflicting ones at that.

Tulas didn't even have time to curse. His silhouette flickered as he teleported a hundred meters away, dodging the maw of the dragon.

The moment it appeared, the skeletal dragon's equally burned tail lashed through the mist down from above.

This place was Nax's home field, after all. No trace of energy changes or disruptions could escape its notice. As Tulas didn't want to stray too far from the platform, he was immediately struck by the dragon's combo attack after teleporting away.

Even Tulas could not react in time now.

The slender, yet thick, dragon's tail crushed several newly formed shields and whipped Tulas on its cloud-like body.

There were no sounds of cracking bones or splitting flesh. This ball of blue light was scattered by the terrible force, along with all the starry nodes within.

The blue ball vanished instantly.

When it once again reappeared, it was in the mist five hundred meters away.

The cluster of stars only managed to take shape after some difficult reforming and reassembling. However, the body of the starspirit had lost over half of its star nodes. The void energy that formed the shell of the body was also thirty percent gone.

"Dammit! Dammit! This is a terrible loss!" Tulas propped himself up with much difficulty and said resentfully, "My void circuits were scattered, and I've even lost thirty percent of my void energy. I won't be able to recover such losses without a hundred years of rest! Damned dragon. I will make you pay for this."

Tulas started to mobilize his void energy as he cursed quietly.

Soon, countless strange lights shot in every direction, and the starspirit's shining body disappeared into the mist again.

Nax hurried onto the platform while Tulas was still routed. A strange array appeared when Nax's aura came into contact with the dense blocks of runes. This array completely engulfed the skeletal dragon.

The dragon's soul aura communicated with the array of runes to conduct a series of verifications and confirmations. Finally, a pillar of light shone from the center of the platform. A small opening appeared on the platform's smooth surface and dense ice energy-so dense it had almost turned solid-surged out.

The liquid ice energy broke down into dense mist upon coming into contact with the air outside. The fog spread outwards. Nax impatiently put his jaws at the opening, greedily absorbing this liquid ice energy.

Strangely enough, the moment the ice energy entered its body, all of the golden flames were instantly extinguished. Blue ice energy was once again the dominant force in Nax's body. Even the dragon bones that had been exposed by the shattered frost were once again covered in an armor of ice.

However, an unusually pale streak of death energy entered its body along with the ice energy.

The addition of this death energy instantly caused the dragon's still powerful life aura to become weaker and duller. Its lovely bones started to turn black, then yellow, as the aura of rot unique to undead creatures crept further around Nax's soul.

As a once proud and majestic dragon, Nax hated undead creatures with a passion!

However, for the sake of more power, Nax had no choice but to abandon its pride and glory as a dragon and embrace its identity as an undead. For Nax, who viewed its glory as its very life, this decision was a huge blow to its soul!

However, at this moment of life and death, Nax no longer had the luxury to hesitate.

Nax inhaled violently, letting the ferocious ice energy and sinister death energy baptize its soul and turn it into a suitable host for the Fifth Grade Reliquary.

If no outsiders appeared, Nax could have dragged out this process over the course of a few hundred years. In doing so, the pain that its soul would have to endure could be spread out over the countless years.

It no longer had time. It could only risk its own life to make immediate modifications to its body!

The risk of a failure in modification had risen exponentially in doing so.

Nax reared its head and let out a roar of agony. Its once bright blue body covered in frost was now rotting and falling apart at a visible pace. Ice energy and death energy were intertwined together as they sprinted throughout its body. It was almost as if the dragon had been infected by ink that was rapidly spreading all over, turning his bones brittle and black.

Such a compound modification of both the soul and the body was a tremendous impact on the soul. An ordinary person would never be able to endure it.

Even Nax, the skeletal dragon, could only howl desperately to express the indescribable agony it was suffering!

The mist continued to ripple.

Two figures slowly walked towards the platform, one from the right and one from the left.

They looked at the roaring dragon on the platform, then at each other. Their eyes were filled with unconcealable greed and caution of their rival.

"I never expected how much of your power you kept hidden," Kanganas was the first to speak. "It seems like you have managed to make the Libram of Wisdom submit. Otherwise, there is no way you'd have such tremendous power!"

His crimson soulfire swept across the tome-shaped equipment in Greem's hand, his gaze filled with regret.

If he knew the Libram of Wisdom was so powerful, he would have obtained it at all costs, even if it meant injuring himself to defeat this fire adept.

However, it was too late to say anything now.

The fire adept had obviously managed to subdue the Libram of Wisdom fully and turn it into his magical equipment. Obsessing over matters of the past was simply unwise.