Age of Adepts

With just a brief moment of hesitation, the tunnel behind them started to fill up with a cloud of dust, a strange-looking magic array could be seen vaguely surfacing on the ground.

Soon, two tall figures emerged from the magic array.

It was a Teleportation magic spell, not underground travel!

A blue light flickered in Greem’s eyes, and with just one look, he already identified the method that was used by the enemy.

Even though they used a Teleportation magic spell, there were no traces of spatial ripples. But he could sense a strong Earth element magic energy instead. It was as if this Teleportation magic spell was driven by Earth element magic energy!

But this was not the right time to give it a thorough analysis. Currently, they were being chased by someone at their backs, while there was an ambush in front, this was a nasty situation!

“You’re Mary, am I right?” One of the men that were behind them slowly walked forward, saying with a cold voice, “Excellent. So the two who murdered Grier are here. I’m going to pull your souls out from your bodies, imprison them in the Soul Trapping Corpse and let the both of you howl painfully for more than ten thousand years!”

The one who talked was a noble youth, tall and handsome. His light blue robe shimmered with multi-colored runes in the dark, while the frightening energy of frost started to spread throughout the entire tunnel.

“Grier? Who’s that?” Mary was perplexed.

“If the name Grier is unfamiliar to you, then how about Demon Vine Lady?” The handsome face of the noble youth started to contort, showing a ferocious expression.

“Demon Vine Lady!”

“Demon Vine Lady!”

Both Greem and Mary let out cries of shock at the same time. They couldn’t help but feel that their unexpected calamity wasn’t just an accident after all!

So they actually bumped into an old enemy! Judging from his age, he was most probably the companion of Demon Vine Lady. Things have now become interesting!

“What’s that Soul Trapping Corpse he just mentioned?” Mary wasn’t able to dispel her curiosity and whispered.

“That’s an undead creature created using a living person. Before the enemy is dead, they will draw special magic arrays on the enemy’s body, so when the enemy is finally dead during the sacrifice ceremony, the soul would be trapped within the undead body, becoming the eternal slave of the spellcaster.” Greem quickly answered her question.

With the help of the Chip, Greem was gifted with an extraordinary retentive memory, thus he was able to remember a lot of elementary knowledge and seldomly used topics of this magical world.

The noble youth strolled forward, and supplemented Greem’s answer by saying, “What you said is just the lightest punishment. Once both of you become Soul Trapping Corpses, I’ll find a remote place rarely visit by everybody. I will then bury the both of you deeply in the soil, and let you maintain your consciousness while painfully spending the next hundred years in complete darkness! Don’t worry, I’ll pay the both of you a visit from time to time, making sure your souls will stay forever intact, your memories stay clear, and your mind can’t become insane! Hahaha…”

Ugh… Greem couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his back. He had underestimated the level of enemy’s evilness and madness!

“Which way?” Taking advantage of the opportunity while the guy was still laughing wantonly, Mary whispered to Greem.

“In front!” Greem replied with a low voice, “There are two Pseudo-Adepts behind us. But I only sensed one soul aura in front of us, that’s where we’re going!”

“Alright!”

Right after they ended their conversation, a raging flame bursted out from Greem’s body, revealing a Fire Shield shrouded in scorching flames. Mary spread her arms and clung onto Greem, pressing her body closely with his. Without any hesitation, they turned around and propelled themselves into the lightning web that kept producing buzzing noises of electricity.

“Still trying to run away from me?”

The blue-clothed noble youth roared furiously. His body suddenly expanded a few times bigger than it was, and he stretched out his thick hand full of wiry hair and forcefully grabbed towards his enemies.

The giant hand of the blue-clothed noble youth missed his targets. However, his fingertip touched the lightning web, and was instantly turned black by the noisy Paralyzing Lightning.

Struck by the pain, the blue-clothed noble youth roared furiously again and retracted his giant hand. Within a split second, the giant hand which looked similar to a stone pillar returned to its original shape. Only a trace of burn mark could be seen on his fingers which emitted black smoke.

“Damn it, Hegel, retract your lightning trap at once!” The blue-clothed noble youth roared out loudly, and obviously, the target of his roar wasn’t standing in front of him.

Meanwhile, Mary and Greem were about to throw themselves into the lightning web, and once they did, the violent and raging electricity immediately came surging through their bodies.

Of course, the first target who bore the brunt of all these was the Fire Shield summoned by Greem.

The violent electric arcs hit the Fire Shield producing countless dazzling sparks, the frightening electricity which had enough power to burn an ordinary human into charcoal caused the Fire Shield to keep making buzzing and crackling noise. The overly dense energy of electricity even gathered into some frightening blue plasmas, hovering at a distance less than a meter from Greem’s head, slowly moving toward its target.

An ordinary Fire Shield only had thirty-five defensive strength, but as Greem’s element affinity was Fire, he was able to increase the defensive strength of his Fire Shield to fifty points. But this was still insufficient to protect them through their short journey of ten meters.

10 meters!

With Mary’s extraordinary Agility, she could actually flash through this ten meters of distance within a blink of an eye. But right at this very moment, this short distance seemed so long and dangerous!

The Fire Shield vanished into thin air before it could last for half of the distance. The scorching plasmas which had been waiting around them immediately swarmed their target. It would only take half a second before Greem would be turned into a thread of smoke by them. Since Mary’s Physique was higher than Greem’s, she actually had a higher chance to survive the second half of a lightning-filled passage.

Everything happened within just a split second of time! Right when Greem’s body trembled violently, closing his eyes and waiting for his death to come, Mary suddenly shouted out, unleashing a vast amount of blood from her body that instantly covered both of them.

No matter how pure was these Blood element energy, they just couldn’t withstand such a violent and raging plasmas. Both of them were like the raw meat placing on top of a roasting pit, countless Blood element energy that hovering around them were instantly devoured by the ferocious plasmas. At the end, the thin Blood element energy could no longer provide them with a full protection. Unexpectedly, Mary clenched her jaw, shifted most of the Blood element energy to Greem, allowing most of her body exposed to the electricity and plasmas.

The frightening noise of flesh being burnt by electricity could be continuously heard at the scene. The exposed parts of Mary’s body quickly turned into charcoal, before crumbling into ashes that flew in the air.

On the other side of this narrow tunnel, a short midget was staring in bewilderment, a look of disbelief present on his face to what just happened in front of him.

What happened inside of the lightning web was clearly seen by him. Although he had witnessed it personally, but he was still unable to believe what he saw.

Someone really had the courage to run through his lightning death trap!

This… how could this be possible?

Whether he believed it or not, this just actually happened. And right in front of him, a large charred object dashed out of the lightning web, forcefully slamming onto the ground.

“Little kid, you’re pretty tough, huh! But this is better, as Langdon would owe me two big favors later!” Although the short midget looked skinny and ugly, he was surprisingly an actual human. When he saw the preys that brought themselves in front of him, he quickly leaned forward and tried to catch them using his hand.

His palm could be seen being covered with a glove made up entirely from a dense layer of tame electricity.

If any living being was touched by this Paralyzing Lightning, they would lose all their strength for fifteen minutes.

An indistinct noise rang out in the air, as a crystal clear Elementium core fell on the ground.

The midget became startled for a brief moment but decided to pick it up. But before he could get close to it, a dense cloud of Earth Elementium suddenly bubbled up and covered the core.

“Eh, what is this thing?”

The midget was struck with curiosity. At this time, Langdon’s loud roar could be heard through the lightning web and was heard by this midget.

The midget hesitated, wondering if he should capture these two preys first or turned off the lightning web. A loud rumble suddenly came from the place where the thick cloud of Earth Elementium appeared. And a massive monster suddenly squeezed its way out from under the ground, moving its huge and long body, thrusting it ferociously into the midget.

Its body was made entirely of rocks, a rocky snake head, tongue, and fangs… this… this was clearly a Rock Snake!

With just a flick, the midget suddenly vanished from where he previously stood, only to reveal himself again behind a huge rock some twenty meters away. Meanwhile, with the use of its rock-solid mouth full of sharp fangs, the frightening Rock Snake forcefully slammed on the ground where the midget once stood at just mere moments ago. In just an instant, a powerful quake spread throughout the entire tunnel, causing the rock bed to shift, causing huge amounts of rocks to fall from the ceiling.

The Rock Snake pulled out its head from the piles of stones, and once again held its head up high. With not even a second had passed by, it’s earthy yellow eyes had already locked down on midget located not far away from it, and readied itself to violently thrust again to its target.

Damn it! What exactly was this?

Taken aback by the surprise attack, the midget stamp with rage and cursed. He quickly rubbed his palms and unleashed a raging lightning, striking onto the snake head who was coming fast in his way, trying his best in holding it back. The wantonly splashing electricity burned the snake head of Rock Snake, producing a thick cloud of smoke, while the skin made from tough rock had also starting to melt like hot wax.

However, the Rock Snake’s strength was on it’s tough skin. It wasn’t bothered by these damages and still charging toward the enemy savagely.

Left with no alternative, the midget once again used his Lightning Jump ability and brought himself to another spot.

“Hegel, what the hell are you doing there? Quickly turn off the lightning trap!” On the other side of the tunnel, Langdon became even more impetuous when he heard the violent rumbles.

After not receiving a response from his peer after a long time, his eyes turned bloodshot. Langdon turned around and asked furiously, “Philip, can you bring me over there?”

Holding his staff firmly, Philip, who stood behind Langdon, focused his mind and sent out his senses. Soon, he shook his head, saying, “The changes of terrain are really intense on the other side. The aura of the rock layers aren’t stable. I can’t establish a stable stratum node!”

Damn it…

The angry Langdon couldn’t wait any longer. He let out a furious shout and once again transformed into a giant three meters tall. A crystal clear blue armor was seen forming outside of his body. After that, he crazily shot himself into the lightning web.

The raging electricity kept wreaking havoc on his body, while the blue plasmas restlessly destroying his ice armor. However, he used his hands and protected his eyes and face. In addition, with the help of the copious Ice energy that kept bursting out from his body, he managed to withstand the attack of the lightning. He then strode out from the lightning web.

Revealed in front of his eyes was a broken tunnel with many parts collapsed. The original cavern was no longer there. Only broken ruins were left after the intense battle. An enormous rock snake was seen lying on the ground, motionless. Thick and pungent dark smoke was seen lingering around the over thirty meters long body. The position of the snake head was now replaced by a pool of flowing magma, while a crystal clear, earthy yellow core flashed a few times, before finally dimming down completely.

The midget was squatting beside the snake head. It seemed as if he was examining something.

“Where are the enemies I asked you to intercept? Where are the two bastards!?” Langdon, who had transformed into a blue giant, roared crazily.

“Aren’t they there?” The midget turned around and pointed to a spot. “Eh? Where did they go?”

The midget had finally realized that both charred humans had vanished without a trace!