Age of Adepts

Inside of Snorlax’s room.

A large lump of black beetles was seen creeping at a corner of the room. Using their great numbers, they drew out the vague outline of a human.

When the tower became completely silent, the pile of black beetles suddenly exploded with a boom. In a messy state, Alice squeezed out from inside of this pile of insects.

Using her hands, she swiped away some beetles remained on her shoulder, dress, and hair. And while pinching her nose and wearing a disgusted expression, she crushed a few of them who were running around her feet. Only after done with that, did she close her eyes and start to sense the current situation of the tower.

At this moment, the tower had become completely empty and no aura of life could be sensed anymore. All the Apprentice Adepts located on the second floor and above had vanished, and the only humans remained were those juvenile Probationary Apprentices. They were all lying flat quietly on their wooden bed, and had stopped breathing.

It wasn’t tough to tell that Adept Anderson had burned all his boats and didn’t leave any leeway for himself.

If during this time tomorrow, he failed to turn himself into a Second Grade Adept using the blood sacrifice ritual, then he wouldn’t be able to escape from the punishment from Sarubo family. According to the rules of Zhentarim Association, any fellow who used the method of blood sacrifice ritual to improve their overall strength would have to be punished.

If he was able to advance into a Second Grade Adept smoothly, and was willing to continue his service with the family, then presumably, Sarubo family would be happy to cover up what happened in the Magical Swamp for him. By just simply making up a story of demons outbreak or magical experiment leakage, they would be able to wipe clean everything that happened in this place.

Therefore, though Adept Anderson portrayed a confident look and behaved like everything was under his control, once he failed in the advancement, the only consequence waiting for him would be to be forced to sign a life-long contract with the Sarubo family, in which he had to give up all the rights of being an Adept, and serve the family obediently for the rest of his life!

As for putting him to death? Hmph, no Adept family would waste such a precious resource!

Even if he was a human being!

Alice flying in midair along the emptied corridor, the wave of black beetles was following closely behind her. Their destination was the controlling main hall located on the fifth floor of the Swampy Tower.

Although Adept Anderson had brought all the apprentices and teleported into that mysterious magical secret room, but this unmanned tower still followed his order, not only it had totally shut off any access to itself, it also kept transmitting the powerful element energies into that mysterious place.

If they didn’t find a way to cut off the connection between Adept Anderson and this tower, then Greem’s team would be facing with a formidable Adept who supported by an endless amount of elemental energies. When faced with an enemy like this, even all of them poured in whatever they got, perhaps it would be near impossible to withstand even a casual strike unleashed by Anderson.

Alice went through the quiet long corridor, continuing her way up the narrow and steep stone staircase. Soon, she came to the intersection between the fourth and fifth floor. She was stopped by a half-transparent energy barrier. Any action of touching it would immediately trigger the defense mechanism of the tower and she would have to face a ferocious counter attack.

Although it had lost the real-time control from the stationed Adept, once the overall strength of an Adept Tower hiding under the surface of the water revealed itself, it was still not something an ordinary Apprentice Adept could compete with.

Alice clenched her teeth, without even a second thought she forcefully leaped into the energy barrier.

Behind her, the swarm of black beetles had also rushed towards the barrier, instantly flooding the entire spiral staircase.

Right when Alice stepped into the corridor of the fifth floor, the emptied corridor immediately turned gruesome and dreadful. The wall on both side suddenly transformed into a thin layer of sticky and tough diaphragm and rose up and down, as if countless of monsters were trying hard to break through it and come into the corridor.

One after another, the ferocious, frightful heads of monster were showing on the stone wall, which had now turned as thin as the wings on a cicada. While struggling desperately, they kept roaring savagely at Alice.

Two crystal clear popping sounds were heard coming from the other end of the long corridor. From either side of the stone wall, two monsters had managed to escape from the trap and fell onto the cold, gray floor with strange fluid splashing around from their body. Their appearance was like a signal, within the next few seconds, a succession of popping sounds started to ring through the place, as one after another monster made their escape from the wall. In an instant, the long corridor had been fully filled with these nasty monsters.

Magical Beasts!

They were all magical beasts!

These were all frightening beasts modified using magic spell by the stationed Adept. Each of them possessed the overall strength of an Advanced Apprentice, and they came in great numbers. If all of them came forth in a rush, even though Alice was a Pseudo-Adept now, she would still fall in the waves of besiegement.

Alice’s face turned dark, yet she dared not hesitate. She let out a shriek and dashed into this group of savage beasts.

She was faced with a tough situation, indeed. However, it was most probable that Greem and the other were facing with the situation ten times, or even hundred times tougher than hers! Instead of standing in front of that frightful Adept Anderson, who had revealed all his sharp claws and fangs, Alice would rather stay here and fight a fierce battle with these magical beasts which had the number hundred times more than hers!

Two huge Spatial Cuts broke through the passage, thrusting into the swarm of magical beasts in an instant. They swept away all obstacles in the way, slicing through flesh and bones, sending sticky fluid all over the places… After all, these were just magical beasts who had received magical modification, though their body had turned near invincible against the attack of ordinary swords and blades, when faced with the Spatial Cut that was extremely sharp and capable of destroying anything, they could only let out miserable howls, while their limbs were ripped apart, and theirs head were removed from their bodies.

Yet, as there were too many of these magical beasts, a dozen of them had managed to dodge the attacks and came rushing in front of Alice, crazily they started to slam, bite, and rip the paper-thin Protection Barrier.

Alice tried her best to hold back the uncomfortable feeling of staring so close to these magical beasts, who were ugly, wizened, and had their bodies covered in sticky fluids. Clenching her jaw tightly, she kept unleashing Spatial Cuts in top speed. In front of her Spatial Cut magic spells, any flesh and blood was like a ball of rotten meat, like a hot blade slicing through the butter, they cut through everything on their way, noiselessly.

Alice was hovering in midair, any magical beasts came in front of her looked like they were jumping into a meat grinding machine. They had instantly been ripped apart, their flesh and blood splashing in all directions. All sorts of broken limbs kept flying past in front of her eyes, there was even a half broken head of magical beast that suddenly flew into her direction, fell onto the Protection Barrier, before slowly rolling off onto the ground.

Meanwhile, the ground underneath her feet had turned completely into a slaughter house. Countless broken bodies were scattered around, each had an extremely miserable look. The purple and green color blood had stained the entire wall of the corridor, and unknown fluid was dripping down from the ceiling.

The cute little face of Alice had turned stiff, her eyes filled with a severe murderous look. At this dreadful moment of life and death, she had given up pretending to be a cute and harmless little girl, and had totally revealed her true nature of being treacherous and brutal.

It was a corridor of less than 30 meters, yet it took Alice a full fifteen minutes to reach the other end. Behind her, was a hell on earth that no one had to guts to take a second look.

When she used the Spatial Wave and shook away all the colorful blood and intestines that stuck to her Protection Barrier, and countless debris of flesh that no one could tell where they had originally belonged, in front of her was another long corridor.

There were many colorful oil paintings hanging on both sides of the wall. Some were beautiful sceneries, some were finely painted portraits. But it was a pity that all these paintings had their main object missing, no exception. Yet, inside of this corridor, she saw a large crowd of incorporeal, vague figure of souls and spirit, and many demonic plants, which had twisted and deformed bodies. They were either lingering around aimlessly, or climbing the ceilings.

Undoubtedly, Alice’s appearance had attracted their attention. All souls, spirit, and demons stopped their movement, turned their heads and looked towards Alice. Under the dimmed light of the corridor, countless crimson ghost flames and greenish glows were ignited, one after another.

Alice’s face turned dark in an instant.

Every single one of these bastards had the overall strength of a Pseudo-Adept!

“Greem, I hate you…!”

The furious and shrill shriek of Alice echoed throughout the quiet long corridor, lingering in the air for a long time, just like how much she hated that guy!

…………

Within the secret space.

Standing on top of the terrifying altar, Adept Anderson closed his eyes as he tried to sense something. A surprise expression was brought upon his face.

“I never expect that you had left a helper on the outside. Since Alice is outside, then this one here must be a fake!”

Anderson pointed out his finger, unleashed a dark beam and shot it into the ‘Alice’s’ body, which was now lying quietly on the floor. After a brief moment of twisting and transforming, the ugly, short and green body of Snorlax had showed up in front of him.

“Not bad, not bad at all! You do have a complete and thorough plan.” Anderson’s expression turned dark, but he didn’t look panicked at all. Instead, he showed a regretful expression on his face. “Since you had hidden someone outside in advance, I’m sure you must have taken precautions against this. And the only way for you to obtain this information would be…”

Anderson paused, and suddenly, countless Wind Chains stretched out from around Acteon, who was standing quietly beside the altar and tightly tied him up.

However, although Anderson’s action had shown a serious hostility, Acteon didn’t put out any resisting behavior. He still looked absolutely submissive toward Anderson.

“Not him?” Anderson cast a few spells in a row and threw them into Acteon’s body, he didn’t find anything worth suspecting. The blood contract in Acteon’s soul was still intact, showing no sign of being touched by someone else before.

Pondering hard and with no results, Anderson decided to give up.

“If I have to give up one Pseudo-Adept, so be it! As the matter of fact, just the three of you is enough for me to break through the threshold of Second Grade Adept. But I’m curious, since you can come out with the idea of arranging someone on the outside, then what is your plan in fighting against me? Don’t tell me that you are going to fight me with just you few Pseudo-Adepts? If that truly is your plan, I’ll really feel sorry for your laughable, naive ideas!”

Adept Anderson rested his shivering gaze over at Greem.

Despite being tied up by Wind Chains and lying on the floor, Greem still maintained the same sneer on his face.

“Even though we had become Pseudo-Adepts, we still cannot get rid of the status of Apprentice Adept. Indeed, we come short in fighting against you! But, what if we are replaced by a few Adepts?”

The look in Anderson’s eyes became even more stern and cold.