Age of Adepts

Antoril felt like his luck was in the dumps!

He believed himself to be able to successfully traverse every single forest in Garan with his nature affinity as a druid. Unfortunately, this underground world didn't show as much affinity toward him as he had imagined.

Ever since Antoril had followed the vampires into the Death Scar, he had been shocked to find this place to be a land of death. Ghost trees, withered vines, disgusting mutated plants, and countless undead creatures were everywhere.

Confident in his overwhelming strength, Antoril had charged right into the winding maze of the underground world without any consideration.

In truth, there was practically no existence within the labyrinth that could trap or even stall Antoril, especially with his immense power. When he transformed into the thunder roc that possessed the power of lightning and electricity, the slow zombies and skeletons would be blasted into pieces by lightning from above before they could even get close.

Thunder rocs were lightning attribute creatures. They would naturally trigger Thunderfall wherever they went, be it when flying or when they were attacking. This First Grade spell could deal forty to sixty lightning damage and inflict paralysis on the enemy.

That was why the first thing that greeted the hordes of zombies and skeletons that stood in the thunder roc's way was thousands of bright and flashy silver lightning chains. It didn't matter how many zombies or skeletons there were; they couldn't possibly compare to the speed of tens of thousands of lightning blasts sweeping across the cave.

The swarm of ghouls that had given Greem so much trouble were blasted into scorched corpses before they could even so much as touch the roc's feathers.

The thunder roc that Antoril had transformed into rushed aimlessly in the underground world. Blinding forests of thunder and lightning erupted everywhere he went. These undead that roamed the underground realm had indeed run into misfortune. They had become sacrifices to the fury of the Third Grade druid. One by one, the shattered soul fires were extinguished, and their ugly bodies were destroyed, returning to the earth of this unique underground space.

In all honesty, Antoril had still been preoccupied with finding the vampires when he first entered this strange space. Yet, as he ventured even deeper into the caverns and witnessing the horrifying amount of twisted plants and countless undead, his heart filled with anger.

All druids were children of nature. Their love for the forest and nature was even above their concern for their own lives. That was why it was so hard for Antoril to tolerate the actions of foreign creatures destroying the forest and upsetting the order of nature.

Everything he had seen since he entered the Death Scar–be they plant, animal, or environment–had been twisted and strange. Here, he sensed an exceedingly powerful aura of death; an evil aura that went directly against the laws of nature. It was a sinister atmosphere that shouldn't exist in this world.

Consequently, Antoril quickly forgot about his original mission and turned his attention to the research and investigation of this evil aura of death.

He broke through multiple tunnels and caves, witnessing even more varieties of horrifying undead creatures. Finally, he was stopped by an undead caster with the power of a Third Grade– a Lich.

Within this underground world, where the undead piled as high as mountains and as deep as oceans, he began a ferocious battle to the death against this Third Grade lich.

There was no doubt that Antoril would be able to obtain the final victory if this battle was a fair duel between the two of them. Sadly, this was the territory and domain of the undead!

Antoril had plenty of reason to suspect that a certain powerful undead had already modified this underground world and that a planar rift connecting to the Skeletal Plane had already been opened. Otherwise, there was no chance that a Third Grade lich could so easily summon dozens of Second Grade death knights and hundreds of bone mages.

The powerful thunder roc that Antoril had transformed into had been bogged down by a series of disgusting curses. He was, after all, facing off against the attacks of a tide of intermediate to high-grade undead, along with occasional sneak attacks from a lich of the same grade. Antoril also had to fend off the combined forces of an entire squad of fearless Second Grade death knights.

It was important to note that these death knights were all unique existences even amongst undead knights. They possessed all sorts of offensive knight techniques, such as Revenant Slash and Double Strike. In particular, Revenant Slash allowed ordinary physical attacks to be enhanced by negative energy damage that could ignore all defenses.

This particular attack was what concerned Antoril the most!

As a Third Grade druid, Antoril was an entire grade above these death knights. It was extremely difficult for the undead to pierce through his physical and magical defenses under such circumstances. However, Revenant Slash allowed these death knights to activate negative energy attacks every one out of five strikes.

Consequently, when Antoril unleashed his might and crushed six of the death knights to pieces, his own body had been badly wounded. Injuries covered the thunder roc, with slash marks littering its torso along with rotting wounds!

Antoril had no choice but to turn back and run. He could not allow himself to die in such a humiliating and filthy place.

It was then that he ran into Greem, Uzzah, and Alice, who had been lying in wait!

Almost at the same time that Antoril exited the tunnel, the Doomsday Volcano that Greem and the Flame Fiend cast in unison exploded beneath the druid's feet.

The ground crumbled to the rumbling surge of lava. A blinding red pillar of magma burst out of the broken earth, sending heat waves into the air and precisely engulfing Antoril within its most potent strike zone. Horrifying fire poison, flame streams, and elementium blazes wreaked havoc in that location. The highest temperature of that core area even went up to four or five thousand degrees.

Antoril was caught by surprise and hit directly by this pillar of magma. His body was blasted into the air and bathed in the roiling flames and lava.

If it weren't for his shocking magical resistance as a Third Grade druid, this one attack would have been enough to roast the upper half of Antoril's body, turning him into scattering ashes.

Antoril cried out in agony and started to escape from the splashing magma.

By the time he erected a Natural Ward and emerged from the sea of fire, his wounded body had been badly scalded. Blisters and festering wounds had formed all over, bleeding purple and black blood.

Antoril raised his head and looked at the two giant Flame Fiends in the distance upon escaping. He immediately understood that he had run into a different group of adepts.

He barely managed to open his bloodshot and hate-filled eyes to glare at the Second Grade adept that had ambushed him. Antoril roared, "A Second Grade adept like you dares to ambush me? I'll let you…"

Before he could finish his sentence, the cave turned dark. The place had been plunged into a mysterious and fearsome darkness.

Greem tried his best to keep his eyes open.

Unfortunately, despite how much he attempted to see or feel, he couldn't extend his senses beyond ten steps of his own body.

The mad notifications from the Chip in his mind also frightened him slightly.

[Warning, warning. Shadow space detected…shadow space detected. Host's Spirit completely suppressed, physical vision reduced to eight meters, spiritual senses reduced to ten meters. Host has lost all control over the battlefield.]

Greem's heart trembled. He hadn't expected a Third Grade Dark Witch to demonstrate such terrifying might when she went all out. How long could he survive under such utter suppression if Uzzah's target had been him?

Ten seconds? Or five?

Still, Greem felt a little safer with the Flame Fiend of Terror by his side.

Would anything happen to Alice under such fearsome power?

Greem couldn't help but be flustered when his thoughts wandered to this matter.

Just then, a soft, small, and smooth hand silently gripped his right hand. Greem turned his head and saw Alice's gentle and quiet smile.

"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself on the battlefield!" Almost as if she had sensed Greem's concern, Alice's smile was charming, "What is it? Don't you want to watch a battle between two Third Grade powerhouses?"

Greem's handsome brow rose upward.

"You can break through Uzzah's Dark Incursion?"

Alice smiled, gently pulled Greem's head toward her, stood on her toes and planted a light kiss on his forehead.

"This is the blessing of Fate that I, Alice, gift to you! You should be able to see through the darkness now."

An odd and refreshing feeling surged into Greem's eyes. In his surprise, he looked around him and realized that the ink-black darkness that had surrounded him was gradually turning translucent.

The Third Grade druid was battling against the evil and sinister Third Grade Dark Witch Uzzah with all his strength at the other end of the cavern.

Their battle was intense and dangerous!

Both sides were already going all out. They had no attention to spare for their surroundings.

It was very rare to see a situation where one fighter stopped during the fight to channel a major spell, much like Greem often did. They only used rapid, instant-cast spells.

The thunder roc turned into a giant blast of lightning and constantly chased and pecked at the teleporting Dark Witch. Thunder rumbled across the caves as it moved. Those massive blasts of electricity continued to fall, going straight for the skinny silhouette shrouded in darkness.

At this moment, a mysterious black cloud hovered over Uzzah's head.

The terrifying blasts of lightning had their blinding electricity completely absorbed by the black cloud whenever they came into contact with it, losing all of their might.

Meanwhile, Dark Witch Uzzah was quickly roaming from shadow to shadow, flicking her hands and firing concentrated dark balls at the thunder roc.

These dark balls that had concentrated shadow substance to its very limits caused plenty of pain for the thunder roc.

Even the Thundercloud Barrier that had as much as five hundred points of magical defensive strength could not stop the dark balls from piercing through. Moreover, these dark balls rapidly expanded from their original size–that of a phalanx of a finger–the moment they touched the thunder roc. The shadow substance within these dark balls was like the most horrifying plague virus in the world. It would rapidly invade the body of the roc.

A fist-sized spot appeared on the place hit by the dark ball. Pungent black slime would then seep out of the injury. Even the magic resistance of a Third Grade druid and the powerful regeneration of a thunder roc could not stop the spread of these shadow substances.