Age of Adepts

Greem was having a hard time in the battle of Adepts against Anderson.

It was worth mentioning that as an Adept who just made the advancement, compared to a veteran Adept like Anderson, whether it was his combat experience or his ability to cast magic spell, there was a huge gap between them. If you took the support and enhancement the Swampy Tower provided to Anderson into consideration, this battle had slowly become a one-sided one.

With just five minutes into the battle, Anderson had determined his combative superiority. A raging tornado carried countless wind blades and daggers kept breaking through the interception from Greem's magic spells, spreading the flames of war closer to his side.

The transformation of Flame Fiend had given Greem a lofty and burly body, allowing him to own an intrepidly built and near limitless Fire element energy in the magic spell battle. But once he suffered a setback in the battle, the loophole in his defense was actually bigger than normal.

Greem himself was not a velocity-type Adept who specialized in agility. As a matter of fact, among all the data of his body attributes, Agility was his biggest weakness.

Therefore, the lofty flaming humanoid transformed from Greem was seen simply standing still where he was, the ground underneath his feet had melted into half-molten lava, and the space covered fifty meters radius around him was filled with rolling and steaming flames. Anyone who tried to get closer to him would have to first withstand an endless fire elemental damage.

It was perhaps this that might have helped him in establishing some superiority when fighting with an Adept who specialized in agility. However, when he was facing an Adept who never needed to worry about defense, an Element Adept who just had to attack with all he had, Greem's weakness had become apparent.

The elemental affinity of Adept Anderson was Dark and Wind Elementium. As the result, though all the magic spells cast by him were mainly using Wind Elementium, they also carried Dark Elementium which brought a strong corrosive effect. A faint dark smoke always enshrouded the wounds on Greem's body which were cut by those wind blades. If he didn't use a huge amount of Fire element energy to wash and wipe off these Dark Elementiums, even with his high Physique, he wouldn't be able to heal them quickly.

This had made this battle tougher for Greem!

If the situation continued to develop in this direction, even if Greem devoted all his effort, it was still very difficult for him to defend against Anderson's assault. And once he was defeated, as they were in a completely sealed off inter-space, there wasn't any paths that could allow him to escape.

Greem bowed down and poked his left hand into the floor which had turned into flowing lava. When he pulled his left hand out, a big chunk of floor nearly five meters wide was pulled out together, turning into a flaming lava shield and was placed in front to block him.

The noise of wind blades cutting kept ringing through the scene. The lava shield had blocked off a tornado that swept right in his direction. The wind blades that came together with this frightful tornado were like countless spinning steel blades, cutting and slicing out a few hundred crisscrossing deep trenches on the surface of the shield in an instant.

Greem roared and raised the lava shield high, both his feet had sunk deeply into the molten lava underneath. Driven by him, the scorching hot lava flowed up along his body and resupplied into the lava shield in his hands. But unfortunately, before he could patch up the damage, an extremely sharp Wind Spear hit and crushed onto the surface of the lava shield, instantly exploded it into countless tiny wind blades and vortexes that dispersed into all directions.

With this hit, the thickness of the lava shield was reduced by half, and with the thickness that was remaining, it was impossible for him to defend against the next attack.

Greem kept waving the Fire Lord's Scepter in his hand. Assisted by the Secret Scroll of Voodoo, three major Fire magic spells exploded beside Anderson in a row. It was a pity that such attacks could only destroy the magic spell Anderson was about to cast, but were unable to penetrate through his elemental barrier and inflict any damage on him.

In this situation, actually, a melee battle was more likely to harm to the enemy. However, with Greem's heavy and slow pace, it was simply a foolish dream if he wished to chase Anderson who was riding in the wind!

Greem turned around and let out a furious roar, "Acteon, I know you are here. Don't tell me you're going to wait until I am defeated, then only wag your tail at that ugly fellow? If you still wish to seize back your freedom, show yourself. I need your help now!"

The target of Greem's roar was, of course, not that Acteon who kept wandering around his Ring of Fire and seeking opportunities to strike, but the primary consciousness of Evil Bugs who had formed a strategic alliance with him.

Right at this moment, within this completely sealed off interspace, the situation of the entire battlefield was clear at a glance.

There was only a handful of people still alive in this place. Besides Anderson who was hovering and flying in the air, the rest were Greem, who had made his advancement and became a Fire element Adept, Mary, who had been freed from the torture chair and was fighting against the flaming giant, Acteon, who had become the loyal slave of Anderson, and Snorlax, who had turned invisible and was hiding at the furthest distance from the battlefield.

At this very moment in time, the only person who could help him was most probably that primary consciousness of Evil Bugs, who had concealed himself and couldn't be traced. If he didn't want to watch the entire battle go in the direction of complete failure, and lose all hopes of seizing his body back, then he must come out and do something!

Greem continued shouted for one more round. Right as he was about to give up hope, a strange occurrence suddenly happened right on the battlefield!

Odd noises of bones cracking suddenly were heard.

Dead bodies of apprentices who appeared to be long dead started to struggle and climb back up, dragging their twisted and deformed body and limbs, staggering their steps and moving towards Anderson's direction. At the beginning, their movements were slow and stiff, but just after three to five seconds, their movement suddenly became nimble and swift. They started to run, crawl, leap… moving as nimble as a monkey, they kept climbing up from the bottom of the altar and crazily charged towards Anderson who had a slightly startled expression.

Meanwhile, that Acteon who didn't put out a great performance since the beginning of the battle suddenly had his body tremble violently. All sorts of beetles and scorpions began to fall out from behind his black robe. And strangely, these bugs actually split into two distinct groups, forming into two waves of bugs and that started to crazily bite and kill the other.

Hmph. This guy had finally done something!

Greem stood still and glanced around the battlefield.

Those apprentices who transformed into bugs-men by Evil Bugs had been dead for a long time, the thing that controlling their dead bodies now was actually some Carrion Beetles hidden within their body. They were like a group of fighters with no fear of death, clustering below Adept Anderson and piled up into a small hill of corpses, continuously leaping into the air and attacking with their teeth.

After all, this place was an isolated space expanded with the power of the tower, thus it could only reach a certain height. As the result, when thirty odd apprentices stacked on each other and formed into a small hill, it seemed they might really able to drag Adept Anderson down from the air.

The elemental barrier covering outside of Adept Anderson's body could defend against offensive magic spells, and as a result was near invincible. However, when faced with physical attacks at a close-quarter, this layer of protection became rather ordinary.

Upon looking at the frightful faces of ugly and twisted bodies kept leaping in front of him, howling and launching attacks, Adept Anderson furiously tossed out a tornado onto the hill of corpses. The violent wind blades and the dreadful vortexes instantly ground them into pieces.

But in the next seconds, a loud boom exploded from the scene. Countless frightening flying bugs burst out from the broken bodies of apprentice, clustered into a dense dark cloud and instantly flooded Adept Anderson's body.

The assault of such magnitude might cause some troubles for Anderson, yet would not enough to kill him. Therefore, when Greem saw what happened, an aggressive gleam flickered in his eyes. Without hesitation, he threw out the trump card that he had prepared for a long time.

Self-explosion of golem!

After received an order from Greem's spiritual consciousness, the summoning core of Adept level golem which Anderson placed in his pocket immediately exploded!

It was actually a summoning core purposely modified by him. When he was fighting with Alice last time, he bore patiently and only activate one Fire Lord. Thus, in Anderson's subconscious mind, Greem only owned one single summoning core of Adept level.

As the result, during the period Anderson had the control over Greem's body, after he found the summoning core, he had lowered down his guard against Greem. He never expected that Greem had hidden another summoning core on Alice, while the one that remained with him was a summoning core that had been thoroughly modified, waiting for Anderson to find it.

And at this moment, taking the opportunity when Adept Anderson was trapped by Evil Bugs' minions, Greem had finally given out the order to the core to explode.

In the next second, a huge lava pillar exploded from within this isolated interspace. Extreme high temperatures, deadly heat, raging and violent lava, and terrifying flame jets shot in all directions, all of which had formed into a world of lava that could annihilate every single living being, coiling and spreading towards Anderson at top speed.

The swarm of bugs that spread all over the place immediately suffered from a devastating blow. Among the tens of thousands of bugs, only a handful of them managed to survive. Inside of Acteon's body, within the bugs tide that was crazily fighting for the control over the body, a shrill bug cry suddenly echoed out.

"Greem, you bastard, you…"

But before his high-pitch curse could be finished, the voice was flooded by a more frightening and savage hiss of bugs.

Apparently, the battle happening on his side was in a very dangerous state as well, and it was a life-and-death struggle!

"Serve you right! Who let you use me as your escape goat. I really hate to be used by someone else, take this as a lesson. You better focus your attention on your internal war! And be careful, don't let that puppet consciousness to devour you. If that really happened, it'll be really interesting!" Greem sneered in a disdainful manner.

In the far distance, the figure of Anderson had been enveloped by the raging explosion of Elementium and turbulences, and no one could peek at what was happening inside. Greem had no choice but to turned around and walked towards Mary.

Indeed, the power of bloodline could allow an apprentice to grow up in a very short amount of time. But once the source of the bloodline fell into the hand of enemies, then the apprentice would become a puppet who had no command over oneself and would be left at the mercy of someone else!

The current Mary had turned into a ghostly assassin that went on rampage. She kept leaping and dashing around the Fire Lord at lightning speed, while the crimson longbow in her hand kept bursting out sounds of 'twang's, unleashing one after another crimson arrow and hitting the vitals of her opponent. It was obvious that Fire Lord only specialized in offensive and wasn't really good in capturing and trapping. Therefore, after thrusting crazily toward Mary for a few times, relying on her high Agility, all its attempts were dodged by her with ease.

Yet, as Mary was an 'ally' of its master, the Fire Lord couldn't wantonly launch attacks at her. Thus, when Greem was fighting Anderson with all his effort, the Fire Lord was locked in a tough battle against Mary!

At this point in time, Greem came over to their battlefield with his lofty body. When Mary intruded into his Ring of Fire, the flame in the air immediately transformed into flaming chains and tied her up tightly, pulling her in front of Greem.

Although Greem just became an official Adept, but when he wanted to deal with a Pseudo-Adept, he could still handle him or her with ease.